By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The sound of saxophone resounds through the halls of the BGSU Collee of Musical Arts.
Students in Distinguished Teacher Professor John Sampen’s studio make their presence felt as soloists, members of saxophone quartets, and as collaborators with other chamber ensembles and in wind ensembles.
What the college hasn’t had though was a saxophone band, an ensemble of saxophones from bass saxophone all the way to the sopranino.
“I never program this kind of music,” Sampen said. But students were interested.
And Sampen had wanted to do a concert in the community – “We do plenty of concerts in Bryan Hall.”
A community concert would also give the university musicians a chance to involve some local high school musicians.
All these elements come together for “Sax in the Park” a concert featuring the BGSU Saxophone Choir along with saxophonists from Bowling Green High School and Middle School. The free performance will be Friday, March 17, at 7 p.m. in the atrium of the Veterans Building in City Park.
This is also fitting, Sampen said, given Bruce Corrigan, director of bands for BG schools is retiring at the end of the school year.
The program will be lighter fare in contrast to the contemporary music the university students often play.
“Laf ‘n Sax’,” a 100-year-old novelty number, harks from a time when the instrument was all the rage. Though written more recently, “Devil’s Rag” also evokes the sounds of that era.
At that time there were saxophone bands throughout the country, including a 50-piece ensemble in Detroit. With 26 BGSU and 21 BG schools students, the saxophone band on Friday will have almost that many. They will range from sixth graders to doctoral students.
This gives the BGSU musicians a chance to play the lesser-known instruments at the extremes of the saxophone family. “It’s fun to pull out the sopranino and the bass saxophone,” Sampen said. “We have the whole range of the saxophone family.”
And it brings together all the saxophonists in the BGSU musical family. “We’ve never had everybody playing together.,” Sampen said. “We have a great community of saxophonists in my studio, and they enjoy each other and playing together.”
The program will include several patriotic numbers. The concert will close with “Stars and Stripes Forever” with doctoral student Garrett Evans playing the iconic piccolo solo on soprano saxophone and Corrigan conducting.
“Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “America” will also be on the program.
Sampen will be the soloist on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind.”
The ensemble will perform “Ye Banks and Braes O’ Bonny Doon” by Percy Grainger based on a Robert Burns song and arranged by BGSU doctoral student Josh Heaney and “Jarba, Mare Jarba,” a piece based on a Hungarian-Romani folk song by Stacy Garrop, the guest composer at last fall’s New Music Festival. Rounding out the program will be music by Gustav Holst and J.S. Bach.
