By Jake Fain
Staff Writer
The piccolo accompanies the flutes on Nov. 13 at their annual fall Symphonic Band Concert.
The Symphonic Band’s first concert of the fall semester Nov. 13 featured several student solos on flute, French horn and piano, and a graduating senior also was recognized.
The concert was held in the G.M. Savage Memorial Chapel.
Rachel Robbins, music and psychology major and first-chair flutist, had a solo in “Song for Lyndsay” by Andrew Boyson Jr., along with Betsy Olson, a physics education major who plays French horn, and music and Christian studies major Helen Rowley, who plays piano.
Olson opened the piece with her French horn solo.
Another flutist also held the spotlight at the concert because she graduates this month.
Michael Mann, assistant professor of music and coordinator of instrumental education, presented Mikayla Wagner with a music department T-shirt, an alumni mug, and a leather-bound notebook during the concert, reminding her that she is always welcome as a “member of the family.”
“(The concert is) just such a great chance for us all to debut our skills and share all the hard work we’ve put into it with everyone who cares to listen,” said Wagner, senior psychology major and youth ministry minor.
She is the only band member graduating in December.
The band performed “Noisy Wheels of Joy” by Eric Whitacre, “Song for Lyndsay” by Andrew Boyson Jr., “Convegno, Op. 76,” by Amilcare Ponchielli, “El Camino Real” by Alfred Reed, who is Mann’s close friend and mentor, and “Variations of a Korean Folk Song” by John Barnes Chance.
Ponchielli’s “Convegno, Op. 76” featured guest clarinet players Brian McLemore, alumnus, and Dr. David McClune, university professor of music.
Mann said about 80 percent of the symphonic band’s 49 members are not music majors.
Mann will assemble the first Union University Orchestra in the fall 2013 semester.
