San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts

 

The Mesquite Trio

The Mesquite Trio is composed of Angelo State University music faculty members Timothy Bonenfant, clarinet; Constance Kelley, flute; and Jeffrey Womack, bassoon.

Timothy Bonenfant is an Assistant Professor of Music at Angelo State University, where he teaches the single reed studio and directs the jazz ensemble. He comes to Angelo State University from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he recently earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, the first woodwind performer from that institution to earn that degree. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Masters of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts. His primary instructors are Alberto Asercion, Felix Viscuglia, William Powell, Raphael Sanders, Marina Sturm, Michael Limoli and Michele Zukovsky. During his years in Las Vegas, Dr. Bonenfant played with the famed UNLV Jazz Ensemble, directed by Frank Gagliardi. During his time with the jazz ensemble, the band played with Joe Williams, Don Menza, Louis Bellson, Chuck Findley, Marlena Shaw and Carl Fontana.

Dr. Bonenfant has worked with many of the major composers of our time, including John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Milton Babbitt, Luciano Berio, Walter Blanton, John Cage, Paul Dresher, Morton Feldman, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Steven Horowitz, Libby Larsen, Stephen Mosko, Mel Powell, Steve Reich, and Frederic Rzewski, Dorrance Stalvey, Eric Whitacre and most significantly, Virko Baley, the subject of Bonenfant’s dissertation. He has premiered over thirty works, many written especially for him, including Virko Baley’s Partita No. 4 for clarinets (bass, A, Eb and Bb contrabass) and piano, and Stephen Emmons’ Seasides.

Dr. Bonenfant was a longtime member of both the Las Vegas and the Nevada Symphony Orchestras and, from its inception in 1998, the Las Vegas Philharmonic. His professional experience also includes playing with such notable performers as Marvin Hamlisch, Tommy Tune, Luciano Pavorotti, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church, Theodore Bikel, Rip Taylor, the Village People, the Moody Blues, Beatlemania, Dudley Moore, David Foster and John Duykers. Dr. Bonenfant’s performances can be heard on three recordings. Two of these feature him playing works written especially for him, Those recordings include “San Francisco Chronicled: The Chamber Music of Steven Horowitz 1990-1996” (the composer of the soundtrack to “Super Size Me”), “The Body of a House: Music of Walter Blanton” and “Voyage From The Past,” a recording with Blanton’s small jazz group Dharma.

Constance Kelley is Lecturer of Music at Angelo State University and has recently completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Kelley is also principal flutist with the 312th United States Army Reserve Band, based in Lawrence, Kansas. ?Before beginning her doctoral work at UNL, Dr. Kelley spent several years as a teacher in the Lawrence, Kansas public school system where she was an itinerant elementary band director and assisted with the local junior high and high school band programs. While in Lincoln, Nebraska, she had the opportunity to serve as interim flute professor at UNL, taught applied flute, counterpoint, and orchestration at Union College, and was a contract teacher at Concordia University in Seward, NE. ??

Dr. Kelley has been a featured soloist with the 312th Army Band on tours through El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Midwest and is a past winner of the Southwest Missouri State University concerto competition, and former member of the North Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. She has performed in master classes for William Bennett, Alexa Still, Kyle Dzapo, and Maria Harding. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Education degree from Southwest Missouri State University and a Master of Music degree from Louisiana State University. Dr. Kelley's flute instructors include John Bailey, Mary Poses, Katherine Kemler, Alan Zoloth, and Belva Prather.

Jeff Womack is the visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Angelo State University specializing in Double Reeds and Music History. Prior to coming to ASU, he was the Director of Woodwind Studies at Dickinson State University where he also taught music history and music theory. He has also previously been on faculty at Northern Arizona University.

Dr. Womack has an extensive performing background most recently serving as second bassoon San Angelo Symphony Orchestra. Regionally, he has also served as second bassoon and contrabassoon with the Midland-Odessa Symphony Orchestra and substitute second bassoon with the San Antonio Symphony. Other performing experience includes second bassoon with the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra. In the BMSO, he has also filled the principal oboe chair on occasion as well as solo English horn. He was also the principal bassoonist with the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra and performed with the Kokopelli Wind Quintet. He is also an active performer nationally and internationally on the bassoon. Dr. Womack is an active recitalist and guest clinician. His most recent masterclasses have taken him to the Cork Institute of Music in Cork, Ireland, Kansas State University and the University of Kentucky. Dr. Womack is also a founding member of the bassoon quartet Depraved Indifference whose goal is to increase the repertoire for multiple bassoon ensembles. Depraved Indifference performed a recital featuring two newly composed works for bassoon quartet at the International Double Reed Society in July 2006 at Ball State University and in March the group performed Michael Daugherty’s Hell’s Angels with the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra.