Don’t miss Lone Star College-CyFair’s 3rd Annual Contemporary Music Festival this May featuring faculty and student composers, guest artists and a special tribute and collaboration piece (based on a folk ballad from the Big Thicket region) with a nationally recognized pianist.
This upcoming free faculty composer recital includes the talents of LSC-CyFair’s composers Dr. Brian Herrington and Ty Katsarelis, flutist Izumi Miyahara and the Student New Music Ensemble. Participating guest artists are composers Dr. Stephen Yip, Dr. John Crabtree (LSC-Kingwood), Justin Langham (LSC-Montgomery), pianist and composer Kyle Kindred and cellist David Saenz from Sam Houston State University and nationally known Kawai Piano Artist Yan Shen.
“I hope our festival helps our audience understand classical music does not belong to past centuries, that music is still created by people in our community,” Dr. Herrington said. “The technical marvels in every masterpiece of classical music often have their roots in jazz and popular music.”
One of the highlights of this years’ music festival will be Dr. Herrington’s original works featuring a mix of folk, rural, honky tonk and gospel. His piece “How Come That Blood?” is a set of seven variations that evokes the ecology of the Big Thicket. The piece reflects everything from running creeks to the tangled areas of the thicket.
After collaborating on this piece with nationally known pianist Hadley McCarroll, Dr. Herrington heard his composition performed live in March at the Old First Concert Series in San Francisco. McCarroll, in a very physical performance, brought the piece to life, he said. Also in March, at a Texas New Music Ensemble concert, Shen, local nationally known pianist, performed Herrington’s music alongside music of composition faculty from the University of Houston, Stephen F. Austin University and Texas A&M.
In the upcoming May festival at LSC-CyFair, Shen will again perform this Big Thicket piece, which Dr. Herrington has dedicated to his hometown and undergraduate piano teacher Jay N. Collier III, who passed in December.
“Growing up in a small rural town without much access to the arts, my music teachers provided a lifeline for my self-expression,” said Dr. Herrington. “Mr. Collier was a brilliant musician and teacher. He was my entire introduction to all things classical and he was the first one to encourage me to be a composer.”
Dr. Herrington honors all Collier taught him not only in this recent original work, but with his teaching career at LSC-CyFair, first as an adjunct in 2006 and now as a full-time instructor since 2018, and his continued work as a composer.
“It’s good for our students who look to faculty as role models actively working as musicians building relationships, collaborating and creating new works of art,” said Dr. Herrington, who was named an American Prize finalist in 2018 for his work written specifically for a student ensemble.
Moreover, this LSC-CyFair music theory coordinator said it’s important to give everyone opportunities, like Collier gave him, “as one never knows where the deepest well of talent is.”
“I’m not just proud of the students who transfer and become professional musicians, but I’m also proud of those who develop a love of music and carry it with them,” he said.
Mark the calendar for the free 7:30 p.m. May 5 Contemporary Music Festival, which will be held in the Recital Hall (ART 102) located in the Center for the Arts building at 9191 Barker Cypress.
For information on this event, email Bherrington@LoneStar.edu.
Go to LoneStar.edu/cyfairmusic for information on LSC-CyFair’s Music Department programs and scholarships.
Registration is underway for LSC-CyFair summer and fall classes. For information, go to LoneStar.edu/registration.