Wells School of Music

Chamber Orchestra

The WCU Chamber Orchestra performs works for strings and winds, and for strings alone. We often collaborate with faculty soloists, showcase our own students within the ensemble, and perform a wide range of repertoire, standard and new. Our concert presentations are innovative, including concerts in the round, audience questions, and guest speakers. We have newly become the opera orchestra, performing full-scale operas such as Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and Copland’s The Tender Land. This vibrant ensemble attracts an ever-growing audience of all ages!

• Ensemble Director: Joseph Caminiti
• Number of Members: 20-30
• Audition Requirements: Auditions for membership and seating take place in August for the Fall semester, and November for the Spring semester. Auditions consist of orchestral excerpts and are played for the conductor and a faculty member.
• Number of Concerts: 3-4 per year

Samples of Past Repertoire:

Britten, Simple Symphony
Bach, Brandenburg Concerto #3
Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Plau, Concerto for Tuba and Strings
Grieg, Holberg Suite
Puccini, Chrysanthemums
Suk, Serenade for Strings
Holst, St. Paul Suite
Maggio, Bright Elegy
Respighi, Ancient Aires and Dances
Finzi, Romance in E-Flat
Telemann, Concerto for 3 Trumpets and strings
Mozart, Die Zauberflöte

View All Ensembles

Chamber Music

Chamber Music at WCU offers a focused setting for exploring small ensemble literature for mixed instrumentation from duos to quintets. Students enrolled in chamber music at WCU will coach regularly with members of the Dali Quartet and have opportunities to perform in master classes and in concerts on and around campus.

• Ensemble Director(s): Dali Quartet
• Number of Members: Duos, Trios, Quartets, Quintets
• Audition Requirements: Interested students will be placed in a chamber group by members of the Dali Quartet
• Number of Concerts: 2-3 per year

Collegium Musicum

Membership varies based on interest and ability but there is room for recorder, viol, and broken consorts, as well as singers and keyboardists (continuo playing). Most players have not used historical instruments before and select an instrument similar to something they already play, though singers have become viol players and pianists have become recorder players, etc.

• Ensemble Director: Mark Rimple
• Number of Members: Flexible instrumentation performing pieces of 8-23 musicians
• Audition Requirements: Audition is required as an interview with the director.
• Number of Concerts: 2 per academic year (Fall/Spring)

Samples of Past Repertoire:

Greorian chant and secular monophony (Hildegard of Bingen, Frauenlob, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Troubadour song, etc.), medieval and Renaissance chansons and motets (Guillaume de Machaut, Josquin des Prez, Johannes Ockeghem, Nicholas Gombert, etc.), consort music (Attaignant, Gervaise, and other French consort dances, Antony Holborne viol consorts, Fantasies and Ricercares by various late Renaissance composers including Giovanni Gabrieli), Italian and English Madrigals, lute songs and consort songs (Claudio Monteverdi, Don Carlo Gesualdo, John Dowland, John Danyel, Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd), and solo monody and early opera (Barbara Strozzi, Giulio and Francesca Caccini, Monteverdi, Johann Kapsberger, Henry Purcell, Felice Sances, etc.) and 17th - 18th c. Cantatas and Motets (Heinrich Schutz, G. F. Handel, J. A. Hasse, J. C. Bach, etc.).

Guitar

The purpose of this organization is to perform music for one, two, three, four or more classical guitars from the Renaissance to the present day. This experience develops musicianship in a way that solo playing alone does not. Activities include an ensemble concert at the end of each semester in addition to other performances on and off campus.

Harp

This energetic harp orchestra is a fifteen member ensemble. The annual WCU Harp festival event hosts up to 25 harps along with alumni and professional musicians.

• Ensemble Director: Professor Gloria Galante founded the West Chester Harp Ensemble and WCU Harp Program in 1987.
• Number of Members: 15
• Audition: Auditions are available and we welcome up to 25 members. Audition requirements are one Bach transcription and La Joyuese- Carlos Salazedo and one piece of your choice.
• Harp Circle: 3rd Monday of each month (all 12 months) - located at SilverLake Nature Center

New Music

The New Music Ensemble is a collection of student and faculty performers coordinated by the Music Theory and Composition department. Concerts feature a wide variety of acoustic and electronic chamber works (many of them world-premieres) by student and faculty composers as well as guest composers.

• Ensemble Directors: Adam Silverman and Van Stiefel
• Number of Members: Open to all undergraduate, graduate, and faculty performers
• Audition Requirements: Interested performers should contact the ensemble directors.
• Number of Concerts: 2-3 per year

Samples of Recent Repertoire:

Works by faculty members Robert Maggio, Larry Nelson, Mark Rimple, and Greg Wilder and students Genevieve Black, Chris Bryan, and Matthew Heim.