Concert Critique

Dr. Carol Williams’s organ plays were just fantastic. Despite the fact that seeing the instrument called, “organ” was my first time, it was pretty impressive how that instrument worked. All the pedals and the three layers of keyboards were just as complicated as a calculus math problem. The concert was played at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion at Balboa Park. The surrounding was not too bad. Although the concert day was Sunday, it was quite crowded. Besides the crowdedness, the surroundings were not too rough. All ages were welcome to seat and enjoy the sounds of organ. I saw mostly old aged audiences and I saw a little amount of college aged audiences with the music report information on their hands.

Not like a first concert I attended, this show named “a night of Blues” had a little bit small and less impressive. It was not because the show was boring, but just a few people joined this show, the theater is also smaller, too.

Musical Time Period: As far as the musical time period we haven’t covered the Classical era yet in class. However, new developments such as Mozart’s daring harmonies and the rise of opera music were characteristics new to the classical era.

On March 28th, 2017, I went to Fred Hersch Trio concert with special guest, Anat Cohen. This concert was performed at Schwab auditorium, where I have never been before. All I went to watch the concert was at Eisenhower auditorium. Since it was my first time to Schwab auditorium, I was pretty excited to experience the new atmosphere of the place I have never been to.

Music is a huge part of my life and very important. Music is my safe place. Something to keep me calm, happy and focused. As a matter of fact, I’m listening to music as I type this. Music is important, and learning about it will just make you appreciate it even more. If you try to compose a piece yourself, you’ll probably appreciate composers a lot, it takes talent to compose something and actually make it sound good. Music education, and just music in general is important.

Valley Concert Chorale’s Sing-It-Yourself Messiah event has been a Tri-Valley holiday tradition for the past 12 years. Singers of all ages are invited to add their vocals to Part I of Handel’s great choral masterpiece, also known as the Christmas portion of Messiah. The performance of this classic will conclude with a powerful rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus”.

I attended the Jazz Ensemble I on December 5th, 2017 at the Light Recital Hall. To help me better understand these works I had googled the event name and looked it up on youtube as well. There were brochures provided at the venue; however there weren’t enough for each individual to receive one. I had chosen to attend this concert because I believed I would enjoy a jazz ensemble performance more than I would’ve enjoyed attending any of the other types of musical events. Prior to this particular concert I was expecting to see and hear different variations of jazz music. This specific jazz concert was a holiday/christmas edition. It featured all of UW-Whitewater's jazz groups. They used several trumpets, trombones, saxophones, a bass guitar and

On April 21, 2014 I watched the online performance of Sleeping Beauty performed by the Jacobs School of Music at the Musical Arts Center in Indianapolis. I have never personally been to the Musical Arts Center, but from the online streamed video, the place looks magnificently huge and phenomenal. The stage was absolutely stunning. It was big, vibrant, and breathtaking. It made it look as if you actually went back in time and were a part of the performance. The stage was enhanced with beautiful cool, calming purples, pinks, and blues that matched the performers’ outfits to a tee. It reminded me of royalty. Each performer had gorgeous outfits for every act, and I must say, the designer did a fabulous job.

On Sunday night February 26, I went to the music center located at New Mexico State university to the Atkinson recital hall to watch the North American Saxophone Alliance region conference concert. The concert only consisted of saxophones and a few accompaniments first to the stage was Jessica Maxfield who played alto saxophone accompanied by Hannah Crevistion on the piano. The duo played accouple of movements from “Garden of Follies” composed by the Andrew Norman. The first movement they played was “Spandrels”, the tempo on this piece as soon as they start was a very fast tempo and lot of accents marks. She goes on to play to play four more movements called “Crossed Paths, Blue Mountains thoughts, Fourth Act and Regarding Crystals”. All the move moments she had played gave a more serious and suspenseful tone. The piano would play notes that were very sharp dissonance notes throughout all the movements and the saxophone would bring it more to a tonic sound but it’s still very textural music, and lots of sharps played.

On November 20, 2014, I had an opportunity to watch a concert entitled “Autumn Winds” at Colburn School in Downtown Los Angeles. It was part of a monthly concert series “Rush Hour Concerts at Colburn” hosted by Gibson Dunn. Gibson Dunn is a prominent law firm whose active involvement in the community expands to all various arenas of the society through their leadership and services. Rush Hour Concert is held monthly at Thayer Hall in Colburn School located at 200 South Grand Avenue diagonally across from the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Rush Hour Concert encourages the commuters to avoid traffic with this program to unwind after a long days of work with a wine reception at 5:30 pm

On Saturday, November 21st I attended Stage III’s production of the musical The Drowsy Chaperone at the Beaudoin Theater in Siena Campus’ Foy Hall. In order to keep productions interesting for all members of the audience, Stage III productions differ each year. So, Stage III production genres vary each year, as no genre of play or musical is repeated within the same year. The musical direction in Stage III’s The Drowsy Chaperone was by Dr. Timothy J. Reno, while the music and lyrics were by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison.

I have always had a great love for Jazz. Its creative expression, as well as the continuous transformation of its harmonic structures and forms, excites me. When I heard about the Maynard Ferguson concert, I was thrilled and knew that it was a must-attend. I first saw Maynard Ferguson at the Cross & Sword Amphitheater in St. Augustine, Fla. The concert took place in spring 1998. I was anxious to see Maynard Ferguson, the king of Jazz. Maynard was well renowned for his extremely high register control on the trumpet. Ferguson was very warm towards all the members of his band. Even if I thought the concert was all about him, he gave all the musicians a chance to be in the spotlight. He would shake a hand at each soloist after the performance as if it was a way of saying, “the night is as important to me as it is to you”.

Notes from “It’s Only Love” by The Beatles sounded through Norris University Center on Wednesday to kick off Lunch on the Lake, a six-week series of noontime concerts featuring live music and BBQ food.

Having no musical background made my experience negative. In my opinion, this work was a waste of time. As I was annoyed by the beginning of the song, all I heard was long bangs and performance of giving up, as the performers had no clue on music. Then later turned into a style of patty cake. I did not understand the reason behind it until I started to hear part of the audience say it was genius by the simplicity and the rhythm that created humor. I realized that music is not just on the structure that is well developed and can also show a story or has meaning behind it.

The first half of the concert was only instrumental. There were two violins, two violas, and two cellos. They sat on stage with the violins one my right, then the violas in the middle, and the cellos on the end. The violins played a few songs solo. The second half of the concert was only the choir and a piano. Their performance started with the song Daybreak. The song Daybreak also had a few girls playing percussion, one of them had a tambourine. Using SHMRG, the Harmony of most of the choirs songs were very homophonic. The Melody of most of the songs were mainly slow, though a couple songs were very fast, and upbeat.