Spokane Symphony, EWU Orchestra to Play ‘Side By Side’ This Week

This Thursday, Eastern Washington University’s student orchestra will join Maestro James Lowe and the Spokane Symphony for its annual Side by Side concert in Showalter Hall Auditorium.

The event will feature the Spokane Symphony performing works from its current season. The EWU Orchestra, led by John Marshall, director of orchestra and cello studies, will then join the symphony on stage for Tchaikovsky’s sublime Serenade for Strings in C Major. But the highlight of the night, according to Eastern’s Music Director Jody Graves, will be the premier of several pieces composed by EWU music students and performed by the Spokane Symphony.

Senior students Madison Brickey and Christopher Cummins are two of the music majors whose compositions were chosen for Thursday’s event. As part of Professor Jonathan Middleton’s music composition class, Brickey and Cummins sought inspiration for their “pastoral” works during a trip to Grand Teton National Park last September.

“The feeling of being somewhere so awe-inspiring and breathtaking is naturally hard to convey in words,” Brickey says. “However, it is a lot easier to express with the many “voices” available to a composer.”

Brickey says her composition style is heavily influenced by James Lowe and the Spokane Symphony thanks to her experience of working with them twice before — experiences that have provided invaluable insight into the professional world of music composition and performance.

“They have been very generous with their time, and provided many insightful tips that have greatly aided me in my composing,” she says.

Cummins says the trip to the Tetons was a real game changer.

“I had ideas of what I wanted to write about before we even departed, but upon arrival I had to throw all of that out the window,” he says. “Everything about landscape, the mountains, the animals and everything in between surpassed my expectations. I realized that I couldn’t have even attempted writing about such grandeur without having experienced it first.”

Cummins also has had the opportunity of working with the professionals in the Spokane Symphony previously. He says he’s excited to hear them bring his latest composition to life.

“The most inspiring thing about hearing your works [performed] live is seeing how your ideas may or may not transcend the page,” Cummins says, adding that he hopes his musical ideas are capable of conveying something more than just “notes of black ink on a page.”

Cummins’ original work, “Stars Among Giants,” was inspired by the night sky above Grand Teton. He says the piece “depicts ideas of the stars and the inner workings of my own mind, especially during times of change and growth.”

Working with the Spokane Symphony, he says, has shown him all the ways in which his music could grow into something more.

“This room for growth really inspired me to keep writing, reevaluate what I could do to elevate my music and see if I could really sell the idea that music is meant to be an emotional experience.”

“Side By Side: EWU Orchestra Concert with the Spokane Symphony,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 12, at Eastern’s Showalter Hall. Tickets are free to EWU students and faculty. General admission is $10; seniors $5. Side by Side is made possible by funds from the Florence and Earle Stewart Endowment and generous donors who have helped underwrite its cost.