Don’t miss bands from near and far at the 2015 Quadstock, held at SFUAD May 2-3, 2015.

On March 1, Contemporary Music Faculty Scott Jarrett performed on campus along with Chairman Horace Alexander Young, and fellow faculty members Paul Brown and Tom Adler.

On Feb. 21 in O’Shaugnessy Performance Space, Contemporary Music Program Chairman Horace Young, faculty members Steve Paxton, Melinda Russial and Deborah Ungar, along with Career Services Director Joanie Spain discussed career choices and master’s degrees in music entertainment and education.

The weekend workshop was more of a roundtable with questions and answers on qualification, making the right choices and the availability of options. Music department faculty and advisors exchanged information and anecdotes about their own graduate school experiences.

        In the third of a series of Q&A sessions with SFUAD students, Jackalope Magazine speaks with Contemporary Music Program Sophomore Sam Zickefoose, who illuminates the joy of banjo, Laser Cats and Gypsy Jazz. Jackalope Magazine: What instruments do you play? Sam Zickefoose: My main instrument is banjo, but I play some guitar and mandolin, and a little bit of bass. JM: What got you into banjo? SZ: My uncle played banjo and my family kind of had a blue grass band a while ago, so I grew up with it. JM: What about bluegrass still draws you? SZ: Well, there’s a lot of energy and it’s really a reactive type of music, kind of like jazz. It’s always changing, it’s not set; you can be playing the same songs a hundred times and it will be different every time. JM: What brought you to SFUAD? SZ: To be honest, I was looking for schools that had banjo programs or teachers. There was one here, one in Texas and Berkeley and that was about it. And I ended up here. (laughs) JM: Is there a teacher who plays banjo that has mentored you in any way? SZ: Yeah, Tom Adler plays banjo. He plays clawhammer and is also a guitarist and singer. But I’ve worked with a lot of the teachers and they’ve been really open to relating their concepts to banjo, like Ross [Hamlin], Polly [Ferber] and Scott [Jarrett]. JM: Have you been learning things in general that you could apply to the banjo? SZ: All of our theory classes are really applicable to a lot of different styles of music and writing music in general. In Balkan Ensemble, we learn the theory of the music…and learn new techniques. Even if we don’t use them for Balkan music, we can transfer them...