University to feature musicians at festival
2-minute drill
A quick chat with a Lisle newsmaker
Benedictine University's Festival of the Arts takes center stage this weekend with free musical performances Saturday and Sunday.
The concerts, which are open to the public and typically draw 300 to 400 people, will be in St. Daniel Hall at Benet Academy, 2200 Maple Ave., Lisle. They will feature about 75 talented performers.
Maryann Flock, Benedictine's director of bands, is festival coordinator. She recently talked about fun, fine arts and the festival.
Q. What makes this festival unique?
A. Because the festival is all on one weekend, we will get members of the audience who plan to come to one concert and then see something interesting in the next concert and choose to stay or come back. It's wonderful to see in one weekend how much music there is at Benedictine University, how talented these students are and how many students there are.
Q. How would you describe the music?
A. The prep recital is the young students from the community who take lessons from our instructors. It gives those children the wonderful experience of performing in public.
The second concert is our applied students, which are the best in the music department, and each has worked hard on their pieces. It is a wonderful concert.
The student voice concert is a similar concert but in voice.
The 4 p.m. concert is Kaleeya Furlow, a senior, in her final recital at the university. She is having some other musicians play and sing with her.
The band concert on Sunday will include pieces from the calendar year and the seasons. We are doing a fun march called "The January/February March," as well as excerpts from "The Rite of Spring," which is a famous piece by composer Igor Stravinsky.
Q. Is your New Horizons Band performing?
A. No. The band (of adult community members) has had a few concerts recently and is getting ready for our Holiday Concert at 3 p.m. Dec. 8 at St. Daniel Hall. The same university students as in the festival will perform at "Lessons and Carols" Dec. 2 at St. Procopius Abbey.
Q. Would potential music students benefit from attending the Preparatory Recital?
A. A child who comes to that concert certainly could hear what a beginner sounds like and what a more advanced student sounds like. If the child is interested in singing, the Voice Recital may be of interest; the band concert on Sunday may be interesting for a child beginning in a school band.
Q. When did you personally become interested in making music a career?
A. I played piano, oboe and sang since grade school and through high school, but it wasn't until college that I decided I wanted to be a musician. I took several music courses and did very well in those, but the business courses I took at the same time, I didn't do as well so I decided to continue on the path of music.
Q. What are your priorities when you go on stage?
A. Primarily as the conductor, I make sure the band gives the best performance it can in conveying the music to the audience. I try to bring out the details the composer wrote in the score that do not necessarily come out by simply playing it.
Q. Can two directors get different results playing the same piece of music with the same band?
A. Absolutely. One director may focus on balance of instrumentation and another may focus on the phrasing or style of a piece. One may want to make a standard piece of music more edgy. In the same way, two musicians can play the same piece differently.
Q. What are the benefits of a school music program?
A. It's interesting that, even at the university level, you find the same struggle between the academics and the arts.
We found that students who choose to continue with music in college -- whether they are music majors or not -- seem to have a better collegiate experience overall. They are less stressed and more aware rather than tunnel-visioned in their majors.
If you keep them in their ensembles and allow them to really express themselves, they are happier and more connected as a community.
I think that carries on down to the elementary level, too. If you offer children an outlet to perform music, it is a necessary function of a healthy individual and healthy society. Without that expression, there just seems to be something missing.
Q. What impact would you hope the festival has on the community?
A. The music speaks for itself. It is great music and we perform it so well that I would hope it would draw the community back to listen to more. It is also priced right; it's free.
-- Joan Broz
If you go
What: Festival of the Arts
When: Saturday and Sunday
Where: St. Daniel Hall at Benet Academy, 2200 Maple Ave., Lisle
Cost: Free
Info: (630) 829-6320
Schedule:
SATURDAY
Noon Benedictine University Preparatory Recital
1 p.m. Benedictine University Applied Student Recital
2:30 p.m. Student voice recital, studios of Marc Stingley and Victoria VerHoven
4 p.m. Kaleeya Furlow senior voice recital
SUNDAY
4 p.m. Concert Band, "Music Year-Round"