HSU Calypso Band 4/22/2006 Earthday Celebration... SLAM FEST. Sustainable Living and Music... Movies of the Band Performing:
Link to a movie made by HSU Calypso Band--Summer Song at The Jambalaya
(a performance space in Arcata) thanks to purplestuff23. 5 minutes long... and it sounds great... Students dancing also... FUN!
Focused on the Steel Drum Music.
Pretty Flowers frame the Humboldt State University Steel Drum Band
Students Dancing at Earthday Celebration with Humboldt Calypso Band.
Bass and Tenor Steel Drums.
Beautiful Tie-Dye covered by advertising of Calypso Band's corporate sponsors...
Big drums used for bass in steel drum band. Loading up after the show.
Portrait of the entire band.
Dr. Novotney won a $20,000 award for excellence in teaching. He spent half on recording his drum compositions. "Novotney plays Novotney" a record where he plays all the parts. Multitracking. The other half was spent on purchasing musical instruments for the students. Gamelan bells and metallophones. Indonesian percussion instruments. Soon, there will be a class in Gamelan and maybe a performance combining both the steel drums from the Carribean with the bells from the far east...
The 2006 Wang Award Recipient:
Eugene D. Novotney: An internationally recognized scholar and devoted music teacher at Humboldt State University, Dr. Novotney founded the Humboldt Calypso Band less than a year after his part-time teaching appointment in 1986. With no money to fund the band, Dr. Novotney sold his car to purchase the steel drum instruments still used today. The Humboldt Calypso Band was the first non-western ensemble at HSU as well as the first steel drum ensemble in the entire CSU system.
Novotney completed his doctorate and master’s from the University of Illinois, Urbana as well as his bachelor’s from the University of Cincinnati. Novotney has also studied music abroad in Ghana and various other countries. In its 20 years of existence, the Humboldt Calypso Band has become the model for steelband programs both statewide and nationally, and its former members have gone on to form and lead steel bands and initiate world music programs at every academic level.