Culture Through Concerts

Week Seven - In the upper floor of a university hall, adjacent to a major stairwell, lay a small collection of seats and tables. This is an area is perfect for a moments rest between classes, a short period of study, or a small gathering of students partaking in a noon lunch.

This week a significant portion of the music majors whom frequent this hall are away from campus, playing a halftime show for a Broncos game in Denver. This being so, there is little activity in there upper level of the music hall.

As there is little activity at the moment, I will be writing about a past event I observed. This event occurred nearly a month ago, and was a concert that took place in the university’s music hall. A New York Latin band was being featured that night, and there was a considerable showing for their performance. I came later to understand that it is required for most of the universities music majors to attend nine of these types of concerts per semester. This is what made my observations that night so interesting, at least in my opinion. Despite being forced to attend this performance by their graduation requirements, these students composed one of the most courteous and attentive audiences I’ve ever witnessed. During the entire course of the band’s performance, which covered a variety of “Native Afro-Mexican” pieces, I didn’t witness any of the concert goes pull out there cellphone, carry on a conversation with their peers, or otherwise engage in any less than courteous behavior. Each of these students held a fixed gaze on the performance in front of them.  It was more than just the students enjoying the music or evaluating the experience, they were genuinely intrigued by the performers. It seemed as if each music major was learning from the event—identifying key signatures or interesting choices of instrument, noting creative changes of beat or improvisation—the students were simply transfixed.

In the moments between songs, the leader singer of the group would take to the stage microphone and begin to not only introduce the next song, but provide a meaning for the song, a brief history of the cultures that influenced their work, and what they hoped that the audience would gain from their pieces. The performer spoke in a relatively heavy Hispanic accent, yet despite this barrier the audience strived to understand the man without grudging remarks.

There was a bridging of cultures in this performance. The audience was gaining insight into the cultures that the band displayed, but you could also see the performance of the band change in response to the cheers of the audience.