Instead of the Eastern Wind Symphony immediately taking the stage on Friday during its “A Night of Chamber & Wind Band” concert, it gave the stage to four student chamber ensembles.

Alan Sullivan, the director of the Eastern Wind Symphony and the interim director of bands, he thought the student bands did a good job.

“The kids that performed all the chamber ensembles did a terrific job,” Sullivan said. “The university is very blessed to have some outstanding young student musicians.”

The chamber ensembles each played one piece.

The pieces include: “Suite for Five Brass” by Michael Pratorius and performed by the Quintette de Cuivres; “Quintett, Op. 91, No. 6 in C minor” by Anton Reicha and performed by Five Fusion; “Quinten No. 3” by Victor Ewald and performed by The Brass Tacks; and “Uneven Souls” by Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic and performed by a percussion ensemble.

“The variety with the chamber music, we had the two brass groups playing pieces from different time periods, a wind quintet, and a very contemporary percussion group,” Sullivan said. “It gives the audience a nice variety of tonal colors and the historical period.”

Ashley Johnson, a freshman music major, said she liked hearing the ensembles play.

“The chamber music is good because it exposes everybody to that kind of music, where its not large ensembles,” Johnson said. “It gives players a chance to play a different variety of music.”

Sullivan said he thought the Wind Symphony did great and he said he liked the compositions.

The Wind Symphony performed “Symphony No. 2, Genesis” by David R. Gillingham, “Black Dog” by Scott McAllister, and “Beowulf” by W. Francis McBeth.

“The “Symphony No. 2 Genesis” is just a beautiful composition,” Sullivan said. “The last piece was originally not going to be on this program, but with Dr. McBeth’s passing I felt like, especially my generation, his concepts and literature really meant a lot.”

Lorenza Branecki, a junior music major who plays the French horn in the Wind Symphony, said she thought they performed well.

“I think we had such a huge sound,” Branecki said.

Johnson said she liked the Wind Symphony’s performance as well.

“I liked the variety of pieces, that it wasn’t all classic literature,” Johnson said.

Johnson said she liked “Genesis.”

“There is a lot of meaning behind them,” Johnson said. “It’s a lot more meaningful then someone would think if they heard it without knowing the background.”

Mary Jo Worthington, a junior marketing major, agreed that the performance was good.

“They had a really great repertoire and they pulled it off really well,” Worthington said. “And the chamber music was really good as well, a nice little feature.”

Worthington said she enjoyed “Black Dog” which featured Magie Smith, a professor of clarinet.

“It was really majestic, except for Magie Smith’s piece was insanely good,” Worthington said. “I wasn’t at the last concert and didn’t see it, but it was phenomenal. I saw her cutting herself off, I chuckled to myself.”

Branecki agreed that Smith did a good job in her performance.

“We were excited to hear her play it again,” Branecki said. “She gave us some insight (Friday) during rehearsal that she dedicated it to her dad. We were all like “Awe,” and it has a little more meaning.”

Branecki said her favorite piece on the program was “Genesis.”

“I really liked “Genesis” because, one, the epic horn parts,” Branecki said. “And two because I like how Gillingham took the biblical story and put it into music.”

Branecki said “Genesis” held more meaning for her than some of the other pieces and helped her really feel what was going on in the music.

“I thought it was an interesting concept that Gillingham took the first nine chapters of “Genesis” and then wrote music to them,” Branecki said. “During the flood, there was one point I could feel the arc rocking as if on the waves of the flood that was created, and it was really powerful.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.