By JASMINE BOWEN, Student Reporter
Northwestern will host the Dallas-Fort Worth Brass band on Sept. 14 as part of the Northwest Oklahoma Concert Series. The performance will take place in Herod Hall. General admission will be $20 per ticket for community members, $5 for students and $15 for senior citizens. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., with the concert lasting from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The Northwestern News spoke with two members of the university’s fine arts faculty and a music education student to learn more about the concert series.
DR. KARSTEN LONGHURST, Director of Choral Studies
Q: Tell us about the Dallas-Fort Worth Brass band.
A: They are one of the finest brass ensembles or quintets in the area, and we’re excited to have them kick off our concert series. They are all professional musicians, and we’ve had them on the schedule since the previous year. But since COVID landed, we were able to reschedule instead of cancel. Therefore, we are excited to follow through on that performance that we anticipated last year. They are an amazing group that has an amazing sound and performs a lot of different genres of music for brass
Q: What is the concert series?
A: It’s a non-profit organization here in Alva that is not affiliated with the university. However, the university is a sponsor of the concert series. I would love to see the community know more about the concert series here because I think we get very busy, and we have four amazing acts a year. We get a good 150 people on average, and we’d love to see that grow.
Q: How long has it been going on?
A: It’s probably been at least 10 years and could easily be more than that.
Q: What other ensembles will be a part of the series?
A: Gary Levine, who is a violinist. Then we have Superstar, which is a musical production, and then the Music of Mancini.
Q: Why do you believe the concert series is a good or important thing for Northwestern?
A: It’s an amazing opportunity to bring outside artists to a rural part of Oklahoma and enrich the campus community as a whole. It’s great because we bring a nice variety of artists here. We try to get a good variety of performers here, and it benefits our music majors who sometimes are even able to collaborate and perform with these artists. DFW Brass will also be doing an educational component with our music majors, who will be doing a couple performances for them, and they will do kind of a master/mastery class, where they listen and offer comments.
PROF. KIMBERLY WEAST, Chair, Department of Fine Arts
Q: What should people know about this year’s concert series?
A: The four concerts are professional performers that we bring in from across the nation. It is a large variety of performers this school season. We will have everything from classical music to big band sounds, as well as phenomenal bands.
Q: Is there anything else people should know?
A: I think the students and faculty should come and support the arts. Coming to concerts of different types of music, different types of artists, and different genres of music, is all exposure. It’s part of being a well-rounded human being.
CALEB WILLIAMS, Vocal Music Education Major
Q: What are you looking forward to with this year’s concert series and why?
A: I’m looking forward to seeing how the group performs together. It’s interesting to see how the instruments blend together with the different pieces of music they choose to perform.
Q: What’s your favorite part about these performances and why?
A: My favorite part about the performance is the mastery classes because it gives me a chance to learn from the professionals.