Concert Report: Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra

For my third concert report, I decided to attend a concert featuring the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, November 16th at 4:00 PM. The orchestra was conducted by Jeffery Meyer. The orchestra performed two compositions. The first was Gunther Schuller's Concerto No. 2 for Tuba and Orchestra which highlighted Dr. Aaron Tindall, the assistant professor of tuba and euphonium at Ithaca College, School of Music, on the tuba. The orchestra concluded the program with Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90.

The first piece by Schuller begins with a dark harmony in five solo string basses and is then answered by the solo tuba. The piece encompassed many modernistic ideals and twentieth century music throughout each movement. Not only does the composition highlight the tuba, but it focuses more on each and every lower-pitch instrument as well. This reverberates back to how sound color was expanded during the time period, giving music its unique tonal quality as well as its unconventionality. I also took note of how sporadic some the melodic phrases from each section of the orchestra were. Each one would enter at completely random moments in a movement thus creating chaos that resembled society during the twentieth century. Overall, listening to this piece I felt as if I was in an old horror film. While the lower-pitched instruments had the melody, the higher-pitched instruments, specifically the violin section, played high, screeching notes that juxtaposed the lower-pitch instruments and formed an atmosphere that was spooky, frightening and quite unsettling. The piece concluded with an emphatic mercado note creating a loud BANG along with a loud CRACK in the background that sounded like the crack of a whip. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but for me personally it definitely punctuated an already ominous, eery composition perfectly.

I found my spirit being revitalized during the final piece by Brahms since it was much more lively than the previous composition. I also heard a more romantic style in the music as the melodies were longer and flowed more. Unlike Schuller's concert, Brahms' symphony featured the highter-pitched instruments, in particular the clarinet, which I felt connected to the overall theme of freedom in the music. The higher the instruments played, the more I felt as if I was flying higher to greater altitudes in the sky. The first movement establishes the grandiose theme of the piece with its wistful melodies. The second movement is more warm and lyrical as it yearns to return to the melodies from the first movement. Both the second and third movements establish a single pure atmosphere that eventually blooms into its full character. The second piece is more pleasant as the clarinet section is most prominent. Whereas the third movement brings out the cello section more and is more intimate, personal and passionate. All of this comes together and leads into a fourth and final movement that is dramatic and forceful. For me, the fourth movement transforms the composition into a tranquil world that its listeners are hypnotized by.

To conclude, the performance by the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra was mind-blowing. I honestly thought I was listening to a professional orchestra. I currently play in the campus band here at Ithaca, and I think we sound pretty good for a bunch of non-music majors. But when hearing this performance, there's no contest. No doubt I would absolutely attend another program by the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra.