This concert for flute and narrator follows a theme of nature with musical selections and narrations based on birds, flowers, trees and animals.
If you go
What: Flora, Fauna, and Flute
When: Sunday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.
Where: Fine Arts Center, Roland Hayes Concert Hall
Admission: This concert is free and open to the public.
Info: Visit their website here.
Ronda Ford, instructor of flute at UTC and Steve Ray, theatre chair for the department of performing arts, will perform two musical works loosely based on fairy tales.
Alan Ridout’s piece “The Emperor and the Bird of Paradise” tells the story of an Emperor and his sad bird of paradise. “Keshovati,” by Wendy Hiscocks, is a recreation of a Bengali folk story about the seven champa flowers and one parul flower growing in the King’s garden that uncover a sinister plot by his six Queens against the most beautiful and youngest Queen of them all, Keshovati. Listen and all will be revealed! “Trees” by Daniel Dorff is based on the familiar poem by Joyce Kilmer and “Half Moon at Checkerboard Mesa” by composer Phillip Bimstein is a fantasy for flute, frogs, crickets, and coyotes with computer generated accompaniment.
About the performers
Dr. Ronda Benson Ford is Instructor of Flute at UTC and at Dalton State College. She has performed at several National Flute Associate conventions in the USA and in Slovenia, Slovakia, Prague, Italy, and Japan with the International Flute Orchestra. She has been published in The Flutist Quarterly and Flute Talk Magazine. She is currently a member of the Pedagogy Committee for the National Flute Association and was previously the coordinator of the high school flute choir competition. She has been broadcast on Mississippi Public Radio.
Mr. Steve Ray has worked professionally as a designer and director for such companies as the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival, the Birmingham Festival Theatre, Birmingham Children’s Theatre, and the University of Alabama Opera. From 1996-2002, Steve was the National Drama Director for Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia where he toured musicals across Australia. In 2005, Steve received an M. F. A. from the University of Alabama. He taught at Birmingham Southern College, Shelton State Community College and Southern Union State Community College before joining the faculty at UTC.
