More than 250 musicians will crowd onto the stage of the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium tonight to play and sing Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.
Steven Huang will conduct the 80-piece orchestra and more than 200 vocalists, who will perform Orff's famous composition.
The majority of the School of Music is involved in the concert, Huang said.
The orchestra, the wind ensembles, the University Singers, the Choral Union, Women's Chorus and the Singing Men of Ohio all are performing in Carmina Burana. The vocal soloists for the performance are Yu Song Kim, Mark Baker and William Parsons.
The music has been used in many movies and will be recognizable for many in the audience, Huang said.
Joe Carver and Ryan Borden, two percussionists, said the audience will most likely remember the piece from the beginning of the movie Jackass.
They'll definitely recognize it
Carver said.
The concert has four main movements and an introduction. The introduction is an ode to fortune, the next part is about springtime and the third part is a collection of tavern songs. Love is the focus of the fourth part, and the last part reprises the introduction.
Orff wrote the piece in 1937 by compiling a collection of texts in vulgarized Latin and early German and writing music to accompany the texts.
A lot of the music is very folk like Huang said.
Carver described the piece as loud and bombastic.
With all of the musicians crammed onto the stage, the volume of the music is sufficient to fill the whole of Mem Aud.
It's been a challenge to get together said Jessica Embry, citing the changes in meter throughout the piece as the main obstacle.
Huang has rehearsed the orchestra for three weeks since the music school's production of the opera The Marriage of Figaro ended, and Ray Feener and Peter Jarjisian, music faculty members, have worked to prepare the vocalists. The combination of the orchestra and the vocalists has only been practiced twice, in dress rehearsals Monday and Wednesday.
Although three weeks is a long time for a professional orchestra to prepare -the average time is a week -the students usually have four or five weeks to prepare for concerts.
This shortened preparation time for the event does not cause Huang any concern.
What can go wrong? he said with a shrug, adding that he views the unexpected and accidental to be part of the fun of attending a live concert.
The music for this concert was selected a year in advance by Jarjisian.
I though he was being very ambitious
Huang said, referring to Jarjisian.
Huang said Carmina Burana should be a crowd-pleaser here because the themes of spring and drinking intersect with life in Athens.
It matches the community atmosphere
Huang said.
Carmina Burana will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7.
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Conductor Steven Huang leads guest vocalist William Parsons and 250 members of the OU School of Music at a rehearsal in Memorial Auditorium yesterday. Camrina Burana will be performed tonight in Memorial Auditorium at 8 p.m.
