Spontaneous Public Music Making

For the last several rehearsals, all but seven members of the Wind Ensemble have been rehearsing with the orchestra for graduation. That left me with one trumpet, one euphonium, four alto saxes, and one baritone sax. So, instead of sitting around with nothing to do, we put together two fun ensembles. The first is a quick arrangement I did of Canzon III a 6 Voci by Giovanni Gabrieli. This was written in the early 1600s, probably for brass instruments, but it works surprising well for our chamber group. My music theory class was down to one student after the seniors left, so I encouraged him to write an original work for the same instrumentation. He came up with a delightful modal piece in 3/4 with interesting syncopations and texture changes.

We worked on both pieces for a few days and then decided to take our show on the road. We wandered around the school during our class period looking for odd places to play. We began in the student union where we were largely ignored, except for the appreciative teacher who was supervising the empty space:

We then played in the open hallway space known as "The Blocks." Some people seemed very annoyed with our disrupting their precious social time, but one student decided to be a groupie and follow us.

Our next stop was the front entrance. Bad acoustics but lots of natural light:

We found a much more receptive audience in the north gym, where a number of girls were on treadmills and exercycles. The guys lifting weights next door went about their business, clanging barbells and grunting:

After picking up another groupie, we went to the library lobby. Here we drew a large audience and more followers:

When we finished up in the courtyard, we had a number of fans listening, as well as the rest of the Wind Ensemble, who had just gotten out of rehearsal. All in all, it was an interesting experiment, and we brought live music to some people who would have otherwise heard only their iPods and car stereos today.