Concert Report : Jacqueline Pretorius

With selections from various choirs in the community, PVC’s own, blessed the audience with a classic favorite, singing, “Old Time Religion.”

On Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 7:00p.m. in the school auditorium, the Cypress Lake High School Center for the Arts’ vocal department held their annual vocal cabaret, which involved the audience, a few lights, and a good amount of inspired singers/musicians. Mr. Gary Stroh, head of the vocal department, let the students take over when it came to performing. He allowed his students to introduce acts, play their own instruments, and run the concessions outside of the performance area. The

The last act was Denee Weathers, she had a guitar player with her and sung her heart out. Her empathy and the strength in her voice was very beautiful and made her act extraordinary. Weathers songs were unique and personalized.

Performing his songs was Jason Michael Webb (piano), Bobby Scharmann (Bass), Mike Roe (Drums), and a mixture of independent singers and a large company that included UNL, UNO, Creighton and guest students and artists.

Next, the series of jazz combos began, and a younger group of UAB students started to play. Their first song was “The Preacher” by Horace Silver, and this song was the only song with lyrics. The singer was nearly impossible to hear because she was singing in piano while the other group members were playing in fortissimo. Also, I was startled by how loud the brass instruments sounded in the concert hall; however, this is due to the trumpet being a haut instrument. Then, another combo began playing, and this combo was under the guidance of Carlos Pino. The group brought more energy and more skill, and this is shown

On May 13, 2016, the Vocal Jazz Ensembles at Sacramento State University had their one of the last concerts before the semester ended, which was directed by our professor Gaw Vang Williams. This concert was performed by four groups and different solo, which was completely different experience from the first two concerts that I attended at Sac State. In this Vocal Jazz concert, there was packed and a lot of audiences who were friends, family and students come to support and enjoy before this semester ended. Overall, this was a good show and I found that Vocal Jazz was much more fun and enjoyable than the first two. In this concert, I enjoyed every pieces of performance and there were three pieces that caught my attention, which were “Hold On”,

The next gifted musician welcomed to stage is a clarinet player from Spartanburg, South Carolina named Nicholas Graham. I can relate to his instrument very much. He reminds me of my older sister growing up playing the clarinet. Nicholas performs the first part of the fantasy piece by Schumann. There was a lot of reasoning why he choose this specific piece. He shares with the audience that he heard the song performed

On the night of November 11th, I attended Divahn’s performance at the Gamble Auditorium. Their music featured Middle Eastern, Latin, and Indian styles, and the vocals were sung in various native languages of the Middle East. Although I could not understand the lyrics, the music was able to demonstrate the emotions of the piece effectively, so that I could understand the content of the music.

By the time I arrived at the Ardmore auditorium, Colin had already begun his first song. From what I could gather the song was about his life and his history. He mentioned living in Louisiana and then later coming to North Carolina to attend the school of the arts. Before he started into his second song he gave a brief explanation of what it was about, saying that it was written about being in abusive relationships. This was the one song I had listened to previous thanks to his YouTube page and was my personal favorite of the songs he played. He continued on with two more songs, now with the addition of a loop pedal, before bringing out an African harp instrument. I couldn’t tell if the song he was playing with the harp was something he had written or if it was improvisation. The lack of words mixed with the repetition in the song created a trance-like, almost hypnotic, atmosphere. Once Colin put away the harp he returned to his guitar for another couple songs before time ran out.

The last piece performed was titled Ignition composed by Todd Stalter, as the Professor stated the titled says it all, and he was right. This is a very energetic piece it is a true celebration of sound.

venue. The purpose of this concert was to give people a taste of the NEIU

Acoustic guitar by Jerry, vocal & piano by Zino Park, bass guitar by Clay Luna, vocal & guitar by Zen, guitar & saxophone by Dan Stark, drum by Skip Mccain, and harp by Monica.

many people, they finally settled on Pete Best on drums. They recruited Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, and

The second vocal ensemble of the night started out with a song which included a twelve bar blues, called “ I use to know you”. This performance consisted of the most combinations of solos of the night as well as using an improvising style. The entire band started all together which led to a Trumpet solo. Then Jose on the Sax did his solo followed by the pianist comping. Then the choir along with the band joined together to lead to a female solo which was particularly interesting since she was scatting. The second performance of this ensemble was “Spring can really hang you up the most” which consisted of 3/4 time and 4/4 time. This started with a female solo vocalist then a male one. The band as a whole played together and ended with a male solo scatting. The third and shortest performance of the night was a vocal acapella piece, “Love walked in” which was short and sweet. The fourth performance of the night was a Richmond Rogers piece. This had a rhythmic swing/salsa feel from the “Lady is a tramp”. This started with the rhythm section, with the male vocalist and horns. Then the female vocalist from the choir joined and concluded this piece. The fifth performance for the group was a sequel to voice stand an acapella piece by Greg Jaspers. This song started with the choir using their voices as the instruments altogether. The final performance of the night was one of

Solo guitars were also used as accompaniments to the songs in order realize pure creativity and originality. The guitars that were used by the various performers targeted at ensuring conformity to the original artist’s