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Thursday, March 12, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
A KU music man directs beats of many drummers
By JERRI NIEBAUM
Staff writer
Robert E. Foster, director and professor of bands, doesn't do anything halfway.
"When most people would be satisfied with what they had done, he would go a step further," said Ron McCurdy, assistant professor of bands and jazz coordinator.
McCurdy knew Foster when McCurdy was a high school trumpet player in Florida more than 15 years ago. At that time, Foster was assistant director of bands at the University of Florida, a position he held for seven years before coming to the University of Kansas in 1971.
"He's enthusiastic, energetic, just perpetual motion," McCurdy motion doesn't.
In 1971, Foster joined a music department that supported a marching band of about 120 students, two bands and a mans's basketball ball.
Today, he directs a department that has a marching band of about 250 students, three concert bands and seven special ensembles, including bands for both the men's and
women's basketball teams.
"There are students in our second concert band who are better than any of the students we had when I came," Foster said.
Besides directing bands for about 25 years, Foster has worked from a different side of band production, writing music.
Foster recently won the 1986-87 award from the American Society of Psychiatrists for his work on schizophrenia.
Foster has written more than 100 compositions for concert and marching bands. He started writing 18 years ago, but it wasn't until he went on sabbatical in 1981 that he started producing what he thought was lasting work.
"There wasn't any permanence to it," he said, comparing his early work to pop music. "It's hot one year, and the next year you can't give it away."
During his sabbatical, most of which he spent at home, Foster wrote three compositions that were published and distributed to school bands across the United States. Since then, he has tried to produce at least three compositions a year.
"I do that instead of playing golf," he said. "I don't go out and play poker with the guys once a week."
Robert Foster, director of the KU bands, instructs Greg Hayes, Plano, Texas, senior, in conducting the KU symphonic band. Foster was teaching students to conduct during his class Monday afternoon in Murphy Hall.
Foster's "Symphonic Celebration and Dance," published in 1984, was performed and recorded in 1985 by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Foster keeps a sample copy of the piece. On the back is the postage-stamp-size photo of Foster, and next to it his name is spelled in Japanese.
Foster grew up in a small Texas town about 20 miles north of Brownsville. His father was a cornet player and a high school band instructor.
Foster played trumpet with his high school band from the second grade until he graduated from high school. The post-World War II community couldn't support a band for the younger children.
Although he doesn't play his trumpet in public anymore, Foster pulls it out and plays with his eldest son sometimes. He said his 8-year-old son recently had become interested in the instrument too.
A glass case behind Foster's desk contains photographs of the KU marching band.
Sitting on top of the case are five footballs. Two are from the Kansas City Chiefs and three are from the KU football team. Each was presented to the KU band by a team which had voted the band the biggest contribution to a football victory.
"We work together all the time," Foster said of the KU football team and the band.
Foster received an undergraduate degree in music education from the University of Texas in 1961. After he graduated, Foster taught junior high band in Austin, Texas, then high school band in Houston. He went to Florida when he was 24.
Foster said he decided to teach music rather than perform it because he wanted to ensure a secure living.
"I decided to get married and had to make a living," Foster said, and smiling, added, "I married the prettiest girl in Austin."
Foster and his wife have three children. His daughter, Becky, is a senior in interior design and has been a member of the KU flag team. His eldest son, Robert Foster Jr., is a KU junior in music education.
it's neat having your daughter out there," Foster said. "I was in my father's band for 10 years."
While other KU students are dragging themselves out of the ocean and rubbing on second coats of suntan lotion, members of the University Dance Company will be twirling, tumbling and extending their bodies to prepare for their spring season.
Dancers to tumble into spring
Patricia Feeny Arts editor
The company will perform at 8 p.m. March 23 and 24 in Crafton-Prever Theatre at Murphy Hall.
The program will open with dancers Maria Ferguson-Bode, Lawrence graduate student, and Michelle Hyde, Prairie Village graduate student, performing a duel called "When We Tumbled and Ran." Janet Hamburg, associate professor of dance, choreographed the dance with Hyde.
The duet is about friendship, and is danced to the tunes of Aaron Copeland's "Piano Blues."
Amy Day, Leawood junior, is impressive in "Meditation." She can hold an extension longer than most people can hold their breath. Scott Douglas Morrow, assistant professor of dance, choreographed the piece to Duke Ellington's "Meditation."
Linda Muir, visiting instructor of ballet, choreographed "501 Bop," a jazzy ballet that features seven dancers on pointe.
The first half of the program will close with Hamburg's "The Space Around and Within." The dance premiered in the fall at the 10th annual Kansas Dance Festival in Wichita, and will be performed by Hyde. The piano and cello score was composed and performed by Paul Halley and Eugene Friesen.
The second half of the program opens with "Fable of the Mermaid and Drunks." The dramatization is based on a poem by Pablo Neruda. Joan Stone, assistant professor of dance and artistic director of 4-5-6 SPEED-UP, a舞 company in residence at KU, choreographed the dance.
The program closes with a duet by Laura Kroedling, DeSoto junior, and Willie Lenoir, Kansas City, Kan., graduate student, called "Masculin/Feminin." Morrow choreographed the dance to a song by Jean-Marc Perret orchestra by French-Canadian composer Norman Seymonds.
Tickets are on sale at the Murphy Hall box office. For the show on March 23, tickets are $10 for the public and $5 for students and senior citizens. Tickets for March 24 are $5 for the public and $2.50 for students and senior citizens.
Windham Hill musician will mix and match music at Liberty Hall
Michael Hedges will perform at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. march 27 at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. S tickets are $12 and $10 for the performance. Tickets are available at the Library Hall Box Office.
JERRI NIEBAUM Staff writer
Staff writer
Watching the landscape pass from the back of a station wagon is like watching life pass without seeing it coming.
Michael Hedges said he saw himself in the back of a family wagon and was inspired to create the title song of his latest album, "Watching My Life Go By.", produced by Windham Hill Records and Tapes.
Hedges, 34, said the song helped him to reflect on his life and his music.
"If I can learn something myself communicate it to other people."
Hedges is known across the United States for his guitar solos, which aren't jazz, folk or rock, but a combination of the three styles and his own.
"His hands are moving so fast, you can hardly see them sometimes," said Kim Forehand, Lawrence resident, who saw Hedges perform in July at Sandstone Amphitheatre in Bonner Springs, Kan. "It was the most exciting concert of my entire life."
Forehand has been working with Renegade Productions from Kansas City, Mo., to bring Hedges to Lawrence.
"People just leapt out of their chairs," Forehand said of the audience, which gave Hedges two ovations.
Hedges played the piano at 4, but he decided that he wanted a career in music when he picked up a guitar for the first time eight years later. He later learned to play classical, electric, acoustic and bass guitar.
Hedges plays the flute, several styles of keyboard and the harmonica. Two years ago, he added the harp guitar, a six-string guitar with four extra bass strings, to his repertoire of instruments.
"When you've got a harp guitar, the bass player is right there," Hedges said.
Now he is learning to play the drums, which he said was challenging for him because he's never had to coordinate his feet with his hands.
He said that he didn't have a favorite instrument.
"I like to be a musician," he said. Hedges made his first album, "Breakfast in the Field." in 1981 Windham Hill, a recording company that features folk instrumentalists, saw him perform at a nightclub in
Palo Alto, Calif., and asked him to produce an album.
"They're finding out that they got more than they bargained for," said Hedges, who became the first Windham Hill recording artist to sing.
He said that he was nervous about singing but that he had written some vocal tunes he wanted to perform on his last album. He said he learned to sing by listening to the Beatles. Elvis Presley and Peter, Paul and Mary. He also took lessons from Bobby McPerrin.
Hedges lives in Mendocino, Calif., with his wife and two sons. He said that his older son, who is 3, liked to listen to Hedges play at home but that he wasn't old enough to enjoy his amplified concerts.
"He thought the last one was a little bit too loud. I think it scared him," Hedges said.
Hedges said his wife, Mindy, had been an inspiration for him during the five years they had been married. "Woman of the World," Face Yourself, "I'm Coming Home, they're all for her." Hedges said All are songs from his last album.
Hedges doesn't know what he'll perform at Liberty Hall on March 27.
"I'll figure it out that day," he said.
"I don't do anything unless I feel like it."
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