Morris Library hosts the Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series in January. (Photo by Russell Bailey)
April 01, 2026
SIU School of Music students to perform Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Students in Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s School of Music will showcase their talents when they perform Tuesday, April 7, in the Yellow Moon Gyroid Concert Series, in Morris Library’s third-floor rotunda.
The free, public concert begins at 5 p.m. The “Spring Concert” program, will feature performances by seven students and Anthony Gray, associate professor of practice in collaborative piano.
The performance will open with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s trio “Kegelstatt” for viola, clarinet and piano by master’s students Angelo Tavares (viola performance studies), Mika Rabago (clarinet performance studies) and Esther Tang (collaborative piano studies). Second-year master’s student Clayton Bridgeman (viola performance studies) will play “Elegy” for solo viola by Igor Stravinksy and viola sonata by Rebecca Clarke. Max Sawyer, an undergraduate second-year student, will perform a sonata for alto saxophone by Paul Creston. The program concludes with percussion pieces by graduate master’s students Keaton Jones and Skylar Etherington, who will play a marimba solo.
Reiko Schoen, who co-founded the series in fall 1994, said that in addition to seeing talented students perform she is excited to see the alto saxophone and marimba introduced to the program.
“As one of our missions, this series provides a broad musical opportunity for the musicians and audience,” she said.
A limited number of printed concert programs, along with a QR code for a print-free way to follow along will be available at the event.
Schoen is a member of the Federation of National Music Clubs. She operated the Music Sprouts piano studio in Carbondale for 31 years before retiring in May 2025. She is also a member of the SIU Symphony Orchestra.
The series honors Schoen’s late husband, SIU Carbondale professor Alan Schoen, who discovered the gyroid in 1968 while working for NASA. The rotunda is home to Yellow Moon Gyroid made in Schoen’s honor by algorithmic artist Jesse Louis-Rosenberg.
A gyroid is an infinitely connected periodic minimal surface with no straight lines; a minimal surface has the smallest area possible within a given boundary. Schoen, a physicist, mathematician and computer scientist, taught at SIU Carbondale from 1973 to 1996.
For information regarding the performance or becoming a yearly sponsor for any amount, contact Reiko Schoen at reikotaka@gmail.com. For information about the School of Music, visit the School of Music website.