The newly named Joseph Clayes III Performing Arts Center

Celebrating Clayes Performing Arts Center Naming

March 28 Collage Concert Blends Music of 200 Students

March 24, 2009

By Paula Selleck

The College of the Arts will combine ceremony with a celebratory concert Saturday, March 28, to formally mark the naming of the Joseph Clayes III Performing Arts Center.

A 7:30 p.m. unveiling ceremony will be followed by the Clayes Collage Concert at 8 p.m., featuring more than 200 music majors performing “a non-stop, kaleidoscopic, whirlwind concert.” A dozen of the Music Department’s many ensembles — from choral to instrumental groups — will be in the spotlight.

It will be only the second time in the university’s history that such a concert has been offered. The first was during the celebration of the university’s 50th anniversary in September 2007.

“The response was overwhelming,” said Marc R. Dickey, chair and associate professor of music, recalling the well-received inaugural venture. “I’d never seen any audience here collectively leap to their feet and start clapping and shouting ‘bravo’ … it was just amazing.”

In hopes of recreating, or even surpassing, that same level of engagement with the audience, directors and conductors of a dozen of the ensembles met to make selections for the one-night-only event that will showcase student talent and raise money for scholarships.

Non-Stop Music

A concert of 75 minutes is planned in which “the last note of one piece becomes the first note of the next piece,” Dickey explained. There will be no pauses for applause or intermission. Students will perform in various parts of the Meng Concert Hall — from the Marcy Arroues Mulville Stage to the choir loft and beyond.

Selections will range from big band jazz and choral music to brass, percussion and piano music — “truly a little bit of everything blended together to make a musical collage,” Dickey said, hinting at surprises and predicting that audience members “will probably leap to their feet at the end and have tears in their eyes.”

Tickets to the Clayes Collage Concert are $50 per person, and proceeds will benefit scholarships for music majors. A two-for-one offer for CSUF faculty and staff members is available by calling the box office at 278-3371.

Admission includes a 6:30 p.m. champagne reception in the center’s Kathryn T. McCarty Grand Foyer prior to the naming ceremony and concert.

Paying Tribute

The evening’s special guests will be Trulette Clayes and Brendan Holmes, trustees of the Joseph A. W. Clayes III Charitable Trust. They made possible the estate’s gift of $5 million — the second largest gift in the university’s history — to the College of the Arts.

“This visionary gift will provide endowment funds for student scholarships and arts programming to enrich the education of our students,” said Jerry Samuelson, dean of the College of the Arts. “It’s a wonderful gift, and this event is a recognition of Joseph Clayes, the trustees and the donors who have named venues and spaces throughout the building.”

A member of the Class of 1961, Clayes was among the university’s first student leaders. He served as student body president and also treasurer, and went on to become a successful financial and real estate investor, as well as a patron of the arts. His family members and friends will be among the celebrants attending the March 28 festivities.

The $48.5 million Joseph Clayes III Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2006, is the third instructional facility on campus to bear the name of a Cal State Fullerton graduate-turned-donor. The others are Dan Black Halland Steven G. Mihaylo Hall. A fourth building, the George G. Golleher Alumni House, was the first named for an alumnus, whose donation launched the restoration of the house and its transformation into a center for alumni gatherings.

The Clayes Center naming ceremony will include remarks by CSUF President Milton A. Gordon; James D. Young, the Theatre and Dance Department’s founding chair; and Samuelson.

The groups scheduled to perform during the Clayes Collage Concert are:

• Brass Ensemble, directed by Todd Miller, professor of music
• Chamber Singers, conduced by Robert Istad, assistant professor of music
• Guitar Quartet, coached by David Grimes, lecturer in music
• Jazz Combo and Jazz Ensemble I, directed by Charles Tumlinson, professor of music
• Percussion Ensemble, coached by Todd L. Miller, professor of music
• Piano Quintet, coached by Ernest A. Salem, professor of music
• University Singers, conducted by Robert Istad, assistant professor of music
• University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kimo Furumoto, associate professor of music
• University Wind Symphony, conduced by Mitchell J. Fennell, associate professor of music

MAMM Alliance

The MAMM Alliance for the Performing Arts orchestrated the fundraising aspect of the event. Celebration co-chairs Doug Simao and Kate Peters, president and vice president of fundraising, respectively, for the MAMM Alliance, worked with a 10-member committee and Milly Heaton, College of the Arts director of development, to organize a recognition dinner to precede the concert.

More than 50 donors have contributed $1,250 each to dine in the Lee and Nicholas A. Begovich Scenic Laboratory and recognize the trustees of the Joseph A.W. Clayes III Charitable Trust.

They will be treated to a special program presented in the Millie and Dale Hallberg Theatre, featuring student performances and a one-woman show by alumna Peters, whose career embraces opera, musical theater and commercial studio work. She will be accompanied by Edward Barnes, former resident composer-librettist for the L.A. Opera. The pair performed together previously as founding members of The Metro Ensemble, a California-based musical theater group.

Peters describes the Clayes Performing Arts Center as “probably one of the best in the country . . . I’m not sure the community really knows what they have. This is a gem, "she said. “In this year of cutbacks at the university, it’s ever more necessary that we get behind this and make it not just nice to have in our community, but something that we all cherish and keep alive for the benefit of all.”

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