Rebecca Byers
The Corsair
The Pensacola Symphony Orchestra performed at the Pensacola Saenger Theater in downtown Pensacola, Fl, on Nov. 3.
The theme of the concert, French Impressions, featured a variety of musical numbers written by French composers Maurice Ravel and Georges Bizet. Richard Jernigan, a performing arts professor at Pensacola State College, is one of the musicians in the orchestra.
“I play the clarinet and I am principle known as first chair clarinet,” Jernigan said
Jernigan, who has been part of the symphony since 1981, teaches music appreciation, introduction to music history, music fundamentals, and woodwind instruments.
“The first two concerts of this season are great opportunities to hear a variety of music,” said Jernigan.
The night of the concert the theater was filled with people chattering and at exactly 8 p.m. the concert began.
The music the symphony performed had a child-like sense to it.
The symphony began with a piece by Ravel called “The Mother Goose Suite: Five Children’s Pieces.” The suite featured five movements that included “Little Tom Thumb” and “The Conversation of Beauty and the Beast.”
The second movement, “Little Tom Thumb,” is the piece that I noticed the most out of the entire suite because the strings played the loudest. I wanted to hear more of the other instruments than just the violins but, overall, the suite was a very pretty piece that brought back memories of my childhood.
The Pensacola Children’s Chorus came out and joined the symphony for the next piece called “Requiem in D Minor, Op. 48” by Gabriel Faure. It was a seven-movement Latin piece that featured “Sanctus” and “Libera Me.”
“I feel like the concert went great and that all of our hard work really paid off in the end,” said Mary Tempesta, a University of West Florida student who was a former member of the children’s chorus for five years.
At the end of the concert the audience gave the musicians, soloists, and the chorus a standing ovation.
“I thought we did very well. The audience was very enthusiastic about the soloist, the two soloists, and the Pensacola Children’s Chorus came through with shining colors,” Jernigan said.
Visit www.pensacolasymphony.com for more information.