The musical performance I observed for this opening paper was held at the Sara M. Snell Theater and consisted of Mark Hartman who was playing the trombone and David Heinick on the piano. The musical performance was held promptly at 7:30pm and lasted till approximately 8:30pm. We could all tell the show was about to start whenever both men (the pianist and the trombonist) came out and bowed. They continued to bow after each piece they performed. In the middle of the show, after the second piece, we had a 10 minute intermission, where the majority of the people got up to stretch their legs. There was no verbal announcement from both performers, however, the written program demonstrated the direction of the performance so the audience knew when to applaud. There were no concepts or information shared by both performers, or the listeners.
The performing forces of the recital was a piano and a trombone. However, on the third piece, Mark Hartman was unaccompanied by the pianist. Both performers were accredited members of faculty and were definitely professionals. I wasn't too sure about the pianist, but I knew that the trombonist was the director of the trombone section of Crane. There were no singers or dancers present at the recital. I found that if there might have been dancers, they may have taken away from the performance because then people would not have focused on the intricacies of the sound as much. The trombonist was facing the audience while he played, at the same time, the pianist was perpendicular to the crowd, and to the left of him sat a young man, you was changing the music the pianist was reading off of. The performers were dressed pretty casually. After every movement, the trombonist would grab a towel and wipe his mouth, probably because of the spit created by the constant blowing of the trumpet. I found that in some movements, the trombonist used a mute and used the flutter-tonguing technique in certain instances.
