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Printer-Friendly ModeMusic students assist Valley Wind Quintet
April 4, 2005 —
The Valley Wind Quintet performed together Tuesday, March 22 for the 22nd consecutive year.
The spring concert took place in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall and featured music composed by Amy Beach, Gyorgy Ligeti, and W.A. Mozart.
The Quintet consists of five musicians: Lauren Rongo on the flute, clarinetist Linda Hargett, Jane Bellen on the oboe, basoonist Drew Hinderer, and William Wellner on the horn.
All five performers are involved with many other local groups such as the Germania, Bijou, Saginaw Bay, and Midland Symphony Orchestras.
SVSU is not the only place that the quintet performs. Besides two annual concerts on campus, they have done many performances at local schools in the past and frequently play throughout the tri-cities.
At their concerts, they play mostly classical music written or arranged for a wind quintet, and they do all of it year round with just one weekly rehearsal.
The second half of the program featured nine guest artists, some of which are students in Saginaw Valley State University's music program.
The guest artists were Jan Pickering on the oboe, Jeff Martini, Amy Peterson, and Scott Tuttle on the clarinet, Carla Eschenbrenner and Tom Zantow on the basoon, and Shana Hiser, Beth Perry, and T.J. Snuffin on the horn.
The Quintet, along with the guest musicians, performed a six-movement piece by W.A. Mozart called Serenade No. 10, Op. 361: Grand Partita for 13 winds.
All involved expressed their enjoyment of performing together.
Members of the Quintet agreed that it was a good experience for the student musicians to step into a professional atmosphere.
They added that students do not normally get to perform music such as that which was performed at the concert.
Although it may have been intimidating for the students to perform with professional musicians, they were happy to have the opportunity.
Martini, a Music Education major, said that playing with a group of professionals was a new experience for him.
"It is always exciting to perform with different groups," he said. "It was my first time performing with the Quintet and it was a very eye-opening experience. I liked being able to perform with a high-caliber group that also contained other students from SVSU. That was a new thing for me."
First-year Music Education major Shana Hiser admitted that playing with the Quintet was a little scary.
"It was intimidating, but they were really nice," she said. "I can't see myself doing anything else but this."
Performing with the Quintet also forced students to work much harder than they normally have to, according to General Music major Carla Eschenbrenner.
"It's always a great experience because playing with others who are so much better than me always forces me to work a little harder," she said. "On the whole, it's a learning experience that makes me a little bit of a better player each time."
The next concert to be held in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall will be today and Wednesday when the SVSU Choir will sing music from their recent Barcelona, Spain concert tour.