The Grove City College Department of Music presents the Fall Concert featuring the College Symphony and Chamber orchestras at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, in Ketler Auditorium in the Pew Fine Arts Center on campus.
The concert is free and open to the public. It will be livestreamed at gcc.edu/livestream.
The concert will begin with the Chamber Orchestra performing two works by American composer, Aaron Copland and three movements from Dvorak’s “Serenade for Strings.” The Symphony Orchestra will perform Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” a new work by Joe Jaxson titled “Through the Bay,” “Raiders March” from the Indiana Jones movies, and “Apollo 11,” written by Grove City College trumpet instructor Drew Fennell.
“Apollo 11” depicts, through music, the moon landing mission. “I intend for ‘Apollo 11’…to be a celebration of the American spirit. The bold statement by President John F. Kennedy in a message to Congress in May of 1961 set forth the goal … From this grand vision sprang one of the most audacious plans ever conceived by humankind,” Fennell said.
Jaxson’s “Through the Bay” is a new work the Grove City College Orchestra program helped to commission with other U.S. colleges and university orchestras. The piece is a musical representation of Jaxson’s first time riding a ferry boat and the emotions that he experienced.
“This has been a fun program to put together,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Tedford ’00, director of Orchestras and chair of the Music Department. “The students have worked hard, and it has been wonderful to collaborate with a living composer on a new piece of music through the completion of the performance. I am sure our audience will enjoy the entire concert, but especially the emotions represented within the music.”