The Academy Orchestras and Concert Band joined forces to create a collaborative repertoire for a Family Weekend performance last Friday.
Opening the recital with “Salvation is Created” by Russian composer Pavel Chesnokov, the Academy Concert Band began the piece with an eerie, lethargic tune that gave way to a thematic performance.
The band’s interpretation of the piece’s majestic melody allowed the brass and percussion sections to stand out.
“[The piece] has such a beautiful chord progressions and cadences!” wrote Tucker Drew ’17, a member of the Academy Concert Band, in an e-mail to The Phillipian.
Since many of the audience members were family members of students, the recital had been structured to showcase the different facets of the the Andover musical scene.
“I enjoyed having to work with the band. [Playing together] was a challenge but we got through it,” said Candy Chan ’17, a member of the Academy Concert Band.
Amadeus Ensemble, another component of the orchestras, followed with an interpretation of the “Quartet No. 1,” a three-movement piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos, a 20th century Brazilian composer.
“Quartet No. 1” featured a distinctive technique called “col legno,” calling for the musicians to use the back of the bow to hit the strings, creating a percussive sound.
For the final act of the concert, a number of student musicians from the Academy Concert Band joined the Academy Chamber Orchestra to play Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21.”“[Beethoven’s Symphony] has so much vigor, with repeated notes in the strings, wonderful melodies, [as well as] the lurking melodies in the cellos and bass,” said James Orent, Conductor of the Academy Chamber and Symphony Orchestras. “It has great contrast, emotional content, dynamic contrasts, the louds and the softs.”
