In the Audience

Spring break is FINALLY here, after a stressful week of late nights writing papers and studying for midterm exams.  But stress aside, this past week was an awesome week for concerts at RIC. I was able to hear performances from both the orchestra and the chorus, and both were wonderful concerts.

At the beginning of the semester, I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to be up on stage with these ensembles like I have been in the past – I absolutely love the sound of the strings in orchestra and being able to sing in a large ensemble! I’m also one of those students who says “4 ensembles? Yeah, I’ve got time!” and gets involved in as many things as possible, but then ends up a zombie at the end of the semester because of all the back-to-back rehearsals. Actually, I think a lot of us students have this mindset of “I must do ALL the things!” because the way we see it, we’ve only got four years (well, in many cases, probably five or six) in which to pack as much music as possible into our still developing brains.

At least, this has been my mindset the past few semesters. But this week, I think I learned the most just by taking a step back and sitting in the audience to listen to my friends’ performances. Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of ushering for the RIC orchestra concert, a tribute to J.S. Bach. I was able to stand inside the auditorium for the entire concert which included a piece featuring two RIC professors on violin, the beautiful Orchestral Suite No. 3, and an arrangement of the Little Fugue in G minor. While Baroque isn’t my personal go-to era when I listen to music, I really enjoyed this tribute to Bach. By spending an hour listening to the music of one composer, I really began to appreciate the virtuosity needed to perform his music and the different emotional nuances in each piece. It was very uplifting to listen to, and had more variety than I realized before. While he wasn’t my favorite composer, after this concert, his music is really starting to grow on me. 

The choral concert, “Flight,” was dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. There was a wide variety of music – everything from Renaissance music to excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem Mass to a piece by Eric Whitacre – but it all fit into the message of remembrance and respect for the victims of the horrifying events that took place a century ago. A portion of the concert also included traditional Armenian songs – I had never heard any Armenian pieces before, but it was a truly moving experience to hear the RIC chorus sing these with so much emotion, especially since some of the choir members are of an Armenian background.  The music just seemed to speak for itself, and instead of hearing multiple singers, I heard one ensemble singing together for one cause….so powerful. That’s something I hope all musicians can take away from performances like these.

Most of the time, when we’re on stage, we’re focusing on performance, but when you’re in the audience, you focus on the music. You get to just relax and enjoy the experience of being enveloped in the incredible sounds of voices and instruments, just feeling the music. As college students, we have so many opportunities to attend concerts either on campus or someplace nearby and hear great musicians. By just listening, we get inspired to reach just a little higher next time we sing or pick up our instruments, or sometimes we discover a new style of music that speaks to us. Sometimes we might forget that we need to go to concerts just as much as we perform in them, because so much of what we learn about performance, we learn by being in the audience.