By Jonelle Bobak
The Gardner-Webb Trumpet Ensemble is making the trek this week to the National Trumpet Competition at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
They have competed in the NTC multiple times and made it to the semi-finals at the 2014 competition.
“We have had our performance piece since September and have been rehearsing a couple nights a week ever since,” said Kevin Clary, a senior member of the Trumpet Ensemble. Their practice times have varied from in the early afternoon to late at night.
Photo by Megan Hartman
“We have had two hour rehearsals every week with the trumpet studio professor, Tim Hudson,” said senior member, Melody Bubar. On her own time, Bubar listens to a recording of their performance piece they sent in for their audition to help her remember how the piece needs to sound.
Thursday, March 19, is the first day of competition and they will be performing in the seven to 10 member ensemble portion of the competition. There are currently two divisions of trumpet ensembles in the competition, ensembles of four to six members and ensembles of seven to 10 members.
“I feel like it will be more of a challenge because there are more bands there, but then again it won’t because they are allowing more into the semi-finals,” said Bubar.
The group will be performing an original piece written by Dr. Jeff Richmond, entitled “Quintessence.” The piece has a variety of tempos, an eight-part harmony and is very rhythmic.
There will be almost 40 different universities participating in the NTC. “I am most excited about meeting new people from other ensembles,” said Ben Dawkins, a junior member. At last year’s competition they met an ensemble from North Dakota and were able to learn from them and other universities.
Julia DeSerio, a freshman member, believes the ensemble needs to have camaraderie in order to successfully perform together. “When you perform you can easily get lost in nervousness, but it’s not about that, music is a gift that has been given to us,” said DeSerio.
During their practices DeSerio would look at other members and not in the direction of the where the crowd would be. She finds that it helps with stage fright.