By Justin Fox, Contributing Writer
On Friday night at 8 p.m., The Sunderman Conservatory Wind Symphony and Jazz Ensemble put on a program with pieces all sharing a connection to visual art. Dr. Russell McCutcheon conducted the Wind Symphony in the concert’s first half, followed by the Jazz Ensemble under director Dr. Amanda Heim performing in the second half. This was the Conservatory’s first large ensemble performance of the year.
A small chamber group of woodwind players opened the concert with two movements from Hilary Purrington’s “The Treachery of Images.” This piece was inspired paintings by René Maritte, but was more concerned with the atmospheres of surrealist works’ than programmatic correlations.
The rest of the Wind Symphony then took the stage, and the concert continued with Norman Dello Joio’s “Scenes from ‘The Louvre.’” In the five movements of this piece, Dello Joio takes musical themes from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, and adds to them the flavor of the twentieth century through harmony, variation and instrumentation.
Next on the program was “Blue and Green Music” by Samuel Hazo, a lush sparkling piece reminiscent of oil paintings by Georgia O’Keefe, with the musical goal of expressing colors through sound. The concert’s first half concluded with Ryan Lindveit’s “Brilliant Brushstrokes,” inspired by Beauford Deleaney’s painting on the fragment of an old raincoat. The music shifted from rhythmic to legato, with percussion in the background maintaining the fragmented feel, which Lindveit claims is “related to the stitched seams on the raincoat.”
After intermission, the Jazz Ensemble opened with “Magic Flea” by Sammy Nestico, part of the album “Basie Straight Ahead.” This was followed by another piece with a connection to Count Basie, that being Frank Foster’s “Shiny Stockings,” a work which Foster remembers had a rough rehearsal process that paid off in the form of Basie’s praise.
Following this was Duke Ellington’s “Flirtibird,” in which Justin Morgan ’27 took center stage on altosaxophone, a clear highlight for the crowd. Justin and the ensemble brought life to a milestone film score by a black composer, which Dr. Heim referred to as a “seminal point in film history and music history, and one of [her] favorite tunes” from the film score. To close the concert was a medley of solos throughout the ensemble that made up Toshiko Akiyoshi’s “Song for the Harvest.” A tribute to Charles Mingus, the piece showcased the talents of many members of the ensemble across several instruments.
The basis of this concert’s program sparked appreciation of music’s relation to other mediums and time periods. “I think that that’s the case oftentimes with music,” said audience member John Gibaud ’28, “That it’s very strongly related to mediums of art that are physical. So I think making that direct correlation or relationship with the presentation that they had going on was a smart choice.”
The two musical groups in this performance marvelously brought attention to the importance of what music is sourced from, which is often the work of other mediums and artists.
