One of the many tasks I did as part of my assistantship in the physics and astronomy department was to clean and collimate many of our telescopes. We have about 15 telescopes at Sonoma State from small 5 inch reflectors to a huge 16 inch Newtonian. Most of the telescopes I worked with however were Celestron Scmidt-Cassegrain style 'scopes. With my advisor, Dr. Severson, we design and built a rig to quickly and easily collimate many of these kinds of telescopes. Once we established a process, the work was easy. A few of them gave us headaches! But that's where the fun of experimentation and problem solving happens!
Dvorak is one of my favorite composers so when it came to choosing a term paper subject, I jumped on the opportunity to do Dvorak. My thesis explored the influence of lyricism and Dvorak's vocal works in his Symphony No. 8. Also as part of the paper, the class created powerpoint presentations giving a brief history of the composer and superficial analysis of the work. I want to post that presentation here so that others may use and share it if they find it useful or educational. The presentation is available as PDF files without listening examples. If you would like the read-only ppt file with listening examples, please email me and I will send it your way. The listening examples are convenient only because I have snipped them to mere excerpts. Please use as you wish as long as my name is not removed from the ppt. Thanks! ![]()
By Daniel Smith
On Sunday, May 3 the spring semester student composers concert was held. The concert was a excellent and eclectic set of music that provoked thought as well as a few chuckles. The song was a recording created with loops entitled "Nimbostratus Virga" by Albert Wollmer. The piece followed a pattern of changing tension and was a unique experience to the evening. The next piece was "Diamond Garden" by CE Mortensen which was orchestrated for quintet, strings and piano. The work had an accompanying artwork as well as a a poem which was read before the performance. I found the interplay of the piano and strings as well as within the string to be interesting and creative scoing. "A Winter Coat" by Brandyn Klinect included parts for prepared piano, percussion, Celeste. piano, and spoken voice. With the addition of effects, the voice told a story while the other parts accompanied. The piece related ideas of excess in today's society and was a unique and well orchestrated work. "Intimate Voices" by Gerry Pimental was a relaxing piece utilizing solo Baritone and Soprano. The performance also included "FLAME and shadow" and other works by the composer not listed in the program. Among them, a song about a turtle which single handedly stole the show. After the intermission a string quartet by Jahrell Amani was performed. The piece featured counterpoint between the strings and was one of my favorites of the night. "Equilibrium" by Brandyn Klinect featured solo snare drum. This piece included many unique voicings of the snare drum and included several periods of silence. "Song" also by Gerry Pimental featured a quartet, a small choir, and piano. The piece sounded full and made me feel at home with some of the orchestral music I love. Following was "Mina and Dracula" for flute and cello. I couldn't think of a better instrument combination! The pieces was very cool and I think that the piece was a narration of a story with two very different characters. To finish the concert was "To All Mankind" which is an accompanying track to Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" speech. The piece featured a rising minor scale the grew and grew. I learned a lot about voicing from attending the concert and also about how to unlikely voices can interact with each other in a work. This is always one of my favorite concerts every semester and this one certainly didn't let me down. I'm excited to attend the one next semester and see the new and great material the students at Sonoma State University are coming up with. http://sonoma.edu |