Photos: Dorothy, Isaacson, Cottrell
Two free concerts are on tap for next week as the Hardin-Simmons University Concert Band and the HSU Orchestra present the first in their series of free concerts performed throughout the academic school year.
The HSU Concert Band will present its first fall concert on Monday, October 15, at 7:30 p.m., in Behrens Auditorium on the HSU campus.
The program includes a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Jacque Offenbach’s Galop to Frank Ticheli’s Rest. The pieces reflect music from two different centuries, Galop, composed in 1859, for the comic operetta Genevieve de Brabant, and Rest was composed in 2010.
Dorothy says the centerpiece of the concert will be the Symphony No. 2, composed in 1972 by Beaumont, Texas, native, John Barnes Chance. Other works on the program include Clifton Williams’ Symphonic Dance No. 3 “Fiesta,” conducted by graduate conducting student Ryan Lovell.
The band will also play Julie Giroux’s To Walk With Wings, a pragmatic work chronicling man’s quest for flight, and Robert Jager’s Esprit de Corps, commissioned by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.
The Concert Band is conducted by Dr. Wayne F. Dorothy, professor of music and director of bands at HSU. Dorothy is also the director of “The World Famous” Cowboy Band.
The concert is free, and open to the public. Dorothy says the concert will last about an hour.
The HSU Orchestra performs on Tuesday, October 16, 2012, in Behrens Auditorium, 7:30 p.m..
Dr. Peter Isaacson, director of orchestra and associate professor of music, recently rehearsed and directed orchestral students in a concert with song writer and western/pop legend Michael Martin Murphey.
Now Isaacson shines the spotlight on an original piece to be played by the orchestra, composed by HSU assistant professor of low brass and theory, Dr. Jeffrey Cottrell.
During the Tuesday concert, the orchestra will premier “A Prayer of Job,” a piece that Cottrell says is an attempt to express in music what seems to be impossible to put into words.
Cottrell says he was inspired to compose the piece after it came to him that he could relate to Job, of the Bible, as a real person. “I did a study by Chuck Swindoll on the book of Job over the summer, and realized that even though Job was a man of amazing faith and trust in God, he still felt anguish and suffered greatly though his ordeal.”
Cottrell says, “I guess I had a picture of him as this stoic man who simply accepted God’s will without any reservations, but after going through the study of Job, I began to see him more as someone we can all relate to.
“I tried to write the music in a way that would depict the great variety of emotions he must have been experiencing as he prayed that famous prayer in Job 1: 20-22: of anger, joy, resignation, hope, sadness, and faith.”
20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” 22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Both concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. in Behrens Auditorium, HSU Concert Band on Monday, HSU Orchestra on Tuesday.