This fall, the department's autumn concerts will provide the opportunity for some of those student and faculty talents to be demonstrated. Included in the series will be the choral ensembles' Festival of Lights holiday concert at the university's Mission Church. According to Boepple, the Festival of Lights has been so popular that this year, the department has extended the concert from one evening to two.

Also on the department's fall performance schedule is a faculty recital series. The Nov. 3 recital will feature a program of Bach, Mendelssohn, Ginastera and Chopin by Chinese pianist Tian-En Yu, who provides piano lessons to Santa Clara University students.

Yu learned to play the piano when she was 6 years old, and she later studied music at Shanghai Conservatory. She names Brahms as one of her favorite composers.

Boepple himself will also give a piano recital in January. Boepple's all-Beethoven program will feature the Apassionata Sonata and the nearly one-hour-long composition 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli .

The music department's fall quarter will also include a Nov. 15 concert by the Santa Clara University Orchestra, which is led by highly regarded Bay Area conductor Emily Ray, the founder and music director of the South Bay's Mission Chamber Orchestra. Ray joined the SCU Orchestra last year.

"She's a wonder. The size of the student enrollment for the orchestra has already increased 50 percent under her directorship," Boepple says.

Boepple adds that the department is also delighted with their director of choral activities, Thomas Colohan, and says that the university's choral performers are the best singers on campus.

On Dec. 4, the department will present a free afternoon concert called Opera for the Holidays. SCU faculty and students will perform selections from such holiday-themed operas and musicals as Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.

Music professor Nancy Wait-Kromm will direct Opera for the Holidays. Also at the performance, Wait-Kromm will debut a new translation of Hansel and Gretel that she worked on during a recent sabbatical.

"Our voice students have opportunities to sing in solo recitals and in the choir, but they don't have a lot of opportunities to sing in staged work," Wait-Kromm says.

Wait-Kromm created a course called Opera Studio to give students a chance to sing fully staged material. Her Opera Studio students will be featured at this free holiday concert.

Like several other music department performances, Opera for the Holidays will take place at the campus' Music and Dance Facility, which the department built four years ago. The music area of the building consists of a 250-seat recital hall, as well as a large rehearsal hall, an electronic media lab, a music library and conference and practice rooms. The dance area of the building contains two dance studios, dressing rooms and conference space.

Boepple is very proud of the Music and Dance Facility. He admits that although the facility has an unromantic name, it's a beautifully paneled building, and the recital hall has stunning acoustics.

"It has just the right amount of reverberation and ambience," Boepple says. "It's a good hall for just about anything."

For more information about the Santa Clara University Department of Music, visit http://www.scu.edu/music/index.shtml.