Orchestra pit

The concert attended was An Evening of Opera Arias and Scenes, at Nightingale Concert Hall, on October 10, 2016. The environment of the concert was informal for most of the audience dress wise, but the performers were fairly formal with their attire. The stage was very simplistic. It was just a plain white background with large white squares and a dark grand piano. The performers were Jamie Flora, Olga Perez Flora, Chris Langton, Albert R. Lee, Helen Lee, and Suzette Thoeni as the…

“Fanfare for the Common Man” was composed by American composer Aaron Copland and perform by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under conductor Eugene Goossens. The style of music is Nationalistic music. The melody played by the trumpet and other brass instrument played harmony. The rhythm was sharply detached and it has a steady, slow beat, but at the middle it speeds up and shifts into a smooth. At first the melody is low with all of the brass instruments mixed together, but later when more…

Three hundred pairs of eyes sat before me: friends, family, and strangers. They came to India from all over the world. As I sat tuning and applying rosin while waiting for the master of ceremonies to finish speaking, I surveyed the hall and found my grandparents greeting guests with infectious excitement. I thought how grateful I was to receive an opportunity to play Carnatic violin in a concert hall in India. Carnatic music is a devotional art form that originates from South India. I grew…

crescendo throughout the piece until about one minute and thirty four seconds. Then the orchestra was playing pianissimo again for just a few seconds. I then heard another crescendo. I think this lasted throughout the rest of the symphony. I did notice the end of the piece went decrescendo for just a few seconds. The symphony ended fortissimo. The Dynamics of this symphony achieved by the conductor and orchestra was mind blowing. I think learning about dynamics helped me appreciate the piece…

The piece opens with a long low somewhat ominous blowing in the woodwind section. The string section accompanies the woodwind, building the shadowy dark tension. Gradually this sound builds and builds into a great rumbling crescendo. The music then gallops off from there into a cheerful frenzy that rises and falls like dancers in a colorful dance. It is played predominantly by the strings along with woodwind. The feeling is light and happy. A slight rolling in the percussion builds excitement.…

The Concert opened with Divertimento in D major, K. 136/125a in Allegro. This piece began with the violins providing a very lively tempo. It evoked feelings of happiness and excitement. It was played by a strings orchestra only, which included the cellos. The mood became more dramatic as it progressed. The symphony played in unison producing a harmony of tone colors. I also enjoyed the syncopation of this movement, in which the offbeat notes were beautifully accented. The second movement was…

Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany. At twenty, he abandoned his academic studies at the University of Leipzig and over the next six years gained practical experience conducting in provincial theaters. He married the actress Minna Planer when he was twenty-three and produced his rst operas at this time. He wrote the librettos himself, as he did for all his later works. In this way, he was able to unify music and drama more than anyone had before. Wagner’s early opera, Rienzi, won a huge…

Saxophonist Odean Pope delighted the audience with fabulous arrangements of acknowledged tunes with his expansive Saxophone Choir. The sparkling harmonic sequences led to soulful approaches and the balance between the improvised and the arranged was awesome. They kicked in with “To the Roach”, a piece dedicated to the drummer Max Roach, and proceeded with bubbling sax improvisations on “Coltrane Time”, Pope’s ballad “Cis” and an Afro-Latin piece packed with baritone fills whose title I couldn’t…

The first piece I will depict is “Eyeglasses Duo”. This a duo played with a viola and a cello, which were performed by James VonValkenburg and Wei Yu. It began with the viola playing energetically, followed by the cello. Throughout this piece, it sounded like the two performers were chasing each other. The piece was played with two movements that have a playful tune. Each of the instruments played the them but the other performer would accompany. In this duo, the second movement is rarely…

Hi all! I'm Benet Landon. Today I'd like to share a little bit about myself. I'd like to share a couple of links that I like to think represent me a little bit. The first link is to the YouTube video of Kenny G's song "Songbird" which may be my favorite musical piece of all time. I have always been very connected with the sound of the saxophone for reasons unbeknown to me. Generally I prefer the alto or tenor saxophone but personally I think the saprano sax in here is absolutely marvelous. The…