Collage canvassed vast variety of music tastes

At center stage, the darkness was penetrated suddenly by stage lights, the quiet broken by a declaration of the Symphony Band's low brass. Before the audience could catch its breath, the lights went out again; a single spotlight highlighted a string quartet and its careful accentuated changes of fingers and expression. When their brilliant performance had ended, another light - this time blue - focused on stage right as Sachal Vasandani, with a voice possessing the lulling quality of Harry Connick Jr., sang the beautiful words of J. Fred Coots in a moving "For All We Know."

The concert was simple, yet diverse. With tastes of the new and the old, student musicians and vocalists reminded a packed Hill Auditorium why the University's music school has been declared among the best in the nation.

Collage XXII, featuring everything from Johannes Brahms to Dizzy Gillespie and clearly living up to its name, gave that sense of satisfaction one gets when an ensemble of favorite glossy magazine clippings are pasted on a piece of poster board.

The concert, framed by the sounds of the Symphony Band and the Symphony Orchestra's ovation-worthy finale of Maurice Ravel's famous "Bolero," provided enthusiastic and inventive glimpses into the capabilities of the School of Music.

An unquestionable highlight of the evening's musical potpourri was a performance by the musical theatre department. A select group of students, clothed in 19th- Century attire - including women carrying parasols and men in top hats - enacted the antics of a portrait-come-to-life as they livened up the pointillist images of George Seurat's famous "A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte." The vocalists drew laughter from the crowd as they sang thoughts from Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George" - "I hate these people!" and "You can't even see my profile!" - enforcing the song's title that "It's Hot Up Here."

The laughter didn't stop there. The Choir Women and Women's Glee Club brought puzzlement to the audience with their unusual piece "Aglepta." Its beginning of sustained humming punctuated with a series of deep and shallow breaths definitely seemed questionable in the musical setting, but quickly gained respect as the women's voices changed to imitate what sounded like high-pitched laughter and whispered syllables.

Most admirable was the fact that it was performed in the complete darkness of the auditorium, with the conductor using a glowing green baton to direct the women's unique blend of voices.

The performances were spectacular - the momentum of the night never slowed as the performers exited and entered the stage.

The loud march of the Symphony Band, which concluded the first half and marked H. Robert Reynold's return to the Collage Concert podium following last year's leave of absence, was followed in the second half by beautiful and moving selections from the Symphony Orchestra.

Led by the energetic Kenneth Kiesler, the group performed Gustav Mahler's "Trauermarsch" as it's opening statement and then switched gears from the distinct sounds of trumpet and strings to a gorgeous melody from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations."

The sounds blended perfectly and were highlighted by the gentle back-and-forth movement of bows on strings, which seemed capable of providing the background music to any major motion picture drama.

The most unusual and seemingly ill-fit piece was the piano performance of Ching-Chu Hu, who plucked the strings inside the piano for an improvisational-sounding, confusing and astoundingly brief tune.

But this could merely be seen as the one thing in a collage that you know somehow must fit in, but have to first learn to like; the rest of the images and the sounds of the night made everything together a nearly flawless magical musical masterpiece - and certainly worthy of massive applause and ovation.

01-25-99