The Online Reflector

The University of Indianapolis music department hosted the first ever Halloween-themed Faculty Artist Concert on Oct. 31 in Ruth Lilly Performance Hall. The concert featured music from various famous composers from different time periods, such as Purcell, Haydn, Gardner, Telemann and Rossini.

Steven Rickards, countertenor and UIndy faculty adjunct organized and planned the event, titled “Echoing Scare,” to fit the Halloween theme.

According to Rickards, the concert took four months of planning.

“I started the planning process in June, wrote  the script, found the people and put it together,” Rickards said.

The concert opened with Halloween-themed music and the narrator dressed in a hairy monster costume. The event began with one of Bach’s violin solo pieces performed by violinist David Rugger.

Following his performance was “Hallowe’en Witches,” in which singers dressed in costumes ranging from Cinderella to vampires.

After “Hallowe’en Witches,” Rickards performed “The Wanderer,” a solo by Haydn.

Following Rickards’ solo performance,  mezzo soprano and associate music professor Michelle Westra, countertenor Nathan Medley and Rugger performed numerous John Gardner pieces. UIndy voice class students and students from several local high schools, including North Central and Cathedral high schools, performed “Dido and Aeneas,” which tells a story of the encounter between two witches and a sorceress.

Following the group performance was “Trio Sonata in A minor,” a piece by German Baroque composer Georg Telemann.

A musical duet called “Duetto buffo di due gatti, ” featuring a piece by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, was performed following “Trio Sonata in A minor.”

Westra, who played the role of a female cat in “Duetto buffo di due gatti,”  explained the details of her scene.

“It can be done in many ways,” she said. “Rossini didn’t say much in the score to tell you how to perform it, so you can either play it as two cats courting each other or two cats that are fighting each other.”

Westra said that she had fun with the cat interpretation and was proud of the show’s performers.

“This is the first time I saw the students do their part. So it’s fun to see the students perform. It’s meant to be light and fun, and they did a really good job,”  Westra said.

She also thought that the planning was well-executed.

“He [Rickards] has the personality to put something like this together. He makes the students excited and want to do it,” she said. “That’s a gift and, it’s not an easy thing to do, getting everybody on board and participating.”

The concert ended with an invitation to the audience to sing along with the traditional carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and a classical Halloween-themed song, “The Addams Family,” by Vic Mizzy.

The stage was decorated with tombstones made from cardboard, with carvings that read, “Here Lies Tom” and “Here Lies Sam.” Skeleton figures and spiderwebs hung over the left side of the stage to make the atmosphere fit the Halloween theme.

According to Rickards, the students had only a couple of days to rehearse.

He was pleased with the show and said it was a success. However, he said there were also some challenges that he and the performers had to overcome. Rickards said that was because although the students learned the music material in class, it was difficult to find time outside of class to practice.

“Although a little more rehearsal time would be great, I thought the kids did a fantastic job,” Rickards said.