On Wednesday, March 5, Washburn Symphony Orchestra Concert delivered their first symphony orchestra of 2025, from 7:30 p.m. inside the White Concert Hall.
The program opened with an overture of the last opera written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart “The Magic Flute.” This is an opera in two acts to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on Sept. 30, 1791, at Schikaneder’s theatre. The opera explores themes of requests, trials and the path of knowledge and wisdom.
Raffaele Cipriano, director of orchestras and assistant professor, shared his spirit and aim behind the orchestra.
“Well, the spirit behind the program was highlighting the soloist and then giving a little taste of ‘The Magic Flute,’” Cipriano said. “‘The Magic Flute’ is being produced by the Department Of Music and Theater with full staging and singers, which will open April 5 and April 6, highlighting some music that is standard repertoire for our music students. So they can learn repertoire that they will maybe perform later in bigger orchestras in a professional setting.”
Cipriano introduced two winners of the Washburn Concerto Competition 2025, Eddison Chen, piano player, from the high school category and Trenton Barnecott, baritone, from the Washburn category.
Barnecott, junior vocal performance major, shared the piece that he performed with the orchestra and shared about his winning title.
“I sang ‘Votre Toast’ from Carmen and I chose it because it’s really fun, has a big role and is kind of well known,” Barnecott said.
Savannah Workman, senior music performance major, shared about her favorite pieces and instruments played during the concert.
“The piano Concerto by Chen was my favorite piece the soloist put in a lot of work, and I could really tell from his emotions and the way that he played how to line everything up, and how to make everything more beautiful and expensive,” Workman said.
Weslie Evans, junior music education major, discussed symphony orchestra groups and shared about his instrument.
“I play double bass and I’ve been playing for half a year,” Evans said. “This group rehearses twice a week, Monday afternoon and Wednesday evening where we bring in a lot of community members and it’s primarily classical repertoire and we put on a show a couple times in every semester.”
Lauren Wilson, sophomore music education and cell performance major, discussed her recent performance and shared about the audience’s reaction.
“I played cello and there are lots of different parts to play like sometimes I have the melody, sometimes I’ll have the bass line, sometimes I’ll have funky little notes to play,” Wilson said. “[There was] more audience than we normally have so it’s cool and it seems like people really enjoyed the soloists.”
The Department of Music opened scholarship auditions for all the students wishing to major and minor in music. Audition will serve for both admission to the music program and for scholarship considerations. Scholarships acceptance and financial awards for music majors and minors are distributed based on the strength of auditions.
Edited by Stuti Khadka and Morgan Albrecht
