On Wednesday, April 10 I had the pleasure of attending the Dana Concert Series "Music at Noon: String Department" concert at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. The concert opened with a movement from Dvorak's "American" String Quartet, followed by Philip Glass' String Quartet No 5., Movement 5. Rounding out the program with some popular tunes was "Nintendo's Legendary Heroes Medley", arranged by one of the violinists playing (Zack Weese) and a quintet arrangement of Bob Marley's "Don't Vorry, Be Heppy". Overall the concert was lovely, despite a few very minor intonation issues. The Dovorak was moving and exciting, and captured the passion of the work exquisitely. The Glass has always been one of my favorite pieces, and they did a good job with keeping the work exciting, which is a regular challenge for musicians when playing works by minimalist composers. The Weese piece was well orchestrated and beautiful, but did not include many of the most memorable Zelda and Mario themes as one might expect, but rather focused on lovely less-heard lyric melodies from the games. The Marley piece was cute and charming.
The concert included violinists Abigail McLaughlin, Patrick Strasik, and Zak Weese, violist Leslie Dubiel, and Cellist Stephanie Zitkovich, all students at Youngstown State University's Dana School of Music. Overall a lovely afternoon lunchtime break, and a wonderful venue with artful beauty all around you.
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