East Carolina's Concert Report

It’s amazing to listen to musicians who do not normally play with each other come together and leave the audience in complete awe. That is exactly what happened on the day of Thursday November 26th 2014. The Bill Crothers Varsity Winds comprised of grade eleven and twelve students along with a few, talented grade tens went to listen to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra play. We travelled via a typical yellow school bus that took us to Roy Thomson Hall where we went right to the top level and took our seats. The seating seemed rather helpful because from a distance you could hear every instrument when you focused on it. It was beautiful. The band presented well with their “Penguin” like attire that was kind to the eyes. They appeared very organized,

Congratulations to the students in 7th and 8th grade who spent a whole weekend at UMKC for the UMKC Honor Band and Orchestra. These students were nominated by their peers and teachers and selected by the UMKC staff. The nominees had to perform a solo piece to audition for seating. There were more than 25 other local middle schools participating in this festival, and Prairie Star did quite well with a whopping 13 students accepted to the festival.

Exposition IV: An Appalachian Spring, is a performance of various musicians within Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts. The event took place at Moss Arts Center in the Anne and Ellen Fife theater, with musicians stationed on stage and on the side balconies. A different instrument section played each segment of the performance, including: horn ensemble, string ensemble, bassoonists, percussion ensemble, jazz ensemble, the Linux Laptop Orchestra, Kinect sensor and computer, and male and female choirs. This exposition was held in order to benefit the performing arts scholarship program at Virginia Tech, but it seemed that the performance had the goal of showing off the individual ensemble’s talents, and, in the end, combining those talents.

I attended the Baylor University Concert Jazz Ensemble directed by Alex Parker on Tuesday, November 10th. This ensemble consisted of saxes, trombones, trumpets, drums, a piano, and bass. The concert showcased many individual talents by including solo’s or duet’s in every song. The program consisted of seven songs with no intermission. The pieces I selected were “Big Dipper” by Thad Jones and “Undecided” by Frank Mantooth.

Purpose: The purpose of the following document is to highlight to the Board of Heritage Christian Academy the current state of, the challenges faced by, the vision for, and the future potential of the band program.

In 1995, DSU’s band traveled to England to perform for the Queen and the people of England for the New Years day parade. It was a wonderful performance to be remembered forever. Since then, the band has performed at many more major venues across the world. They performed in the inaugural parade for President Barack Obama, as well as the MLK parade. The band is conducted by band director Randolph J. Johnson. Mr. Johnson is 61 years old and has 13 years of experience as a college band director as well as 11 years as a high school band director. He has lead the band through many great performances.

This was evidently appreciated by the audience as it permitted them to understand the background of the piece better. Correspondingly, being that there wasn’t a conductor, the body language was interesting to watch, as the performers organized and timed themselves accordingly. I found that the passion in the duo was more prominent than in past concerts. You could see this reflect on the audience as after the end of every piece, the audience couldn’t help but burst into applause as the passion and exhilaration built up till the very end of the pieces. Moreover, the pieces that where performed felt more intriguing using a wider range of music styles, from jazz to classical waltz. Therefore, the pieces ranged in dynamics, tone and mood evoking many more moods and

The University of Alabama Faculty Jazz Band along with guest player, Bill Peterson the jazz pianist, made up a chamber ensemble and performed beautiful and upbeat jazz music. The faculty members include Tom Wolfe, the guitarist, Chris Kozak, the bass player, and Mark Lanter, the drummer. The entire concert was played in a major key and had nothing but positive energy. The pieces and players were extremely creative and they managed to tell a story and create beautiful imageries through the changing sounds, rhythms, melodies, keys and texture.

On April 11th, 2017 in the Louis Armstrong Theatre, I attended the GVSU “University Band”. This up-beat ensemble lasted about 90 minutes; the talented students of GVSU’s university band joined together to perform multiple different songs ranging from a Waltz to a Dixieland Jamboree. All of the songs that the band played for the audience were all well-known, popular songs that they all enjoyed. Having the opportunity to attend this concert has opened new musical paths for myself and has allowed me to enjoy and kindly critique something that I perhaps would have never had the chance to otherwise.

The week before all-state orchestra auditions meant everything needed to be perfect. I would meticulously practice my cello for extended periods of time, revisiting the same difficult passages until I was satisfied or my fingers became numb. There were few performance opportunities in South Dakota like all-state orchestra so I was determined to give a superb audition. Yet, regardless of the outcome I always felt proud, knowing I had done everything I could. Through these experiences I refined qualities such as excellence and diversity, which I anticipate will strengthen the student body, faculty, and mission at the Creighton University School of Medicine.

I chose to attend a jazz concert at UNCW on September 28th, 2016. The musicians playing were: Jerald Shynett on trombone, Andy Whittington on piano, Natalie Boeyink on bass, Justin Hoke on guitar and Michael D’Angelo on drums. There were two special guests playing with this ensemble: Lynn Grissett on trumpet and Ryan Mulder on saxophone (joined them on stage for only a few select pieces).

On Saturday, December 12th, the High School Philharmonic All-Region Orchestra performed a variety of fascinating pieces. They were directed by Professor Edward Kawakami from Carthage College. The region orchestra began the concert with “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 op. 39” by Edward Elgar. The next piece that the orchestras performed was “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy. The last piece that the High School Philharmonic All-Region Orchestra performed was “Samson and Dalila Dance Bacchanale op. 47” by Camille Saint-Saens.

Never could I have thought that my first concert experience was going to be in a college class, performed by various composers of classical music. During the concert, I got to listen to four performances. First, the Oxycotton was played by Tim Sanchez. Second, Samantha Post played Acht Stucke on flute, followed by Nicholas Gledhill, playing Blues and Variations for Monk on horn. Finally, the CSU Graduate Brass Quintet performed a piece named Misty. In this essay, I will share my personal experience of the concert and discuss the different elements of music seen in the different performances.

On Sunday, May10 2015, a concert was held in The Broad Stage. The concert was played by Santa Monica College Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor is Dr. James Martin. For this concert, I would identify myself as a referential listener at this concert. I say this because I am not an expert in music, therefore it would be hard for me to be a critical listener. I wouldn’t be able to tell what went wrong with a performance even if some incorrect notes were played. I was more of a referential listener because the music was soothing and brought my mind to peaceful thoughts. This essay will tells my experience of the concert in order to persuade my friend to  attend a classical music concert with you in the future.

I think that the performer’s ability was appropriate for their location and for their audience because the tone quality of the musicians sounded very rich and clean. When I listened to the performance, I was able to hear all of the different parts of the piece clearly, which has made me much more conscious of the balance and dynamics of each phrase when I play. The texture of the pieces played was very rich and full because an orchestral piece is designed to have a good balance of instruments and good range of frequencies of sound that has lots of different things happening at the same time.