Concert review - Grade: 100 PDF

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This is a MANDATORY concert review for MUS 101 with Professor Forsthoff...

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Percussion Ensemble Concert Review The concert that I attended was the URI Percussion Ensemble on December seventh at three in the afternoon. This concert was held in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, where the audience was greeted with a wide variety of seats to sit in. The stage glowed with red colored lights which looked really pretty. I believe that the date, time and location were all perfect and lined up perfectly with my work schedule. I actually thought it was really nice to just sit and relax while watching the performers. In high school, I was the one always on the stage for orchestra so it was nice to get an audience perspective of a performance. Most percussion instruments fall under the category of membranophones and idiophones. The instruments that I saw included marimbas and drums. There were three marimbas, small, medium and large. The larger one was louder and had a lower pitch and I believe carried the melody. The smaller one was higher in pitch. I’m not sure what kind of drums were played, but they were single standing ones and not the big ones that are normally seen. One technique I noticed was the performers keeping track of the tempo by tapping their foot or nodding their head to the beat. Another technique that I saw was banging the two drumsticks together and even tapping the rim of the drum with the stick as part of the music. The first performance De profundis clamavi ad te: Prima Pars i s a Renaissance Motet by Nicolas Champion. This song was very hollow sounding and the four instruments kind of imitated one another. The second song played was WAKE for Charles Ives b y James Tenney, who was a contemporary composer known for his philosophical thoughts on music. This was played by four tenor drums. The third song, which happened to be my favorite was Once, in a grove of tamarisk b y Christopher Adler. This song was played by three percussionists and it was quite the lengthy song. Each person had a group of chords that they played at their own pace. The chords were blurred together by changing some of the notes. This piece was really cool to hear if you just closed your eyes and listened, it almost felt like I was in a different dimension. Crystal Canon for Edgard Varese b y James Tenney was played by snare drums that were spatially arranged on stage. With this method, I was able to follow and hear each player. The last piece that was played was Multifarious by one of the percussions own members, Emily Lwuc. I really liked this addition to the concert and being the first people to hear it was an honor. All of the performers were dressed professionally and acted the same way. I personally liked how the performers weren’t dressed in the exact same way, they all added a touch of their personality in it. For example, one male had colored hair, one female wore a dress and others wore pants and a shirt. One thing that stood out to me was the way in which everyone bowed. The performers looked somewhat awkward when bowing after each song, but that is the only “negative” thing I have to say. The music was conducted by Professor Forsthoff in a professional manner. I thought it was really cool when there was no conductor during “Once, in a grove of tamarisk” by Christopher Adler. I was amazed that a song that long, could stay in rhythm the entire time with no conductor. The audience did not pay admission to the event which I thought was really nice. Due to the location of the concert, everyone was dressed casually. If it was at PPAC i’m sure the audience would dress fancy, but because we're on a college campus, it’s normal to dress

comfortably. Something that I observed was how comfortable the performers were with the audience, with this information, I assume that they knew each other pretty well. During my 9 years of playing in the orchestra, I have only heard the band play around Christmas time. The high school band consisted of over 30 people, which can get really overwhelming sometimes. Listening to the ensemble of around five people playing songs that weren’t Christmas related was a new experience for me that I actually enjoyed. This performance made me question why I violin and not percussion (don't tell my orchestra teacher). I enjoyed the performance so much and I'm kind of taken aback that there wasn't more people in the audience. I would definitely return to this venue in the future and even bring a couple friends along so they can appreciate the music just as much as I did....