Terryn Hardy
Staff Writer
The Idaho State University band program concluded their semester of performances with a concert held at Jensen Hall on November 15.
The Symphonic Band was able to perform Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture,” a piece originally scored for symphony orchestra. In the musical world, the concert bands we have today are a fairly recent development. Because of this, composers like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven did not write for bands so few band players are able to play works by these master musicians. Dr. Patrick Brooks, Director of Bands at ISU, wanted to give his band the opprotunity to play music from one of his favorite composers, Beethoven. The band responded well to this piece which highlighted the woodwinds. At the band’s request, this was the last work performed at this concert.
This concert also featured many pieces from the standard band repertoire. One of these pieces, “Pageant” by Vincent Persichetti was performed by the Civic Concert Band. This band is made up of community members, ISU students, as well as high school students. This concert, this band came together beautifully and played some fairly difficult pieces very well. This band is under the direction of Erin Armstrong.
This semester the ISU Band program has blossomed, even with an influx of freshman musicians. The bands have continued to grow and develop their sound. The symphonic band highlighted some freshmen soloist in many of the numbers. In John Mackey’s “Strange Humors,” freshmen Brandon Hanson and Sloan True played very prominent djembe solos. The djembe is a very rhythmic hand drum from Africa shaped like an hourglass. This piece also includes a haunting bassoon solo played by Dillon Diggie and then joined by Ryan Thompson on the saxophone. This is a much more modern work in the band repertoire. The symphonic band put on a spectacular performance.
