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Wind Symphony to crowd source music choices

Classical music is getting an twist this week in Baldwin Auditorium.

Duke Wind Symphony is taking a nontraditional route with its concert this Thursday, Nov. 19. Their first-ever Crowdsource concert differs from previous concerts the symphony has put on in that the audience will get to vote on the pieces they would like to hear. Should you attend, you will actually get to have a say in what will be performed.

“I was looking for a way to further engage the audience and had heard of this idea of letting them participate before,” Mösenbichler-Bryant said. “I want our audience to feel like they are part of our performance. We spend hours perfecting music to share with them and this is a special way to get them involved.”

The Wind Symphony is comprised completely of Duke students, both graduates and undergraduates, and perform several formal concerts throughout the year as well as tours in locations like Washington, D.C.

In addition to Alfred Reed’s “Hounds of Spring” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles,” a live voting website will be set up for the audience to vote on songs. Attendees will have a choice between Georges Bizet’s “Carmen Suite” or Guiseppe Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” and between John Philip Sousa’s “The Washington Post March” or Edwin Franko Goldman’s “Cheerio March.” The rest of the concert will be based on student suggestions from the end of last semester.

“I am curious to see which pieces our audience will choose,” said Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant, director of the Wind Symphony. “Since the rest of the pieces are student suggestions, I am excited for their passionate performance of those works.”

Mösenbichler-Bryant originally came up with the idea for a crowd-sourced concert and ran it by the executive board of the symphony, who agreed that the modified format was an interesting idea and decided to go through with it.

“This isn’t something that classical music groups usually do, they don’t usually get the audience involved in the music that much,” said sophomore Bryan Higgins, a member of the Wind Symphony. “I wasn’t really sure how it was going to work, but I’m curious to see how it goes on Thursday.”

However, the uniqueness of the concert and the involvement it entails also means that the Wind Symphony had to put in extra work to make sure things will run smoothly on Thursday.

“The preparation for this concert was more intense since we had to learn more repertoire than we are actually going to perform,” Mösenbichler-Bryant said

Higgins said he is looking forward to being able to share the symphony's music with the Duke community following months of rehearsing multiple times per week. 

“We’re not going to be playing all of the pieces that we’ve prepared since the audience will be voting on them during the show, so we have several pieces ready for the concert that we may not actually end up playing,” Higgins said. “I just hope that we get a big turnout.”

The Duke Wind Symphony will perform "Crowdsource" in Baldwin Auditorium at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19. Admissions is free and open to the public.

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