Brittany Previte
Staff Writer
Amidst the flurry of Homecoming festivities, the upcoming Wooster Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble concert, titled “Here’s To Life,” refuses to be overlooked. Tomorrow night, audiences can hear this dynamic combination of talent as it takes the stage in McGaw Chapel.
The concert reprises the combination of jazz and orchestra heard during Family Weekend last year. It will also feature critically acclaimed vocalist Alexis Cole, hailed as “the next great singer to come along” by Jazz Journal and whose voice has been proclaimed “a deep contralto as smooth and dark as the richest espresso” by Jazz Times. The rising singer, who has released six records to date, will perform with Wooster’s musical groups for the first time.
Students in the jazz ensemble have been rehearsing since the first week of school, and the orchestra since the second, said Jeffrey Lindberg, conductor and professor of music. The hard work will culminate in a concert celebrating the best of jazz at The College of Wooster.
“We are taking, for the most part, classic arrangements of recordings that were done by [the Jazz greats like] Shirley Horn, Ella Fitzgerald and Sara Vaughan and performing them in a live setting,” he said. This performance will include well-known songs like “’S Wonderful,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” and the song the concert is named for, “Here’s To Life.”
Alexis Cole’s expertise is an exciting addition to Wooster’s local talents, according to Lindberg.
“Vocally, she’s excellent. She sings in tune, her diction is great [and] she is wonderful at phrasing. A lot of singers sing the melody and they don’t really understand what’s happening harmonically as they sing along,” he said. “But Alexis knows what’s going on harmonically. That gives a greater maturity to her interpretations of the songs that she is singing. Alexis will probably meet and exceed the audience’s expectations.”
Combining the musical groups presents the challenge of coordinating separate rehearsals, but the end result is a program that offers contrast and range, according to Lindberg.
“The positive thing [about the combination] is that you have a variety of instrumentation to work with,” Lindberg said. “One piece may be accompanied by the jazz ensemble, which is pretty brassy, loud and swinging — then another piece may be more string-oriented, where it involves the strings of the orchestra and its woodwinds. [The orchestra provides] more of a soft, delicate sound. In some cases, you have everybody playing, so it’s all pretty rambunctious.”
The Homecoming concert will be tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. in McGaw Chapel. C.O.W. students, faculty, staff and retirees can get complimentary tickets at the Lowry Center Desk, or from the Scheide Music Center Office (330- 263-2419).
Tickets are $5 for the general public and are sold at The Wooster Book Company and Buehler’s.