By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Two Missouri Western State University music majors get to perform with the St. Joseph Symphony Saturday evening in a concert appropriately entitled The Future’s So Bright.
Senior soprano Sara Poet of St. Joseph will sing, “Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.
“I have been working on this piece for two-and-a-half years, really working to hone in and perfect it,” Poet tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “I’ve taken it to competitions. I’ve done it in recitals; a lot of it in preparation for this.”
Junior trombone player, David Welter, who is from Stewartsville, will perform “Concerto for Trombone” by Rimsky-Korsakov.
“I’ve been working on this piece for about a year now,” Welter tells Birr. “So, it’s nice to finally unveil it on a more grand scale than just a brass studio recital.”
Welter and Poet won a young artists competition during auditions held in December for the honor of sharing the Missouri Theater stage with the St. Joseph Symphony.
As for her choice of songs, Poet says the song has grown on her as she has grown as a music major.
“That’s really my connection with it. It’s kind of a lament between loyalty to her father and a new found love with a sailor and she’s caught in between those tides,” Poet says. “Getting to explore those emotions and her heart cry has been really interesting.”
Poet says she expects to be blown away by the experience of performing with the symphony.
Welter says he took up the trombone, because his father, a music teacher, is a trombone player.
“I picked it mainly because I was inspired by my Dad’s work, but then as time went on, I just kind of started to fall in love with the instrument and thought, I made the right choice,” Welter says. “Instead of doing something like trumpet or tuba, I made the right choice by doing trombone. It’s something that fits me.”
The symphony will conclude the concert with “The Ukrainian,” Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2.
The concert begins at seven o’clock Saturday night at the Missouri Theater. A public social time will follow at Felix Street Gourmet, at 8th and Felix.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.