Fresno State’s Department of Music will present its Annual Faculty Concert on Saturday, January 20, at 8 p.m. in the department’s Concert Hall.

This year’s concert will present a symphony orchestra of faculty members as principal players alongside selected students that will perform side by side. Faculty members participating in the orchestra are as follows (in alphabetical order):

• Rachel Aldrich
• Teresa Beaman
• Maria Briggs
• Michael Chang
• Brigid De Jong
• Cari Earnhart
• Andrew Quiring
• Matthew Darling
• Larry Gardner
• Richard Giddens Jr.
• Thomas Hiebert
• Ed Hull
• Thomas Loewenheim
• Aaron Marcus Luna
• Anthony Radford
• Nathan Sobieralski
• Limor Toren-Immerman
• Andreas Werz

The concert will include Dvorak's Carnival Overture, music composition professor Dr. Kenneth Froelich's "Jefferson Rising," and the Sextet from Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutte, featuring our voice faculty and two of their top students. The orchestra will close the concert with Gliere's "The Red Poppy Suite."

Here are some insights about the concert:

• The Carnival Overture, which was inspired by the dance rhythms and folk-music of Dvorak's native Bohemia, is the center of three overtures written on the themes of "Nature, Life, and Love."
• Dr. Kenneth Froelich’s "Jefferson Rising" was composed as an “unofficial” overture to his opera Jefferson, to be completed in the fall of 2018. Elements of big-band jazz, classic bluegrass, military fanfare, and folk music are all weaved together to create a tapestry of musical styles that represent both the time and the region.
• Titled Così fan tutte, (‘Thus do they all), this beloved Mozart comedy is a look at romantic relationships with Ferrando and Guglielmo, two officers, betting on whether their sweethearts, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, will stay faithful to them.
• Reinhold Glière was best known for his interest in folk music, his considerable teaching abilities, and for his conservative musical taste, which appealed to the Soviet officials. His ballet, The Red Poppy, is one of his most memorable works, taking place in a Chinese seaport in the 1920s.

This concert serves as the Department of Music’s annual gala; it is sponsored by the College of Arts and Humanities.

All the proceeds from this concert will go to the Department of Music Scholarship fund. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $15 for seniors and Fresno State employees, and $10 for students.