Students take on solos with Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra

Brooke Privett has come a long way in the 12 years since she first started playing a hand-me-down trumpet in her middle school band.

Privett is one of three Southeast Missouri State University musicians featured in the upcoming Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra concert. Privett, Jacob Alexander and Cory Simonavice auditioned and won the annual Concerto and Aria Competition and will each play a solo with the symphony accompanying them at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the Bedell Performance Hall.

The competition is open to any student with a music major or minor. They are judged by outside judges from area universities or city orchestras. It gives the students a professional experience and a "wonderful goal," according to Dr. Sara Edgerton, orchestra director and a professor at Southeast. "It gives them a little taste of the process."

Privett has been playing trumpet since she was 13. Her band director at Kennett Middle School knew her brother had played trumpet and that the family had the instrument on hand.

"My first choice in band was the trombone," Privett said.

But she has learned to love her instrument. She has a bachelor's degree from Southeast in trumpet performance, will receive her master's in higher education in administration in May and will pursue another master's in music performance. She said eventually she wants to be a college professor.

Privett has tried out for the Concerto and Aria Competition two other times. This was her last chance and will be her last concert with the symphony orchestra. Aside from her feature song, a concerto by Johann Baptist Georg Neruda, she also plays trumpet in the featured aria "The Trumpet Shall Sound" in the Easter Portion of the "Messiah."

"I'm kind of going out with a bang on this one," she said.

Privett has been practicing her solo piece since last summer. She would drive up to Cape Girardeau from Kennett to practice with her trumpet teacher, but she said her parents never complained when she played at home, either.

"They've definitely heard this concerto being practiced upstairs while I was home on the weekends," she said.

Cory Simonavice has also been practicing his marimba piece by Paul Creston since the summer. Simonavice calls himself a percussionist, and though he said he plays basically "anything that you hit with a stick," he knows the percussion family offers much more than a steady beat.

The marimba is like a bigger xylophone with a more melodic and deeper sound, said Simonavice, a junior earning a bachelors of arts in music and prepharmacy.

"I've been trying really hard for two years working up to this," he said. He started playing percussion in sixth grade in Fenton, Mo., and said while he will not pursue a career in music, he wants to stay connected to it through community bands or giving lessons.

"I'm the only musician that my family has ever known," he said.

The piece he will play involves intense rhythmic sections, but also lyrical and pretty spots, too, he said. "It kind of shows the strength of the instrument."

Jacob Alexander also chose his Concerto and Aria piece to showcase the strength of his instrument -- his voice.

Alexander, a junior earning a music degree in vocal performance, will sing "Avant de quitter ces lieux," the aria from Charles Gounod's opera "Faust."

"I have a particular interest in French music," Alexander said. "It fits my voice well."

He had received high marks at competitions in 2009 and thought it would do well in this competition.

"The competition itself is really designed for upperclassmen. I just felt as though my technique was at a spot that would be good" try out, he said. "The stars aligned, I guess."

The character who sings the song is about to go off to battle. He first sings a prayer to protect his sister and keep her pure, then pledges to fight valiantly and ends with a prayer that if he should die in battle, he be allowed to watch over his sister from heaven.

"I have a younger sister and it's easy to put myself in that character," Alexander said. But, he said, the piece is dynamic and fits his baritone voice well.

"Really, I guess it was just very good advice from [Dr. Chris Goeke, a professor in the music department] on the song," he said.

The Concerto and Aria competition winners make up only part of the orchestra's concert. The orchestra will also play Handel's "Messiah: Easter Portion," complete with a choir and a preconcert talk by Paul Thompson, Southeast instructor of music.

Egerton said playing the Easter Portion just days before Easter made the concert more relevant. She will direct the orchestra for the Concerto and Aria portion, then Steve Hendricks, Southeast's choral director, will conduct the University Choir, Choral Union and Symphony Orchestra for "Messiah."

Tickets are $11 and $15 and available at the river campus box office, 651-2265 or www.metrotix.com.