Concert Blog! Jake Minter's Senior Recital

This was a composition major's recital, which I was intrigued by! It was absolutely amazing, the entire time I was in awe of the fact that someone I was seeing in person wrote the songs I was hearing! Usually, when I listen to music, I don't see or connect the composition of it with a face, I generally focus on the performers, so it was different (and awesome) to physically see the person who wrote the music.

The recital was on November 18th, 2013 in Ford Hall at 9pm.

The performances were extremely varied, with Jake Minter singing in most of them. The first number was from an Ithaca College original musical, which will be premiering later in the year I believe, called Gaybraham Lincoln, the song was titled "Insanity." It was sung by a group of students and very much fit a show tunes genre. The next song was a sharp contrast, it was performed with only a trumpet and a vibraphone, it was entitled "Waft." "The Fledgling's Lullaby" followed, from the another Ithaca College original musical, Angels, Demons, and the Rest of Us. The next song was "Triplin' Down," which he wrote in only 4 days! This song also contrasted with the rest of the pieces, it was a rock song. The next song, my personal favorite, was not performed live. After intermission, a large projector screen was set up and a student film A Christmas Moose was played, the score for which was written by Jake. The next song was called "At The End of All Things" and following that was "Heavenly Fathers." The final song, "Between the Earth and Sky" was also from Angels, Demons, and the Rest of Us.

There were several striking pieces, but the two most notable were "A Christmas Moose" and "At the End of All Things." "A Christmas Moose" was a silent animated film about a moose that wanted to be one of Santa's reindeer. The main instrument used in the score was jingle bells. The music during the film reflected the moose's mood: when he was happy, a version of the song "Jingle Bells" was played. But, when the moose was distressed or made fun of, the song transitioned into a discordant version of "Jingle Bells," oftentimes it was hardly recognizable as "Jingle Bells". The music was what told most of the story, since there weren't any words used.

"At The End of All Things" was played by a string quartet with a viola, two violins, and a cello. The beginning of the song was soft and pretty then, as the storyline became more intense, the music became lower and darker feeling and at the end switched back. The vocals had the melody. The chorus of the song was the titular line, ending on a perfect authentic cadence. The final line of the song, however, stopped short at "At the end" and ended on an open cadence, without ever returning home.

"Waft" was very similar to many of the blues pieces we studied, primarily because of it use of a trumpet. The piece started with the vibraphone playing the down beat and the trumpet playing the melody with a mute. Then, the mute was removed and the trumpet repeated the melody, then put the mute back on and played a similar melody again. When the mute was removed, the song sounded very similar to the jazz pieces we've studied. However, I couldn't tell if the piece was written in the 12 bar form.

I enjoyed most of the concert! The only section I wish was done better was contextual information for some of the songs. The context of "Insanity" was explained very well, but the other songs from larger works were not. "Heavenly Father" needed this the most, all of a sudden a student dressed as a priest was singing about an epidemic of Catholic priests molesting young boys. Although the song was well done, it was confusing without any background information. Besides that, I thought the performers and composition were wonderful!