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Home Arts & Culture Music Department Showcases Talents in Faculty Recital

by Jayme Lowe

 

Select members of Concordia’s music faculty presented their various talents on Sunday Sept. 11 in the faculty showcase recital.

The event takes place annually in the recital hall of the music building and features between four and six faculty members. At this year’s showcase, Dr. Elizabeth Grimpo, Ryann Johnson, adjunct professor Dr. Talea Bloch and adjunct faculty Paul Soulek all performed at the recital.

Grimpo started off the recital with two piano pieces, “August” and “September,” which were selections from “Das Jahr” composed by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

After Grimpo finished, Johnson took the stage with her oboe. She played the first and third movements from “Reeds” by Daniel Pinkham. Both movements were based off of Bible verses that reference reeds. The first movement, “Under the Shady Trees, Hidden in the Reeds,” was from Job 40:21, which is about a creature moving through the reeds. The third movement, “The Golden Reed” was based on Revelation 21:15, when John encounters an angel with a golden measuring rod or reed. The concepts in both verses came across in their pieces, with the first movement having a wilder style, and the third movement reflecting measurement and symmetry with three sections as harmonics of each other.

The third faculty member to perform was Bloch. She sang three pieces of varying time period and language. Her first piece, “Ave Maria,” was from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” and in Italian. She then sang “Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu,” a French piece from “La courte paille” by Francis Poulenc. Bloch finished with “Loving You” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Passion.” Bloch was accompanied by Grimpo.

To finish out the recital, Soulek showcased his organ skills in two pieces. The first, “Lebhaft” from Paul Hindemith’s “Sonate II,” was full of dramatic chord changes and varied sectional voices. The second piece, George Oldroyd’s “My Soul Hath a Desire to Enter the Courts of the Lord,” from his Three Liturgical Improvisations, was more traditional in style and classic in feel.

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