It’s time for the students to sit back, relax and be entertained while their teachers feel the pressure of taking center stage in the upcoming Faculty Fall Concert.
Every fall for the past six years, the music faculty has put on a concert for the students and the community. This lets students see the faculty as performing professionals.
Assistant music professor Timothy Francis said the main idea behind the concert is to give faculty an opportunity to play for students so students can hear good music and what the faculty sound like.
“It’s turned out to be a pretty popular thing with our students and the community,” Music Department Chair Glenn Webb said. “I always hear afterwards that it’s one of their favorite things to come to.”
Laura Alley, a sophomore music major from Salt Lake City, said this concert means a lot to students.
“It’s a treasured part of the semester in the music department; a lot of kids look forward to it and a lot of students go to it,” Alley said.
Webb said one reasons this concert is so popular is people are no longer seeing the backs of the faculty as in other concerts. Finally the faculty get to turn around and face the audience.
“[We] put down our grading pens and batons and pick up the instrument or memorize the piece to sing,” Webb said.
Webb said the concert will be 70 percent classical music and 30 percent more modern music with a variety of instruments being used: flute, oboe, piano, violin, cello, saxophone, trombone and vocals.
Alley hasn’t gone to the Faculty Fall Concert, but she said a lot of people like it, and she’s heard a lot of good things about it.
“They put their personalities into it and it makes it nicer for the student-teacher relationship, kind of showing that the teachers are human,” Alley said.
Francis agreed that this concert strengthens the student-teacher relationships at Dixie.
“That connection between the students and teachers is an important thing, and it’s one of the big reasons we do [this concert],” Francis said.
Webb said he expects the concert to continue to be a popular program. He hopes the community and students will see a side of the faculty that’s not just instructional.
“Come out and see our great talented faculty,” Webb said. “It will be well worth the time and well worth the money that you spend here [at DSC to] see some of the most talented people we have in the area performing.”
The Faculty Fall Concert is free for everyone and will be held on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall in the Eccles Fine Arts Center.
