Ensemble Experiences
The Millikin Symphonic Wind Ensemble includes students who major in music as well as many other academic disciplines at Millikin University. In addition to performances at the Kirkland Fine Arts Center, the ensemble tours annually, often performing in public schools throughout the Midwest. In 1985, 1992, and again in January 2000 the Millikin Symphonic Wind Ensemble was featured at the Illinois Music Educators Association Conference. In 1994 the ensemble performed in Indianapolis at the Music Educators Association North Central Conference.
In March 1998, 2001 and 2005, the Millikin Symphonic Band traveled to the Dominican Republic (DR) for a musical outreach program. Members of the Millikin Wind Ensemble performed in Santo Domingo and La Romana and spent time demonstrating instruments to young students in public and private schools. The Millikin band program also sponsored a drive for used instruments in the Decatur community and was able to donate many instruments to students in the DR. In March 1999, Dr. Gary Shaw, conductor of the Millikin Symphonic Band was invited by the United States Information Agency and the City of La Romana to work with the Municipal Band of La Romana and give where he gave presentations to children in local schools.
Frequent guest conductors and soloists have visited the Millikin University campus to perform with students in the band program. Notable conductors include John P. Paynter, Stephen Egglelston, Robert Grechesky, Charles Menghini and conductor/composer Robert W. Smith. Guest soloists performing with the bands have included Millikin faculty members; Canadian Brass trumpeter, Ronald Romm; tubist Harvey Phillips and trombonist John Marcellus. The Millikin Symphonic Wind Ensemble has participated in several new composition consortiums with other universities. Commissioned composers include David Maslanka, David Gillingham, John Stevens, Joseph Schwantner and Libby Larsen.
The Millikin Symphonic Wind Ensemble has released three compact disc recordings, Postcard from the Prairie (2002), Tempered Steel (2003), and A Tribute to John Philip Sousa (2005). These recordings are produced by Millikin University's student run record label First Step Records.
The University Concert Band is an auditioned ensemble open to all university students for credit. The Concert Band performs on campus two times each semester at the Kirkland Fine Arts Center, and frequently tour to area public schools. The focus of the group is to develop a student's independent musicianship and artistry while performing high quality and challenging band music.
Showcasing its reputation for tonal diversity, the University Choir is garnering wide acclaim for it’s varied styles and unique programming. In 85 years of touring history the choir has performed throughout the U.S. and abroad. The choir has visited Mexico, Scandinavia, the former Soviet Union, Haiti, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The choir received high acclaim for its recent tour of the England. The choir will tour Taiwan and China in 2008. In the last decade, the University Choir has been invited on three separate occasions to perform for the Regional Convention of the American Choral Director’s Association (ACDA). Last year the choir sang for the National ACDA convention in Miami.
Forty-five voices strong, the Millikin Men's Choir is made up of first year students who sing a broad variety of repertoire. Whether before a crowd of 70,000 for the national anthem at a Chicago Bears game or an audience of high school choristers at the annual Millikin Vocal Festival, the Millikin Men are a favorite wherever they perform.
Consisting of 40 upper class women, the Millikin University Women's Choir performs classical choral literature from five centuries of music. The group may also be heard in combination with other Millikin choirs at the annual oratorio concert or during Christmas Vespers.
MU Women's Ensemble has a long-standing tradition of excellence at Millikin. The Ensemble is a select group of 65 singers, all of whom are first-year students. The choir frequently receives special invitations for performances state-wide.
Upper class select mixed ensemble. The choir is currently engaged in a three-year recording project with First Step Records.
Tudor Voices is a select small vocal ensemble specializing in music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. Performing regularly on campus and in the community, Tudor Voices collaborates with Millikin's faculty ensemble, Gravitación. Tudor Voices performs a capella , as well as with period instruments, such at lute and harpsichord.
The Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra is both an organization of the School of Music and a community-supported professional orchestra. This partnership allows students of orchestral instruments to study, rehearse, and perform core symphonic repertoire from all style periods alongside their studio teachers under professional conditions. The MDSO performs an annual subscription season of six concerts, plus special events such as outdoor concerts, music theatre, and opera.
The String Arts Ensemble is a student-only chamber orchestra that meets between MDSO concert cycles, or in lieu of MDSO for students. Repertoire performed in recent seasons has included standard string orchestra works by Corelli, Handel, Vivaldi, Schumann, Grieg, Holst, and Tchaikovsky. The String Arts Ensemble performs in various venues on and off campus, including tours and runouts.
Millikin Opera Theatre is distinctive because it educates a strictly undergraduate vocal student population through an ambitious set of offerings. Opera Workshop students progress through a series of recital and scene programs during each semester of their undergraduate study. Additionally opera students participate in as many as four mainstage offerings per year, including two musicals and an opera production. A second opera production is performed in the fall as part of the PASS (Performing Arts for Students Series) program of concerts presented in Kirkland Auditorium. Recent operas have included Tartuffe, The Magic Flute, Cosi fan tutte, Little Red Riding Hood, Bastien and Bastienne, Dido and Aeneas, Trouble in Tahiti, The Old Maid and the Thief, A Game of Chance, Hansel and Gretel, The Baker's Wife, The Coronation of Poppea , and the U. S. premiere of Antonin Dvorak's The King and the Coal Burner . Recent musicals include Jekyll and Hyde, Guys and Dolls, Into the Woods, Sweet Charity, A Little Night Music and Sugar. Productions in the 2006-2007 season will include The Magic Flute, Lucky Stiff, The Marriage of Figaro, The Coffee Cantata, and A Chorus Line. The repertoire is designed to lead a student in four years through the major periods and styles of opera and American musical theatre.
The Millikin University School of Music enjoys rich and varied chamber music offerings by both faculty and students. Student ensembles range from typical and atypical string, woodwind, brass, and percussion configurations to a cappella vocal groups.
The Millikin Chamber Percussion Ensembles, under the direction of Brian Justison, have been widely acclaimed for their performances of concert repertoire for percussion instruments. They are a recent winner (2003) of the Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition and were selected to perform at the 2008 PASIC Focus Day session. Performances at numerous regional music festivals are also part of their activities. Additionally, their debut CD, Best Kept Secret, received laudable reviews from both Gramophone Magazine and Percussive Notes. Each semester, one of four sub-groups are drawn from the core of this ensemble--a classical marimba quartet, a ragtime xylophone group, a Guatemalan/Mexican marimba ensemble, and an experimental music ensemble. The group has premiered many new works, including three such premieres at its PASIC 2003 showcase concert. In sum, these ensembles explore the diverse world of percussion music from the novel to the sublime.
The World Percussion Ensemble provides students with the opportunity to explore playing techniques and rhythms from around the world with a special emphasis on African and Afro-Caribbean music. In addition to offering authentic world music performances, the group's interest in combining elements of western and non-western music has given rise to an eclectic mix of jazz, pop, and world music that has engaged audiences throughout the region. The group’s first CD, Latin Jazz Project, received a laudable review in Percussive Notes (December 2006). The group’s latest release, Global Perspectives, is now available at First Step Records.
The guitar ensembles have been a significant performance group at Millikin University since 1987. They perform a wide variety of literature from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, performing throughout the Midwest to promote awareness of and interest in the guitar and its music. Students expand their repertoire beyond solo music and address issues related to group performance and rehearsal.
Jazz Band I is the premier instrumental jazz group on campus, made up of our top players. Recently invited to prestigious festivals at Elmhurst College and Notre Dame University, they have performed in the past few years with guests Rob Parton, Paul McKee, Mark Colby, Mike Smith, Dick Oatts, Marv Stamm, and others. The group has toured internationally and has recorded three CDs, available through First Step Records. The ensemble's principal repertoire is from the contemporary big band literature as well as authentic transcriptions from the bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and others. In recent years, the ensemble has consistently been named an “outstanding band” at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival. The band annually hosts the Illinois Collegiate Jazz Festival in February.
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Jazz Band II serves as a training ensemble for students who have had limited exposure to big band jazz. The ensemble performs regularly on and off campus, playing the music of Count Basie, Sammy Nestico, Eric Richards, Maria Schneider, Mike Tomaro, Mark Taylor, and others. The ensemble has performed at the Central Illinois Jazz Festival and at schools in the area. The focus in this ensemble is to help young musicians develop their jazz style and jazz improvisation skills.
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JAZZ COMBOS
Randall Reyman and Perry Rask, Directors
The combo program at Millikin University has developed in recent years into one of the most vibrant aspects of our ensemble offerings. Dr. Rask's combo class offers the opportunity to learn the essentials of small group jazz performance, ranging from musical issues to professional “on-the-job” issues. The class is routinely involved in the internalization of standard jazz repertoire which they perform at jam sessions at a local club. The advanced combo, directed by Prof. Reyman, operates on a “real world” basis, performing at a local jazz venue on Monday evenings. This ensemble performs a variety of repertoire ranging from jazz standards to original works to music of Dave Douglas and John Zorn.
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OneVoice is the flagship ensemble of the vocal jazz program at Millikin University. Begun in 1986, the program has grown steadily and now boasts several ensembles. MU vocal jazz ensembles perform regularly both on and off campus throughout the year. The vocal jazz program annually hosts an educational Vocal Jazz Festival on campus for high school and collegiate ensembles.
OneVoice has been specially recognized by DOWN BEAT magazine several times and has been invited to perform at various educational conferences and collegiate jazz festivals in the United States including the IAJE international convention in New York City (2001) and San Diego (1989), the UNC/Greeley Jazz Festival in Colorado and four times at the Illinois State Music Educator's Association state conference in Peoria. Over the years, OneVoice has been recognized numerous times as one of the outstanding groups at both the Elmhurst Jazz Festival and Gold Company Invitational Jazz Festival. They are one of two vocal jazz ensembles invited to perform at the international conference of the American Choral Director's Association in Oklahome City, OK in March of 2009. OneVoice recordings are available through First Step Records [www.firststeprecords.com].
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The Studio Ensemble program at Millikin provides students with the opportunity to perform in a small instrumental ensemble (often with vocal soloists) in a variety of styles including jazz, rock, pop, country, Broadway and gospel. Many of these ensembles also record at Millitrax Studio, a modern recording studio and video-editing facility on campus. All recording at Millitrax is managed and engineered by students under faculty supervision.