Orchestra Concert Report Sample

On Tuesday, September 29, 2015, I attended a student ensemble orchestra concert at UTSA called "The Natural Realm". It was a free concert that took place in UTSA 's recital hall, which is located in their art building. The recital hall was a good sized room, not to big or small. It started at 7:30 p.m. and ended around 8:40. The orchestra concert was conducted by Eugene Dowdy, a music professor and director of orchestral studies and conducting at UTSA. It was a tremendous performance filled with very talented and brilliant people. I absolutely loved this concert. The UTSA Orchestra performed some famous masterpieces by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) and John Williams (b.1932), which include Dvořák 's most popular piece "Symphony No.9, op.95, in E minor" or sometimes called "From the New World" and William 's most famous "STAR WARS Suite". The program was set up with Dvořák 's piece first, followed by a 10-minute intermission and ending with Williams work. Dvořák 's symphony included "Adagio- Allegro molto, Largo, Molto vivace, and Allegro con Fuoco", which are the four movements in a symphony. The "movements" in a symphony act like chapters in a book. It is a certain way symphonies are set. Each movement is very different from the one before. Williams’s piece included the "Main Star Wars title, Princess Leia 's Theme, The Imperial March (Darth Vader 's Theme), Yoda 's Theme, and Throne Room & End Title." The UTSA Orchestra is made up of an eighty member student ensemble. The orchestra consisted of both string and wind instrument as well as percussion like pathway three section two the "Enlightenment Pleasure: Hearing the Classical Symphony" discusses. The string instruments include the violin, which is the smallest, viola, cello, and the biggest, the double bass. The wind instruments consisted of both woodwind and brass instruments. The "woodwinds" include instruments such as flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The bass had French horns, trumpets, trombone, and tubas. Finally, the percussion instruments included one piano, timpani, a xylophone, cymbals, a triangle, drums, and a tambourine. Once the concert started one of the violin players made a quick announcement and was seated, then the lead violinist came out and tuned the other musicians. After that the director, Eugene Dowdy, came out and gave the audience or "community" a brief history background about Dvořák and his famous piece before conducted it. As the piece begun, the first movement started with a very slow and quiet intro, then picked up speed …show more content…
This part of the program was the most anticipated because the audience started to get more excited, especially when the first piece started. The second half of the concert was a little different in the way it was set up. For example, it did not start off with a slow intro; it went straight into the piece. Williams "Star Wars Suite" did have the four movements it was just structured in a different way than Dvořák 's piece. As the concert was going on, I noticed that in Williams work certain instruments stuck out more in certain parts of a piece. For instance, in Darth Vader 's theme the trumpets stood out more than all the other instruments. They were more emphasized. This one is also one of my favorites from the "Star Wars Suite" because it was as if I was watching the movie right in front on