The faculty woodwind quintet will perform their biannual concert at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 24 in McNamara Rehearsal Hall. Tickets are not required.
The quintet is composed entirely of college faculty, including Lecturers in Music Jaimie Wagner on flute, Kaycee Thomas on oboe, Andrew Sprung on clarinet, Alan Taplin on French horn, and Cynthia Duda-Pant on bassoon.
The program will include the classical Quintet Op. 71 by Beethoven, as well as contemporary pieces — like David Maslanka’s Quintet for Winds No. 3 and Ingolf Dahl’s Allegro Arioso for Five Wind Instruments.
All except the Beethoven piece are nonstandard works, providing an interesting variety for the audience. Unlike the quintet’s fall concert, which featured melodic works such as Barber’s “Summer Music,” this program features more aggressive, contemporary works.
“Maslanka is new to all of us,” Duda-Pant said. “All of us have been playing in chamber groups for years, but this is the first time any of us has played this piece.”
Duda-Pant said the Maslanka piece, written by a popular living composer, is the instrumentalists’ favorite on the program.
“We all wanted to do Maslanka,” Duda-Pant said. “We’ve been talking about it for over a year, and we decided that that would be the anchor.”
The instrumentalists said they really enjoy their time together working on repertoire for the concert.
“They’re so much fun to play with,” Duda-Pant said of her fellow ensemble members. “This was a chance for us all to be here on the same day and work together, and it’s helped our studios come together. It’s been really good for everybody for us to be here at the same time.”
This is the third year that a faculty woodwind quintet has been formed. The group began in 2014 with a performance that featured a Francis Poulenc composition, and has performed once per semester ever since.
The quintet hopes to expand its following in the future, with tentative plans to start giving children’s performances. Although the concerts are well-attended by community members, student attendance tends to be low, Duda-Pant said.
“We get more community support than student support,” she said. “We’d love for that to change.”
Duda added that the faculty recital this Sunday gives students who don’t play wind instruments a great opportunity to experience a new kind of music from an excellent professional ensemble.