Musical notation

In the musical production Hairspray, there were various differences in acting styles, technical elements, and demands of the actor in comparison to plays in general. With Hairspray being a movie that I had watched on Netflix, it was obviously not live and this also contributes to the differences of going to an actual live production in a theater. These differences help us distinguish between the realities of the products of a musical and the products of a play. Hairspray’s acting styles were…

Music from Syria and Beyond: The Melody of Love As an Arab, growing up in the Middle East had contributed to developing my musical identity. The sensational Middle Eastern music has always been a way to my heart. On October first, my musical soul found its home in Paul F. Sharp Concert Hall at the Catlett Music Center. Both Kenan Adnawi and Tareq Rantisi played a major role in nourishing my soul through performing Middle Eastern music by using Oud and percussion instruments. Each Kenan Adnawi,…

The Renaissance period was the birth of the violin, and it became introduced to the musical realm through dance and folk music. Violins had a massive transitional period during the Classical era, which gave the violin its standard shape and composers such as Beethoven and Haydn used them extensively throughout their music. The Modern period…

There is a line in the musical Spamalot where Sir Robin sings to King Arthur; “In any great adventure, if you don 't want to lose ... you won 't succeed on Broadway if you don 't have any Jews!" (PBS, Broadway Musicals). If you can look past the sweeping generalization, Sir Robin’s surprising lyric turns out to be very true about musicals. Historians have recognized that Jewish immigrant culture heavily influenced the content of musical theatre when it was popularized in America during the early…

The World Goes Round at Theatre UCF was a spectacular conglomeration of musical performances that were brought to life through excellent acting and use of lighting. Throughout my years as a student I have seen a plethora of plays ranging from high school productions to off-off Broadway. Walking into this production I expected the same level of performance as in my local community college (with a slightly bigger budget). However, after the first song I knew that I was going to be proven wrong.…

Black and Pursuing Musical Theatre Imagine yourself in kindergarten and having your teacher ask you “What do you want to be when you grow up”? From a young age, my answer was always different each time someone asked me about my potential career. I wanted to be a professional dancer, a hair stylist, an author, and so much more. As I grew older, I discovered a career where I could be all of these things onstage. I was twelve when I first introduced the idea of pursuing musical theatre in college…

Shostakovich composed the oratorio Song of the Forests op. 81 after he knew Stalin’s Great Nature Transformation Plan from poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky (1915-1994) around the spring of 1949 when they were on the Red Arrow train from Moscow to Leningrad. Owing to the fact that they had already had a collaboration in the past, Shostakovich asked Dolmatovsky to write the poems for the oratorio. After Dolmatovsky completed the poems, Shostakovich composed the music for the poems during the summer of…

convinced I could contribute greatly to the education of the musical theatre students. For ten years I have coached musical theatre students in the university environment. My expertise is in vocal training in multiple musical theatre styles, including, legit, pop, jazz, musical theatre traditional and contemporary/pop. I utilize certain material within the classical canon to build muscular strength. I am especially skilled at teaching musical theatre voice, both legit and contemporary, as…

Percussion Night at Bowling Green State University. This musical event took place at 8:00 PM in Kobacker Hall located inside the Moore Musical Arts Center. World Percussion Night featured multiple styles including performances by the Kusuma Sari Balinese Gamelan, Afro-Caribbean, Hayabusa, and Kaze No Daichi Taiko ensembles. As I entered the building, I was anxious to see what I would endure at this concert. Not only had I never been to a musical performance of any kind throughout the duration of…

On 11 November 2016, I attended a concert entitled Schumann & Bruckner that organized by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) at PETRONAS Philharmonic Hall which located in Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC). It was an around 120 minute concert including 20 minutes interval in between. Two great works was presented on this day which was Piano Concerto in A minor by Schumann and Symphony No.4 in E flat major- ‘Romantic’ by Bruckner. In this concert, Constantin Trinks was the conductor whereas…