Student Performances and Performance Opportunities

The TU Symphony Orchestra is a full-year performing ensemble comprised of music majors and non-majors and is open to any TU student by audition. The orchestra performs music from standard orchestral repertoire, accompanies student concerto/aria winners in the annual President’s Concert, featured yearly in the Béla Rózsa Memorial Concert and is the performing ensemble for TU Commencement ceremonies. The ensemble also partners with TU School of Music students and faculty in various projects designed to provide realistic training for future professional orchestral musicians and conductors. The TU Symphony recently traveled to Washington DC to perform as an honor group at the College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA) National Conference.

The University of Tulsa Symphony Orchestra is an auditioned ensemble that includes undergraduate students from throughout the university. All full-time students are welcome to audition. Led by conductor Richard Wagner, the TU Symphony performs several concerts during the year and participates in full choral and opera performances with the TU Concert Chorale and TU Opera Theater.

In addition to the standard concert repertoire, the orchestra is a resource for TU faculty and student composers and frequently accompanies TU faculty soloists as well as the student concerto/aria winners each April. In collaboration with TU’s Department of Film Studies, the orchestra hosts nationally prominent film, TV and video game composers and orchestrators and records cues for student composers later presented in public performances.

The orchestra tours locally and regionally and recently represented TU at the 2015 Oklahoma Music Educators Association and in February 2017 and 2019, was one of two orchestras invited to perform as an honor group in Washington D.C. for the College Orchestra Director’s Association (CODA) National Conference.

TU’s marching band, the “Sound of the Golden Hurricane”, performs several different halftime shows during the course of the fall football season. The Sound draws crowd attention and enthusiasm through high level performance of custom arrangements and marching routines. The band performs at each home football game, selected away games and post-season bowl games. During basketball season, members of the Sound form two separate bands of equal instrumentation which alternate playing for men’s and women’s games in the student section of the Reynolds Center. Basketball bands accompany the team to any post-season NCAA Tournament games. No audition is required for membership in TU’s Athletic Bands. 

Learn more

The TU Jazz Ensembles are recognized as among the region’s best. Many styles of jazz literature are explored and performed by combos, big bands, jazz vocalists, and jazz guitar ensembles. Auditions are held the first week of the fall semester with ensemble placement based on audition results. The jazz groups perform regionally as well as on campus.

Each year, the jazz program brings prominent professional jazz artists to campus to record, tour, and perform with the student ensembles. Recent guest artists have included trumpeters Walter White and Byron Stripling, saxophonists Bobby Watson and Tim Ries, trombonist Conrad Herwig, and bassist, composer, and bass trombonist Chris Brubeck.

TU Wind Ensemble

Conducted by Richard Wagner and Andrew Anderson, the Wind Ensemble is our premier wind and percussion group, selected by audition at the beginning of each academic year.  The Wind Ensemble performs a wide variety of wind repertoire, ranging from the historically significant to the present day -composers such as David Gillingham, Gustav Holst, Charles Ives, David Maslanka, Richard Strauss, Dan Welcher, Richard Wagner and Steven Bryant are represented in recent programs. Their recent presentation of John Mackey’s “Songs from the End of the World” was the first performance of the work in Oklahoma, and was well-received by the composer.  The group has recently brought acclaim to the TU School of Music by their selection through blind peer review as an honor group for the 2018 Southwest Division Conference of the College Band Directors’ National Association (CBDNA).

The Symphonic Winds

Conducted by Andrew Anderson, the Symphonic Winds performs repertoire meaningful to the wind band medium, while maintaining a sense of variety and staying mindful of possible time and technical limitations.  It has recently performed works by Sir Malcolm Arnold, James Curnow, Peter Graham, David Maslanka, Vincent Persichetti, Camille Saint-Saens, Frank Ticheli, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Clifton Williams.

For any questions, contact the Directors of the TU Wind Ensemble and The Symphonic Winds, Richard Wagner and Andrew Anderson.

TU Opera Theatre is open through audition to all qualified students interested in exploring the Opera experience. Complete works and programs of opera scenes are given, drawing from the standard and contemporary literature of opera, operetta, and musical theatre. Character and music development are stressed, as well as backstage organization and proper stage deportment.

In previous years, TU Opera Theatre has performed Mozart’s Così fan tutte, in Italian, fully staged and with orchestra, and performed a concert version of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. In addition, Tulsa Opera invited the class to perform for their “Exploring Opera” class. TU Opera Theatre has also performed an updated fully-staged version of von Flotow’s operetta, Martha, which was be set in the 1920’s as Thoroughly Modern Martha, sung with a new English translation, and performed with orchestra.

TU Opera Theatre also explores different genres of operettas, having performed Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, as well as a zarzuela, La Dolorosa. Our most recently-planned opera, Puccini’s tragedy Suor Angelica, had to be cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions, but as soon as performances are allowed, operas will again be presented!

As with all School of Music ensembles, TU Opera Theater is open to all TU full-time undergraduate students!

For any questions, contact the Associate Professor of Music in Opera Studies and Voice, Brady McElligott.

Concert Chorale

Cappella Chamber Singers

For any questions, contact the Director of the TU Chorale and Cappella Chamber singers, Kim Childs.