Saint Mary’s to feature new faculty, student compositions

New music by faculty and students of the Saint Mary’s Music Department will be highlighted in a free public performance Saturday, April 10. The event will begin at 3 p.m. in Figliulo Recital Hall, located in the SMU Performance Center.

Featured selections will include the premiere of “Fantasia for Solo Piano” by SMU student Brian Heim, as well as the premiere of “I Miss the Moon” for jazz quartet by long-time faculty member and jazz saxophonist Dr. John Paulson.

Recently commissioned works by music faculty Dr. Patrick O’Shea and A. Eric Heukeshoven will also be performed. Heukeshoven’s “The Chief,” a work for narrator and chamber ensemble and O’Shea’s song cycle “The Dispossessed” are both based on poems by former Winona Poet Laureate James Armstrong. The two Armstrong pieces feature unusual combinations of folk and classical instruments, such as accordion and uilleann pipes with cello, flute and clarinet.

“Autumn Waves” by 2009 SMU music alumnus Jeremy Johnston will feature faculty member Dr. Janet Heukeshoven on flute, accompanied by her husband Eric on the piano.

The SMU Chamber Singers will perform A. Eric Heukeshoven’s “Pathway of Life” in memory of Ben Larson, the Luther College student who recently lost his life in the Haiti earthquake. The text for Heukeshoven’s choral work (written in 2006) was dedicated to Larson’s mother, the Rev. April Larson, former bishop of the La Crosse Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The jazz quartet will also be featured on “Nyhavn Reflections” by A. Eric Heukeshoven — a work written for the world-renown Danish jazz saxophonist Marc “Kibrick” Bernstein.

This performance is made possible by the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota School of the Arts. For more information, please contact A. Eric Heukeshoven at (507) 457-7292 or eheukesh@smumn.edu.