Faculty showcase concert

  On Sunday afternoon, the Department of Music at Muskingum University hosted the Faculty Showcase Concert. The concert consisted of six performances in multiple musical fields.

  The first performance was by the Faculty Brass Quintet. This group of five played Samuel Scheidt's Centone No. V, a fast-paced song with intermissions of slower notes throughout. Despite the slow, soft moments, the song is cheerful—Allegro, briskly paced and joyful.

  Following this piece was a post-romantic German lyric by Hugo Wolf entitled "And if you wish to see your Lover die." The song was performed in German, but translations of the lyrics were included in the afternoon's program.

  Professor of Music Robert Jones sang the piece in tenor while Associate Professor of Music Harsha Abeyaratne played the accompanying melody on the piano.

  According to Jones, the harmony of the piano as it mixes with the vocals resembles the origin of what we today call the Blues.

  Michael Torres followed this performance with a lively rendition of G.P. Telemann's Fantasie No. 2 in A minor. This particular song was written for the flute, but Torres performed it using his alto saxophone. Why on the saxophone?

  "Well, because it's fun," said Torres. "Music should be able to be played by all instruments."

  The next piece was the song "Do you Love me" from the musical Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

  Assistant Professor Carol Wilcox-Jones sang the part of Golde, the wife, and Jones played the part of Tevye, the husband, who is asking Golde if she loves him after 25 years of marriage.

  The duet exhibited harmony, and Professor of Music Joyce Alesandrini played the piano in the background to accompany the lyrics.

  The fifth performance was of "Pourquoi me reveiller"—"Why do you wake me"—from Jules Massenet's opera Werther.

  The lyric is based off of a poem included in the opera that a male character refers to when he watches his lover from the window as she reads letters from another man. The piece, sung in French with no translation offered, was performed spectacularly. The piano melody in the background, once more played by Alesandrini, complimented the raw emotion of the song.

  The final piece in the concert was the song Liszt's Memphisto Waltz, No. 1. It began as a soft and slow melody, but quickly grew into a frenzied sound—so rapidly played that the piano began to hum, literally like a swarm of wasps. The intensity was not long lasting, for the melody grew calm again as the song and the concert came to an end.