The Keene State College Orchestra held its first concert of the year on October 30 in the Redfern Arts Center’s Main Theatre.
The orchestra of wind instruments, strings and percussion performed a program of three pieces. The orchestra, which is composed of KSC students as well as other community members from the Keene area, is directed and conducted by Seelan Manickam.
Senior Laura Sandman plays the flute in the orchestra, which she says she has been a part of since her first year at KSC. According to Sandman, the concert went well for both herself and the group as a whole.
“I thought it was really good,” Sandman said. “There were some parts that I was a little nervous about coming together, but overall it came out really well.”
Sandman said she enjoys performing in a concert setting.
“I love it. I love people coming to hear us and just the rush of adrenaline before playing. It’s all great,” Sandman said.
Additionally, Sandman talked about the importance of the orchestra’s non-student members that come from the Monadnock region community.
“A lot of our community members are in the string section, and it’s really nice to have that insight because a lot of those people have been playing music for like 50 years, so they can also talk in the rehearsal process and everything, so we can hear something other than just what the director is telling us. They are really the foundation of our music program,” Sandman said.
Senior Peter Labonte, who plays primary french horn in the orchestra, was also a student conductor for the concert. Labonte conducted one performance during the concert, a strings-only piece. Labonte has been performing with the orchestra since he was a first-year, but he said this was his first time conducting it.
According to Labonte, there are only two KSC students in the orchestra’s string section. Every other member of the string section is a community member or advanced high school student.
Speaking about the experience of working with the community members of the orchestra, Labonte said, “They’re all very strong players … They will teach me things about strings that I don’t know. I really appreciate having them because they always bring in new ideas, they’re very energetic and they show up whenever they can and it means so much to have them here.”
“I will admit that I was trying not to cry during the piece that I conducted because the strings played it so beautifully,” Labonte said. “They did such a good job. I was so impressed with all of them. They peaked at the concert, that was their best run-through yet.”
Junior Madigan Keating attended the concert and said she was excited to see Labonte student conducting.
“It’s always exciting to see somebody who is doing what we want to do, do it in this context,” Keating said.
Keating said she grew up in Keene and attended the music department’s events while she was in high school and is looking forward to the various concerts taking place over the next few weeks.
Keating talked about her feelings toward orchestral music, saying, “I’m a vocalist so it’s not something that inherently always interests me, but as I got older, taking music theory classes and all of these different classes that I can hear what I’m learning about is really interesting to me, and I feel like with orchestra, it’s easiest to kind of decode that.”
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
