CSULB Symphonies Play ‘Name that Tune’

By Matt Wirth
On-line Forty-Niner

Last Thursday night, the California State Long Beach Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band performed an evening of music titled “Dances, Tunes and Songs.” The two ensembles, under the direction of John Carnahan and Joan deAlbuquerque respectively, played a variety of pieces with easily recognizable, and sometimes well-known, melodies.

The Symphonic Band began the evening with Charles Ives’ “Old Home Days,” a selection with five movements filled with many melodies, including such notable ones as “The Girl I Left Behind,” “Auld Lang Syne” and a rendition of “London Bridge is Falling Down” that accurately emulated the sloshy sounds of sinking into the Thames. The best movement of the collection was “The Collection,” in which the band created the aural image of a church offering, with the choir in the high winds and the pedals of the pipe organ in the basses.

The band’s second piece, “Sunrise at Angel’s Gate,” depicted a day at the Grand Canyon using melodies from the works of Aaron Copland, including “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Billy the Kid.” The following selection was “Cajun Folk Songs,” a duo of movements that utilized the folk music of Louisiana and Texas. During the performance of the band’s final selection, “On the Mall,” conductor deAlbuquerque encouraged members of the audience to whistle and sing along to the melody of this uplifting march.

The Wind Symphony began its segment with “Throw Caution to the Wind,” a piece by resident composer Carolyn Bremer, loaded with brass fan fares and heavy horn melodies. For the following selection, “Concerto for Percussion and Wind Ensemble,” the percussion was featured at the front of the stage. Once conductor Carnahan made his way up front through the jungle of drums, he led the group through three tumultuous movements of timpani thunder and vibraphone lightning.

Senior flautist Jennifer Ackein was the highlighted soloist in “Carmen Fantasy,” a selection based off of the melodies from the eponymous opera. Ackein played variations on such well-known melodies as “The Habañera” and “The Toreadors’ March.” Guest conductor Derek Venlet led the symphony in Percy Granger’s “Colonial Song,” a piece whose long, open melodies replicated the wide, open spaces of colonial Australia.

“Jug Blues & Fat Pickin’” combined elements of the blues with minimalism. Carnahan told the audience beforehand that the group had tried to replicate the sound of a harmonica in a blues band, but the outcome sound was more like “South Pacific” than the South. The complicate rhythms and wind timbres also created the illusion of “West Side Story,” and even though New York is closer to the Ozarks than the Soloman Islands are, it still did not create a sensation of the blues. The evening ended with deAlbuquerque conducting the symphony in Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Folk Dances,” a collection of melodies from the composer’s native Russia.

Overall, the evening featured many interesting variations on melodies well-known throughout the world. Despite the mild disappointment with “Jug Blues,” the two ensembles’ performances were both well done.