American Orchestra plays for country
Eric Jedd
Equinox staff
America is known for many things, good and bad.
On Wednesday, April 4 the Keene State College orchestra played music chosen to express original American music.
Don Baldini, a professor of music at KSC, chose the pieces to play and displayed what he feels is getting neglected: American music is making important contributions and should be recognized.
Before the orchestra started its first piece, Baldini stood on the conductor’s stand and told the audience how it’s important to expose young people in colleges to older American music.
He said, “There’s a lot of music that comes and goes, and comes and goes in a couple of years. You really need to play things that are going to sustain for a number of years.”
The orchestra opened the performance with “American Salute,” written by Morton Gould, and following, the orchestra then performed “John Henry,” written by Aaron Copeland.
The third piece, “Juliana’s Lullabye,” featured Emily Whelehan, a graduated KSC student, on the French horn, who wrote the song as well.
The rest of the performance featured the songs “Bugler’s Holiday,” written by Leroy Anderson, “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” by Jerome Kern, “A Tribute to Henry Mancini” by Henry Mancini, “The Children of Sanchez” by Chuck Mangione, and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Sousa.
For some of the songs, Baldini paused before the start to acknowledge certain people that helped with certain songs in the show, such as Whelehan and her song.
One of the contributors of the concert Baldini acknowledged sat in the audience, and received some praise before the piece “Can’t Help Lovin Dat Man.”
Dave Sporny helped to write the arrangement for Jerome Kern’s song. Sporny commented, “It was great. They had nice energy, and I enjoyed listening to them play.”
Audience members commented after the show with praise like, “I thought it was a great performance” and “It was enjoyable to hear this type of original American music.”
Baldini said that the orchestra itself had limited time preparing for this performance.
“I had a unique challenge this semester. Normally the concert would have been on the eighteenth. This time, we were three weeks earlier.”
Baldini also mentioned the fact that the orchestra lost an additional week or practice to spring break.
“If you take all that time away, we only had about nine rehearsals.”
Baldini stated the difficulty of the pieces played was also fairly advanced.
“I’d say on a scale of one to 10 this stuff is an eight-and-a-half or a nine. It’s pretty challenging.”
One of Baldini’s other challenges was making sure that the students weren’t just able to perform the pieces, but that they were also learning from this.
“It’s a tricky thing getting people ready for a concert. We have to try to make sure that when you rehearse, you don’t get everything out of them. You’ve got to leave some water in the sponge.”
To prepare for the concert, Baldini had the performers skip entire sections of songs, in order for them not to wear them out and have more endurance for the actual performance.
“It’s a lot like playing sports. People think that music is something that doesn’t take a lot of strength, but it’s amazingly demanding.”
Shawn Danehy, a KSC student who performed in the orchestra said, “Baldini is a great man, and I’m glad that I learned a lot from him. It’s an honor to play with him. Overall the orchestra did great tonight.”
Another performer, Irene Miller, said, “It was wonderful. Mr. Baldini loves music and he infects everybody. He brings out the best in us.”
Miller also said that this was her first time playing music like this.
“I studied music in the ‘50s and played in symphonies, but never these numbers. It was really, really fun.”
The entire performance took the theme of American music and experiences from Baldini’s interests in music and experience in the musical arts.
“I’ve always been somebody who, besides having a love of classical music, I’ve always had a love for jazz, rock and roll, and pop music,” Baldini said.
Baldini’s career out of college led him to travel with a professional orchestra, gave him an opportunity to play these different kinds of music.
The performance Baldini prepared for the orchestra took his love of these American pieces in order for them to become more recognized and wider spread.
“I don’t think American music gets enough credit. I think a lot of people forget that we’ve got a lot of good music here.”
He also said, “The bottom line is I think it’s important to recognize this music as being legitimate American music and a real contribution. That’s what inspired me.”
Eric Jedd can be contacted at
ejedd@keene-equinox.com