Emory Intersects Music, Theater For Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary

February 24th, 2016

Emory University’s Department of Theater Studies and the Emory Wind Ensemble are joining forces to commemorate 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare

KAY HINTON

Music is usually reserved for the concert hall, and theater is reserved for the playhouse.

But in a performance commemorating 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare this weekend, Emory University’s Department of Theater Studies and the Emory Wind Ensemble are joining forces.

The wind ensemble will play works from two films scores: Aaron Copland’s score for John Steinbeck’s “The Red Pony” and William Walton’s score for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” Those pieces will be interspersed with Emory’s theater faculty will doing dramatic readings of the original Steinbeck and Shakespeare texts.

Emory’s Department of Theater Studies’ John Ammerman will be doing the readings for the Steinbeck, and Tim McDonough will be reading “Henry V.”

In an interview with Lois Reitzes and Emory Wind Ensemble conductor Paul Bhasin, McDonough said, “To listen to the music and come right off the beat into [the St. Crispin Day Speech] is quite a thrill and quite an intersection of text and music.”

Their collaborative concert, called “Music for the Stage & Screen,” is this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts and is free to the public. Along with Copland and Walton, the Emory Wind Ensemble will perform Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin.”