Through flashing lights, synthesized melody and acoustic live music, the Dartmouth Wind Ensemble will take on a new repertoire this Sunday. Led by conductor Matthew Marsit, the ensemble will play electro-acoustic music, a modern fusion of acoustic and techno sound.
Matching electronically generated sounds with acoustic music creates a “new palate of sound possibilities,” Marsit said.
While the first half of the concert will focus on the ensemble’s acoustic sound, the second half of the show will include Mason Bates’ “Mothership” and Steven Bryant’s “Ecstatic Waters,” two pieces with musical flavors of a techno style.
“[Bates] is actually a professional DJ in the clubs in L.A. as well as a very well-trained classical composer,” Marsit said. “He brings his experience from working in these incredibly high-end clubs to the concert hall.”
“Mothership” will feature Juliana Baratta ’17 on soprano saxophone and Scott Smedinghoff GR’17 on piano, along with Chase Shipp ’17 on the electric guitar and Orestis Lykouropoulos ’17 on the amplified violin.
Mallory Rutigliano ’17, who plays flute and piccolo in the ensemble, said that she finds the interplay between music and technology syncopated and interesting.
“When we started adding the technology a few weeks ago, everyone started smiling and bobbing their heads,” she said. “They couldn’t help it.”
The concert will be a challenge for the ensemble both musically and procedurally, Marsit said. Keeping with the concert’s technological motif, the ensemble will use a smartphone application called Wham City Lights to coordinate the stage’s color-changing light show with audience members’ phone screens. Members of the audience will also use the free application during the concert to project the colors, and Marsit said he has encouraged audience members to download the application in advance.
“This is a very technical performance,” Kameko Winborn ’14, the ensemble’s social chair, said. “It’s not like playing with a live person. Instead you need to be in synchronization with a machine.”
Baratta said the show is unlike any concert she has participated in before, and she looks forward to seeing the pieces come alive. In “Ecstatic Waters,” the percussion section will use the inside of crystal glass containers to produce a flowing water sound, she said.
“The Loving Machinery of Justice,” the fourth movement of “Ecstatic Waters,” gives Winborn chills.
“It is an almost post-apocalyptic sound — very crunchy, very dark,” she said. “I can’t wait for the audience to discover this new side of the wind ensemble.”
Marsit said he hopes that the concert will challenge audience members’ expectations for live music, helping them see that live music gives listeners more than songs streamed online.
Rutigliano said that since Marsit comes to every rehearsal excited for the music, ensemble members want to “make him proud.”
“I’ve had conductors who would yell to motivate us, but he manages to make us enthusiastic and motivated without yelling,” she said.
The Dartmouth Wind Ensemble will perform Sunday at 2 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium.
