Two of the pieces written to mark East Central University's Centennial will be among the music performed Feb. 11 [THURSDAY] in the fourth annual ECU Faculty, Students and Friends Composer Concert.
ECU's Music Department will present the concert at 7:30 p.m. in the Chalmers Herman Theatre in the Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center. Admission is free.
Pianist Angela Marshall's "Notes from the Past" was the winner of the Centennial Showcase competition held in November that allowed students to express in various media what ECU's Centennial meant to them.
"I was inspired by the previous generations of students at ECU and the legacy they left," Marshall said. "I planned the video and the music at the same time, so I decided to start with a music box. I wanted to take the simple melody and make it more elaborate while staying true to the original tune, showing how ECU has grown more complex while staying true to its original purpose of providing quality education."
"Hand in Hand" by Tommy Long and Casey Taylor also was an entry in the competition.
"We tried to write something about the school, and about building and hope and looking toward the future. Whatever we tried, we just couldn't seem to get the ideas to meld. But we decided to go with something a little more personal," they wrote in the program notes.
"For us, ECU's centennial year was the year we started hanging out with each other. It's the year that we started really writing music. It's also the year that we began dating. As ECU grew around us, we grew a little as well, both as people and musicians," they said. "As ECU reflected on how far it had come in the last 100 years, we looked back at how far we had come since we started attending ECU. And as ECU built, we began to build a relationship with each other."
Long also wrote "Testament" which he will perform on acoustic guitar with Rebecca Unruh, flute, and Nate Sheeley, clarinet.
"The whole piece tells of the times throughout the Bible when people messed up and how God had a plan for our salvation and carried through with it," Long said.
"Wildflower Waltz" by Zachary S. Garcia is the newest piano solo by national award-winning composer Zachary S. Garcia. It was selected recently as the second-place Senior Winner in the 2009 OMTA Compositional Festival.
Garcia, a published composer, was the 2005 MTNA National Composition Competition winner and the 2007 Biennial Lynn Freeman Olson National Composition Contest winner. He has been composing for solo piano since age 7 and his compositions have been performed in conferences and piano recitals around the world.
Adam Forgety, vocal, acoustic guitar, will perform "Your Help," a song he wrote as a prayer in 2000.
James Monroe, trumpet, will perform his "The Magical Quest of Jimmy Danger Bones" with pianist Rudy Lupinski. The piece was edited and revised from an assignment for a composition class.
Sarra J. C. Blok, flute, wrote the first movement of "The Guillotine" for an advanced theory class and later added two movements. Performing with her will be Samantha Tyler, clarinet; Erica Phillips, bassoon; and Rudy Lupinski, piano.
The inspiration for Johnothan Bomboy's "Innominate" came from his attempt to capture the same kind of emotion he feels from listening to independent artists. "Innominate," another word for unknown, will be performed by Kayla Franco and Samantha Tyler, clarinets; Derek Akers, French horn; and Erica Phillips, bassoon.
"Evergreen" by Dr. Ben Finley began as a tribute to a friend, musician and colleague who died in an accident. The marimba piece seeks to express a combined aura of emptiness and fond reflection, he said. It ends with a high-register fade out, a ghostly echo of an abbreviated life.
W. T. Skye Garcia's "Amazing Grace" is a new setting of the song with the original (adapted) text by John Newton. It was written for the opening reception of "Come and See," a photography exhibit by ECU faculty member Linda Schaefer at the Mabee-Gerrer Art Museum in Shawnee last September. The ECU performance will feature the premiere of a newly added setting of a verse.
Performers will be Jon Blankenship and Craig Williams, tenors; Dr. Mark Hollingsworth, bagpipes; and Garcia, piano.
The ECU Chorale, directed by Dr. Steven Walker, will perform two works by Victoria Davison and Rudy Lupinski. "This is the Body and Blood of Christ," written to be sung during communion, will feature James Monroe, bass, and Rudy Lupinski, piano. "Trust in the Lord" is taken from Proverbs 3:5-6.
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