CSC Wind Symphony presents diverse performance

Campus and Community Band, along with CSC Wind Symphony, attracted students and residents to their concert Friday at the Memorial Hall auditorium.
Under the direction of Michael Knight, assistant professor of music, the concert went on smoothly and consisted two strongly connected parts.
“We try to have the two halves of the concert complement each other,” Knight said.
The campus and community band opened the night with “El Capitan” by John Philip Sousa. The march, originally composed for opera, captured the audiences’ attention.
“A great way to start the concert,” Knight said about the march.
The second piece was “Blessed Are They” from A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms. According to Knight, Brahms wrote the piece when his mother passed away and turned the requiem into a more hopeful music.
“I really liked the first two pieces. ‘El Capitan and ‘Blessed Are They’ were just really fun to play and as a ban, we created a really great sound for the composition,” Alisha Huynh, 18, freshman of Scottsbluff, said.
The Campus and Community Band brought to audiences Suite for Variety Orchestra, No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich including two contrast color of march and waltz. The band closed their section with “Satiric Dances” by Norman Dello Joio.
After a short intermission, the Wind Symphony took over the stage for their performances starting off with “December Dance” by Andrew Boysen, Jr., which resembled the “Satiric Dances” in the previous section. Following up was “Blithe Bells” by Percy Grainger when audiences heard the transformation of the melody harmonically.
The symphony stunned audiences with the wide variety of melody in “Suite of Old American Dances” by Robert Russell Bennett, consisting of “Cakewalk,” “Schottische,” Western One Step,” “Wallflower Waltz,” and “Rag.”
The concert concluded with “The Chimes of Liberty” by Edwin Franko Goldman.
Natsuki Sato, 22, senior of Oita-shi, Japan, said they focused and played best in the concert out of all the practice sections.
“Everyone can be proud of what they did tonight,” Knight said.
The next event is Jazz band and vocal Jazz, Dec. 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the Memorial Hall auditorium.