The Eastern Michigan University Choir and the Symphonic Band will each perform concerts this weekend at Pease Auditorium for the first time this semester.
Trey Jacobs, director of choral activities, will lead the University Choir at 8 p.m. Friday in a concert to prepare for their Michigan American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Conference performance of the same songs Oct. 29 at Central Michigan University.
“It’s a huge honor,” Jacobs said. “It’s the first time to my knowledge that a (EMU) choir has performed at an ACDA convention.”
Jacobs didn’t choose pieces for the show that are well known and already considered classic. Some of the songs haven’t been published yet.
“Two of the pieces are still in manuscript,” Jacobs said. “One of them is a piece by the composer Lee Kesselman, whose daughter, Lindsey Kesselman, is one of our adjunct voice professors.”
The other piece not yet in print is a spiritual by Michigan composer Stacey Gibbs.
“This is really great that the students are able to do music of living composers,” Jacobs said. “Stacey Gibbs came yesterday to work with the choir on his piece. Lee will come next week and be present for the performance of his piece as well.”
The Symphonic Band will also have music by current composers in its first show, which will be performed 4 p.m.
Sunday at Pease. Amy Knopps, the associate director of bands, will lead the symphony in her first show at EMU.
Knopps, who was officially hired by EMU on July 1, chose “Sasparilla,” a song composed by John Mackey, as the fourth piece for the concert Sunday.
“Mackey actually came to Eastern Michigan University on Sept. 30, and we had a session with him,” Knopps said. “He was able to come over here to work with the symphonic band, and he also worked with one of our students on a saxophone quartet.
“It was a great opportunity for us, not only to play one of his pieces, but to have him come over. Typically you don’t get to have that opportunity.”
The title of the show Sunday is “American Landscapes,” which is also the theme for the entire year of the Symphonic Band’s performance.
“This first one highlights American landscapes,” Knopps said. “Not patriotic themes, if you will, just showing different shades of America. The first piece is called ‘American Overture for Band.’ ”
In addition to “Sasparilla” and “American Overture for Band,” “Shenandoah,” “Marching Song of Democracy” and “Rolling Thunder” will be performed.
“You should expect just a wonderful afternoon,” Knopps said of the show. “These students are working incredibly hard on the literatures being presented. There will be times when you’re truly enjoying the music. You may connect with it. You will definitely be stretched and question some of the new sounds.
“Then you’ll get a laugh out of ‘Sasparilla.’ We utilize different instruments not typically performed with band. You’ll here an accordion. It’s kind of a saloon-type piece, kind of an old-West type piece. It’s a pretty wild ride on that one.”
The pieces that Jacobs chose for the Choir concert have lyrics in four different languages – Arabic, English, German and Portuguese.
“The over-arching theme for me, for everything that I chose, has something to do with peace and how we can possibly come together, bringing many different thoughts and many different ideas collectively because of music,” Jacobs said.
After the German song, the Choir is performing a piece based off of an Islamic chant that uses percussion and guitar. The next piece is called “Love Song for a Common Destiny.”
“It’s interesting because the first three pages have no words whatsoever,” Jacobs said. “No text – they’re just sounds. Maybe as trite as it can be, music is considered the universal language. And it’s interesting to follow up the Islamic piece with a piece that had no language, where we all are coming together.”
Jacobs said it was a challenge for the Choir to perform the songs in different languages.
“We don’t have the best ears for language (in America),” he said. “We found Portuguese is tough. It’s a tough language to speak — it’s a tough language to sing.
“As a music educator, that’s a part of what we need to have in our curriculum. We need to be able to sing in many different languages.”
The University Choir concert tomorrow and the symphony show Sunday are free for the public to attend.
