On February 23, I attended the 17th Annual Sphinx Competition held at the Detroit Orchestra Hall. The concert was phenomenal, and surprisingly enough to me I actually relished the performance. The reason the concert satisfied me was due to the fact of the meaning that was upheld throughout the concert. The Sphinx Orchestra is an amazing foundation in which supports Black and Latino string classical musicians and gives them a chance to better their life through the prodigious gift of scholarships. At this specific concert three finalist strived to see who truly has the utmost talent amongst the three. The three musicians included nineteen year old bassist, Xavier Foley; twenty-one year old cellist, Nicholas Mariscal; and twenty year old violinist, Clayton Penrose-Whitmore. Each musician did an extraordinary and gave the impression that they played their pieces flawlessly. Although all the young musicians achieved mere perfection; there had to be a winner and that was Xavier Foley. He received fifty thousand dollars in scholarships and by all means deserved it. The conductor of the concert was Maestro Brandon Keith Brown, who also did astonishing. In addition to all of those great musicians I also had the honor of hearing Simon Shaheen playing the oud. All together the performance was just incredible in my eyes.
Each young musician did their own piece as well as Simon Shaheen. Xavier Foley played an amazing piece by Giovanni Bottesini. Xavier performed Concerto No. 2 in A Minor: l. Allegro. Nicholas Mariscal selected a piece by Sir Edward Elgar, and was his Concerto in E Minor: lV. Allegro – Moderato – Allegro, ma non troppo, which translates to Lively – Moderate – Lively, but not too much. Clayton Penrose-Whitmore designated to a...
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...while performing the double bass, that nickname being ‘Paganini of the double bass’. This individual did things with three strings that most people on the face of the planet could not do with hundreds. His movements were so fluent and he possessed the greatest talent one could ever think of. This particular piece was written to achieve romance, and in my opinion he did just that. Xavier Foley has to have a fine taste in music in order to choose such a wonderful song.
The 17th annual Sphinx Orchestra Finals Competition Concert has changed my perspective on classical music. I fully enjoyed the performance and might even consider going to next year’s performance. The young musician upheld incredible talent and the orchestra was just as unbelievable. I applaud the Sphinx Orchestra for putting on such a miraculous performance that anyone would enjoy a classical concert.
The music that was performed was classical. The orchestra was standard and composed primarily of violins, violas, cellos, and basses, as well as a smaller amount of woodwinds including flutes and bassoons, in addition to some brass, including trumpets and horns. For Harold in Italy, they also had a solo violist, Rennie Regehr.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the most historical groups that was created in Boston Massachusetts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra Andris Nelsons’ Inaugural Concert took place in September of 2014. The concert was aired on television in May of 2015. The concert was dedicated to welcoming the new director of the Boston Symphony. The concert took place in one of the most proclaimed orchestra halls simply named Boston Hall. The complete orchestra was directed by Andris Nelsons himself. Along the side of the orchestra, his wife Kristine Opolais a soprano, joined him on the stage. A young man named Jonas Kaufmann, a tenor also joined them as well.
I have been to many different concerts throughout my life but this year I experienced two exceptionally unique ___ that I had never seen before. The first one was a spectacular chamber recital that took place at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed by pianist Yefim Bronfman and violist-violinist Pinchas Zukerman. The program included Schubert's Violin Sonatina No. 2 in A Minor, Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, and Brahms’ Viola Sonata No. 1 in F Minor. The second was a performance by the notable quartet “Anonymous 4” presented by the Universality of Chicago at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. The program included a series of medieval French motets from the 13th Century French polyphony, taken from the Montpellier Codex. The two performances were extremely different in nature and but at the same time very similar in what they were trying to achieve. For instance, while the first concert consisted entirely of an instrumental performance, the other was exclusively vocal. However, both were able to bring to life great examples of iconic artists from our past. I left both c...
...xcited to have this experience. Part of the drama of the concert at first is felt when the musicians come in and sit down and begin tuning up their instruments. I would not be able to comment on the performance of the orchestra. During the performance, I seen the audience were moving with the music, but I felt like that everyone seems knows more music than what I learned throughout this semester. After I went home and did some of the research on these music I finally understand why these people like to attend the orchestra concerto, it was because that every piece of music has a history behind it. The Los Angeles audience seemed to me to be people who know music and who will listen to something new in a respectful way. All the same, when the more familiar sounds of the last piece were heard, I could feel a little sense of relaxation and fun coming into the room.
Eastern Washington University Department of Music presented a program of Opera works by Giacomo Puccini, Aron Copland, W.A. Mozart, John Dowland, Franz Shubert, Maurice Ravel, and Robert Schumann on Friday, March 7, 6:30 p.m., in the Music Building, Recital Hall. These Opera works were sung by Senior Recitalist, Alexandra Rannow.
The jazz band I observed played a series of six different songs. Although all the songs were categorized as jazz, each song had its own special style and sound to it. The band consisted of three different players. Paul Meyers, the guitarist and composer, Andy Eulau, the bassist, and Dave Rataczak, on drums. The songs performed were entitled “Love for Sale” by Cole Porter, “Once I Loved” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, “Stars” by Paul Meyers, “Blues for Mel” also by Paul Meyers, “Last Night When We Were Young” by Harold Arlen, and “Samba Novo” by Luis Eca.
On Thursday, 1 December 2016 at 7:30 p.m. in David Geffen Hall the New York Philharmonic performed four pieces. Bernard Langevin conducted the New York Philharmonic. Ying Fang was the special debut at the concert. On Saturday, 3 December 2016 at 7:00 p.m. in Carnegie Hall the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performed four pieces. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra did not have an official conductor, but they had special pianist Fazil Say (b. 1970) sometimes conduct them. Both concerts were based off the classical era because of its stylistic features. Many composers emerged during the eighteenth century.
The first piece on the program was Polonaise from Eugene Onegin (1878). This piece is from the Romantic period composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikavosky (1840-1893). Very short piece probably around six minutes. The variations and the interesting theme made this piece the most interesting among the other compositions despite the length of this piece, but it was amusing. The piece started with trumpets playing short high notes as an introductory, with the accompaniment of violins playing quick short notes. It sounds like if it was played in a major key, very cheerful and very fast like if the tempo is Vivace. Moreover, trumpets throughout the piece reinforce the harmony. Throughout the piece varies styles were used such as legato (smooth connected style).The texture of this piece is homophonic ( one line of real interest with accompaniment). The rhythm of the piece is really catchy, pretty much predictable; most of the piece variations are centered on the main theme, but it is very pleasing to the ears (consonant).
On December 7, I had the honor of attending a very popular Dallas Symphony Orchestra Concert. It was the first formal concert I have been to since I was in middle school (excluding the school concerts). Despite playing a woodwind instrument myself, I decided to see the DSO’s Organ and Brass Concert, curious to hear how instruments traditionally assigned bass or harmony parts would step up to play treble and melody parts. When I sat down close to the front stage, where all the brass players and percussionists sat (or stood), I expected mostly trumpet sounds and lots of sound from melody percussion instruments. But as the concert progressed, I observed that the melody was shared jointly by the trumpets, French horns, and tenor trombones. Overall,
The pianist and concert conductor, Christian Zacharias opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic Classical Music concert with a fascinating performance that left the audience in party mood and in happy f...
I noticed he constantly switched from the synthesizer to the keyboard, and this was to change the tune and make it sound layered as I mentioned before. I also noticed that at times he played the keyboard slowly and other times he would play extremely fast. So rapidly that I even questioned how a man can first not only move his arms so fast but also play so beautifully at such high speeds. A tune he played even sounded like a swish-swashing sound, and I was amazed by how a synthesizer and keyboard can possibly make such sounds. I also noticed that for this song that both Lionel Loueke and Dave Holland played the guitar, and I think this was to match the fusion electric instrument style. Overall, the entire band did a great opening for their performance; everyone looked like they were doing their own thing and were very content.
During Jr. High I learned how to play the violin through the orchestra program. During one of our bi-annual concerts, my section of violins came into the song too early, which ended up ruining the entire song. I remember how terribly lost the first violins sounded as we muddled our way through the song, the melody being several measures ahead of the rest of the orchestra. We all seemed to be relying on someone else’s proper timing to some degree. After that concert and the depressing and disappointing reaction from our teacher, I knew that I needed to learn how to count and rely on my own timing rather than thinking I could just rely on someone else. I still haven’t mastered this concept, but I certainly have gotten better since that catastrophe. Teamwork is like that, you all have to work together to produce the proper result, but you can’t replace cooperation with individual mastery through practice.
An orchestra concert is a show where people perform their music pieces to people like their parent, friends, or others. I had the same thing on May fifth. During that night, groups of students from sixth, seventh, and eighth played pieces the director, Mr. Dean chose. My classmates and I had many improvements from the year before but some mistakes were included. Instead of first telling what the groups or the group I was in I want to start out with saying what I did.
Dr. Anthony Radford opened up the concert with a piece by Ludwig Van Beethoven. The piece was called la Partenza. It starts with the man singing in another language and the piano follows suite. The style of this piece strongly
This time the conductor conducted music by I. This was my favorite piece because of the dynamics between instruments. The music stated out with a trill and tremolo technique between the violin and cello. This this sounds like bees flying around in the summer. Then the other instrument joins in. The second part of the music was all the string instruments played pizzicato. While the other members of the orchestra imitate the same notes.