Concert features new composition written and performed by Dana faculty

Reactions 2017, a performance featuring the Youngstown State University Concert Band and Wind Ensemble, will be 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Nov. 29, 2017 in Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown. The concert includes 100 students in YSU’s Dana School of Music and features music by seven American composers.

The program opens with the Concert Band performing “Sliding Into the Sea,” featuring second-year alto saxophonist, Santino Almasy, of Poland, Ohio; “Third Suite for Band”; and a performance from the Windy 5 Woodwind Quintet, featuring students Madeline Grimes, flute, Vienna, Ohio; Kristen Thompson, oboe, Poland, Ohio; Cayla Conrad, clarinet, Geneva, Ohio; Elliot Kwolek, bassoon, Beaver, Pa.; and Brendan Gage, horn, Poland, Ohio.

The second half of the concert features the YSU Wind Ensemble, which is preparing to make its tenth featured performance at the 2018 Ohio Music Educators Association in Columbus in early February 2018. The ensemble performs “Heroes from the Sea,” “Armenian Dances, Set I,” “Black Granite March” an “Reactions 2017,” a new improvisational work composed by David Morgan, YSU professor of String Bass, Composition, and Jazz for soloist Glenn Schaft.

“When I was approached about writing a concerto to feature Glenn Schaft, I quickly became overwhelmed by the possibilities,” Morgan said. “My goal then became to create a series of environments within which he could weave his magic, to map out a music journey. The soloist, provided only with the most rudimentary map, is free to play anything on any instrument at any time, or to not play at all. Thus the musical content of the solo part is different every time. The major challenge for the ensemble is to be completely solid on the written material in order to not be thrown off course by unexpected surprises created by the soloist.”

Schaft is professor and director of Percussion Studies at YSU. He performs with the Faculty Jazz Group, and is founder and faculty advisor for the Youngstown Percussion Collective. Schaft’s performance credits include myriad instruments and musical styles. He has toured the United States, Cuba, and China and performed with dozens of organizations. He appears as soloist on Dave Morgan’s Reactions for Drumset and Wind Band with the YSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble on Spin Cycle, winner of the Downbeat magazine award for Outstanding College Wind Ensemble Recording.

Tickets are available at the Stambaugh Auditorium Box Office and are $7 for adults, $6 for students and senior citizens, and free with a YSU ID. Free parking is available adjacent to Stambaugh Auditorium. More information is available at 330-941-2307.