Music! Music! Music!

Monmouth College's auditorium is full of sound, not much fury, signifying... uh... music. Last Saturday (yeah, I know, it's kinda late to be blogging it, but it's been a rough week for me), MC's homecoming events included a concert, and then there was another one, this weekend, too. Next week, there's yet another concert to attend.

So far, the total is about 300 photos shot from the interior of the Dahl Chapel's Kasch Auditorium, most of which were blurry and unimpressive, but a few came out okay from each of the two past shows.

Let us begin at the beginning: Homecoming weekend focused upon the newly revived jazz/pop/whatever vocal group, The Sound of Five. They began the evening before a fairly packed house , first opening with a few numbers from the college's "Big Band", conducted by Stephen Richter


followed by the calling up of a few former members of the early, original group, The Sound of Five to stand beside The New Sound of Five members, as they listened to tales of Hoffmann.. no, Tales of Stanton -- Scott Stanton, songwriter, composer, arranger, publisher, and MC TSO5 alumnus, who sat in the front of the audience. I don't know if he squirmed as they made a big deal over his contributions to the music department at MC, but the word was all good. Heck, most of what he did here was pretty darned spiffy, anyway. But back to the show.
The New Sound of Five: a capella sound, a little "Manhattan Transfer"-ish mixing

The Original Sound of Five: '70s jazz/rock ensemble and pop vocals. Kinda bubblegum, either way. But what can you expect from a Midwestern Scottish Presbyterian college?

Still, they sounded pretty good as a pan-generational thing
, and took a well-deserved bow as a whole group, band included


Last night was musically a little more polished, with a much smaller audience. No Sound of Five, simply the Monmouth College Jazz Band
and the Monmouth College Big Band, both conducted by Stephen Richter.

During the second (the Big Band) half of the show, we were treated to soloists of all sorts, not the least of which being Heather Kness, tapdancing to tunes from "Chicago"
She slew 'em.

Also soloing, Jessie Bassette sang "How High the Moon" early in the 2nd half of the show, then returned later to sing " Cry Me a River".

In between Bassette's performances, Mark Mullaney gave an alto sax solo in "I Feel October in the Air", and Sharon David (a math major! yay!) sang "Girl from Ipanema".

The evening's finale was a piece by Scott Stanton, "Good Vibes", with Brendan Murphy soloing on... the vibes.

And again with the applause.
Unfortunately, as you may note by the lower portion of the picture, the audience was considerably smaller and considerably older. Not many students -- maybe a couple dozen -- showed to support their classmates, and not many alums (just me & a couple of others), and then a modest bunch of the civilized locals who don't much cotton to hitting the bars on a Friday night. Not even very many faculty members. WTF? Didn't that used to be something almost obligatory, if you were tenure-track?

There'd better be a bigger crowd next week, for the Monmouth Civic Orchestra concert, or I'm going to put some hurt on a few people. After all the hours I'm putting into the posters & programs, I'd best not be wasting my energy and Mom's printer ink, or I'll be making some really scary noises.

Even if you're not from around here, maybe next Saturday you could bring yourselves to come on down, hear?