Electric Light Orchestra

On Friday, February 6th, 2015, I was sitting in class listening to a Music History lecture, when my teacher, Dr. Jamie Weaver, played a recording of “La Quarte Estampie Royal”, from Le Manuscrit Du Roi, an instrumental piece from the 14th century France. I was intrigued. As a fiddler throughout my high school year, studying a variety of genres, I recognized much of the ornamentation as similar to Celtic tradition, namely Cape Breton tradition. The first things I noticed about the recording…

despite her best attempt to hide it, her grimace clearly revealed her feelings. I couldn’t blame her: I was a seventh-grader playing in a high school level orchestra. She was a senior stuck with the baby. Making music in an orchestral setting is, at its core, collaborative. For the team to work, there must be trust. Of course, the orchestra must trust the conductor, but there are many other essential levels of collaboration. The principal players must constantly communicate to keep the music…

Piano Trio in D Major, Joseph Haydn The concert started with a piece by Haydn that began with the piano playing the melody and then developed into a conversation between the piano and violin. The piece was in a four movement form, like the pieces by Haydn that we listened to during class. The second movement changes from D major into D minor and with the cello and violin playing the melody together and the piano in the background. In the middle of Andantino piu tosto allegretto, the second…

2 Things To Not Ignore During The Home Inspection Part of having a home inspection done is to make sure there is nothing wrong with a home before you buy it. That said, there are some things that you do not want miss during your home inspection. Air Conditioning You’ll want your home inspector to test the entire HVAC system to ensure that it is working properly. While you can test the furnace at any time of the year to test it, the same cannot be said about the air conditioner. Not only is…

The Madison Symphony Orchestra is an exquisite ensemble with over 100 talented musicians. On April 2, 2016, John DeMain conducted a wonderful orchestra performance. It was held in Overture Hall at the Overture Center in Madison, WI. Garrick Ohlsson was the piano soloist that night in a Johannes Brahms piece after the intermission. The conductor came onto the stage before the show to give a brief explanation of the concert for the night and why he chose the musical selections he did, and I found…

In the video “The Transformative Power of Classical Music” Benjamin Zanders demonstrates how powerful and connecting classical music can be. While not everyone is a fan of the classical genre, Benjamin Zanders attempts to prove that everyone can enjoy it and connect to it. He tries to prove this by asking his audience to think of someone they loved that was no longer with them as he played a piece by Chopin. By doing this, Benjamin Zanders was seeking to pull the audience in and let them feel…

On April 26th of this year I attended a faculty recital in the Walker Recital Hall. The recital featured the Presque Isle Saxophone Quartet with Allen Zurcher, Bethany Dressler, Rebecca Wunch, and Scott Meier. The hall was not fully filled with spectators, however, attendees were very supportive and enthusiastic about the artists. The performance consisted of the 20th and 21st century music pieces, which was something I did not expect. To surprise this performance did not take long time…

The piece that I have chosen is “Country Gardens”, written by Percy Grainger. This piece was his first piano arrangement of the English Morris dance tune “Country Gardens.” It became extremely popular and his greatest commercial success, later this piece became one of his least favorite pieces as he was asked to play it so often. A remark that was included in the early publication was: “Rough sketched for 2 whistlers and a few instruments about 1908.” In another edition he writes: “In some…

For the third music critique I am going to talk about the performances of Gunnar Biggs and Bill Bradburry. First of all, I must say this was my favorite performance of the semester so far. I love the bass and it amazes me how beautiful the mandolin plays music. The musician who played the bass was Gunnar while the mandolin was played Bill. They both played Irish traditional music, however in their performance they improvised solos when usually you don’t in Irish traditional music. Both Gunnar…

He Mandu After listening to both versions of the song, I prefer to listen to the second version. The first version it seems out of balance in how everyone was singing. It seemed that the singers on the right side, specifically the one in the red, was doing the most singing. While the left singers to me did not feel as if they were singing as much. I determined this by their gestures and movement of their lips. This is most likely because classical singers are divided into different voice types,…