Reflection of the Chaffey College Music Department Benefit Concert

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,

Last Thursday, I attended the Department of Music Concert Series at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. I was able to listen to both the Symphony Band, under the direction of Dr. Cara Morantz as well as the Wind Symphony Band directed by Dr. Sean Murray. They presented a tremendous performance comprised of pieces by J.B. Chance, Frank Ticheli, Samuel Hazo as well as a wide variety of other authors. The event was pleasurable to me, as well as many others in attendance to the concert. By the looks, colleagues families and teachers came to support the talented musicians on stage that night!

For this concert report I chose to go to a performance of student composers held at the Kimball Recital Hall. I chose this one because I wanted to see some of the talent that my peers have in the music realm, and also it was one of the only concerts I have been able to attend because I usually work at night. It was impressive to hear pieces composed by students. I cannot imagine creating something as complex as a musical composition, much less actually performing it, so this aspect of the concert was particularly awe-inspiring. There was a large attendance, and I think that much of the audience consisted of friends of the composers and/or performers. I went with three friends, who I convinced by telling it would be interesting to see

East Carolina’s Concert band and Symphonic band performed on Tuesday, February 16, at seven thirty in the evening in Wright Auditorium. Being a duel performance it included over a hundred of my talented East Carolina peers led by outstanding band Directors Dr. Juchniewicz and Dr. Staub. Along with great students and Directors, the show incorporated a beautiful trombone solo performed by a fellow colleague. Although I have never attended a concert where such style of music was being performed, I did enjoy the music being played and most of them sounded as if I heard them before. The professionalism the students portrayed and maintain to the audience was breathtaking and made me honored to be their peers.

For my first concert report of this semester, I attended the Chamber Music Concert put on by the Bronx Arts Ensemble. The performance consisted of three chamber pieces from the classical and early romantic periods; “String Trio in B Flat Major, D. 471” by Franz Schubert, “Quartet in E Flat Major, Op. 2 No. 1” by Bernhard Henrik Crusell, and “Divertimento in E Flat Major, K. 563” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Each song was played in true historic fashion (although we only heard four of the six movements from Mozart’s composition), and it was very stimulating to be able to see the music we have been listening to in class being played live.

The concert took place at Manhattan School of Music, which is located in the performing arts recital hall on Monday, May 1, 2011. The stage setting was neat, demonstrative, and very well organized as I first entered the entrance. I could feel electrify with many extreme bright lights hanged on the top, which made me felt more exciting. There were many types of people coming in this concert including teenager and elderly. This concert was conducted by Dr. Nicholas Muni from MSM Symphonic Band with one of the talented musicians from PCSl High School, Ms. Jai Sun Song. The Manhattan School of Music Band performed a total of fives pieces such as the “Drayton Hall Esprit” by Francis McBeth, “Sea Songs” by Ralph Vaughan Williams, “With Quiet Courage” by Larry Daehn, “Noisy Wheels of Joy” by Eric Whitacre, “National Emblem” by E.E.

For this semester’s Patron of the Arts assignment, I listened to the North Suburban Wind Ensemble’s performance at the Chicagoland Invitational Concert Band Festival. At CICBF, the tone of the environment was fairly professional. There were many hard working young musicians there, unlike the Woodstock students, that valued the music being performed. The band performed Four Scottish Dances composed by Malcolm Arnold, Symphony No. 3 Slavyanskaya composed by Boris Kozhevnikov, and Symphonie Fantastique Witches Round Dance composed by Hector Berlioz.

This “family” was the ultimate goal for my school’s string quartet. For our first nursing home performance, we needed to combine our talents and produce an eccentric performance. But after several crash-and-burn rehearsals, we found that we were too self-absorbed. More specifically, we were too focused on how we sounded as individuals, making our songs disjointed and awkward. So we opened our ears, letting the layers of melodies sink in. The attention we gave to the quartet as a whole, from our time, energy, and patience, ironically helped us grow as individuals. We developed poise. Fortitude. Zeal. And in the end, our perseverance reflected through the senior’s sheer elation and vibrant applause at the nursing home.

Before the concert began, the atmosphere felt causal and comforting. The non-ticketed nature of the concert seemed to create a diversity within the audience. There appeared to no unreasonable dress code policy and the ages of the audience ranged from infants to elderly adults. Something I took note of was that the instruments that made up the ensemble were all wind instruments, except for the string bassist and pianist. I had never attended a performance primarily consisting of wind instruments, so I was curious to hear whether the themes of the pieces were going to be betrayed similarly to string instruments.

On Wednesday, May 27, 2015, DePaul Symphony Orchestra held their 39th Annual Spring concert at Orchestra Hall of Chicago Symphony Orchestra center from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM. When I arrived, I noticed that most of the audiences were formally dressed, including kids, students, adults, and elders. It was really crowded in the room; I estimated that there were over 300 attendees. After taking my seat, I looked around the stage and saw a huge orchestra. All the musicians were dressed in black, and they were still practicing even when their performance was about to start. A woman welcomed the audiences and thanked them for attending the concert. The concert finally begun with a short performance to welcome conductor Cliff Colnot. The instruments that

Four years ago,  I joined a concert that makes a great influence on my life. The Formosa Quartet played three contrasting pieces in the concert that is a Mozart quartet, a Brahms viola quintet, and a Schumann piano quintet. The concert is impressed. Especially, when they played Brahms viola quintet, op.111. The character they make in three contrasting piece impressed me. This is the first time I knew the power of music would be. I felt that I can understand the ideas they want to convey to the audience without words.  They are a group to play music in unison. Meanwhile, each of them has their own character.  After the concert, I started to think--playing in a string quartet in the US.

Recently I attended the 2016 ILMEA District 8 Music Festival. While I got the opportunity to create and perform music with other District Senior Choir, I also got to hear the District Senior Band give a lovely concert as well. The conductor was James Lambrecht. Before and in between when the band was playing he would explain how proud he was of the group and then he told everyone a little about the pieces. Each piece was a contemporary band arrangement. The band played four pieces: Play! by Carl Holmquist, Rest by Frank Ticheli, Spoon River by Percy Grainger as well as Carson & Naylor, and Galop by Dimitri Shostokovich and Hunsberger.

On April 23rd, I attended a musical performance by the Diderot String Quartet. The performance was held at the Bruno Walter Auditorium in 111 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, N.Y. at 2:30 p.m. The Diderot String Quartet performance that I attended was titled “Diderot String Quartet: Haydn and his Students.” The Diderot String Quartet performance is titled after the musical pieces of the concert, which included string quartets by Franz Joseph Haydn, Anton Ferdinand Titz, and Ludwig van Beethoven. The first musical piece performed was “String Quartet No. 1 in G Major” by Anton Ferdinand Titz. The second musical piece performed was “String Quartet Op. 76, No.6 in Eb Major Fantasia” by Franz Joseph Haydn. The third and final piece performed was “String Quartet Op.74 in Eb Major Harp” by Ludwig van Beethoven. Each musical piece was performed beautifully by the Diderot String Quartet, which included 2 violinists (Johanna Novom and Adriane Post), a cellist (Paul Dwyer), and a violist (Kyle Miller).

The concert began at 7:30 pm with Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet Number 2 in A Major, Op. 26 consisting of four parts—Allegro non troppo, Poco Adagio, Scherzo:Poco Allegro, and Finale:Allegro with Professor Li-shan Hung (piano), Mary Irwin (violin), Lisa Boyko (viola), and Alan Harrell (cello) and lasted for fifty-five minutes. I noticed Professor Li-shan Hung stood out during the performance because she was in control of the whole time and because she was also the lead performer. It was difficult for Professor Li-shan Hung to turn the music pages so there was a helper on her left side to turn the music pages for her. This was an excellent performance and the classical music lovers inside the Crowell Music Building Auditorium gave applauds time and again.

In addition to bringing live classical music to local audiences, this worthy nonprofit organization works diligently in its mission to support student music education. The orchestra