The Pottle Auditorium came alive with the colorful melodies of a motley assortment of wind instruments during Southeastern’s first ever Faculty Chamber Recital.
The recital, titled “Musical Treasures for Winds, Piano and Voice,” took place on Nov. 26 at 7:30 p.m. and focused on the appreciation for the light, airy sound of wind instruments.
Several faculty members sported their wind instruments in the recital, including: Rachel Ciraldo, flute; Arisia Gilmore, horn; Jackie McIlwain, clarinet; Scott Smith, oboe and Jerry Voorhees, bassoon. The recital also featured Kenneth Boulton, interim department head for the department of Fine and Performing Arts, on piano and Alissa Rowe, who sang soprano.
The selection of music played included “Quartet in F,” by Gioacchino Rossini, “Six Cuban Dances,” by Ignacio Cervantes, “As it Fell Upon a Day,” by Aaron Copland and “Sextuor,” by Francis Poulenc.
The selection served to cover the various moods of wind instruments, as well as ignite a spark in the audience for some uncommonly recognized composers.
“”What we wanted to do was strategically select our repertoire to represent composers from different countries and from different time periods, and each time period has its own type of emotional ethos,” said Boulton. “While we did want to show some standard works that represented different historical eras in music, we also wanted to choose among some composers that our students don’t generally get to hear: the Cervantes and the Poulenc are examples of music that our students, and, in fact, our community, really don’t have many opportunities to hear.”
The emotional atmosphere created in the music varied greatly, ranging from frolicsome to mournful.
“We combined our wind instruments with some non-wind instruments to interject different colors, different textures and with different colors and different textures comes new levels and layers of emotion,” said Dr. Boulton.
At the end of the recital, the crowd clapped vigorously, and the sounds of cheering rang throughout the auditorium.
“I thought it was great,” said Rachel Harvey, a sophomore music education major who attended the recital “I thought it was a great chance for everybody to get to hear all the new faculty and some of the old faculty, and I felt like it was a great performance with some really awesome music.”
The next chamber recital concert of this series will take place on April 8 next semester.