School of Music

Colbie Caillat Shares Career Advice, Experiences with BYU Music Students

One of BYU’s longest-standing Christmas traditions returns with new choreography, a pre-concert market and lots of Christmas spirit. Christmas Around the World has become synonymous with the Christmas season on BYU campus. As Jeanette Geslison, artistic director of the concert, said, “It’s become a tradition, not just here at BYU, but in the community.” However, this year the concert is encouraging students and audiences to reach beyond Brigham Young University. “This year our title, as always, is Christmas Around the World, but our subtitle is Beyond,” said Geslison. “One of my initial ideas was to teach the students who are part of this production that there is more to the program than what happens in the Marriott Center that weekend.” In an increasingly global world, Christmas takes on new meaning. “We seem to be looking more outwards at this time of year and to be looking more globally in this world that we’re living in,” Geslison said. “Nowadays, we all know someone from a different culture. What a wonderful opportunity this is to get to know more about this world we live in.” Christmas Around the World is introducing multiple new pieces this year in the pursuit of helping dancers go “beyond” in new ways. One dance, “Veracruz,” was set just a few weeks ago by guest choreographer Miguel Pena and introduces Mexican dance to the mix. Another dance, “Bucheachum,” adds Korean fan dancing to the concert and gives student Cassidy Brown the chance to “go beyond” in a new way. “She’s an anthropology major and that’s what led her to Korea in the first place,” said Geslison. “She's a beautiful dancer, so she combined her interest in anthropology and dance by doing research in traditional dance. We’re really excited for her to share what she’s learned.” Christmas Around the World will also continue to host a christmas market in the Marriott Center before the concert. This way, audience members are given the opportunity to go beyond being passive in their interaction with the cultures being represented. They can eat and participate too. The market will also include a photo backdrop, complete with dancers dressed in the traditional clothes they’ll be wearing during the concert. “We will have a few different vendors that will be there selling roasted nuts, crepes and some Christmasy things,” said Geslison. “We’ll also have some activities for audience members. We try to have different ones each year. For example, last year we had some Philippine tinikling poles up in the concourse. Audiences were not only able to see it onstage in the performance, they were also able to actually try it.” One other way Geslison hopes the concert will reach above and beyond this year is in the scope and variety of its audience. “I would hope that people on the other side of the point of the mountain would find it worth it to drive down for the concert,” she said. “We have a lot of people from Utah Valley coming to the concert, but I want to invite people from the Salt Lake Valley and beyond to make the trek to the Marriott Center.” Christmas Around the World will take place at the Marriott Center on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. Tickets to the concert are available at the ticket offices in the Harris Fine Arts Center and the Marriott Center, as well as at arts.byu.edu.

Theatre and Media Arts professor Megan Sanborn Jones will discuss the importance of the physical body in theatre and religion at the December Faith and Works Lecture

dancEnsemble Features a Collection of Dances Choreographed By Students

To kick off the 2018-19 Faith and Works lecture series, Joe Ostraff shares how his faith in spiritual relationships has influenced his art to be a collaborative experience

Brendon French, Megan Holbrook, Dayne Joyner and Sarah Broyles share their experiences serving and performing in historic Nauvoo.

Brown’s solo exhibition is currently featured in the A Gallery

Out of more than 1,000 entries, BYU students and faculty won top award for their performing arts posters at the University and College Designers Association Competition

“It started with fear,” says Ryan W. Moffett (MA ’05). “Everybody I knew with MS was in a wheelchair.” Moffett, a ceramics teacher at Murray High School, stands in his art studio next to one of his sculptures—a large, ceramic torso and head with minimal details. It’s one of a series that he created in the wake of learning he had multiple sclerosis in 2013. Moffett titled the sculpture Demyelination, after the nervous system–eroding process that occurs with MS. The sculpture is inspired by Bronze Age statues made by island dwellers in the Aegean Sea, but it also departs from the traditional: the top left chunk of the head is cleanly cut away where the brain should be, and a frayed electrical cord protrudes from the right half. Read more here.

Hands shaky and sweaty, BYU senior Catherine Boyack cleared her dry mouth. She lifted her flute and played. She had been working for months to polish her piece, but she knew it wasn’t her best performance. She left the stage of the convention hall defeated, believing she wouldn’t make it to the final round of the biggest competition of her career.

Vai Sikahema discusses his journey from rejection to the Alumni Achievement Award in the School of Communications.