Five ensembles, the String Ensemble, the Flute Ensemble, the Saxophone Quartet, the Woodwind Ensemble and the Brass Ensemble, will all take part of the Small Ensemble Concert on Wednesday, May 11, at 8 p.m. in Walker Recital Hall.
The Flute Ensemble is a flute quartet led by Alyssa Pysola, the D’Angelo flute instructor.
The four flute majors who make up the ensemble are Navada VanTine, Jennie Cross, Sabrina Sosa and Isaiah Howard.
The Saxophone Quartet is a small ensemble led by Rebecca Wunch, instructor of clarinet, Class Piano, Theory/Aural Skills Lab, Chamber/Orchestral Music and Woodwind Ensemble.
Wunch also plays tenor saxophone in the quartet, along with students Kevin Timko, alto sax, Caden Gilson, baritone sax and Olivia Windus, soprano sax.
The Brass Ensemble consists of four instrumentalists, Sierra Decola, trumpet, Martin Webster trombone, Jacob Bechter, trumpet and Matt Rogers, French horn.
The ensemble is led by Ryan Spracht, the trumpet instructor.
The ensemble is offering several brass quartet pieces, including arrangements of selections from Bizet’s Carmen and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera.”
The Lloyd Webber arrangement of “Music of the Night” will be played by Sierra Decola, Jacob Bechter and Martin Webster, with Ryan Spracht accompanying on the piano.
“The Brass Ensemble has a very unique sound that you won’t always hear in other ensembles, especially in ‘Music of the Night,’” said Jacob Bechter, a freshman Music Education major.
The Woodwind Ensemble is led by Rebecca Wunch and the players are Isaiah Howard, flute, Sarah Levin, clarinet and Lacey Tologo, oboe.
The String Ensemble is led by Joseph Kneer D.M.A, professor of violin, viola, Aural Skills and Theory, as well as the one of the Mercyhurst Chamber Orchestra conductors.
The ensemble consists of three different groups, all playing chamber music, and made up of a combination of Mercyhurst students and instrumentalists from the local community.
One of the string quartets will be playing Dvořak’s No. 12 “American” String Quartet in F major, while the other string quartet will be offering the “Nocturne” from Alexander Borodin’s 2nd String Quartet.
“The pieces are all very iconic, standard chamber pieces, but they’re all beautiful pieces too,” said Kneer.
“Chamber music is really intimate; you need communication, coordination and personality from all the instrumentalists, and you have to just make it work. String Quartets are often some of composer’s most personal and intimate works; something you wouldn’t get in big ensembles.”
The Small Ensembles concert is free.