Music Students to Perform at World Conference in New Zealand

A small ensemble of music students will perform at the World Association of Arts in Education conference in Auckland, New Zealand, in November. The theme of the conference is Engaging WITH Communities, and its focus is to share and build research and practice that demonstrates creative pedagogies in community and/or institutional contexts.

The students’ performance will be part of a lecture demonstration by Dr. Jonathan Govias, director of orchestras, that continues research that he and another student ensemble presented at two national conferences in 2016: the International Conference for Music Perception and Cognition and the International Society for Music Education (ISME) 32nd World Conference on Music Education.

Trained by Dr. Govias, the students have learned to perform chamber works without any visual contact with each other. Unlike the more traditional chamber music staging of musicians facing one another to maximize eye contact, the students of the quartet sit with their backs to each other, forcing them to listen more intently to each other to perform with precision.

The ensemble includes music alumna Faith Foster, violin; Chelsea Karpeh, clarinet; Ben Shafer, horn; and Andrew Llamas, cello. Dr. Govias will join them on piano. They will perform two movements of the Quintet in F Major for Violin, Clarinet, Horn, Cello and Piano (1898) by Waldemar Baußnern.