music
October 1, 2014
Mandolin Champion At Goshen College
An early enrollment program student earned the title of youngest national mandolin champion. Ethan Setiawan was named the national mandolin champion on Sept. 19 at the Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival, making him the youngest musician ever to win the championship. The competition took place in Winfield, Kan., where tens of thousands of bluegrass-lovers gather every September to perform, listen and compete in national competitions. Setiawan is currently a high school senior taking classes at Goshen College with the early enrollment program. Setiawan first started playing the mandolin when he was 13 years old. He had played the cello already for...
October 1, 2014
Lavender Jazz Playing At First Fridays
Swing Club will join Lavender Jazz at October First Fridays. Goshen College’s Lavender Jazz will team up with GC’s Swing Club for an easy listening and swing dancing event this weekend. This event will take place as part of downtown Goshen’s October First Fridays. This event is an opportunity for GC students to interact with the broader city of Goshen. This year, the band Lavender Jazz has a new director. Christopher French, adjunct music professor, is replacing Christopher Fashun. In addition to teaching, French is an accomplished clarinetist, saxophonist and flutist who performs in several area ensembles. In a recent...
September 24, 2014
Parables Focus On Love
The musical worship ensemble will perform songs and dramas about love this year. Parables, Goshen College’s traveling worship ensemble, is kicking off its performance series for the year. The small ensemble, made up of current Goshen College students, performs primarily during Sunday morning church services in the Northern Indiana area. Parables has been rehearsing weekly for these performances since mid-August. Each performance includes music, drama and personal faith stories – all related to this year’s theme: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Parables has chosen to highlight the self-love portion of...
April 10, 2014
Symphony Orchestra to Perform Next Week
Next Wednesday, the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Christopher Fashun, will present its Spring Concert. The orchestra will perform iconic works by Aaron Copland, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Franz Schubert. “I especially love the Rimsky-Korsakov,” said Stephen Graber, a junior clarinetist, “this concert is going to be really good.” One of the compositions the orchestra will perform is Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony.” “I love that symphony… the beginning of the first movement alone is indescribable,” Becky Snider, a junior flautist, said. “If you’re not there to hear it, you’ll seriously be missing out. Seriously.” Before his death in 1828, Schubert...
April 9, 2014
Choirs to Perform EARTHTONES
The Goshen College Choirs will be presenting a multicultural concert experience this Saturday. “EARTHTONES: Songs from Many Cultures,” will feature performances by the Chamber Choir, Men’s Chorus, Women’s World Music Choir and student vocal ensemble the MennoNotes. The global theme of the concert has been special for many choir members. Prashansa Dickson, a sophomore, said, “We in the Women’s World Music Choir like to feel like we sing connected to the earth and the women around the world who are working with the earth. So, singing songs from around the globe helps reiterate that message deeper in us as we...
March 19, 2014
Lavender Jazz to Present Spring Concert
Lavender Jazz will perform their spring concert this Friday at 7:30pm in Sauder Concert Hall. The ensemble, led by director Christopher Fashun, is considered Goshen College’s “big band.” Student musicians of any major audition and join the ensemble every year, getting together to play classic jazz hits and standards, as well as their own interpretations of hits from contemporary rock and pop bands. At least one Radiohead cover will be performed during their spring concert, as well as charts and covers of works by Otis Redding, Nat King Cole and Thad Jones. Student singers will be showcased in the concert,...
February 12, 2014
Ten Years of Venus and Mars: GC Men and Women Celebrate Anniversary with Winter Concert
Ten years ago Goshen College had only a chamber choir and a chorale. Debra Brubaker, a current choir director, remembers when James Hikes, a former choir director, wanted to grow the program. “He said, ‘You can’t have a choral program without a men’s chorus,’ and I said, ‘Well, you can’t have a men’s chorus without a women’s chorus,’” said Brubaker. Ten years later, Brubaker still directs the Women’s World Choir and Scott Hochstetler has taken direction of the Men’s Chorus. They will lead the GC choirs and two guest high school choirs in a celebration of GC’s decade of gendered...
January 22, 2014
Moral Circus Set for Success
December was a fabulous month for independent Goshen folk band Moral Circus. GC seniors and members Phil Scott, Henry Stewart and Lauren Treiber, all seniors, not only received more than three times as much money as they needed to fund their first studio album, but they were also featured in Independent Music News’ Staff list “Discover 50 Independent Artists in December.” Moral Circus’s debut album, “Set in a Stem,” was also released. In September 2011, Scott, Stewart and Treiber performed the song “Goshen” by Beirut at Kickoff, and they had so much fun making music together that they decided to...
January 22, 2014
Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble to Perform at Reith
The Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble will perform in Reith Recital Hall this Sunday, as the third concert in the Reith Chamber Series. The Freimann ensemble, made up of principal members of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, will play a variety of musical combinations such as Benjamin Britten Phantasy Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola and Cello and W.A. Mozart’s “Kegelstatt.” The ensemble gives a musical taste to what is to come; the full Fort Wayne Philharmonic orchestra will perform an orchestral concert at Goshen on April 11.
January 15, 2014
Vocal Ensemble Moira Smiley and VOCO to Perform
This Friday, the folk music and a cappella ensemble, moira smiley and VOCO, will perform in Sauder Concert Hall. According to the band’s website, moira smiley and VOCO was named the number one a cappella group in 2007 and have since been called, “persuasive, near perfect musicians,” by the Herald Times. Their original pieces have been adapted for larger choral groups and have been performed on multiple occasions by Goshen’s own International Women’s Choir. The voices of the trio of women make one cohesive sound. However, each individual uses their voice and body as distinct “instruments.” One is a body...
December 7, 2013
After a decade, Festival of Carols continues tradition
Each December – and November, and October – Goshen College students prepare for the Christmas choral and orchestral concert, Festival of Carols (or, as they refer to it affectionately, FOC, an endearment whose irony is not lost on them). Festival of Carols features three Goshen College choirs—the men’s choir, the women’s world music choir and the chamber choir—as well as the Goshen College orchestra and Shout for Joy, a children’s choir. This year’s concert will be held this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. According to Deb Brubaker, professor of music and director of the women’s world music choir, the Festival of...
November 22, 2013
The sweet notes: long-awaited Vienna Boys Choir to perform
The Performing Arts Series of Sauder Concert Hall offers a range of performances, from radio hosts to symphonies to folk singers to classical boys’ choirs. The series is meant to create a space for campus and community members to interact with Goshen College’s campus and each other in the presence of eclectic performers. One such talent is the Vienna Boys Choir, which has been a long sought-after performance. However, due to scheduling, they were unable to come to Sauder until this performance season. The Vienna Boys Choir will be performing at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Sauder Concert Hall. Brian Mast,...
November 22, 2013
Parables team brings balance and blend
Blend and balance: these seem like essential elements in a college student’s life. But for members of Goshen College’s singing group Parables, blend and balance are crucial in both their lives and performances. Parables consists of eight students. Sophomores in the group are Paul Zehr, Martin Flowers, Prashansa Dickson, Miranda Earnhart and Benjamin Ganger. Remaining members are Becky Snider and Brody Thomas, juniors, and Rachel Mast, senior. Dr. Deb Brubaker leads and directs Parables, and Gwen Gustafson-Zook, minister of worship, provides spiritual focus. Blending and channeling diverse personalities into a polished product is challenging, but the group has made it...
November 15, 2013
Music students win statewide singing competition
Goshen College sent eight talented vocalists to compete at the annual NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) competition at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. on November 1. Two of Goshen’s students, Rhianna Cockrell and Ben Ganger, both music performance majors with concentrations in voice, returned from the competition with top honors, each winning first place in their divisions. The NATS competition is an annual event that draws students from colleges and universities across the state, including the University of Indianapolis, Ball State University, Indiana University Bloomington, Butler University and others. Each student competed in divisions separated according to age...
November 15, 2013
The ten o’ clock party: 22nd Century brings back hour after
The long-awaited Hour After will return to campus this weekend when 22nd Century takes the Newcomer stage for a night of jazz and pop entertainment. The diversity of performances the males of 22nd Century are providing for Hour After mirror their actions. The group is able to flip from banter and playful insults to harmonizing, quasi-romance songs in one breath. The group is composed of 12 members, including Tim Bixler, Aaron Bontrager, Neal Brubaker, Jackson Bush, Brendyn Cane, Andre Eisenbeis, Taylor Ermonian, Caleb Harnish, Lucas Harnish, Benson Hostetter, Minah Kim and Jared Zook. The band was formed by Minah Kim,...