Oklahoma State University Symphony Orchestra Performance Review

On Saturday the 6 November, 2014, I attended a performance of the Oklahoma State University Symphony Orchestra director by Dr. Eric Garcia. The performance was held at the Seretean Center Concert Hall located on the Oklahoma State University Campus. The concert was attended by a number of people of varying ages, and seemed to have a good number of music lovers in the audience from the number of people who instantly gave a standing ovation at the end of the performance. The concert consisted of two pieces the first having two movements and the second having a total of four movements. The first performance was Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra composed by Henri Tomasi. The orchestra consisted of violin one and two,

This piece focused on the saxophone played by Eric Stults, as he was the featured soloist. This piece clearly catered to that fact, the saxophone being specifically named in the title of the piece. When I first saw the title of this piece and that it would include a saxophone solo I was not sure how it would sound being that this is a symphony orchestra and I commonly associate the saxophone with jazz pieces. However, the saxophone fit in very nicely with the rest of the orchestra and smooth transitions were made from one movement to another. I enjoyed that the introduction was longer than normal giving one time to settle into listening to the music. This piece was very interesting to listen to being, that it was a more recent piece than what I had grown accustom to listening to in my music class. Written by

The piece was a four movement work each movement portraying pine trees in a different area. This is conveyed in the names of each movement. For example the first movement was referred to in the program as The Pine-Trees of the Villa Borghese. Not only was each movement named so that you could identify it was referring to pine trees in different areas, but the melody of each piece changed to reflect the area the pine trees where in and it was programmatic music so it lead you to be able to picture the story developing around the trees in each movement. The first movement, Pines of the Villa Borghese, has a light sunny melody portraying a sunny day in the spring filled with happiness and laughter as children are running and playing in the village square and birds chirping in the background. It then makes a fast transition into the second movement, Pines near a Catacomb, were the tone of music becomes sad and dreary, a vast comparison to the first movement. Just as fast as the mood changed from the first to the second movement it changed again from the second to third movement, Pines of the Janiculm, were the piece gained an air of excitement to it more similar to the first movement. The fourth movement, Pines of the Appian Way, was probably the smoothest transition from the third movement of the entire piece. When the musicians were assembling on