Gold Company to perform this Saturday

Craig Manning
Staff Reporter

Throughout the years, Western Michigan University’s Gold Company has performed all over the United States and traveled to Europe, South Africa and Canada, hitting some of the world’s biggest stages, from Carnegie Hall to Disney World, collaborated with enormous names in jazz, from Bobby McFerrin to Kurt Elling, and turned the WMU Jazz Program into one of the most well regarded and most rewarded programs of its kind.

This Saturday, Feb. 11, at 2 and 8 p.m., the Gold Company Program will present “Gold Company Salutes the Oscars,” their 34th annual show as a part of the Miller Auditorium Series.

Tickets are available from the Miller Auditorium box office, online or at 269-387-2300. Tickets generally range from $15 to $25, though a 50 percent discount is available for Western Students with a valid ID. Western’s Gold Company Program is made up of Gold Company and Gold Company II (GCII), as well as the Gold Company band and horn section, all of whom will be featured on the Feb. 11 program.

“Gold Company Salutes the Oscars” includes much of the repertoire the Gold Company and the GCII have been working on all year, as well as high energy production numbers and comedic interludes related to the show’s ever-shifting theme. This year’s Oscar theme will see the Gold Company Program paying tribute to the music of the movies, as well as to the glamour and grandeur of Hollywood’s biggest night.

Michael Wheaton, director of GCII, is especially excited about this year’s theme and the possibilities it presents for music selection. “One other thing that I am excited about is a John Williams tribute that GCII is singing,” Wheaton said. “He has long been one of my favorite movie composers and I am looking forward to that moment in the show.

Mr. Williams has more Academy Award nominations that any other living person and is currently nominated twice for the upcoming Oscars. I hope the audience enjoys our musical tribute.” John Williams is the composer behind such iconic film themes as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Superman, and is a double nominee in the Best Original Score category this year, for War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin.

According to Dr. Steve Zegree, the director of Gold Company, the show is a culmination of sorts for the students in the program, who help write, arrange and choreograph the show’s biggest production numbers.

“Miller Show is special because it is the only program on the Miller Series that is not part of a ‘professional’ tour,” Zegree said, citing this year’s big run of Jersey Boys as an example. “So it is an extraordinary performance opportunity for our WMU students, and their goal is to present a show that will rival any of the national tours and other shows booked at Miller.”

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Posted by njstrehl on Feb 5 2012. Filed under Breaking, Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Nora Strehl