By snoadmin
Groups of people dressed in carnival costumes mingled around the Daniel Recital Hall Friday night. There were clowns and tightrope walkers walking around the vicinity talking to each other. No, this was not an actual carnival, but the Beach Café held by the students of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music.
Jonathan Talberg, Director of Choral, Opera, and Vocal Studies, said that the Beach Café is a student-run concert where they get to perform songs they would not normally learn in a classroom setting.
“It’s an opportunity for our students to highlight the kind of singing and performance that they enjoy but isn’t part of the curriculum here,” Talberg said. “For 12 years we’ve done these shows either one or two a year. These shows are always different.”
The carnival-themed concert was a sold-out show filled with alumni, parents, and fellow students in the audience.
The performing students presented a variety of performances, including musicals, parodies, original songs and interpretive dance.
The student community of clowns, tightrope walkers, other choral student came into the recital hall and belted out beautiful notes “Seasons of Love” from the musical “RENT,” which the audience sang along with.
The vocal jazz group, Pacific Standard Time, performed a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
Their rendition was haunting as there were no instruments playing besides the members’ hums, as well as the stomps and claps from background performance members. Each note sung had a futuristic and hypnotic tone, pulling the audience into dreamy world.
Another performance included a girl dressed as Disney’s Snow White who sang “Portrait of a Princess.” The song made the audience burst into laughter as each line referenced Disney characters and their drinking habits.
The audience continued laughing as the song made many innuendos about Snow White’s sexual adventures with a penniless prince and a drunken dwarf (not at the same time).
One of the most memorable pieces was done by Chris Maldonado. Maldonado donned a clown costume as he played Nikolai Kapustin’s Etude Op. 40 No. 6 “Pastorale.” He put his whole body into the performance as he bounced along with the notes he played.
However, the piece was not memorable because of the clown costume, but because of Maldonado’s ability to play the piece by memory.
“A lot of the students in the music department have so much talent,” Jessica Avila, junior civil engineering major, said. “They don’t always receive the support from the entire campus which is something you should always have. We have an amazing conservatory on campus and a lot of people don’t know it.”
For more information on upcoming performances, visit the calendar section of csulb.edu/music.
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