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• MTSU's graduate student, Melissa Gensler is releasing her debut CD "SANIK" SONYQ is an ELECTRIC FLUTE and guitar duo whose unique style mixes free form jazz, rhythm & blues, and contemporary flute methods to create a revolutionary form of modern electronic music. Flute timbres and textures are created by a microphone and performing through guitar and vocal effects pedals! Digital delay, distortion, and harmonization electronic effects combine with an avant-garde flute sound and techniques. All the works on the CD are original compositions and arrangements by the band, Melissa Gensler (flute) and Michael Keeling (guitar). Compositions are improvised, through-composed, or arrangements of well-known music from classic flute literature. Their debut CD, "SANIK," is now available on iTunes and at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=digital-music&field-keywords=sonyq) for $7.98. Check out the band at: www.sonyq.net!

• Abi Coffer performed the first movement of Mozart's Flute Concerto in G Major with the MTSU Chamber Orchestra on April 19. She has been accepted to the Eastern Music Festival this summer and has been offered both a Merit Schoalrship and an Apprentice Scholarship. (posted 06/01/09)

• MTSU Guitar graduate Silviu Ciulei who won the $1000 Fifth Prize in the Parkening International Guitar Competition at Pepperdine University, May 28-30. The triennial Parkening Competition is the preeminent guitar competition in the world, offering $65,000 in cash prizes. Silviu, age 23, was the only USA college student to win a prize in the 2009 Parkening International Competition. (The other prize winners hailed from Italy, Spain, Scotland, and Finland). Silviu, a native of Romania, received his B.M. in Guitar Performance from MTSU in '08. He has just completed his first year of graduate school at Florida State University under the direction of Bruce Holzman. (posted 06/01/09)
  
• MTSU Women's Chorale (Jamila McWhirter, director) is leaving on Wednesday morning (06/03/09) to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York for the 70th anniversary of Shawnee Press Gala Concert (along with several other choirs), at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night (June 6). They will also be performing a mass and a concert at St. Malachy's Church on Friday morning (in the Broadway district), and the Women's Chorale has been asked to POSSIBLY sing on Saturday morning for the "The Early Show" on CBS. The show runs from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. CDT. The group will be in the audience of the Early Show, and may be asked to perform; they are taping the show beginning at 7:15 a.m. EDT Saturday, and will get a backstage tour at CBS at 9:00 a.m. (posted 06/03/09)