Students Share Their Talents at Ensembles Concerts
– By Ashley H Palmer –
Southern Utah University, Cedar City, Utah: SUU’s Department of Music will present two days of ensemble concerts. The SUU Brass and Woodwind Ensembles perform Monday, March 21, 2022, followed by the SUU Piano and String Ensembles on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. Both performances will be presented at 7:30 p.m. in the Thorley Recital Hall of the SUU Music Building. These concerts are free and open to the public.
Dr. Laura Grantier, Director of Woodwinds at SUU, shares, “I’m very excited for the Woodwind Ensemble because the students are performing very challenging and diverse music. Composers such as Mozart, Ibert, Perkins, and Lecuona offer a wide range of musical creativity for the students and the listener.”
The students participating in these ensembles work diligently to perfect their instrumental abilities each semester. As they practice, they learn and grow as artists, ensemble members, and professionals. The final payoff of their hard work are these semester concerts. Not all students who participate in the ensemble classes are majoring in music, but all of them have a passion for music.
Kira Swann, sophomore Math and Economics double major from Southern California, says, “It has been really fun preparing for this concert with the Flute Choir since we will be playing a few pieces that are all fun and exciting in their own ways, including one of my favorites, Malagueña. We have a bunch of different ensembles performing, including the Clarinet Quartet and Brass Ensemble, so this will be a very musically diverse concert. I love performing with smaller groups like these since it allows for a more personal connection with the music and the players.”
Dr. Christian Bohnenstengel, Associate Professor of Music at SUU, says, “The piano ensemble has been focusing on pieces for six and eight hands this semester. We will be performing these works on four pianos with three to four students at each one. One of the exciting aspects of this particular arrangement is that we will have an engineering major play at the same piano as a freshman music education major and a senior piano performance major, for example. The small ensemble concerts are proof of how music truly brings people together.”
Be inspired by the brilliance of these talented SUU students on March 21, 2022 and March 29, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. in the Thorley Recital Hall of the SUU Music Building. For more information about the Department of Music at SUU, please visit www.suu.edu/pva/music/.
