The Ensemble Experience at PVCC

The Music Department at Paradise Valley Community College is pleased to offer a wide variety of music performance ensembles for the Spring 2016 semester. The music ensembles are open to music students and community members of all ages and abilities. The spring offerings include Concert Band, Jazz Big Band, Latin Jazz Band, Jazz Combo, Vocal Ensemble, String Ensemble, Cello Ensemble, Piano Ensemble, Contemporary Music Ensemble, Clarinet Ensemble, Multimedia Ensemble, Brazilian Percussion Ensemble, Student Rock Band and much more!

Music Ensembles are listed in the course catalog under the prefix MUP and course number 160, 185, 181, 190.

Music Ensembles meet once per week in the late afternoon and evenings in the Center for the Performing Arts.

The ensemble experience at PVCC provides students with community: our ensembles are a mix of high school students, college-age students, community members and retired professionals. Students and instructors collaborate to select repertoire for public performances held in the Center for Performing Arts. Students gain practical and performance experience in instrumental, vocal, and mixed ensembles.


Spring 2016 Ensembles at PVCC:
MUP 163 Jazz Ensemble: Jazz Big Band
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Union Jazz Institute
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Jazz Combo
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Latin Jazz
MUP 190 Percussion Ensemble: World Music
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Multimedia
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Openscore
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Flute
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Cello/String
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Brass
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Band
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Recording
MUP 181 Chamber Music Ensemble: Classic Piano

Register for Spring 2016 at classes.sis.maricopa.edu

Mata Ortiz Ceramic Artists Coming to PVCC

Master ceramic artists, Lucy Sandoval Mora and Lorenzo Bugarini will demonstrate their mastery of clay and paint on Tuesday, January 26, 9am-4:30pm in the D building Ceramic studio. The public is welcome to attend.

Lucy began making pottery as a teenager growing up in a village of potters. Her mother taught her the skill of making pots out of locally gathered clay. Lorenzo learned how to sand and polish the pots Lucy makes and fires them in a primitive kiln built on the dirt. Together they create fantastic pots decorated with sylized birds and animals inspired by Native American motifs. They will have many pieces for sale.

The Fall 2015 Festival of Tales | Student Review by Nicole Zimora

The Festival of Tales is a FREE storytelling festival at Paradise Community college. From 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., children from the community engage in different types of literacy-based activities: arts & crafts, storytelling and more. During registration each child is given two tickets - one for a “book walk” and the other for a free book.

Children have the opportunity to pick their favorite book at a table set up with hundreds of different types of books for different reading levels. They receive free books by doing the “book walk.” Music plays as they walk around a number placement; when the music stops numbers are drawn and the number called out receives a free book! Children play games centered on literary characters and participate in storytelling sessions in which books are read aloud.

Throughout the event live music was playing provided by the PVCC Ensembles. Two bands played: a jazz band and a Latin jazz band. They had various instruments such as a saxophone, cello, bass guitar, and tambourine as their timbre and a piano. The rhythm of the songs that were being played made you want to get up and dance! It was a fun and great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

ART 113 Public Installation


On Monday, November 16th, it was freezing - the chilliest night of the year yet! But faithfully, at 5:30 pm, the students enrolled in Ann Morton’s ART113 Color Theory class came knowing they had a long night ahead. They were equipped with headlamps, gloves, woolen hats and coats. So what was their mission on this cold evening? Each student was tasked with creating a hole in the concrete sidewalk - that’s right, a hole. 

Not a “real” hole, but one created using a variety of technical strategies of color and composition to create the illusion of a hole - with an imaginary world beyond, or emerging, from this imaginary opening in the concrete. Employing techniques of overlapping, linear perspective, diminishing scale, color atmosphere, vertical placement and receding color, students created a series of surprising "tromp l’oeil" scenes (French for “deceive the eye”), interrupting the viewers’ perception of depth as they encountered the normally mundane concrete sidewalk just in front of the art room, J141, at the northeast end of campus.

Students Isabel Kolodziejczyk, Lucky Omolo, Tara Phelps, Amber Ries Manning, Mary Rousu, Fallon Shell-Kenny, Travis Tubinaghtewa, Kailey Vandervoort, and Natalia Vasconcellos De Almeida Jose worked from a small color mock-up they made of their image to enlarge it to a 48” x 48” square on the concrete using a specially vibrant chalk made just for sidewalk artwork.


By the end of the evening, covered in chalk dust, cold and tired, but feeling a sense of real accomplishment, the class headed home, leaving their amazing artwork behind until time and weather will wash it all away.


 

PVCC Festival of Tales - Saturday, December 5th, 2015

On Saturday, December 5th, PVCC’s Education Department and the Division of Fine & Performing Arts proudly present the Festival of Tales; a free, literacy-focused celebration offered to the greater community.

Held from 9am to 2pm, the festival is a day of reading, literacy and cultural activities for children and families that includes storytelling, arts and crafts, games, face painting, live music, food trucks and much more!

Now celebrating its eighth year, FESTIVAL OF TALES brings books to life through the art of storytelling and provides FREE books to children who participate in the activities.

The festival also features live musical performances by Heidi Swedberg and the SukeyJump Band, PVCC faculty and student music ensembles, local elementary schools and community groups. 

For more information, visit festivaloftales.com or on Facebook at PVCC Festival of Tales.

Student One Act Plays: A Night of Comedy and Tragedy

Each Fall semester in our Studio Theatre we have opportunities for our students to direct one act plays for first time directors, and full length plays for second-time directors. There is always a wonderful variety and even some original works written by the directors. 


Student One Act Plays | A Night of Comedy and Tragedy

Show dates: Nov. 13, 14, 20, 21 at 7:30pm and 15 & 22 at 2:00pm.

All Tickets $5 | Studio Theater in Building M-East

1) Suicide Notes by Nicole Thompson is a story about a student, Cameron, who finds his name has been written into people's suicide notes blaming him for their deaths. This is also a story about how Cameron and his friends try to understand and cope with the situation. 

2) The Romancers by Edmond Rostandt. A Boy and a Girl... two disapproving Parents... a Wall and a Bandit. A Comedy Romance Fantastique. Directed by Ric Alpers. 

3) Shattered by Kristin Black is a one act play about the difficulties of facing trauma head on. It is a counseling session held between a counselor named Stephanie and a college student named Sara.

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Jazz Under the Stars | Student Review by Sarah Toth

The Jazz Under the Stars event held on Tuesday October 13th in the PVCC outdoor amphitheater was a night of toe tapping entertainment. Between the two “Big Band Music” groups, there was a variety of slow, to moderate, to fast tempos of music. Any age could go out and enjoy the lovely music being played. The causal environment made the whole atmosphere a family-friendly setting. The bands helped each other out on stage during the performance, and the director openly made jokes about himself and the band. The casual setting also made the performance all the more enjoyable. The entire performance was outstanding.

THE INSTRUMENTS BATTLED EACH OTHER IN DISSONANCE AND THEN RESOLVED THEMSELVES IN HARMONIES. MOST BANDS TRY TO STAY CONSTANT WITH THE OTHER SECTIONS, BUT JAZZ IS FREER THAN THAT. 

Each band kept the same tone throughout their movements. Hearing the instruments battling each other out in dissonance to resolve themselves in harmonies was a new experience. Most bands that play will try to stay constant with the other sections, but jazz is freer than that. For example, some pieces played were originally written for other instruments, such as the alto saxophone, but were manipulated for other instruments like the trombone. With each band, it was obvious that for some pieces, certain instruments were the focal point. With other pieces, adding an instrument made a huge difference. The addition of an instrument was the difference in making a classical piece modern.

Each band had soloists in every selection they performed. To highlight the soloists, they would stand and use a mic to amplify their instruments. Not only did the mic help the solo clearer, but the rest of the band would back off the notes and harmonies, just to crescendo back into the piece. In the first band, they had a key soloists perform with them. He is a professor at the University of Central Florida, Mr. Mike Wilkinson. Mike performed in several of the performances and added a new feel to the band.

The first band was bigger than the second band. They had larger sections for the instruments, as well as had more soloists. The first band is what you would think of with a stereotypical jazz band. The second band had an all around new style to the way they performed. The director was an actual band player himself and played in the performance. In this band, there was a more prominent feel to the revolutionary styles of jazz, and added more modern instruments, drum sets and a bass, to modernize the sets. Although the second band had fewer members, the power behind the instruments was well known. In the first band, the crescendos were powerful, and the sound carried throughout the amphitheater. Where the second band lacked in power, it made up for it in the difficulties of the music.

THE FIRST BAND BROUGHT A PROFESSIONAL TROMBONE PLAYER TO ASSIST THEM, WHERE THE SECOND BAND HAD A REALLY COOL ADVANTAGE OF HAVING A COMPOSER IN THEIR SET. 

Each band also brought something different to the table. The first band brought a professional trombone player to assist them, where the second band had a really cool advantage of have a composer in their set. The second band always tries to play a piece of his every show, this shows being titled Burk the Baby.

Jazz Under the Stars was a very fun experience. From learning about music in class, to really hearing it live and in person is a whole new experience. From a college band, that amount of perfection put into these pieces was amazing. You wouldn’t have been able to tell if this was a class, or if it as a group of people doing what they love. Jazz Under the Stars was a really good all around experience.