Concert Critique: The Uic Wind Ensemble

Become Ocean was performed by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Delta David Gier. This evening was dedicated to being the 95th anniversary of the South Dakota Symphony. The theme for the evening related to water, whether that be the rolling tides of the waves, a bird swooping down to catch something, or a personal reflection that people made through associative listening. The music played had a serene and airy feeling that helped enhance the depiction of becoming one with the ocean.

I think this piece could be composed for an accomplishment of someone. It would suit the situation very well because it is loud and victorious but has some softness into it. A possible period for this piece may be a time where things in America aren’t doing so well. For example, the Great Depression which lasted from 1929 through 1939. It was the worst economic turn-down America has experienced.

For assignment 2, I choose the piece “Lohengrin: Act III: Prelude” composed by Richard Wagner. This piece is located in the “Types of Listeners I: Introduction and Casual Listeners” section.

The Well Tuned Piano is a piece for solo piano and the entire duration of the work is 6 and a half hours. The music is composed of Just Intonation and is improvised by the composer La Monte Young. The composer also performs himself. During the song, the modern concert grand piano is played in just intonation pure toning. The sounds are completely controlled, and the composer exploits the constitution of pitch. In the beginning of the song, the low toned notes are played powerfully. The notes continue naturally and the flow is uniformity. According to the professor, Just Intonation is a musical tuning in which all frequencies are tuned as ratios of small whole number ratios to a single unified fundamental. At 3:20, the second part begins after

I attended to a concert performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra on November 13th this year. This concert took place in the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. I chose to attend to this concert because I have never been to a performance by any youth orchestra, I was curious to see how their performance would compare to other orchestras.

The first movement is a trumpet solo with band accompaniment, very melancholic and reflective. The second movement begins by setting up the intricate motif from the woodwinds. As more sections slowly build upon each other, the conflicting metric lines form something that can only be described as majestic. Mackey’s skillful manipulation of time signatures eventually leads into a large 5/4 section that features the low brass. This is a transitory section that leads to a much more flourishing 4/4 – 5/4 section in half time. In all my years of appreciating music, this section has impressed me the most in any piece. As Mackey’s work begins to fall into the conclusion of the piece more and more sections intensify, and then the shift to the ending results in a very grandiose return to a modified half time section. The band begins an internal call and response from brass and woodwinds and there are background trumpets calling back and forth to each other. As the tribute to Stravinsky’s “Firebird” (according to Mackey, that is what this piece is) closes, what more could be appropriate for the piece than a brilliant horn rip to signify regality and also finality? Truly, Mackey’s most impressive work in my

What a great piece with so many rhythms, movements and tempos! I was so entertained and the 1 hour performance seemed to fly by. The instruments used were strings (chordophone), horns (aerophone), drums (membranophones), flutes (aerophone), cellos (chordophone), oboes(aerophone), clarinets (aerophone), piano (chordophone), suspended cymbals (idiophone¬), chimes (idiophone¬), symbols (idiophone¬) and a xylophone(idiophone¬) and they were playing using a polyphony texture. The performance started and ended in a similar way, the end was much louder and had a slightly quicker tempo though. I could tell that the song was telling a story because it gradually build until the “climax” of thee song and it held a strong rhythm, tempo and loudness until the song ended. The culture represented was a European culture and the piece told a story that was meant to be rambunctious that celebrated a life of drinking and the pleasures of love. The three people who sang solos were incredible and all did a great job of acting out what emotions they were singing about. This was such a great piece to see performed

On Tuesday, October 27th at 7:30pm, I attended the USA Percussion Ensembles “USA Jaguar Drumline and Front Ensemble Fall Concert” at the Laidlaw Recital Hall. The concert contained five different pieces of music. It also contained five drumline and front ensemble pieces. The first piece of music performed was called “Apple Blossom (1972).” This piece was composed by Peter Garland (b. 1952). This was also the longest piece played out of all the other pieces of music. There were elven people playing on five different xylophones. The dynamics of this piece was played in piano and in pianissimo throughout the entire song. This piece was dramatic yet calming which caused me to feel somewhat depressed. The movement of this piece was conjunct and

I attended the San Antonio Wind Symphony BRITANNIA. The performance was at UTSA’s recital hall. The Conductor was Dr. Robert Rustowicz. It was free, they are a nonprofit organization made up of volunteers.

The concert that I attended was called Voices of Villainy. It was held on October 19, 2015 in the Performing Arts Center. This event was put on by the Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi choir. It was made up of twenty singers, with the majority of them singing solos. There were three duets during the whole show. The pieces that everyone performed were taken from movies and plays that include villains. The songs were all ones that the villains in these movies originally sang. The singers sang along to a piano accompaniment, but that was all.

This concert was performed in a small hall in the main music building. The performer was a music professor who was doing a bassoon concert. She was accompanied by three other musicians playing the piano, flute, and oboe. Except for the final composition, she only performed with one other instrument at a time. The performance was broken down into 4 songs, each rather long in length. There was a brief intermission in between the first two songs and the remaining two. Most of the songs were long and had the bassoon as the main part and whatever other instrument was playing would be accompanying. The instruments that played alongside the bassoon were higher pitched and were used to counterbalance the low bass sound of the bassoon. The first song, the one with flute accompanying, was slow on the bassoon’s part and faster for the flute.

whole new world. At first I thought a classical concert was designed for an older more sophisticated crowd but I was wrong. As I stepped into the Bower School of Music, I could feel the presence of art all around me. The pristine architecture of the venue was mind blowing. Other concerts that I have attended did not have the same calm but exciting atmosphere that this one had. The silence in the room made my ears and eyes concentrated on the performers. Usually at a concert people are loud and yelling, but if that happened at a classical concert, it would take away from the beauty of the instruments

Soon after the first chromatic scale we see an 8va sign which means play an octave higher than what the note actually is, we see this occur a few times within the piece offering a slow dainty sound similar to . Modulation occurs mid way as we see it change to the key of D flat major, at this point it also changes tempo to largo which is extremely slow (slower than adagio) and is also played pesante which means heavy and pondering followed by a crescendo and then diminuendo. Here we see the right hand has stopped playing and it is only the left playing a minor scale and then repeating it once more. After this the right hand comes in playing Moderato Cantabile, which means moderately and singingly, this is an incredible turning point in the piece as we go from suspenseful mature classy music to a more whimsical delicate and happy side of the piece. From this point on we’re exposed to plenty of trills and grace notes. From here we can see the Ternary form (ABA) when the first part (A) returns after (B), we can tell this easily from the major contrast in the two pieces and the modulation. As we continue through the piece we find that when the first part (A) returns again that the time signature has changed to 4 4 note the C symbol instead of the original symbol having a line

The music recital took place on April 12, 2017 at 12 pm, in the Morrison Fine Arts Building. The recital was help in the choir room, many attended. The show start with a short piano performance by Frederick Walker. I was very impressed I never seen somone play the piano without a music sheet. He performed a piece called L’Arabesque by Fredrich Burgmuller . His performance was short but memorable to me. The second performance was duo, with a piano and clarinet. Caleb Norton playing the clarinet was accompanied by Lucrecia Hawely a pianist. I was not impressed as much with their performance, I felt as if the two instrument did not complement each other. Separate I think they have been better to listen to, but that is just my opinions.

The pieces contrasted the first one in many ways. This piece had a more individualistic approach with various instruments getting the opportunity to play alone, leading to a difference in textures throughout. In addition, there was more disjunction in these pieces than in the first. Each movement was unique, yet they all flowed together well and had re-occurring themes. The first movement started out very solemnly with a slow tempo and quiet dynamics. Later, it built up to a quicker tempo and got louder only to come back down again. Eventually, it ended on a powerful note. The second movement was overall more solemn and slow than the first. The times that it did get louder, it was through the use of trumpets, causing them to really stand out. In contrast to the first movement, this movement ended quietly, with the last note fading out. The third movement was the shortest. Just like the previous movements it starts out serious. Dynamically, it seems to go from mezzo-piano to mezzo-forte and then peaking at forte before finally coming back down. Towards the end, the tempo becomes faster and the dynamics louder before it slowly fades. Unlike the first three movements, the fourth movement began with a lively trumpet fanfare. It then mellowed out through the usage of flutes, but about halfway through, the trumpet comes back. Then the piece goes back to being mellow. The piece ends