Allen to Speak About German saxophonist Rascher in MSU's Faculty Forum

A young saxophonist named Sigurd Rascher would make his first steps as a concert soloist in Germany in the days before the rise of Adolf Hitler, but the menace of extreme nationalism and violence would put a halt to music and artistic expression, plunging the world into one of the darkest periods in human history.

Rascher will be the subject of Dr. Andrew Allen's Faculty Forum Series presentation, "The Saxophone at the Gates of Hell: Sigurd Rascher & the Weimar-Era Repertoire," at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 4, in Clark Student Center's Kiowa. Allen is assistant professor of music at MSU.

The saxophone as an instrument of classical music underwent one of its earliest fertile periods in 1920s and early 1930s Germany, where a fascination with American culture and a rich musical life spawned many works that made great use of the instrument. Rascher is credited with giving respectability to the saxophone as a classical instrument when he performed as the first solo saxophonist for the New York Philharmonic in 1939.

As a concert saxophonist, Allen has performed throughout the United States and Europe, commissioning more than a dozen new works for his instrument. In addition, he is a leading scholar of the saxophone with articles published in The Saxophone Symposium, Saxophone Today, The Instrumentalist, and School Band and Orchestra, among other publications.

The Faculty Forum is an interdisciplinary lecture series presented by MSU to provide faculty the opportunity to have their scholarship recognized in the community and to promote the exchange of ideas among colleagues.

Admission is free and open to all. Contact Jonathan Price at jonathan.price@msutexas.edu or 940-397-4288 for more information.