EventsSeptember 26, 2024

Octubafest Returns

Written By: Rachel Putman

The University of Arkansas - Fort Smith Department of Music will hold its 18th annual Octubafest on Sunday, October 6, at the Smith-Pendergraft Campus Center in the Reynolds Room.

 

The event is free and open to both low brass students in grades 9-12, and adult low brass performers of all levels.

 

Participants are encouraged to bring trombones, euphoniums, baritones, sousaphones, and tubas for a mass play-along rehearsal, which begins at 1:30 p.m. The rehearsal will feature polka music and is designed for players of all skill levels.

This year’s special guest is Dr. Jason Hausback, director of jazz studies and professor of trombone at Missouri State University. Equally at home as a performer and a teacher, Dr. Jason Hausback has been active in many musical spheres. He was a teaching fellow in both the trombone studio and the jazz studies department at the University of North Texas. Under his direction, the U-Tubes won the 2010 Eastern Trombone Workshop National Jazz Trombone Ensemble Competition and issued their first CD entitled “The U-Tubes” in the spring of 2011.

While a student at UNT, Jason was also a member of the internationally acclaimed One O’Clock Lab Band and was on the recording “Lab 2009,” which was subsequently nominated for two Grammy Awards. Dr. Hausback is active as a freelancer throughout the mid-south region of the US and performs regularly with The Lone Star Wind Orchestra of Texas, Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, The Springfield, Missouri Regional Opera, Ionic Brass of Oklahoma, and Fountain City Brass Band of Kansas. He has performed solo and quartet recitals at universities and conferences throughout the US as well as in Colombia and Spain. He has also performed in the Southeast Trombone Symposium Professors Choir and in featured ensembles at several different International Trombone Festivals.

The event will conclude with a free public concert at 6 p.m. in the Reynolds Room.

 

Performers will include the UAFS Brass Ensemble, Low Brass Ensemble, Die Löwenbande, and participants in the mass low brass play-along.

Free soft drinks and pizza will be provided for all participants.

 

UAFS students and alumni participating are:

Bentonville: Jaxon Williams

Fort Smith: Rayden Laird, Jesus Sanchez, Tommy Thavonekham, Hunter Van Ness, Toran Morton, Raul Ortiz

Greenwood: Gustavo Martinez, Andrew Hardin, Sarah Williams

Mountainburg: Noah Hecox

Prairie Grove: Quana Kilpatrick

Poteau, Oklahola: Grant Thomas

Pocola, Oklahoma: Jon Woods, Gunner Trent

Sallisaw, Oklahoma: Tessa Winton

Van Buren: Daniel Zaleya, Arturo Hernandez

For more information, contact Dr. Alex Zacharella at alex.zacharella@uafs.edu or (310) 947-2186.