Music creates a vibe and sense of emotions, similar to other arts. Yet, audience members at music concerts create a bond as they experience the spectacle together.
Ohio Northern University’s Department of Music is passionate to allow the opportunity for its students to perform for their fellow classmates, professors and the Ada community. On Feb. 25, the department’s wind orchestra met for an evening of modern classical music, with each number allowing for a vibrant entertainment experience.
The concert, perfectly titled “Raising the Bar,” featured musical numbers by modern composers. Yet, while the numbers delivered a sense of pomp and circumstance, it lingered with a variety of classical fanfare similar to popular works of Beethoven and Mozart.
The opening number, “Aufbruch” by Rolf Rudin, is a newer work by the contemporary premier wind composer. The number’s style displayed a great sense of both economy and balance, as the instruments worked in a limited number of gestures, yet in an unlimited way. “Aubruch,” translating to “to break out,” delivered immense energy, awakening audience members to the wind orchestra concert.
Recent ONU music alumnus, CJ Brincefield, performed a trumpet solo in the second number, “Prayer of St. George” by Alan Hovhannes. The Boston composer incorporated his Armenian culture into his musical creations. His work often features his interest in spiritual matters.
“Prayer of St. George” is an ode to St. Gregory the Illuminator, who brought Christianity to Armenia in the early fourth century. Inspired by his culture and religious faith, Hovhannes wrote the composition to provide “a prayer of darkness.”
Brincefield’s trumpet solo demonstrated the smooth in-and-out incorporation of the string movements in the original composition. The ONU Wind Orchestra provided a soft, quiet voice for the religious ode to a powerful figure in history.
The orchestra’s third selected work, “Mother Earth (a Fanfare),” was a simple, elegant piece realizing composer David Maslanka’s dream of writing a piece in honor of the South Dearborn High School Band of Aurora, Ind.
After a short intermission, the orchestra presented its longest and most complex selected work of the evening, “Third Symphony, Op. 89” by the American composer, James Barnes. The piece consisted of four movements, with each movement featured multiple soloists within the orchestra.
“I enjoyed learning the music. I had actually played the Barnes piece a few years ago, but I loved the piece so much so I was happy to play it again. The story behind it is very sad,” commented Kellen Robacki, a senior music performance and marketing student and a featured flutist in the concluding number.
The story Robacki mentioned is indeed sad, as Barnes composed the piece after his baby daughter, Natalie, unexpectedly died. The symphony is the most emotionally draining work that Barnes has ever composed.
Barnes commented in the program notes, “If it [the composition] were to be given a nickname, I believe that ‘tragic’ would be appropriate. The work progresses from the deepest darkness of despair all the way to the brightness of fulfillment and joy.”
The ONU Wind Orchestra performs for the ONU community three times each academic school year. Selected numbers usually vary in popular classical works.