Music Appreciation: Music Concert Review

The music concert this review covers is the Plano Symphony’s rendition of the Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy in C minor and Symphony No. 9, The Choral, in D minor. The concert was held at a church in April 16, 2016, and it was a sold out performance. Since it was a night simply dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven, the symphony titled the concert as “Best of Beethoven.”

Never have I ever attended a performance like this without my parents dragging me against my will. The only other time I have ever attended a concert of this nature is when my parents force my sister and I to go to the local opera house every year on Memorial Day to honor our troops and watch a couple boy scouts earn the title of eagle scout. Honestly, because I have only been to these types of concerts against my will, I did not know what to expect. I was extremely stressed out about what was appropriate to wear and how early I should show up, without my mother’s time schedule, I was more than just figuratively lost. I did not pick this concert because I was interested, I simply picked a concert that I could attend without any conflicts to my class and practice schedules and went for it.

I have never attended an orchestral concert. Although my taste ranges between several different types of music, the only concerts I have attended are of the rock and country variety. I was not sure what to expect in attending The Houston Civic Symphony’s performance on Sunday, October 9, 2016. It was held at the Dunham Theater within the Morris Cultural Arts Center at Houston Baptist University. Once inside I saw the beautiful stage with all of the performers warming up and three stories of seating. Many of the patrons were in the age range of 30 and up. I did see some kids and young adults but not many. The HCS marked its 50th year since the very first performance this season. The first performance happened in 1996 when a group of music lovers in Houston came together to play a concert just because they wanted to play and share their love of music with others. From that day they became known as the Houston Civic Symphony. Some of the players I watched in this performance have been with the Symphony for 25 years or more while others are barely reaching their first year if not their first performance; only two of the players have been there since the very first season. Out of the three pieces performed the one that caught my attention the most was the last, it hold a powerful message of fear and desperation for

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.

On the night of February 11, 2017, Sarah and I traveled to the Music Hall at Fair Park to see Broadway’s hit “An American in Paris.” This was one of the most breathtaking shows I have ever experienced. From the talented dancing, magnificent acting, and wonderful singing it was a great way to spend my night! George and Ira Gershwin composed the music in this show the and the performers did a fabulous job making it entertaining. It was an amazing show to get to write about for my last Honors Paper, and I hope to see it again one day.

At 7:30 P.M. on October 17th, the Sartell Wind Ensemble performed in the Sartell High School gymnasium. The three pieces that the Sartell band played were Imaginarium, Buenaventura, and Baba Yetu. Imaginarium is a dream like program piece and it resembles a person imagining or daydreaming. Buenaventura is a world Latin piece and it begins with a slow Latin beginning and then it featured an up tempo finish. Baba Yetu was performed by the Wind Ensemble and with the Sartell choirs and other band. This piece is considered to be an African Folk song. In this review, I will evaluate and analyze the dynamics and band blending of the pieces.

For my concert report, I chose to attend a University Chambers Players performance. Within this classical genre of music, the pieces performed were all homophonic in texture and each melody introduced was supported by chordal accompaniment. All of the pieces performed ranged from an eighteenth to twentieth century time period, and furthermore, each performance employed the use of western world instruments, such as the piano, cello, violin, and viola.

On December 3, 2015 the University of Florida’s School of Music hosted a concert at the University Auditorium where the Jazz band performed. The band consisted of four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombone, and rhythm. The Saxophone section performers included Greg Snider (Alto), Dustin Fergerson (Alto), Ben Grier (Tenor), John Peasant (tenor), Tony Laracuente (tenor), and Ryan Colon (Baritone). The Trumpet section performers included Sean Bocinsky, Ben Rochford, Lucas Owen, and Brantley Daniel. The trombone section performers included Stephen Anderson, Jacob Armstrong, Joshua Jenkins, Like Blackman, and Andrew Bajorek. The Rhystem section performers included Zac Chester (piano), Sean Fournier (piano), Erik Abernathy (Guitar), Delorean Fullington (bass), Calvin Bond (bass), Clyde Conner (Drums), Tom Hurst (drums), and Andrew Mankin (drums). The performance consisted of four pieces, which depicted different styles of jazz music. The styles of songs ranging from Afro-Cuban to swing allowing for the crowd to enjoy the wide variety of music.

The concert I attended was called the Faculty and Student Recital, which took place in the Cisco Auditorium on April 11, 2017. The music that was on the program was mostly what is called “classical” music, as well as a Chinese Folk Song, an electronic composition, and variations on an Indian Tala. In the classical pieces, the instruments that were used were the violin, the piano, the cello, and the oboe. In the electronic composition, the computer was used to make music. In the Chinese Folk Song, the piccolo was used to imitate the unique timbre of a Chinese flute. In the Indian tala, drums from Ghana were used to imitate the rhythm and sound of Indian drums. The piano, the violin, the cello, and the piccolo all originate

MUS 110CL Concert Critique Guidelines and Rubric After either attending a live concert or watching a full length concert online, write a critique of the performance following the format below. Here are a few examples of full length concerts you can find online (by conducting a web search using the criteria below) that could be used for this assignment:         Coldplay Live In Boston 2012 (Full Concert DVD) Sting: If on a winters night-Live from Durham Cathedral 2009 (watch all 14 songs on concert) Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, Jan Hammer, Charlie Duke Ellington The Great Paris Concert Richard Galliano/Winton Marsalis - Billie Holiday meets Edith PIAF Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Jazz Center

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 attend the concert “UA Philharmonic Orchestra” on Friday, October 10, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. The performance location is Crowder Hall, School of Music, University of Arizona. This hall has 544 seats. The concert has two programs. The first program will feature Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major conducted by Matthew Spieker. The second program is "Dance of the Tumblers" from “The Snow Maiden” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and "Danzón No. 2" by Arturo Márquez. The conductor is Ace Edewards. He is a doctoral student. The two programs are instrumental music. The group of the instruments used in the performance is: group of violin, group of viola, group of violoncello, group of bass, group of flute, group of oboe, group of clarinet, group

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.

The overall concert offered a wide verity of choir song, from classical pieces composed by Mozart to musical show tunes. The combination of which resulted in an overall enjoyable experience. The concert was not the first choir concert I had ever attended so I went in expecting it to be similar to the high school choir performances I have seen before. I was not expecting the scale of the concert to be so large. Instead of being one choir and an hour-long program there were four groups along with a much longer program. Each of the choir groups had a different dynamic, sound and feel to it. The differences made it interesting.

On Wednesday July, 8 I attended a concert at the Mimoda Studio located in Los Angeles the concert started at eight o’clock. On that day there was a group of four Instrumentalists performing a cello concert. The performances consisted of acts of big composers such as David popper the cellist also Alexander Konstantinovich ,it last about an hour. The show did not include programs so I will have to go off my notes some of the pieces that were played for David popper were Serade, Ballet scene, Gavotte, and La Chanson villageoise. The pieces played from Alexander Konstantinovich were impatient, land of heroes. There were also some Armenian chants played from the medival times, that were either composed by Sahakdukht orkhosrovidukht.