SU Department of Music’s “Soul Reflections IV” delights audience

The Southern University Department of Music held their fourth annual “Soul Reflections” concert last Tuesday night in DeBose Music Recital Annex to a less than medium audience.
Featuring compositions done solely by Southern associate professor of music and world renown composer and pianist Charles Lloyd Jr., those in attendance like senior mass communications major from Baton Rouge Kelly Eaglin found the music moving.
“I enjoyed every moment of it,” said Eaglin. “The different students who performed sounded great solo and when in groups.”
Majority of the music preformed during the concert were called Art Songs which according to senior vocal performance major from Baton Rouge James Self, is a form of music that expresses a thing, idea and story.
The concert kicked off with Lloyd Jr.’s superb composition of “Andante and Scherzo” featuring sophomore music education major from Baton Rouge David Harris who was on Trombone.
While a few sour notes were heard during his performance, it still went smoothly; especially considering it was his first solo according to Harris.
The highlight of the event was Lloyd Jr.’s debut of his new piece entitled “834 Colfax Street” which wowed the crowed.
According to Lloyd Jr., the piece musically tells the story of him as a child fearfully and anxiously waiting for his mother to come home to the titled street in from shopping.
The reason for the piece according to Lloyd Jr., came from him wanting to write a piece for the marimba instrument.
Junior percussion performance major from Baton Rouge Ian Perkins played the marimba which melodically represented things like traffic during the performance of the piece.
“I only had the sheet music for about a week but it was an honor to be able to play his piece with him for the first time,” said Perkins.” I love the song because it has a lot of energy and shows musically fear and joy.”
Though those in attendance enjoyed the concert like Oscar William, a retired professor of music for Southern.
“It was a great performance as usual yet it’s ashamed there weren’t more students that showed up,” said William.
Reasons for the low turnout for performance concerts come from a need for more publicity according to Lloyd Jr.
“It’s not a lot of opportunity for them [students] to show what they have,” said Lloyd Jr.” The university needs to know what the department can do.”