Every
semester EPCC students are given the opportunity to showcase their
talent and musical repertoire in the EPCC musical recital.
Besides showcasing talent the recital also serves a much more important
and academic purpose.
It prepares students in the area of performance in front of a live
audience.
The recital allows them to get over their fears by performing in front
of several of their peers who they understand will not be as judgmental.
Additionally, the students are challenged by their instructors to
learn technically demanding pieces of music to perform and are expected
to put in plenty of practice. The students find this to be very beneficial.
“It’s hard but it pays off in the end,” said student
Maria Sanchez. “All the practice does.”
This year’s recital was much shorter than previous recitals
which dredged on for about three hours sometimes. Students this year
were only allowed to perform one solo whereas two used to be the norm.
The audience didn’t seem to mind. “The students were wonderful,”
said Irma Gonzalez. “I love to hear the piano, it’s so
beautiful.”
Also new to this year’s recital is the installation of a dress
code. All students performing were expected to perform in all black
formal attire.
“Well, I’m not a music major so I don’t have to
perform, but I don’t really like to wear all black,” said
student Jason Wills. “It looks gothic.” The music program
decided to enforce the dress code because students were representing
the college when they performed.
“Yeah, the students looked good,” said student Filiberto
Duenez. “They looked like the pro’s man.”
The performance however did not suffer as a result and the students
put on a good show according to those in attendance.
“They were awesome,” said audience member Mark Beltran.
“They did a real good job, you guys got a lot of talent here.”
Soloist performed vocal arrangements, guitar solos, and piano. Opening
up the show, as is tradition, were the EPCC Guitar Ensemble directed
by Armin Harrison and the Chorus Ensemble directed by Daniel Rodriguez.
