As we bid farewell to fall semester and extend reluctant welcome to the winter chill, how better to celebrate than with some classical music? On Friday, November 21 at 8 p.m., students, parents, and locals gathered inside Marshall Auditorium for the Bi-College Orchestra’s annual Fall Concert, simmering with anticipation as the performers entered stage. A couple students held hand-made signs in support of their friends, making for a heartwarming sight.
The concertmaster, Jihoo Kim HC ’28, led the ensemble in tuning before welcoming Professor and Director Heidi Jacobs onto the conductor’s podium. As the lights dimmed and the crowd hushed, orchestra eased into its first piece: “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saëns. This iconic symphonic poem follows Death at midnight as he plays the fiddle and dances with skeletons in a winter churchyard. The violin solo, performed by Kim, utilizes scordatura tuning to achieve the dissonant tritone (“the Devil in music”), and xylophone notes emulate the skeletons’ rattling bones as they waltz. The piece concludes abruptly and quiets as dawn breaks, with the oboe playing a cockerel’s crow.
Applause rose and only grew louder as Chantelle Mawoneke HC ’27, soprano and winner of the 2025 Bi-College Concerto Competition, stepped onto stage wearing a dazzling silver dress and a radiant smile. Accompanied by the orchestra, Mawoneke sang two arias: “Un Bel Di” (One Fine Day) from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini and “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin. She debuted these pieces earlier this year, at the Bryn Mawr’s annual Owls Fest.
Madame Butterfly is a three-act opera that tells the tragic tale of Cio-Cio-San, or Madame “Butterfly.” In “Un Bel Di,” she imagines “one fine day” where her American husband, Lt. Pinkerton, would return to her in Japan. Meanwhile, Porgy and Bess is often considered Gershwin’s masterpiece, combining opera, jazz, and Broadway musical theater while also drawing inspiration from the Gullah Music of Tidewater Carolina. “Summertime” is a well-known song from the opera, and it is first sang by Clara, a young mother, as a lullaby to her baby. Mawoneke’s soulful voice gave both arias an entrancing quality, leaving the audience in awe and receiving thunderous applause.
After a brief intermission, the concert resumed and finished with “Les Préludes, Symphonic Poem No. 3, S. 97” by Franz Liszt. The piece opens softly and moves through five distinct sections, shifting in tempo and exploring themes such as love and war, ultimately concluding on a triumphant note. Liszt was a pioneer of symphonic poems during the Romantic Era, with “Les Préludes” being one of his earliest and most acclaimed. In conjunction with Saint-Saëns’s “Danse Macabre,” this piece serves as homage to the symphonic poem’s formal genesis, making for a full-circle moment. As the preface of “Les Préludes” muses: “What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death?”
Director Jacobs welcomed Mawoneke back to the stage as the concert reached its end, spelling yet another successful semester for the Bi-College Orchestra and the music program at large. More fall concerts are scheduled to come in December, including that of the Bi-College Chamber Singers and Chorale, so make sure to mark your calendars and get ready for some spectacular performances!
