arts // no. 8

 

  

Music students display
performing skills at
Student Showcase concert

> The final ‘Arts at One’ show of the winter semester

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

1? Thursday, the Music Department’s
rts at One concert series wrapped
up for the semester with the Student
Showcase concert, featuring a fantastic
mix of Romantic and Renaissance music.

Arts at One is a free weekly concert
series that takes place at 1 p.m. on Thursdays
in the Laura C. Muir Performing Arts
Theatre, with performances by musicians
mainly from around the Metro Vancouver
area. On November 23, the show consisted
of solo and group performances by
some of the best of Douglas College’s
own talented music students.

The audience was treated to a few
lovely piano solos, including a very
lively rendition of Liszt’s “Un Sospiro”
played by Karmen Deng to start the
show, and an astoundingly swift and airy
performance of Debussy’s “Etude No. 7”
by Jane Wang. Liszt’s technically dazzling
and lengthy “Hungarian Rhapsody No.

2” was executed deftly by Jeon Mok.

The students also demonstrated their
slalls in making music together with a
couple of smaller group pieces. Stephanie
Kalyk on the flute played Georges Brun’s
“Romance” alongside piano accompaniment,
a gentle and beautiful lilting work. Kalyk

on flute, Jane Wang on piano, and Yukari
Smith on clarinet also performed two
spirited movements of John Clinton’s
“Grand Duo Concertante Op. 43.”

The Student Showcase concert
finished off with the large Chamber Wind
Ensemble, directed by John van Deursen,
filling the stage with woodwinds, brass, and
percussion. They first delivered the “Marche
militaire” by Camille Saint-Saéns, a piece just
as rousing and majestic as its title implies.

Finally, the ensemble performed
two pieces out of the Fitzwilliam Virginal
Book—as van Deursen explained to the
audience, a large collection of popular music
from the late 16th and early 17th centuries
by a variety of composers. Listeners were
swept along with the epic wind ensemble
arrangements of William Byrd’s “Pavana”
and Giles Farnaby’s “His Humor.”

Along with musical proficiency,
the students also had the opportunity
to present to audiences their polished
showmanship and stage presence, which
is just as impressive as hitting the right
notes. Unfortunately, this is the last
Arts at One concert of the semester;
the concert originally scheduled for the
coming Thursday, November 30, has
been cancelled. However, Arts at One will
return in January for another semester

full of free and quality concerts.

theotherpress.ca

Vulfpeck hits
its first flop

> ‘Mr. Finish Line’ album review

Greg Waldock
Staff Writer

xk

Viireck one of the most
successful—yet tragically obscure—
modern funk bands here on the West
Coast, recently released their first dud
of an album. Mr. Finish Line, released on
November 17, starts strong with a cute
pop-esque song designed to draw in the
mainstream crowds, but the jazz meat of
the album is sorely lacking. This is hard
for me, a diehard Vulfpeck fan, to admit,
but Mr. Finish Line is one of the most
boring albums I've recently listened to.
The strength of Vulfpeck has
always been in their cleanness. Coming
straight from Michigan University,
the band keeps their rhythms simple
and their sounds separate, resulting in
songs with unique and sophisticated
interactions between bass, snare, piano,
and brass. This new album takes that
too far. Most of the songs are so clean,
they're bland—repetitive beats with
little to no flair. It’s a surprising turn
for such a creative and quirky group.
Songs like “Vulf Pack,’ “Hero Town,”
and “Captain Hook” promised to be
pure Vulf style but end up being almost
monotonous and completely forgettable.
“Birds of a Feather, We Rock
Together,’ the first and probably best
song on the album, shows that Vulfpeck
still has the raw talent and refined
skill for some seriously impressive
work. That song, and a few reminders
scattered throughout that bassist Joe
Dart and vocalist Antwaun Stanley are
some of the best musicians currently
working in the genre, keep the album
from being outright bad; Vulfpeck has a
knack for picking up incredibly talented

 

 

Cover of ‘Mr. Finish Line’

artists and fusing their styles. “Grandma”
in particular shows off Stanley's
amazingly smooth voice and strong
sense of humour, even though most
of the rest of the song is pretty basic.
Their oddball comedy is another
thing that separates Vulfpeck from
the crowd—their YouTube channel
is a mix of simple but stylish music
videos and recipes for salads set to an
improv bass-and-vocals routine by
Dart and Stanley. This attitude finds its
way into their songs, making most of
their albums quirky and unexpectedly
hilarious. Mr. Finish Line is also lacking
here. “Grandma” definitely has some
golden lines, but everything else feels so
extremely by-the-books and uncreative.
All inall, Mr. Finish Line is
unsatisfying. It lacks the zest and
ambition that made previous albums
stand out, especially Vollmich, and
it doesn’t compensate with enough
fancy piano work or bass solos.
Despite this setback, fans shouldn't
be worried about whether Vulfpeck’s
funky golden age is over. Their music
videos continue to delight and some
of the songs in this lackluster album
show that the band still has the raw
talent for amazing things—they just
need to do it again, with passion.

Chairman of the Board: House upon the sand

> ‘Alhambra’ board game review

Ed Appleby
Senior Columnist

 

find that most Eurogames take a lot of

inspiration from very specific places
and events in history, and not the kind of
big events that you would expect—be it
building power grids in modern Germany,
to building rail lines during the early
ages of steam in Germany. In fact, a lot
of games take place in Germany. Let’s see
what was happening in Medieval Spain.

Alhambra (2003) is a tile placement

game for two to six players designed by
Dirk Henn and published by Queen
Games. In the game, it is 1278 CE and you
are tasked with constructing the sprawling
fortress of Alhambra in Granada. You
purchase buildings using one of four
different currencies and place them in such
a way that all sections are accessible by
foot. Points are scored three times during

the game, with players scoring based on
who has the most of each type of building.

Alhambra has a lot of thematic and
mechanical similarities to Carcassonne
(2000)—which also involves constructing
a massive medieval Mediterranean
fortress using tile placement—just with
economic considerations in place of worker
placement mechanics. The three scoring
phases in Alhambra occur somewhat
randomly during play and add a significant
amount of chance and luck to the game.

I felt that Alhambra lacks some
of the gravity of its peers. It isn’t rigid
enough to utilize long-term strategy,
and it lacks the complexity that would
allow multiple ways of winning. In the
end, Alhambra feels more like a footrace
with too much luck involved. Though I
wouldn't call Alhambra a bad game by
any stretch, | just feel that there are better
games with better mechanics out there.

 

Illustration by Ed Appleby