Performance Report 1

This performance report is over the “Shakespeare in Song” performance which was presented by the UT Dallas Chamber Singers at the University of Texas at Dallas’ Jonsson Performance Hall. While there were multiple performances between the 26th and 27th of March this report will focus on the performance at 8 pm on Friday March 26th.

The music culture that was being represented in this performance relies on adaptations of the works of Shakespeare put to a melody to produce their music along with other textual parts that are read to set the mood. Also the performers need to have some degree of the ability to act as well since pieces and textual parts are usually reflective of certain emotions. Finally a pianist usual acts as an accompaniment to these performers.

The repertoire of this performance mainly focused on the chamber singers performing as a group (being split up into sopranos, altos, tenors, and baritones/basses) however it should be noted that a small number of the pieces were solos. The tempo of each piece changed depending on the current mood such as the beats per second of the sorrowful Act IV Scene 5 of Hamlet was considerably slower than Act IV Scene 3 of A Winter’s Tale which represents a more humors part. Interestingly due to the nature of these songs it can be difficult to understand the lyrics of certain parts therefore the performers usually read textual parts prior to each piece. Also for the group pieces the piano seems to give the starting note to the chamber singers right before the beginning of each piece.

Now even though this performance was very casual with its dressing requirements all of the performers performed in Renaissance attire. The performers themselves could be broken into three groups: the director, the pianist, and the chamber singers. Also the chamber singers could be divided into four different groups (as stated earlier) depending on the vocal range they sang and these divisions could be noticed as there were visual gaps between where each group stood. During the text reading and the solos the individuals who were performing moved in front of the chamber singers to perform.

Finally it should be noted that there seems to have been a number of people behind the scenes and while they might not be what first comes to mind as performers they played a significant role in the performance. The roles I was able to notice were that of the greeters at the doors along with the costume coordinator. Also they had a technical consultant who worked a projector which displayed current song’s name to audience.

While I do not have the exact numbers for this performance I would guess that the audience was at the size of around 50 to 75 individuals. Students however made the majority of the audience with a population of around 69.34% of the audience. It should be noted though that the student body can be divided into two groups based on their reason for attending this performance. One group would be the students who were attending this performance to obtain data for their music class while the other group was attending so that they might support their friends.

Now even though the reasons for attendance might differ as the majority of the audience’s population was comprised of students one can surmise that this music culture is open to outsiders. This is because while students may have some introduction to the culture being a student denotes that one is learning and thus not truly a complete member of the community yet. Also as the majority of the audience were not members of the society there wasn’t much interaction between the audience and performers beyond cues for applauds by the director and laughter at the performer’s jokes.

The audience’s reaction to the performance was what I would call average. On one hand everyone (with the exception of a few people who had to answer their cell phones) stayed for the entire performance and applauded for each piece (and perhaps sometimes when they weren’t suppose to) on the other hand the majority audience refused to stand at the end during their applauds.

The reason for this reaction is best explained by a further look at the time and place of the performance. As it was on a Friday the crowd consisted mainly of students attempting to get their research school work done while they were still on campus before going home for the weekend. So while they likely enjoyed the concert the fact that they had to take notes probably was of greater concern than applauds.

So in summary this performance was based in the culture of putting melodies to the play lyrics of Shakespeare. Due to the open nature of this performance and the fact that this performance was the most accessible to students the majority of the audience was comprised of students using it as class material. This resulted in an average audience reaction at the end since these students were not experts in this culture and needed to collect data.

Works Cited
Shakespeare In Song. By Author/Composer First then Last Name. Dir. Kathryn Evans. Perf. UT Dallas Chamber Singers, Michael McVay. Jonsson Performance Hall, Richardson. March 26, 2010.

Evans, Kathryn. Program notes. Shakespeare In Song. March 26, 2010. Richardson: Jonsson Performance Hall. (Evans).