At its gala concert this fall, the Eastern Mennonite University music department will showcase various ensembles and a commissioned symphony celebrating the university’s Centennial.
The wind and jazz ensembles led by Robert Curry and the orchestra conducted by Professor Joan Griffing will perform, and then the chamber orchestra — along with a choir of 58 voices from Emulate, the University Choir and Chamber Singers — will present the symphony, conducted by the composer, Professor Ryan Keebaugh.
The concert, from 7-9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11, in Lehman Auditorium, is the music department’s major fundraising concert of the year, and proceeds from the suggested $10/person donations will benefit the music scholarship fund. [To donate, click here.]
“The gala concert is always one of our department’s highlights,” said Griffing. “We’re especially pleased that this year’s concert brings together so many voices and instruments to celebrate the legacy and traditions of music during EMU’s Centennial.”
The livestream of the centennial music gala will be streamed through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/
Symphony
Keebaugh was commissioned by EMU to write the symphony in honor of the university’s first century. He has been thinking about and working on it for three years, and wrote five versions before landing on the final.
The result is Symphony No. 1 for baritone, choir and string orchestra, an “ethereal type of peaceful, calming music” with the text “Dona nobis pacem: Grant us peace,” he said.
The symphony begins with a prayer that choir members read at their own pace, creating an “undertone rumble of individual prayer.” But right at the moment when the strings begin playing, the choristers say the same prayer, this time all together, and “the whole community comes together, with this idea of peace,” Keebaugh said.
“I wanted to show the ethos of EMU,” he said. “I looked at, ‘What have I experienced? What have I been taught? What do I learn from my colleagues about what it means to be here at EMU, to be in a community like this?’ I wanted to paint that picture.”
“It’s as simple as it gets, but it hits at the depth of EMU,” he said.
An answer
Keebaugh joined the music department faculty in 2013, and said that the department shows “love, compassion and generosity” for its students.
“Music really can embody a community of love” that Keebaugh said is “our answer” to the world’s problems, distress and disasters.
“We nurture all of our students,” he said. “We change our musical structure and curricula to fit what’s going to make them successful. It’s not just ‘Here’s our box, and you have to fit it.’”
Creative people, Keebaugh knows firsthand, all have different ways of working. He composes with paper and pencil, during regular early morning work sessions that begin at 3 a.m., and only uses a computer in final stages, he said — “but that’s just me. I’m old school.”