News
Collage Concert Cements Surround-Sound with Fourth Focal Point
Published on April 26, 2024 - 5 p.m.
Southwestern Michigan College’s April 25 Spring Collage Concert famously unspools musical selections seamlessy from center stage to wings on each side sans applause until the finale, when swirling spotlights bathe the audience belting out SMC’s fight song in green.
Lights shift attention from one “stage” to another without pause, with bands, choirs, ensembles and soloists reeling off 36 songs, from an original, “Water Colors,” with Logan Lampe accompanying vocalist Alicia Ferguson on guitar, to two Beatles’ classics, the Vocal Scholars’ “Eleanor Rigby” and the Jazz Ensemble’s brassy “Blackbird.”
Director of Choral Activities David Carew solidified another concept this year — a fourth focal point. Call it the Backdoor Stage.
Director of Bands Mark Hollandsworth’s Symphonic Band opened with the jolting “Short Ride in a Fast Machine,” growing more majestic as the evening progressed with “Sleep,” “Selections from The Greatest Showman” and “His Honor.”
The Jazz Ensemble also featured “Splanky” and “The Queen Bee.”
Soloists included soprano Grace Bruntz, bass Trenton Smith accompanying himself on guitar, soprano Megan Laine, tenor Coby Henslee, mezzo soprano Sarah Bussler, snare drummer Logan Petruska, tenor Oliver Long, mezzo Fawn Bussler and mezzo Aliyah Leavitt.
It was a big night for Madison Sutherland, singing soprano with the Collegiate Chorale and Choral Scholars, performing “The Girl from Ipanema” with the Jazz Combo and Portishead’s “Glory Box” with the band she joined last spring, Backpocket. Sutherland also plays guitar and performs as a solo artist and with a pianist around the St. Joseph-Coloma area.
The Jazz Combo lit a fuse with the intense “Megalovania” arranged by bassist Kenneth Creameans and featuring incendiary solos by tenor saxophonist Seth Kalina and trumpeter Dominick Lampe.
The Vocal Scholars contributed “Fire, Fire, My Heart” and “Splitting the Sunlight.”
The Collegiate Chorale offered “Elijah Rock” and crowd-pleaser “Sweet Caroline,” with the audience responding, “So good, so good,” right on Carew’s cue.
The Men’s Ensemble presented “Et Veritas.”
An SMC Clarinet Quintet played Scott Kurtzweil’s arrangement of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.”
Owen Lingle and Ryan Peterson teamed up for a trombone duet.
Gabriel Palacios served up six piano pieces during interludes.
