Autumn Kelly’s senior recital receives a standing ovation

“Music is a way of release for me. I feel as though when I am practicing or performing music, it represents who I am and the kind of person I want to be,” Autumn Kelly, a senior majoring in both Music Business and Instrumental Performance, said. “It helps me reflect on who I am as a person and a performer.”

Kelly held her senior recital Saturday, March 30, inside the Love Recital Hall. She played six songs: Summer Treehouse by Chad Floyd, Mysterious Barrier by Kirk J. Gay, Song of Almah by Andrew Beall, Kibo by Andrea Venet, Glamour by Casey Cangelosi and Over the Rainbow by Robert Oetomo.

Each song focused on different aspects of percussion and performance, and Kelly handled each one with a different flair.

Summer Treehouse was a playful, whimsical melody, played on the marimba. As Kelly struck each note, she swayed in place, her red shoes pivoting on the ground as she struck the chords. Her movement and the sound of the piece evoked the feeling of being in a rainforest, a rainstick shaking softly and occasionally in the background.

After leaving the audience feeling calm and content, her next song came up, Mysterious Barrier, on the timpani drums, and any atmosphere of calm disappeared. Thunderous drumming filled the auditorium, feeling as though a train was running through our heads. Playing with friend Sammi Medina, the two engaged in the song that looked as though they were fighting for control of the drums, trading blows.

“I started playing the flute in 6th grade, but decided that I wanted to switch to percussion my freshman year of high school. My sophomore year I was in the front ensemble, and that’s when I fell in love with marching band, percussion, and music in general,” Kelly said. “Being able to play music and practice and perform with other people is a great way to connect with others as well.”

Her next two songs featured other guest performers as well. Song of Almah, while traditionally played with a cellist, instead had Miguel Velez on vocals and Autumn on marimba. It speaks of love’s intensity, love’s heartbreak, and powerful physical attraction.

Kibo had four others play a mallet quartet to accompany her snare drum solo on top. Kibo, inspired from the ’80s hit Africa by Toto, not quite a cover, but simply containing similar harmonic motives and rhythmic ideas.

Her next song, Glamour, might have been the most curious of the bunch. Performed with a metronome set, wood block, bamboo log, bottle, piccolo wood block, and three small cymbals, the song itself was almost unnerving, with the way the metronome dictated everything.

The cymbals continued to ring long after she had continued on with the melody, injecting syncopation within the beat.

Kelly spoke for the first time in the performance, to say closing remarks to the audience before her final song. “I’ve liked performing all of this music for you, it’s really been a joy for me to put all this music together, and be able to play it with all you guys, so my last piece I’m going to perform is Over the Rainbow by Robert Oetomo. Oh and, go Mavs!” Kelly said.

The audience laughed, as she moved to stand behind the marimba, two mallets per hand, ready to strike the opening notes. As she began the song, rapidly hitting down on the wooden bars, the mallets moved in a mesmerizing way.

As the song ended, she hit down on a four-note chord, carefully savoring the lingering dregs of sound as the audience waited to applause, and later give a standing ovation.

“I enjoy practicing music because I love being able to track my own progress and learn different ways to get better at my instrument. The wonderful thing about percussion is that all percussion instruments relate in some way, even though most of them have different techniques,” Kelly said.

Indeed, during her recital, she ended up playing a dozen unique percussion instruments, weaving the sounds together, the booming sound of the timpani, the rapping of the snare drum, the delicate clinking of the small china cymbal.

Now that her recital, the equivalent of the final for her Instrumental Performance major is behind her, Kelly looks toward the future. She doesn’t have any concrete plans, but knows where she wants to go.

“I want to be a performer and an educator for high school marching bands. I also would like to work with music festivals for behind the scenes work,” Kelly said.