Music has a way of influencing how jazz can move our minds and use lines from populate poetry to make new music and cause people to think.
The music faculty at Winthrop University hosted an event called “Bards and Ballads” on March 4 at Barnes Recital Hall. “Bards and Ballads” was open to the public and students, where they were entranced with heartfelt stories and melancholy jazz music telling the ideas of lost love and journey through original songs, covers and readings of poems. Professor of music Leonard Lewis noted that the event was focused on providing students with original jazz music.
“[The goal of Bards and Ballads is] to bring new and standard songs to the Winthrop community. [As well as] to help foster a sense of connectivity,” Lewis said.
Associate professor of saxophone and jazz Tracy Patterson was one of the soloists and among the professors that teamed up with the music faculty to plan the concert.
“I was approached by Dr. Mark Lewis to perform on the concert. There were no students involved in the planning or performance. I am always excited to collaborate with other faculty members, especially when it involves original music by Mark. I really enjoy playing his compositions,” Patterson said.
The event of Bards and Ballads has students listen to jazz music with members where Lewis had introduced multiple moments such as using jazz music in the original music, music in the 1920s and use the included moments of poetry by Robert Frost. The music professor spent time rehearsing with each other before the event started, devoting their time to work together for the beat during the performance.
“We love to perform music with others. This is why we are in the business. We teamed up with our colleagues and put it in the calendar,” Lewis said.
“As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoy playing and hearing Dr. Lewis’ pieces. Additionally, performing with my colleagues is always a treat. We rarely get to play music together even though we work in such close proximity daily,” Patterson said.
A highlight of the event was a use of original jazz composition with Lewis on the piano and Kristen Wunderlich providing a soprano voice in the piece. The song, “Bard’s Remorse” showed a very melancholy beat with a romantic piano accompanying the flow of the voice in the song. This moment was a fantastic moment for peering into the program of the event.
“The new song cycle was written by me for our soloist, Kristen Wunderlich. The jazz ballad, “Bard’s Remorse” is also an original composition from me. The jazz standards were selected by our soloist,” said Lewis.
