SOU Music Ensembles
Play in one of SOU’s many exciting ensembles!
Music Ensemble Experiences
SOU Music offers a variety of ensemble experiences open to all SOU students. Students may attend the first scheduled meeting for ensemble placement.
Chamber Choir
Dr. Jerron Jorgensen, Director
The Chamber Choir is the flagship choral ensemble of Southern Oregon University and has performed to acclaim throughout the United States, and internationally in Asia, Europe, and Mexico. Praised by iconic composer Morten Lauridsen as “Superb…in the top rank of university chamber choirs in the United States,” this mixed ensemble performs a diverse variety of repertoire from the entirety of the choral canon, but specializes in works by living American composers. As a part of SOU Music Department’s Contemporary American Vocal Music Initiative, they regularly participate in commissions, premieres, and recording projects, as well as annual interdisciplinary concerts themed on relevant social issues, including such topics as climate change, accessibility, and neurodiversity. They also regularly collaborate with area arts organizations, such as the Rogue Valley Symphony, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Rogue Valley Chorale, Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, and have been a featured ensemble at conventions for the National Association for Music Education. Participation is available by audition only to all SOU students, regardless of major.
Concert Choir
Dr. Jerron Jorgensen, Director
The Concert Choir is a large mixed ensemble consisting of singers from a diverse array of music-making experiences and abilities. The focus of the ensemble is to build community and a strong foundation in ensemble skills and music literacy through choral repertoire across all of music history, Renaissance to present. In addition to performing a concert at the conclusion of each term, the Concert Choir also participates annually in the Master Voices Series, presenting a large scale masterwork annually for chorus and orchestra with other choruses from around the Rogue Valley. Participation is open to all SOU students regardless of major and community members with no audition necessary.
Jazz Band
Dr. Alexander Gonzalez, Director
The Southern Oregon University Jazz Band is a highly sought-after performing ensemble made up of music majors and non-majors. The Band performs primarily big band music that covers many different styles including Swing, Latin, Rock, and Funk. Each June as a kick-off to the season, the Jazz Band hosts a free community concert “Hello Summer: Jazz in the Park” at Lithia Park in Ashland. The Jazz Band also tours locally, performing at the Rogue Valley Manor and the North Medford High School Jazz Festival in addition to their regular concerts.
Lyric Theatre
Dr. Jerron Jorgensen, Musical Director
Dr. Christi McLain, Stage Director
SOU’s Lyric Theatre is a cutting-edge new initiative that offers students vital production and role preparation experience tailored to better prepare them for a 21st century opera career. Founded in 2024 as a part of the choral and voice program’s Contemporary American Vocal Music Initiative, Lyric Theatre presents an annual performance of fully-staged and costumed opera with orchestra in intimate, non-traditional venues around the Rogue Valley with a focus on contemporary repertoire by living American composers that blur stylistic boundaries. Participation is open to all SOU students and community members by audition only.
Maraval Road Steel Pan Band
Reed Bentley & Terry Longshore, Directors
The Maraval Road Steel Band is led by SOU Alum Reed Bentley and Director of Percussion Studies Dr. Terry Longshore, and plays at SOU during music concerts and special events such as the SOU Food Benefit Concert, and across the Rogue Valley at events such as the Jacksonville Christmas Parade, Pear Blossom Festival, Special Olympics Southern Oregon Polar Plunge, and the Ashland 4th of July Parade, and many more community events.
MUSIX
Dr. Derek Keller, Director/Producer
MUSIX is SOU’s premiere house band. Students in MUSIX (both music majors and non-majors, undergrads and grads) write, perform, and record their own work for the band. Packed with songs that fist pump, head bang, shimmy, and shake, MUSIX’s albums swing through a diverse array of styles – everything from rock to pop, hip-hop to folk, indie to metal. MUSIX typically releases an album per year, performs regularly both on and off campus. MUSIX typically opens the Oregon Fringe Festival each spring with their Rock Show Gala and kicks-off the summer music scene in Ashland at the SOU Jazz in the Park Concert.
Performance Chamber Ensemble
Various Directors
Students work in small ensembles with intensive performing preparation. Includes but is not limited to: brass quintet, Gamelan ensemble, guitar ensemble, string quartet, jazz combo, and vocal ensemble.
Rogue Valley Symphony
Martin Majkut, Director
The Rogue Valley Symphony, now in its 51st season, is committed to bringing thrilling live performances of classical music to those living in and visiting the communities of Southern Oregon.
Under the direction of Music Director Martin Majkut, the Rogue Valley Symphony (RVS) presents from September through April a Masterworks subscription series of six concerts, each of which is performed in Ashland, Medford, and Grants Pass. Diverse repertoire by the greatest classical composers of the past and present, combined with renowned guest artists, create exceptional performances. The RVS also offers gorgeous Holiday Concerts in December, and a family Discovery Concert in Medford once each year.
The Rogue Valley Symphony is made up of professional musicians from the local area and beyond. Some musicians come from as far away as Portland, Eugene, Sacramento, and even the Bay area – attracted by the beauty of the area, the opportunity to work under Maestro Majkut, and by the chance to perform interesting repertoire in a supportive working environment.
SOU Percussion Ensemble
Dr. Terry Longshore, Director
The Southern Oregon University Percussion Ensemble, directed by Dr. Terry Longshore, is dedicated to the performance of contemporary percussion repertoire and providing the members with a variety of musical experiences. The ensemble frequently collaborates with notable composers on premieres of new works, performing repertoire ranging from contemporary music to world traditions to jazz- and rock-inspired compositions.
The ensemble gives several concerts every year at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, as well as many performances throughout the Southern Oregon community and the Pacific Northwest. The ensemble performs yearly at the Northwest Percussion Festival and has appeared at the Teatro Principal in Guanajuato, Mexico, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), Stanford University, the Trinity Alps Performing Arts Center, and the Oregon Fringe Festival. In 2020 the ensemble will perform at the Bang on a Can Long Play Festival in New York City.
The ensemble has collaborated with many guest artists including Steven Schick, Mark Applebaum, Hands On’Semble, Steve Smith, Bonnie Whiting, William Kraft, Erik Griswold, Vanessa Tomlinson, Ivan Manzanilla, Dana Reason, Tatsuya Nakatani, Lynn Vartan, Matthew Coley, Brad Dutz, and Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic. The ensemble has commissioned, co-commissioned, or premiered works from Mark Applebaum, Michael Gordon, Elliott Cole, Ivan Trevino, Bryan Jeffs, Jared Brown, Chris Burton Jácome, Jodi French, Mark Knippel, Colin Malloy, Jeff Richmond, Stephen Truelove, and Terry Longshore.
The SOU Percussion Ensemble has self-released two CDs, La Alma del Árbol – The Soul of the Tree, and Electric Rebel Poetry, and is featured on two Innova Recordings CDs of the music of Stanford University composer Mark Applebaum: 30 (2015) and Speed Dating (2018), as well on the Cantaloupe Music recording of Michael Gordon’s Natural History (2018) and the PBS documentary, Symphony for Nature (2018). The SOU Percussion Ensemble endorses Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets.
SOU Raider Band
Bryan Jeffs, Director
The SOU Raider Band brings excitement and energy to many athletic and social events around campus and beyond. Specializing in old school pep band standards, drum line jams, and a mix of modern pop and rock hits, the band covers a wide variety of music for numerous occasions. When the Raider Band plays, the entire SOU campus comes together, overcome by the infectious groove of Raider spirit!
The annual SOU RAIDER BAND CAMP is September 16-21, 2024 from 9 am – 5 pm in the band room #220 in the SOU Music Building. Join in the fun and be part of the SOU music family – contact jeffsb@sou.edu for more details!
SOU Wind Ensemble
Dr. Alexander Gonzalez, Director
SOU’s premiere instrumental large ensemble – the SOU Wind Ensemble. This group performs four-concert series per year, in programs consisting. This ensemble primarily dedicates itself to the performance of living, breathing music.
Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon
Cynthia Hutton, Director
Founded in 1988, the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon (YSSO) provides high-level training and performance opportunities to aspiring young brass, string, percussion and woodwind musicians from throughout the region and presents inspiring performances of standard literature and masterworks, concerti, commissioned music, chamber music, and arrangements for preparatory ensemble. Next season marks the organization’s 32nd year of performances for Rogue Valley audiences.
Concert Series performances in the Rogue Valley’s top professional venues feature an amazing array of music by Holst, Weber, Copland, Rossini, Villa-Lobos, Beethoven, Beach, Higdon, Jacobs, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mozart, Hovhaness, and many others. Please join us at the performances and discover the phenomenal musicians of the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon.
Contact the Music Program
SOU Music Program
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6101
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