Faculty Offer a Musical Break from Election Stress

The Westminster College Faculty Woodwind Quintet will present a concert Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m. in Wallace Memorial Chapel.

"You deserve a break from the Democrat vs. Republican skirmishes of election day," said Dr. Grover Pitman, Westminster College professor of music. "After the polls close and before the returns start broadcasting, escape for one hour from this madness through a return to sanity by attending the Westminster Faculty Woodwind Quintet Concert."

Members of the faculty quintet are: Brian Sharkey on flute; Shawn Reynolds (a New Wilmington High graduate) on the oboe; Louis Colella on clarinet; Donald W. Byo on bassoon; and Pitman on French horn.

The recital will open with "Divertimento No. 1 in B-flat" by Franz Joseph Haydn. In four movements, this is the work which contains the famous St. Anthony Chorale' which Johannes Brahms used as the basis for his "Variations on a Theme" by Haydn.

The quintet will next perform a pair of dance works -- "Slavish Dance #8" by Antonin DvoYák and "A Klezmer Wedding" (consisting of the four Jewish wedding dances - "Doina", "Hora", "Chusidl", and "Freylach") by Mike Curtis. Both of these are intended for group dancing, the first at a rather rapid speed and the second starting very slowly and gradually increasing in tempo until the dancers practically fall down from fatigue.

The fourth selection is one of the benchmarks from the standard woodwind quintet repertoire, a piece titled simply "Quintet" by Carl Nielsen. In three movements, it is technically demanding of each of the five instruments, requiring of the performers individual as well as collective virtuosity.

The closing number is a fun loving "Aria and Quodlibet" by Arne Running. The aria is a simple song without words and the quodlibet is a potpourri of familiar melodic fragments, including segments of the march "Barnum and Bailey's Favorite", the Mendelssohn wedding march, a section of boogie-woogie, themes from "Peter and the Wolf," and music from the old-style Saturday morning cartoons, to name a few.

The concert is free and open to the public. Contact Pitman at (724) 946-7274 or e-mail pitmanga@westminster.edu for more information.

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