The Fresno City College Woodwind Choir performed Friday, April 19 in the Old Administration Building auditorium to a small audience of family, friends and music lovers.
FCC woodwind music director and instructor Larry Honda directed the 16-member choir through pieces composed by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Bach, Brandenburg and several others.
“Unique” is how Honda describes the choir.
“We call it a ‘woodwind choir’ because it’s not so much a band, it’s more like a singing choir, because we have these instruments of similar families,” said Honda. “With a choir we think of soprano, alto, tenor, bass voices and we have that within the woodwind family. That’s what makes it unique.”
The woodwinds of the symphony orchestra consists of the flutes, the double-reed, such as the oboe and bassoon, and the soprano, alto and bass clarinets. These are performed without the accompaniment of strings, drums or brass.
Making this ensemble even more unique is the fact that there is no music that one can buy already arranged for the woodwinds. Music is composed for bands and orchestras, but music for woodwinds must be specially arranged from pre-existing pieces.
“There are original compositions for it,” said Honda. “But in particular, we feature the music of my former music teacher at Fresno State, Russell S. Howland. He is known in the woodwind circles, especially at the college level, as the father of the Woodwind Choir.”
Howland was given the honor of this distinction because he took pieces composed for the symphony orchestra and rearranged the notes specifically for the woodwind instruments.
“So you have, basically, the flutes and clarinets playing the violin string parts,” said Honda. “You have bass clarinets playing tuba parts… alto clarinet playing the trumpet parts. But he arranged them in a really artistic manner that still retains the quality and spirit of the music and really challenges the students in a lot of ways.”
Technically this is a challenge as the students must learn music that was not originally written for their instrument. According to Honda, there are certain technical difficulties the musician must get around in order to execute the music. There is also the challenge of interpretation because the music comes in a variety of different styles and the students must learn each one.
“So, Mr. Howland created these arrangements, really, for educational purposes,” said Honda. “Not so much for this group to go out and perform like a symphony orchestra. But, nevertheless, this is great art music.”
The music played Friday night featured solos by FCC students Manuel Gonzalez on clarinet, Monique Reyna on bass clarinet and Andrew Castillo on the flute. Each performance was followed by enthusiastic applause.
The audience was also treated to a woodwind quartet comprised of artists Arron Gomez, Colleen Carlson, Glenn Sabal and Joseph Archuleta.
20-year-old Aminata, a commercial music major who performed with the Woodwind Choir Friday evening, felt the concert went well.
“It was really good to hear all the different sections come out more because of the auditorium,” said Aminata, who has been part of the group for five semesters.
She stated that for as long as she has been a student at FCC, she has been playing with the Woodwind Choir.
Aminata will be transferring to California State University, Northridge next semester and plans to compose a piece of music for the FCC Woodwind Choir while she is there.
“I’ll definitely come back and hear it and have the premier done here,” she said.
This class is one that anyone may take. It is listed in the schedule of courses as a woodwind class. Anyone with woodwind instrument experience may enroll, according to Honda.
He has had students in his class who hadn’t played in anywhere from four to 10 years but wanted to once again aquaint themselves with their instrument.
