Baylor Professor To Play Modern Music For Saxophone Oct. 12

October 3, 2003

by Richard Veit

Dr. Michael N. Jacobson, professor of saxophone at Baylor University's School of Music, will present music of the late 20th century and early 21st century during a faculty recital at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 12, in Roxy Grove Hall.
A member of the Baylor music faculty since 1984, Jacobson's classical performances have taken him all over the world and earned him grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His CD recording of John Harbison's San Antonio, issued in 1999 on the AUR label, was a first-round Grammy Award nominee in the category "Best Instrumental Solo Performance Without Orchestra." Jacobson also has toured and performed with entertainers, such as Bill Cosby, Lou Rawls, Sammy Davis Jr. and The Fifth Dimension.
Jacobson will be joined on stage by marimbist/composer Mark Ford and pianist Elvia Puccinelli. Ford is coordinator of percussion activities at the University of North Texas and president of the Percussive Arts Society. He is a marimba specialist and the director of one of the largest percussion programs in the United States. Puccinelli is now in her third year as director of Baylor's collaborative piano program.
The program will open with contemporary composer William Penn's four-movement Diversions, written in 1994, followed by two pieces by Mark Ford, Motion Beyond (1998) and Polaris (1996). Jacobson also will perform his own arrangement of Oblivion (1984) by the famous Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla. The program will conclude with Cannonball Concerto, a three-movement work written earlier this year by Dr. Scott McAllister, assistant professor of composition at Baylor.
The recital is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.