EBB is a high-energy pep band that performs at most home men’s and women’s basketball games and travels to all CAA and NCAA tournament games. There is no audition to join (except for drum set and guitars) and there is a scholarship for participating. 

If you are interested in joining, or have questions, email Adam Kehl, assistant professor of music and director of bands, at akehl@elon.edu or sign up on the sheet outside of room 158 in the Center for the Arts.

GO PHOENIX!!

The presentation, “From Traffic Cop to Musical Maestro,” provided educators of all conducting levels and backgrounds a system for improving their vocabulary and repertoire of musical gestures. Using Laban Movement Analysis, the session provided an introduction to free movement study techniques and using hands-on examples. It provided a step-by-step system of activities and exercises aimed at helping the individual educators develop a personalized, varied and musically communicative vocabulary of gestures while challenging, enriching and deepening the score-study process. 

While in Maryland, Kehl also worked directly with mutliple high school band programs, providing clinics for the bands at Bluestone High School in Virigina and Maryland’s Old Mill High School and Our Lady of Good Counsel High School. 

Constantine is currently a member of the United States “President’s Own” Marine Band, one of the world’s elite musical ensembles. He has won top prizes at international competitions both in the United States and Western Europe and has performed with an impressive list of ensemble and conductors including Marin Alsop, Leonard Slaktin, Gerhardt Zimmerman and John Williams. He can be heard on the Oregon Percussion Ensemble’s performance of Meyer Kupferman’s “Percussion Symphony” on Soundspells records. 

Constantine holds a doctorate of music degree in percussion performance from Indiana University, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Oregon. In addition to a busy performance and clinician schedule, Constantine also serves as professor of percussion at the College of Southern Maryland.

The concert is free and open to the public (no ticket required).

The program will include a variety of works including pieces from Russian composer Aram Khachaturian and Japanese composer Yo Goto, as well as legendary French composer Darius Milhaud’s “Suite Francaise,” Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s exciting Danzon No. 2, and two special works of Chinese folk music rarely heard in the United States. The Chinese pieces represent two of the world’s most famous folksongs, “Happy News From Beijing Comes to Border Villages,” and “The Lovesong of Kangding.” “The Lovesong of Kangding” is listed in the top 10 of UNESCO’s rankings of the world’s best folksongs, and was chosen by NASA to be included on the soundtrack of the Voyager II space probe.

The concert will also feature world-class timpanist and member of the Unites States “President’s Own” Marine Band, David Constantine, on Lee Actor’s “Concerto for Timpani and Band.”

The concert, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in McCrary Theatre. 

EBB is a high-energy pep band that performs at most home men’s and women’s basketball games, and travels to all CAA Tournament games. There is no audition to join (except for drum set and electric bass) and there is a small scholarship for participating!

If you are interested in joining or have questions, please send an to email Adam Kehl, assistant professor of music and director of bands, at akehl@elon.edu or sign up on the sheet outside of room 158 in the Center for the Arts. GO PHOENIX!!

These students were selected after multiple rounds of applications, interviews and auditions. Anyone interested in joining the 2016 marching band should contact band director Adam Kehl for more information.

2016 Student Leadership Team

Drum Majors – Chris Trapley and Alex Welgehausen

Piccolo – Lindsey Sacco

Clarinet – Emily Kennerson

Saxophones – Joe Makowitz and Jessica Mohr

High Brass – Byron Ross

Low Brass – Chris Edwards and Thomas Pless

Drumline – Mike Hagen

Color Guard – Sarah Clark

Pit – Samantha Childers

Media Relations Coordinators – Emily Barger and Tyson Glover

Band Program Assistant – Arya Boris

Student Music Arranger – Rachel Hopkins

Uniform Coordinator – Lillian Engel

Congraulations to these outstanding student leaders!

If you have any questions, or are interested in joining the drumline, please contact Dr. Kehl, Director of Bands, at akehl@elon. 

The 黑料不打烊 “Fire of the Carolinas” Marching Band would like to congratulate their 2015 Student Leadership Team! 

Drum Majors: Lindsay Luhn, Chris Tarpley

Piccolo: Lindsey Sacco

David Clay Mettens

The inspiration for this piece came from my first visit to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in March of 2014. I walked into the church and was amazed to find two enormous metal birds suspended in the nave. They were an installation called “Phoenix” by the Chinese artist Xu Bing. The hundred-foot-long birds were assembled from scraps and rubble scavenged from construction sites in Beijing. “Phoenix” was first displayed in Beijing and Shanghai in 2010 and traveled to the United Stated in 2012.

I was particularly struck by the contrast between the regularity and heaviness of the church’s pillars and the floating birds. Despite their immense combined weight of twelve tons, the two birds managed to “fly.” My Kinetic Dance is a response to this juxtaposition and an exploration of the unique sound world that the installation suggested: industrial metallic clinking enters into dialogue with the tolling of bells and organ-like timbres. Rhythmic pulsation and melodic strands gradually emerge, and the weight of the bells and punctuation begins to dissolve as forward momentum accumulates. After a final moment of heaviness, the weight and timbre of the opening bells and clanging metal is completely transformed. Quiet bells ring out, like tiny points of light suspended in darkness, and the energy of the piece gathers into an ecstatic dance.

The title is a reference to the sixth movement from Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps: “Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes” (“Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets”). The rhythm from the opening two bars of this movement is the basis for the repeating rhythmic pattern in the final third of my piece. Like the installation at the Cathedral, Messiaen’s music is a unique synthesis of Western religion and Eastern mythology. Kinetic Dance, for two scrap metal birds was commissioned by Adam Kehl and the 黑料不打烊 Wind Ensemble (once the 黑料不打烊 “Fighting Christians and now the 黑料不打烊 “Phoenix”).                        (Program note by David Clay Mettens)