Last Sunday ACU’s Wind Ensemble performed a concert to recognize Black History Month.
The ensemble played six songs featured, including “A Movement for Rosa” by Mark Camphouse, “American Guernica” by Adolphus Hailstork and “Blackbird” arranged by Shelly Berg.
Coleman Spears, senior computer science major from Abilene, and French Horn player for the ensemble, said he was excited to finally put on the show for everyone.
“We began rehearsing the pieces a few days before school began,” Spears said.
This concert has been on the ensemble’s and Dr. Ward’s radar for a while now, and the work and effort put into producing such an event was not lost on Spears, who said that “getting to see this concert come to fruition has been an amazing journey in and of itself.”
On Sunday it all came together. Spears described one of the most meaningful pieces to him, American Guernica, a piece written in memory of the horrific bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
“The piece juxtaposes loud and frantic wind players with the almost serene yet deeply spiritual gospel piano,” Spears said. “Hailstork uses this to bring the audience through a series of painful emotions, evoking the tragedy associated with the prejudice that still runs rampant through society today.”
The Wind Ensemble still has more events on the horizon, and next month Frank Ticheli, a world renowned band composer, will come to campus and perform a few pieces.
