Bryan Hall auditorium was filled with angelic voices Feb. 26 for WSU’s annual Winter Choir Concert. The show featured all four of WSU’s choirs: chamber singers, university singers, treble choir and concert choir.
This year’s show was titled “A Musical Ménagerie.” It featured 14 songs centered around the theme of animals. The show included music from all over the world, most notably Australia, Estonia, Haiti and the U.S.
The show was conducted by Dr. Dean Luethi and Dr. Matthew Myers, who collectively wrote the final piece sung during the show titled “Le Bestiaire,” which featured six different sections inspired by different animals that blended together one after another. The performance also featured student director MaKenna Wagnon, who conducted a handful of songs in the chamber choir section. Accompanying the three conductors, pianist Elena Panchenko provided beautiful on-stage music, adding to the angelic atmosphere.
For some student performers, this concert was part of some of their last shows with WSU’s School of Music. Senior trumpet performance major Carl Reese sings with the university singers. Reese was chosen to be one of the eight soloists for the song “Papa Loko,” originally from Haiti.
“When you win an audition, it feels great, like you accomplished something and you’re meant to be there,” Reese said. “Rehearsing and performing was a vibe. We’re all having fun on stage [and] the director was getting into it as well, and that reflects onto us.”
Reese grew up around music, thanks to his family, and intends to pursue a master’s degree in trumpet performance after graduating from WSU this May.
“The love of being onstage, I haven’t really found much that compares to that,” he said. “That feeling of people watching you [and] wanting to succeed…there’s nothing like it.”
Reese will be performing his senior recital, “Five Trumpets, One Recital,” at 7:30 p.m. on March 5 in Bryan Hall.
For other students, they are just getting started with their WSU singing career. Sawyer Crist, a biology major on a pre-dental track, is part of the concert choir. Crist described performing “Le Bestiaire,” which was written by Dr. Dean Luethi and Dr. Matthew Myers.
“It was cool to see their vision,” she said. “They put things in the score that we had to interpret and there was a time in rehearsal where we just read the words and talked about what they meant and how the people in the stories might be feeling and what it’s supposed to mean.”
Crist said how much she appreciates how open and welcoming the music program is.
“People are constantly doing recitals and we go and attend each other’s recitals and we get to tell each other, ‘you did so good!’,” she said. “It’s such a relief coming from a science major, where there’s a lot of competition. The music program is a lot of ‘let’s do this together,’ and that’s been my favorite aspect of the whole thing where people just want to support each other and no one’s competing.”
For more information about WSU’s School of Music and upcoming performances, you can follow them on Instagram or check their website.
