Symphonic Band, Heritage Singers to perform in November concerts

The Northwestern College Symphonic Band will present a concert on Friday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 p.m. The following Friday, Nov. 10, Northwestern’s Heritage Singers will perform, also at 7:30 p.m. Both events will be held in Christ Chapel and are free and open to the public.

The Symphonic Band concert is titled “Extremes!,” as shown in David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 7, a composition with movements that vary from slow to very fast. Janelle Phinney, adjunct instructor in music, will accompany the symphony on piano. Mozart’s Concerto in A major for clarinet and piano also presents a lively pace, testing the range of the clarinet by playing every possible note. Sophomore Meredith Sundberg will be the featured soloist on clarinet.

David Gillingham’s arrangement of “Be Thou My Vision” will bring listeners to a moment of reflection, pairing shimmering woodwinds and percussion with brilliant brass tones. The concert will close with Robert Jager’s “Esprit de Corps,” a tribute to veterans and those in active military service.

To begin the Heritage Singers’ concert, guest soloist and voice instructor Cindy Moeller will perform “Les filles de Cadix” by Pauline Viardot and “Les chemins de l’amour” by Francis Poulenc, French art songs that capture the playful, romantic style of 19th-century music. She will also perform Emily Dickinson’s poem “Will There Really Be a Morning?” and Langston Hughes’ “A Horse With Wings,” both set to music by contemporary composer Ricky Ian Gordon.

The Heritage Singers’ performance will include “May It Be,” the powerful elven melody from “Lord of the Rings”; “Till There Was You,” a contemporary jazz version of the well-known song from “The Music Man”; and Eric Whitacre’s “Animal Crackers,” selections set to the words of six poems by American poet Ogden Nash.

For more information, contact Blair Lansink at 712-707-7062 or blair.lansink@nwciowa.edu.