At NHCC, concerts shine light on a new music program and long-lost music

For Jonas Westover, it was an "Indiana Jones moment," an exciting archaeological-like find.

Now, audiences in Brooklyn Park will have a chance to hear the century-old musical piece that Westover uncovered while working on his doctoral dissertation in New York.

The North Hennepin Community College Orchestra will perform the work — "The Passing Show of 1914" — at its concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday. That concert is one of several at NHCC this week and next. The college's concert band and jazz ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, and the chamber singers, singing seniors and concert choir will be featured at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Each event is free. Holiday songs are in the mix along with plenty of other musical styles, said Jane Wilson, the dean of fine arts, languages and communication at the school.

Westover leads the NHCC orchestra. He had embarked on an ambitious project to reconstruct an old musical revue for his dissertation in musicology at the City University of New York.

Westover stumbled upon the "Passing Show" sheet music, wrapped in brown paper and stored in dusty boxes in the school's Shubert Archives, purely by happenstance. When he cut the twine on the wrapped pieces, it was an "Indiana Jones moment for me," he said.

For Westover, Monday's concert is a big deal on a personal level, as "I've been working with this material for eight years," he said.

He'd never heard the music with a full orchestra until the NHCC group tackled it. The orchestra just happened to have almost the exact same instruments, down to a harp — and only three more instruments than in the original pit orchestra. That means the music should sound just as it did in 1914, a notion that "gives me the chills," Westover said.

At Monday's concert, some guest vocalists from NHCC will also perform with the orchestra.

"It's tough music. It's incredibly satisfying to be able to play original arrangements of these things," Westover said.

He'll also tell the audience about the back story to the pieces.

"The Passing Show" is characterized as ragtime. The music can be likened to the dance music that arrived shortly thereafter — "so, early jazz. It's an unusual sound. It disappeared," Westover said.

The shows, which went from 1912 to 1924, satirized the popular plays and musicals of the time. It was a similar format to "Saturday Night Live," said Westover.

Westover is working on a book on the subject for the Oxford University Press.

NHCC student Stephen Decker, a violinist in the orchestra, said the "Passing Show" is a welcome departure from some better-known classical music. "This music is happy and vibrant. Everyone is having a great time," Decker said.

Decker, who hopes to pursue music professionally, joined the NHCC orchestra when it started just over a year ago. Right away, he was thrown into the first chair role. "It was a game changer for me," he said. It's works like the "Passing Show" that have "changed the way I think about music," he said.

NHCC is in its third year of offering a music degree, said Wilson. Longtime NHCC choir director Karla Miller, who recently was honored as 2014 Choral Director of the Year by the Minnesota chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, got the degree going.

Each of the three music groups at the college has its own timeline.

The choirs, for instance, go back 30 years. The band program also started years ago, but was scrapped in the late '80s and early '90s for budgetary reasons before being resurrected a few years ago. The orchestra was new last fall.

Students can participate in the groups for school credit. At the same time, almost every group is open to community members. Just as the words "community" college imply, "we accept everyone and our directors do a great job with each of them," Wilson said.

Band director David Mantini, a seasoned trumpet player, has "made a conscious effort to include professionals and semiprofessionals in the groups," Wilson said.

The school is fortunate to be able to tap into musicians who are "out there doing it," Wilson added.

For Mantini, it's a challenge to pick music that can intrigue such a diverse lot. He does his best to find a variety, especially for the jazz ensemble. For the upcoming concert, he's trying to hit many different bases, from "something with a Latin feel" to a more standard swing style, and so on, he said. "Part of my job is to keep the audience engaged and educate the students and others in the band about a variety of music.

Likewise, the choirs will take the audience from the Renaissance to modern jazz.