The Department of Theatre and Osher School of Music at USM are once again presenting a wide array of performance events this spring. Although the semester is more than halfway complete, most of the semester’s events are scheduled to take place from late March through late April.
The next scheduled event in the School of Music’s very full concert lineup will occur on Friday, March 29 at 7:30 p.m., featuring faculty members Alexandra Dietrich and Mary Johnston Letellier. They will present “Deep Magic from the Earth and Songs to the Moon,” a concert of “songs which search for the supernatural in nature, and within ourselves.” The program will “encompass multiple cultures, time periods and genres.”
The rescheduled 47th Annual Honors Recital will take place on Saturday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. in Corthell Concert Hall.
USM alumni of all levels are invited to pack up their instruments and join the Jazz Alumni All-Stars on Thursday, April 4 from 6 to 9:30 p.m. for a performance and jam session on the second floor of the McGoldrick Center on the Portland campus. All instrumentalists and vocalists are welcome. Free.
From Friday, April 5 through Sunday April 14, the Department of Theatre and School of Music will jointly present ten performances of “The Prom.” This is a contemporary musical comedy, depicting what happens when four eccentric Broadway stars (who desperately want to revitalize their careers) hear about a small-town high school preventing a lesbian student from attending prom with her girlfriend. The four actors decide to bring Broadway to small town America, to put a spotlight on the issue, as well as on themselves. The show is directed by Danny Hutchins, with musical direction by Edward Reichert. When performed on Broadway, “The Prom” won the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical. “The Prom” is a Maine premiere.
Next, the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra (both under the direction of Dr. William Kinne) jointly perform a concert showcasing the winners of the 2024 Concerto Competition, soloists and symphonic classics. This concert will take place in the McCormack Performing Arts Center at Gorham High School on Saturday, April 6 at 2 p.m.
Michael Bostock and Oren Varess will each perform as piano soloists in one movement each of well-known piano concertos by Shostakovich and Beethoven. Tenor Jared Vigue will perform an aria from“The Barber of Seville” by Gioachino Rossini, and Chase Whelan will be the flute soloist for Cécile Chaminade’s “Concertino for Flute”.
The concert will conclude with symphonic showpieces “Capriccio Italien” by Peter Tchaikovsky, and “An Outdoor Overture” by Aaron Copland.
On Monday, April 8 from 2 to 3:15 p.m., members of the US Army Soldier’s Chorus will visit the Osher School of Music (Room 320, Corthell Hall) to perform and to answer questions about their work. Admission is free.
On Tuesday, April 9 from 2 – 3:15 p.m., a woodwind ensemble and a brass ensemble from the US Army Field Band will visit the Osher Concert Band rehearsal in Room 320 for a performance and master class. Free. Then at 7:30 p.m., voice students of Scott Wheatley and Melinda Haslett of the Osher School of Music will present a varied repertoire of solo and collaborative works, including opera, art song, jazz, musical theater, and other genres in the Concert Hall.
The young musicians of the Portland Youth Ensembles will perform their annual spring concert of orchestral music at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, on Thursday, April 11 at 7 p.m. These ensembles include: the Portland Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble, which are conducted by Dr. Will Kinne; and the Portland Young People’s String Consort and Portland Youth Junior Orchestra, conducted by Hanna Flewelling and Ferdinand Liva. Admission is by a suggested donation of $10.
The Osher Concert Band will perform a variety of traditional, modern, and popular pieces in their spring concert, on Saturday April 13 at 2 p.m. The concert will take place in the McCormack Performing Arts Center at Gorham High School, under the direction of William Kinne. The concert will feature “Summer Triangle,” by Japanese-American composer Yukiko Nishimura, as well as familiar wind band works by Norman Dello Joio, Percy Grainger, and Gustav Holst.
Two School of Music Opera Theatre spring performances will take place on Sunday, April 14 at 5 p.m. and on Tuesday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. They are free and open to the public.
On Thursday, April 25 at 7 p.m. the Department of Theatre will present a Spring Dance Concert: Reclaim. “To reclaim – one’s space, one’s movements, one’s environment – is a powerful gesture that requires strength and conviction. To reclaim is also to recover, to reuse, to recycle, or to remake what once was, into something new.”
The calendar is also filled with student and studio recitals that are always free and open to the public. Visit usm.maine.edu/osher-school-music events to see the complete calendar.
Parking at USM is no longer free for community members. Fines start at $55 per infraction. It is strongly recommended that anyone planning to attend one of these performances should first obtain a “Gorham Permit“ by accessing the USM Parking Services website and clicking on “Gorham Permit” to purchase a monthly pass for $6.25. (Some parking lots and times excluded.)
Visit usm.maine.edu/parking-services learn more and to purchase the pass.