UAB Department of Music presents PRISM concert March 27

The all-department concert will feature faculty and student performances, including solo and ensemble, choral, symphonic, piano, voice, percussion, chamber music, gospel, and more.

Yakov prismThe all-department concert will feature faculty and student performances, including solo and ensemble, choral, symphonic, piano, voice, percussion, chamber music, gospel, and more.Hear the finest musical performers the University of Alabama at Birmingham has to offer at the fourth annual PRISM concert, Monday, March 27.

PRISM is presented by the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music. The all-department concert will feature performances from faculty and students, including solo and ensemble, choral, symphonic, piano, voice, percussion, chamber music, gospel, and more.

The concert is set for 7 p.m. in the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center’s Jemison Concert Hall. Tickets are $25, $15 for UAB employees and free for students. For tickets, call 205-975-2787 or visit AlysStephens.org.

PRISM is the Department of Music’s big showcase concert for the year, says Professor Patrick Evans, D.M., department chair. Large student ensembles performing will include the Wind Symphony, Concert Choir, Gospel Choir and Jazz Ensemble. Smaller student chamber groups include the Percussion Ensemble — which will perform a piece entirely for triangles — Oboe Quartet, Trumpet Ensemble, Jazz Combo, Clarinet Choir, and a violin and oboe duo. Featured will be a performance of “Champagne Toccata” for four pianists playing two grand pianos, and a Computer Music Ensemble surround-sound piece.

Faculty performers include Gary Wheat and Reginald Jackson, Ph.D., in a saxophone duet from two sides of the balcony; a contemporary art song from Kristine Hurst-Wajszczuk, DMA, and Yakov Kasman, DMA; as well as Emily Koriath, DMA, joined by guest pianist Tad Koriath, clarinet professor Denise Gainey, DMA, and adjunct flute professor Lisa Wienhold. Won Cho, DMA, will sing a Broadway standard with Chris Steele, DMA, as pianist, and Tatiana Kasman will join Yakov Kasman for some piano four-handed Mozart. And if that is not wide-ranging enough, the Faculty Brass Quintet will bring ragtime music to the stage of the Jemison Concert Hall, Evans says.

The Gospel Choir, Concert Choir and Wind Symphony will join forces in a rousing finale, and everyone will lead the audience in the UAB alma mater, celebrating the institution that supports this varied music-making, he says.

“While that is a lot to pack into one concert, the varied stage and balcony spaces in Jemison Concert Hall allow us to move the program along at a very quick pace,” Evans said, “Given that most pieces are under four minutes long, PRISM allows audience members to experience the wide diversity of musicianship in the Department of Music in just under 90 minutes with intermission.”