By Matt Meyle – The Collegiate Staff
The final Grand Rapids Community College Music Department Bands Concert of the winter semester will take place Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., featuring the Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo.
The concert will be held in the Lynn Maxwell Keller Recital Hall on the second floor of the Music Building. Seating is limited to 104 audience members so be sure to arrive with enough time to reserve a seat to ensure you won’t miss a moment of the performance.
The performance will include music of a wide variety, ranging from a large traditional concert band with wind instruments to an intimate jazz-combo quartet. Audience members will be treated to music from 20th-century composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Russell Bennett and Leonard Bernstein, as well as various pieces of jazz composition.
Jared Staub, GRCC’s Director of Bands, will conduct the Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble as the students showcase the skills they have learned during their time in the GRCC music program.
“Wind Ensemble has two concerts per semester,” Staub said. “The first one was late February, and because we had a longer time in between our first performance and this one, we are going to be playing harder music because we had more time to prepare it.”
One of the songs the Wind Ensemble will be performing is Leonard Bernstein’s “A Simple Song” which is taken from Bernstein’s “Mass” (a work of musical theatre from 1971 entailing 32 songs in total).
“There is a wind transcription, but we’ve modified it slightly” Staub said in reference to “A Simple Song.” “The version that we are going to do is actually going to have a soloist. We’ve got one of our voice faculty who’s one of the lead baritones at the Grand Rapids Opera is going to come and sing it with us.”
The concert will last for around an hour and fifteen minutes, featuring separate performances from the Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo.
More than 40 GRCC music department students will perform throughout the course of the night, some of which will participate in multiple ensembles during the concert. The event is only $5 for students and $3 for seniors.
As the winter semester is coming to an end, the opportunities to see GRCC concerts and recitals are also running out. Be sure to catch one of the final performances of the semester to see and hear what the music program on campus is all about.
Not able to make it to the band concert on Tuesday? Don’t miss out on the music department’s upcoming events. The GRCC Music Department Instrumental Ensembles Concert of Chamber Orchestra and Guitar Ensemble will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Lynn Maxwell Keller Recital Hall on Thursday, April 12 and the GRCC Choral Ensembles Concert featuring College Choir, Concert Choir and selected soloists will be held in the Royce Auditorium at the St. Cecilia Music Center at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 15.
Check out the schedule of the final music events of the semester here.
