After having a chance to attend to the Piano Fest Participants’ Concert at the Clarkston campus last time, I have found out there are many other concerts that perform in school and open for free for the students. It is a really great thing for me to enjoy the live musical performance since I cannot afford the ticket for a concert outside the school, at Fox Theater for example. And last Thursday, once again, I finally have a chance to the Student Concert Series which host by GSU College of the Arts at the Florence Kopleff Recital Hall. It was a great show overall, brought me certain feelings as well as criticisms that I want to express in this writing.
The show is at a cozy, medium-size auditorium, which was designed pretty well. Its designs make easy for the audience in any corner of the room can still enjoy the show in the best way, from the view to the sound. On that day, there were not many people attend the concert, so the environment was kind of silent. Therefore, I can really enjoy the show, letting my soul flow with the performance of many great talents that come from our school. The concert was filled with good songs and the great performers. Yet, there was a couple of mistake during the performance that pulled me back to the room to listen to it more carefully.
The concert was kicked off by a composition named Afta-Stuba. It was performed by a trio of marimbists on one marimba. The three marimbists were Josh Chastain, Noah Coleman, and Shawn Singh. The composition was written by Mark Ford, which also knows as the sequel of the Stubemic. Because of the moderate fast tempo of the song, which I believe is Allegretto, its theme is kind of joyful and lively. Each of the three marimbists performs on three particular part on the keyboard of the marimba. I believe that they have to practice very serious in order to perform the song since the marimba’s keyboard seem very tight, and very easy for the performer to hit the wrong key.
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Moreover, the song makes the performers have to be coordinate and cooperate with each other. Since there is a sequence in the song, the player has to be careful with their assigned part. For example, when the low-key player performs the melody, the mid-key and high-key players will play as the background; then the mid-key will play the melody and so on with the high-key. Honestly, it is tough for me to do it, and I found myself will mess up that song if I am one of the performers. Therefore, those three performers gained my respect and my admiration for their incredible performance as well as their great cooperativeness.
The concert continues by the performing of a duo guitarist, Josh Lewis and Roby Salter, by the song Oblivion. The song is an artwork of the composer Aster Piazzolla, an incredible composer who still known as one of the best Tango composers. I have heard this song so many times on both live and Youtube, I even try to learn to play this Oblivion. However, the version that I heard was performed mostly by other instruments of the string family like Cello, Violin or Viola, and I practiced this song with my violin. For me, Oblivion is not just a piece of art, but a mixture of music, emotion, and many other great thing that can touch my soul. The song conjures up a heterogeneous mix of my internal feelings that cannot express by words.
The main theme of the song is sadness, yet bring me back some sort of the feelings of love. The song is such beautiful, contain and filled by emotion and the elegant of Piazzolla. The melody, underlying harmony, and the rhythm roll my soul up and down with the flow of it. Therefore, I was quite excited when I first read the program because this performance was the very first time that I can enjoy this incredible song with a duo guitar. The younger performer who seated on my left-hand side performed not so well, quite poor in the other word. He made several mistakes during his performance that pulled me back to the auditorium while my soul flowed with the stream of Oblivion. There are sometimes that sounds like he played the wrong chord, and his outro was not a good end. Even though the Oblivion song is one of the songs that I really like, and I was looking forward to this performance, yet I did not enjoy it too much. I really hope that I will have a chance to hear this song again at another student concert, and the performers will make it great so that my soul can once again flow of the Oblivion.
After the Oblivion is another trio of two oboes and an English horn. The song was Trio in C Major Opp. 87 part 1 Allegro of the worldwide-famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The performance brought to the auditorium a fresh and joyful air then calmed down in the middle and silent down to make a good outro. I enjoy the sound of the English horn much more than the oboe, due to the reason that the English horn is quite more base than the high-tone of the Oboe. Honestly, I did not pay much attention to this performance since a couple of people that keep making noise in my back. However, in overall, the performance was great, and I did enjoy it, even though not so much, thanks to the noise.
The song Fantasia in C major hob.xvii-4 of the composer Joseph Haydn, which perform by miss Jongju was the last song of the concert, which I believe is an encore since it did not show up on the program. The Fantasia in C major is a song that is composed for the piano. The song is extremely colorful, and a vast variety of dynamic, which bring to the audience the joyful and happy. The song was composed in such an interesting way, like the wide distance of the keys from the C Major, and unexpected shifting of the keys. When I listen to Joseph Haydn music or this song in particular, I usually tell myself to ‘expect the unexpected.’ When listening to the music, I usually try to guess the structure of the song, try to feel out what is the next key.
However, with this Fantasia in C major of Haydn, it extremely hard for me to figure out what will be the next step of it, even though the tempo, dynamic, and the main structure seem like in order and constructed in a very logical form. The Fantasia in C major has genuinely revealed the character of Joseph Haydn. The performer, Jongju, did a great job with her performance. When she first started her finger on the grand piano’s keys, then twisting her finger on the keys that bring to the auditorium the joyful and happy. She seems like very place herself into the performance, playing with the whole of her heart. She delivered the twist in key, the unexpected flow of Haydn pretty well. I believe that she did put her effort to the practicing, and hard work paid off, she did have such an incredible performance. I did, and I believe all of the other audience in the auditorium that day enjoyed her work. Bravo to a talent!
Between the wonderful performances that I have written above, there is one more encore right before the Fantasia in C major hob.xvii-4 of Jongju, which is the Oskar Bohme trumpet concerto in F minor, performed by a duo of trumpet and piano. Ed Marshman was the trumpet player, and Dr. Peter Marshall was the pianist. Their performance was also excellent. However, I lost the record on that song. Therefore, I do not have sufficient information to write about it.
Overall, this was a great concert. Once again, I truly believe that the performers had practiced extremely hard for it, which make it a great show. I did have a wonderful feeling at the concert, and especially during the Oblivion song. The great sense stayed in me not only at the concert but also when got home. And when I am writing this down, the good feeling comes back to me. I understand that the performer might make some mistakes, and they did the best that they could. And if they keep their heart with music, and keep practicing harder and harder, their work will be paid off it the nearest future.
