The Full Foley

Fr. Ryan D. Mackey, OCC, MACM

  Of the many programs available to pursue degrees in at Central, the music department flourishes and thrives with many successful graduates and outlets available for students to further their talents outside the classroom. The Chaney Music Symposium is an opportunity for music majors and music enthusiasts alike to broaden their scope, gain new knowledge, and enjoy great music.

            This years’ Symposium on March 6^th will be featuring Dr. Mark Foley of Wichita State University. There, Foley is Professor of Double Bass and holds the position of Principal Double Bass in the Wichita Symphony Orchestra.

“He is a very diverse musician,” reported Father Ryan Mackey, a music professor at Central who has taken graduate studies with Dr. Foley at WSU. “I personally have got to see him play with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra: play blues, play jazz, and I know that he’s played in rock bands and such, too.”

During his career, Dr. Foley has been involved in every genre from punk to jazz and played in bands and orchestras from Minneapolis to New York. He has played in the Rochester Philharmonic, the pop group Clang, performs yearly at the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, and founded the Knob Festival of New Music in Wichita just to name a few of his achievements.

 The Chaney lecture and performance on March 6^th will have Dr. Foley focus on electronic music.  “I’m sure I’ll touch on recent societal changes in how music is bought and sold, and how challenging and exciting that is for musicians,” stated Foley in an exclusive interview. “The biggest challenge for me with making electronic music is to have it always be a human expression; a connection between people. It’s taken me down some interesting roads.”

The connection between Mackey and Foley and indeed between Foley and Central through past concerts lays the groundwork for an interesting Symposium.

“I’ve admired Father Mackey’s work for a while now- he’s a kindred spirit, always curious about new things, varied musical tastes, fearless about trying new ways of making music,” reported Foley.

The lecture will take place at 4:00 and the performance will begin at 7:00. Both events will be held in The Warehouse on Central’s campus at the corner of Ave E and Main St. Both are open to the public although they are geared towards the students involved in various music programs at Central.

The performance will be an opportunity for Foley to feature his latest endeavors in the electronic music genre.  However, Foley’s history, experience, and talent in a variety of genres of music and his desire to push the bounds of music are evident.

“He’ll be answering questions like ‘what does the future of music look like?’ He’s a person who did his doctoral dissertation on like a piece of 17^th century classical music,” said Mackey. “He spends most of his time teaching Beethoven. I teach the span of music history. But now we’re focusing very tight on a very current way of music making [electronic music]. What kind of implications does that hold for the future of music?”

by C. Philip Chase

P.S. Check out some of the students electronic music at http://www.cccfinearts.com/#!electronic-music/ca6v.
P.P.S. Check out a blog post by the good Doctor on creating your own electronic Music. http://kmuw.org/post/musical-space-phoneland