FSU’s Chamber Orchestra Presents Orchestral Musings March 11

FSU's Chamber Orchestra Presents Orchestral Musings March 11

Feb 24, 2026 9:00 AM

The Frostburg State University Chamber Orchestra is proud to present its program, Orchestral Musings, on Wednesday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of the Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. The concert will feature the music of Tchaikowsky, Copland, and Mendelssohn and a world premiere of a work by FSU Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance faculty member, Dr. Mackenzie Jacob LaMont. The recital is free and open to the public. The performance will also be live-streamed; follow the link at https://www.frostburg.edu/concerets.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was not an avowed musical nationalist, however, he was still patriotic enough to rouse orchestral Russianness when the occasion demanded. The occasion for "Marche Slave" was a benefit concert held in 1876 to raise funds for soldiers wounded in the Turko-Serbian war, a war which, because of Czar Alexander II's sympathy for the Serbs, developed into armed conflict between Turkey and Russia.

In 1938, with the threat of impending war, Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town," with its look back at an America of homespun values, was tremendously appealing. While much of the composition, reflects the simplicity of life with its accessible tonality, the repeated melodic and harmonic patterns, or ostinato, Copland takes us on a journey through the challenges and tensions of life, in its unexpected shifts of tonality and meter. In "Our Town," we are afforded the opportunity to reminisce, appreciate, and reflect on all the aspects that make, our town - no matter which one you live in, special and unique to each of us.

"Fingal's Cave" ("Fingals Höhle'"), finished in 1834, has often been known under the monikers of "The Hebrides" and "The Lonely Isle". Yes, all three of these titles refer to the same piece of music composed by Felix Menelssohn. While the composition is not necessarily programmatic in nature, it was inspired by a trip to Scotland to paint and sketch the landscape and was taken with a particular cave on the island of Staffa. The music is meant to represent the rise and fall of the ocean as the waves crash against the outer wall of Fingal's Cave. Interestingly, even though the title might suggest that it is an overture to an opera or operetta, it is a stand-alone work to itself.

Composer Mackenzie Jacob Lamont, faculty at FSU's Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance states, "I began writing "Symphonic Musings" in late 2012, finishing it over the winter of 2012-13. I had written ten "officially finished and even performed" compositions at that point and wanted to write an orchestral piece inspired by the sonata form first movements common to late classical and romantic symphonies." Lamont continues, "I entertained the thought of a full symphony during the writing process but eventually parted with that idea (hence the title). Thinking I would receive divine inspiration from the dead masters, I wrote the first few pages of the piece using meticulous penciled-in notation on staff paper before realizing that it was going to take me six months. The piece received an excellent reading and recording at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and has sat in stasis ever since. I'm still very happy with the piece, especially as my first orchestral work. It remains unique among the two other orchestral works that followed, keeping a closer connection to the past."