Campus Update Ep. 45 | Dr. John Ginocchio
Published Friday, November 17, 2023
Description
On this week’s episode, the Director of Bands at SMSU, John Ginocchio, gives us an update on the upcoming schedule of music events heading into winter break. Dr. Ginocchio tells us a little more about the different concerts and events taking place in the upcoming weeks. There are three concerts on November 16, 20, and 30. Coming in December, the SMSU Band, SMSU Chorale, and Southwest Minnesota Orchestra have concerts scheduled on December 2, 4, 5, and 9. Each one has a special and unique theme.
Additionally, Dr. Ginocchio shares with us the upcoming trip for SMSU Chrole. SMSU Chorale will travel across the pond to Vienna, Austria, and Prague, in the Czech Republic, to perform in some of the most famous locations for the holiday season.
For more information about the upcoming SMSU music events, please get in touch with Dr. John Ginocchio via email at John.Ginocchio@smsu.edu or via phone at (507) 357-7209.
Episode Transcript
00:00:00 Josh Goblish
You're tuned into Radio 14K, MHL, as we welcome in film. Also VP for Government Relations, Communications, and Marketing. Bill. Good morning. How are you doing today?
00:00:07 Bill Mulso
Good Josh, I'm doing great.
00:00:10 Josh Goblish
Did you have a good weekend? Good week.
00:00:12 Bill Mulso
Had a great weekend. It was a wonderful weekend. We had a ton of things going on.
00:00:15 Bill Mulso
Campus so.
00:00:17
Yeah, it was.
00:00:18 Josh Goblish
A fun time diving into the winter sports season, with some basketball wrapping up the football season. Now we get to head on into conference volleyball, correct?
00:00:26 Bill Mulso
Lots of things are going on, and John's gonna tell us about them here.
00:00:30 Bill Mulso
Full slate of music events coming up, too.
00:00:32 Josh Goblish
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Sorry. I'm just a big sports fan. So, you know, I have to talk about sports, but the main topic of discussion today is indeed music. We do have Dr. John Ginocchio joining us as the director of bands at SMSU. John, how are you?
00:00:45 John Ginocchio
Doing today, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.
00:00:47 Josh Goblish
Yeah, that's good to hear. Now, we've chatted a couple of times, but you know, we do have a couple of big events coming up, and we want to promote those a bit. But first, let's learn a little bit more about you, a little background, and how long you've been hanging out to ask me.
00:01:00 John Ginocchio
Oh well, I've been here. It's been 18 years since I've been here at SMSU. Before that, I lived out in India.
00:01:07 John Ginocchio
Hannah, I taught out there for 10 years. I finished my doctorate at Ball State and SMS. You offered me a job, and I've been here ever since. So.
00:01:17 Josh Goblish
Yeah, definitely a great place to be. Now we do have the semester ending in just a month. This is a very busy time for the music program. Can you tell me a?
00:01:26 John Ginocchio
A little bit more, we have a lot of things going on right now, our students are just going out of.
00:01:31 John Ginocchio
Their minds are on everything that's coming up, but.
00:01:35 John Ginocchio
You know, as far as the public is concerned, we have a lot of performances coming up, almost every one of our music ensembles has a concert.
00:01:44 John Ginocchio
Coming up within the.
00:01:46 John Ginocchio
A few weeks ago, they kicked off this Thursday with our SMSU Community Concert Band. This group is about half students from SMSU, and the other half are community members who love to play and want a chance to keep playing. So it's.
00:02:06 John Ginocchio
Really, it's a wonderful group to work with. We get to play a lot of great music, and this concert is no exception.
00:02:13 Josh Goblish
Now, this concert band Illumination, which is an illumination in the Fine Arts theater at 7:30. What kind of songs?
00:02:20 Josh Goblish
Are we going to hear where?
00:02:22 John Ginocchio
The theme of the concert centers on how music enlightens us in various ways and prompts us to think about different things.
00:02:33 John Ginocchio
We have a very diverse program lined up. We're playing music by a Japanese composer named Miyuki ODA. We're playing another piece by an Indian composer named Asha Srinivasan, who actually lives over in Wisconsin now.
00:02:52 John Ginocchio
We're playing music by a Vietnamese composer named Viet Quang, and just a lot of really great music from many different composers. The music itself is really interesting, and some really unique pieces on there—one of the most unique.
00:03:12 John Ginocchio
The piece we'll be performing is by Aenjamin Dean Taylor. It's called Seeds of Glass.
00:03:20 John Ginocchio
It's written for a band with video projection, so basically there's a video clip that will be projected behind us that will be going along with the music that we're playing, and the idea behind the piece is basically the idea of what if machines, what if a machine of glass?
00:03:42 John Ginocchio
Became, you know, had its own DNA and grew and developed. You know, the way, you know, organic life forms do. And so, as in this video, it starts with this little glass seed essentially. And then it develops into this gigantic glass machine.
00:04:03 John Ginocchio
The music that we play.
00:04:06 John Ginocchio
You know, it kind of highlights that sort of mechanical feel to it, but it also has kind of a techno pop beat to it. So it's a really entertaining, really interesting piece. Another one that we're doing on there by Viet Quang is called Diamond Tide, and it's actually inspired by.
00:04:26 John Ginocchio
A science experiment that he read about in a journal.
00:04:31 John Ginocchio
The scientist managed to melt a diamond, and you know it requires extremely high levels of heat and pressure. In this article, the authors hypothesize that certain conditions are required for a diamond to melt.
00:04:51 John Ginocchio
It can be found on the surface of Uranus and Neptune, and that got this composer thinking about, you know, the idea of oceans of melted diamond.
00:05:04 John Ginocchio
And hence the name diamond tide. So it's got a lot of really interesting sound effects.
00:05:11 John Ginocchio
It's a very unique piece, and a lot of the music we have programmed is unique in its own way, but very, very entertaining.
00:05:22 Josh Goblish
Yeah, sounds like a really cool.
00:05:24 Josh Goblish
Wi-Fi vibe.
00:05:25 John Ginocchio
Yeah, it does, yeah.
00:05:26 John Ginocchio
There, I guess, there is kind of that to this particular concert, yeah.
00:05:30 Josh Goblish
And I knew I mentioned sports for a reason, Bill, because I mean the Mustang pep band, they're gonna be in concert here just down the.
00:05:37 Bill Mulso
Good segue. Yeah. Great.
00:05:37 Josh Goblish
Road, thank you so much.
00:05:39 John Ginocchio
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Next Monday at 7:30 in the theater, the.
00:05:45 John Ginocchio
The Pep Band will be performing. It's one of the few chances that we get to play our music from beginning to end, especially in this time of.
00:05:53 John Ginocchio
The year you know it's always kind of a challenge, you know, I get them started, and then they stop after 8 measures, and then oh, you mean we're allowed to keep playing? Yes. Keep playing, you know. But, you know, during football season, you only get to hear the songs kind of often.
00:06:09 John Ginocchio
This is a chance to get out and hear some of the music as it's intended. It's always a lot of fun for the band too, because we're getting ready for basketball season, where our performance during basketball games is quite different from what it is during football games.
00:06:26 John Ginocchio
And so we do get to play quite a bit more, and it's good practice for the band as well.
00:06:33 Bill Mulso
A little bit better weather conditions, too.
00:06:35 John Ginocchio
Yes, yes. Although I will say the game this past Saturday was not nearly as cold as some of the November games we've had in recent years. At least it wasn't so cold that our instruments stopped working. We've had that happen before, but I will say it'll be nice to get into a well-regulated.
00:06:48
Right.
00:06:53 John Ginocchio
Atmosphere in terms of temperature.
00:06:56 Josh Goblish
Now with the PEP Band, I assume a lot of these students, maybe. Hey, can we play this one? This one's pretty cool. Do you get?
00:07:03 Josh Goblish
A lot of that.
00:07:04 John Ginocchio
Well, yeah, we do. Actually, most of the program is determined by the PEP Band members. There are certain pieces that I selected, usually the new pieces. We add new music to our folder every year. And so I always try to highlight the new music in this concert, but then in this case.
00:07:24 John Ginocchio
The other half of the concert is all selected by the students.
00:07:28
So and you.
00:07:29 Josh Goblish
Mention that you're finally able to play it from start to finish. How long of a concert are we expecting?
00:07:34 Josh Goblish
With this, it's not.
00:07:35 John Ginocchio
Going to be really long, it won't be as long as, say, our concert band concerts or our jazz concerts. It'll be about 40 to 45 minutes, and, you know, the thing with Pep band music is that it just never stops.
00:07:50 John Ginocchio
You know you put the horn to your face and.
00:07:52 John Ginocchio
You're playing the whole song.
00:07:53 John Ginocchio
By the time we get done.
00:07:54 John Ginocchio
With 45 minutes.
00:07:56 John Ginocchio
I know I'm going to be hurting.
00:07:59 John Ginocchio
A lot of my students wiootooso.
00:08:02 Josh Goblish
So, once again, that is coming up on Monday, November 20th, and then we wrap up with another event on Thursday, November 30th.
00:08:10 John Ginocchio
Yes. Our two vocal ensembles, Alta Voce and the SMSU Glee Club, will perform a concert titled AA Winner's Journey.
00:08:21 John Ginocchio
That is, on the last day of November, November 30th, it's a Thursday night at 7:30, and that concert is held at First Lutheran Church. I can't tell you a whole lot about that program because, well, I don't have to direct that group, so I have enough trouble. Keep track of what I'm doing, let alone what the choirs are.
00:08:40 Josh Goblish
So there you go. All we need for the folks at home to do is write that down on your calendar, Thursday, November 30th.
00:08:46 Josh Goblish
Once again, at the First Lutheran Church, Showtime starts at 7:30. Yeah.
00:08:50 John Ginocchio
And, you know, if you can't write it down right now, we do have our concert schedule posted on our website as well. So you can find it there.
00:08:58 Josh Goblish
Alright, very, very good. And then, now, on to December: we really only get a day off, and then on December 2nd, you're right at it again.
00:09:06 John Ginocchio
That's right, yeah, December 2nd, we have one of the.
00:09:11 John Ginocchio
Well, one of the largest performances that we do in any given year is our very Prairie Christmas performance. This year, we will have the SMSU Community Concert Band, the SMSU Jazz Ensemble, Alta Vo, the SMSU Glee Club, and the SMSU Corral.
00:09:30 John Ginocchio
They'll all be performing at that particular concert. It happens at 3:00.
00:09:37 John Ginocchio
On Saturday, December 2nd, we have had a couple of years in the past when that got snowed out or iced out on us, so we do have a weather date if the weather is inclement.
00:09:49 John Ginocchio
Bad on that.
00:09:49 John Ginocchio
Saturday, and we have to postpone. We have the backup date set for Sunday, December 3rd, also at 3:00.
00:09:58 John Ginocchio
And that takes place in the Schwan Community Center for the Performing Arts over at Marshall High School.
00:10:03 Josh Goblish
Now, do you know how long you guys have been performing this?
00:10:06 John Ginocchio
Concert. Well, actually, this particular performance, this is the idea behind this concert, predates my coming to SF.
00:10:14 John Ginocchio
It was actually a program that Doc, Dr. Daniel Ripple, the conductor of the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, put together. I don't even know exactly how long it had been going on before I came to SMSU about 1617 years ago.
00:10:37 John Ginocchio
We started it as just an orchestra performance, then added the Jazz ensemble and the Glee club, and eventually turned it into a kind of program-wide program. And it's been that way.
00:10:53 John Ginocchio
For probably about 15 years or so.
00:10:56 John Ginocchio
So now and yeah, so.
00:10:59 John Ginocchio
It's always.
00:11:00 John Ginocchio
A really fun concert for us to do. It's a great concert to come to, especially if you haven't been to many of our performances before. It's a great one to start with because you basically get to hear.
00:11:14 John Ginocchio
A little bit of everyone was at that concert.
00:11:17 Josh Goblish
And finally, on to the rest of December. It's not like we're getting any breaks, because once again, your rate was added on December 4th, yeah.
00:11:24 John Ginocchio
Yeah, well, you know, we gotta get all these in before the semester ends. So yeah, December 4th. That's a Monday night. The Jazz Ensemble will be doing its concert of the semester. They've had several performances already this semester, but this is our only concert.
00:11:43 John Ginocchio
This semester, it's designed for people to actually come and pay attention to what the Jazz ensemble is doing. Very often, we play at events like the university gala, where we serve as background music.
00:11:57 John Ginocchio
Very appropriate for the type of music we play, but this is 1 where you really get to focus on what we're playing. The concert is titled "music that moves you," and the whole idea behind it is. All the music ties into all the different ways that we think about movement. So we have music that is a form of transportation.
00:12:18 John Ginocchio
Related. So we're arranging a vehicle that was recorded by the Ides of March back in the 1970s. We're doing " Blue Train " by John Coltrane. We're doing.
00:12:34 John Ginocchio
Caravan. So we're doing pieces like that. We're doing other pieces that relate to how we move, like dance pieces. We're doing a piece called chocha. What gotcha by Michael Philip Mossman, who is a previous guest of ours here.
00:12:53 John Ginocchio
We're doing another piece called Lambinoo. Other types of just movement we're doing are walking, not running, and leapfrogging.
00:13:03 John Ginocchio
So you know, just about any way you can think of, we move. Well, we've got some music that ties to it, and it gives us a chance to play a lot of really fun music written by some great jazz composers.
00:13:17 Josh Goblish
Once again, it will be coming up on Monday, December 4t,h and then less than 24 hours later. You guys are gonna be hanging out at the Holy Redeemer.
00:13:24 John Ginocchio
That's right. And that will be the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra's annual holiday cheer concert.
00:13:31 John Ginocchio
Shirt. That one starts at 7:00. Unlike most of our performances, which start at 7:30, it starts at 7:00 at Holy Redeemer Church, like you said, featuring, you know, music performed by the full Southwest Minnesota Orchestra, as well as, usually, some small groups thrown in there. So.
00:13:50 John Ginocchio
And then what's coming up? Just a few days later, the last performance we have this semester is our annual Tuba Christmas concert. This is something that we got started about.
00:14:03 John Ginocchio
Eight or nine years ago, here at SMSU. But this is actually the 50th anniversary of Tuba Christmas. It was started back in the 1970s by a gentleman named Harvey Phillips. Harvey Phillips was the professor of Tuba at Indiana University, and he founded.
00:14:24 John Ginocchio
Tuba Christmas as a way of.
00:14:26 John Ginocchio
Celebrating his teacher: his teacher was a wonderful tuba player named William Bell, who played in the NBC orchestra under Tuscani, and he was born on Christmas Day.
00:14:40 John Ginocchio
- And so, when Harvey was thinking about how he would honor his former teacher, it seemed like a great way to go. And he started that. And actually I had a chance to play under Harvey Phillips when I was at India University as a member of his what he called his tuba Santas.
00:15:01 John Ginocchio
It's actually one of some of my favorite memories from college was playing in that, so I was really glad when we were able to get that started here at SMSU. And you know, the first year we did it, we had about 12-15 people that played last year, we had about 35.
00:15:19 John Ginocchio
And it's actually one of the largest. Last year, it was one of the largest tuba Christmas celebrations in this part of the country. They these happen all over the place. There's usually one in Mankato and one in Saint Cloud. There's one in Sioux Falls, usually one up in the cities as well.
00:15:39 John Ginocchio
And so it's really great that we can have one out here in southwest Minnesota.
00:15:44 Josh Goblish
Now, who can participate in this? Because you mentioned it started at a small number. It's been.
00:15:49 Josh Goblish
Growing. How does that work?
00:15:50 John Ginocchio
Well, the performing group is open to ours, which traditionally is just for euphonium, but we allow trombone players, and hopefully, Harvey forgives me for that. If not, I'll hear about it in the afterlife, I'm sure, but.
00:16:10 John Ginocchio
Yeah, it's open to all low brass players,s and it really doesn't matter.
00:16:15 John Ginocchio
How long have you been playing hand? How are you? u? Just come on out. You know, if you're a really great player, the music is really wonderful, highlighting instruments that often get really boring parts in ensemble settings. I have to say, from my own personal experience.
00:16:36 John Ginocchio
00:16:38 John Ginocchio
And if you're, you know, if you're starting, it's a great chance to get out and play with some other low brass players. And even if you can't play everything that's in front of you, just being part of that group and hearing what a group like that can sound like and what they can do can be really inspirational. We hope many people will join us again this year.
00:16:58 Josh Goblish
Comes to selecting music for tuba. Christmas is a selection, so what you can play is limited.
00:17:04 John Ginocchio
Well, it is actually because there is a very specific collection of music arranged for tuba Christmas. Harvey Phillips contracted with.
00:17:18 John Ginocchio
One of the great composers and arrangers of the time for low brass. At that time, his name was Alec Wild.
00:17:26 John Ginocchio
And Alec arranged about 20-5 pieces of music, traditional holiday Christmas music for Harvey. Ironically, Alec Wilder also died on Christmas Day, so it's also turned into a celebration of.
00:17:46 John Ginocchio
That composer, then, years later, a student of Harvey's Norland Bulley, wrote another 1:50.
00:17:55 John Ginocchio
12 arrangements that have become part of that collection as well. So you know, we don't play all those pieces during the performance, but we try to mix it up and do different things every year.
00:18:08 Josh Goblish
So we're accepting pretty much anybody who has that brass instrument.
00:18:12 John Ginocchio
That's right. Yeah. You know, if you can hold the low brass instrument in your hand, I would love to have you. There is a participation fee we pay to the Harvey Phillips Foundation, which coordinates all of these things. It's a $10 fee to participate in the performing group. But the concert will be held at 2:00.
00:18:33 John Ginocchio
Block that Saturday, December 9th, in the upper level of the SSU Student Center. The concert itself is free and open to the public. Even if you're not a low brass player. There's a lot of great music to enjoy. If you are a low brass player, we will have a rehearsal at 10:00.
00:18:53 John Ginocchio
That day, show up in our band room on campus, between 9:30 and 10:00. We'll get you checked in and get ready to do some planning.
00:19:03 Josh Goblish
Definitely looking forward to that once again, Saturday, December 9th, the Tuba Christmas concert. And also, it looks like the SSU Corral is going.
00:19:12 Josh Goblish
Embarking on a European concert tour, is that correct?
00:19:15 John Ginocchio
That is correct. They will be leaving town, I believe, on December 13th. I think that's the Wednesday of our finals week. They will be traveling to Prague and Vienna, performing in a few different locations, taking in the sights, and visiting some of the places where they'll be performing.
00:19:36 John Ginocchio
And will be performing in the — and I'm going to pronounce this completely wrong—the Schönbrunn Palace Christmas market.
00:19:45 John Ginocchio
They will also be performing in the Festival Hall in Vienna and at Melk Abbey. The Melk Abbey church took me three tries, but I finally got it. So yeah, they've been working on this trip. Well, actually, originally this trip was supposed to happen.
00:20:05 John Ginocchio
In December of 2020, we all know what happened.
00:20:08 John Ginocchio
2020 and so yeah, that's.
00:20:09 Josh Goblish
We got too much snow, right? Exactly. Yeah.
00:20:12 John Ginocchio
Yeah. So the trip had to be postponed. So we're really glad that they're finally able to do this trip. And I know they've been looking forward to it.
00:20:23 John Ginocchio
The Marshall Community and the university have really supported their plans for this trip and helped with some costs. And I know they appreciate all the support from the SMSU and Marshall Communities as well.
00:20:40 Josh Goblish
I mean, imagine traveling to Vienna in Prague just before Christmas.
00:20:44 Josh Goblish
Yeah, it's going to be something really special, that's for sure. That sounds really awesome. Doctor John Ginocchio, we appreciate the time here today. Any other concerts down the stretch or or what else do we got or are we taking?
00:20:46 Bill Mulso
Great experience for those students.
00:20:56 John Ginocchio
Well, you know, I.
00:20:57 John Ginocchio
Mean we have a lot of our.
00:20:58 Josh Goblish
A break after that.
00:21:00 John Ginocchio
For the traditional things we do in March, the Jazz ensemble will be hosting another guest artist: Tom Scott, who has played with all kinds of people. And I actually didn't find out until later that he actually performed with the Blues Brothers, just like last year's guest.
00:21:20 John Ginocchio
As we.
00:21:21 John Ginocchio
So we have programs like that in April. We have a full weekend planned for SMSU music alumni to come back and join us. The SMSU Community concert band and the SMSU Corral will be performing together.
00:21:41 John Ginocchio
That weekend, we will have an alum band and an alum choir available for people who want to come back for that as well. So we're really looking forward to welcoming a large number of SMU alums back to campus to see what the music program has been up to.
00:21:59 Josh Goblish
I'm sure we'll be chatting with you a little bit further down the road,, just before that, to learn a little bit mor. Appreciate the time here. Once again, we'll talk again down the road.
00:22:02 John Ginocchio
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:08 John Ginocchio
Alright, thanks for having.
00:22:09 Josh Goblish Now we switch back to Mr. Bill Moser, the VP for Government Relations and Communications, because you have a bunch of stuff happening on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University.
00:22:18 Bill Mulso
Yeah. In addition to all the fun music events we've got going on, we've got International Education Week. So we have several different things that our international community is sharing with our broader community. We have a taste of cultures.
00:22:30 Bill Mulso
This is an opportunity to learn about a country and enjoy some of its cuisine. And that gets started this afternoon, again, Zimbabwe featured, and that'll be at 4:00 in the lower level.
00:22:42 Bill Mulso
Of the conference.
00:22:43 Bill Mulso
Center, so come out as a short program. You learn a little about Zimbabwe and then experience some of its cuisine.
00:22:50 Bill Mulso
Tomorrow will be Dominica and Colombia again, which is at 4:00 in the lower conference summer, and then Thursday afternoon, same time, Sierra.
00:23:00 Bill Mulso
Leon will be featured, so stop by and check that out. If you can, RSVP to the Center for International Education at SMS; that would be great. Just go online at cie@smsu.edu,, and on Friday, it's the internationagala, be from 6 to 11 in the Conference Center. That evening includes international TED talks.
00:23:20 Bill Mulso
International Cuisine entertainment, a fashion show. And then.
00:23:24 Bill Mulso
Josh, you can show.
00:23:25 Bill Mulso
Off your dance moves, too, if you'd like.
00:23:28 Josh Goblish: Almost all my dance moves I learned from Fortnite.
00:23:30 Bill Mulso
Oh, there you go. There you.
00:23:33 Bill Mulso
Toni, right, we kick off playoff volleyball. The University of Minnesota Duluth, so come on out for that. It is white out, so be sure to wear white. And then also coming up is the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, along with the Small Business Development Center. They're hosting a startup forum on Thursday.
00:23:52 Bill Mulso
The 16th and call the SPDC to register at 537-7386.
00:23:58 Josh Goblish
Very good. Bill is also VP for Government Relations, Communications, and Marketing. Also, Doctor John Ginocchio, director of bands at ASU, is joining us for the SSU campus update. Thanks,s guys.
00:24:08 Bill Mulso
Thank you, Josh.
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