Photo By: Makayla Earl

The roar of the crowd invades their ears as they stand with the rest of the band, linked together, shoulder to shoulder. The words of prayer and encouragement are barely heard over the thumping crowd yelling out their name, but Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard continue to get their band pumped for the performance. With hands all in, one last chant is yelled at the top of their lungs before they take to the stage and the crowd goes wild.

Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard thrilled both JU and UNF students Feb. 7, at the Jacksonville University performance at the Larry Strom Amphitheater on the riverfront.

The two met when they were in college and the rest is history.

“We met at Belmont University through a friend,” Kelley said. “We started writing and hanging out and ended up playing some writer’s round at Hotel Indigo. We just started doing our thing and realized we had a good thing going with our voices and the songs we were writing.”

The crowd at the amphitheater definitely agreed, as they cheered for each song and sang along with them.

With nearly 3,000 people in attendance, JU is not the biggest crowd they’ve played for, but Hubbard and Kelley said they still get nervous before going on stage no matter how big or small the crowd is.

“Hearing the crowd like that is just unbelievable,” Kelley said. “I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it.”

“It’s like hearing your song on the radio for the first time,” Hubbard chimed in. “At first you don’t realize it’s you and then you have this indescribable feeling like you’re on top of the world, but the feeling never goes away and you never get used to it.”

Although the two said they were a little nervous, their nerves did not show while performing on stage. The band owned the performance as they rocked back and forth, pumping up the crowd and even inviting some girls on stage to dance during one of their songs.

“We always like to invite someone up on stage with us,” Hubbard said. “I mean, we’re normal people too and we like to show people that. We’re young and like having fun especially with our fans. They are the only reason we’re standing where we are today so we want to give back to them in some way.”

Hubbard and Kelley said they are excited to see where things are headed for them next, but right now they are just having fun.

“I don’t think we ever expected it to be this fast, but we have big dreams and big goals and we’ve worked hard to get here,” Kelley said. “We had our fingers crossed and still do for bigger and better things. We’re just working hard and doing our thing.”

Photo By: Gabriele Hickman

On the evening of March 5, Terry Concert Hall was filled with patrons waiting to hear JU’s own symphony orchestra perform a variety of pieces that featured soloists being supported by the wall of sound that is created by symphonic music.
The evening began with Anthony Anurca, JSO bassoonist and JU faculty member, playing Concerto for Bassoon in E minor by Antonio Vivaldi. The first movement, allegro poco, immediately featured the facility of the bassoon with fast moving arpeggios and lines that imitated the sounds of a string section. The second movement contrasted with a slower tempo with haunting melodic lines that invoked a nostalgic remorse due to the foundation bassoon has in the older styles of music such as the Renaissance. The final section increased the pace even more than the first movement making it the perfect finish for the piece and showcase of professor Anurca’s talent.
Following was professor Kimberly Beasley, soprano, singing Bella Mia Fiamma; Resta o Cara, by W.A. Mozart. The entire work was an intimate example of the communication one can have through sheer emotional context even with the text being in another language. Beasley makes an almost effortless communication with the large ensemble behind her, as her and Dr. Marguerite Richardson, conductor, work together to blend the sounds presented before them to tell a story of grief over the loss of a loved one and the separation of death between them.
The end to the first half of the concert featured Joseph Engel, JU senior composition major, playing Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. The piece opened with a powerful and somber atmosphere that gave birth to the melancholy drama that is common to cello music. As the music gained intensity so did the power of the instrument as it built to a point of anguish and defiance that resolves to peaceful tranquility.
“It was exhilarating, inspiring and enjoyable” Engel said.
When the audience returned to their seats for the final half of the concert it was to the energetic and rhythmic sound of Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra and Piano Obbligato. The prelude featured powerful hits in the lower register with bass and piano that created extra rhythms underneath tension built by the rest of the orchestra playing strained harmonies that lead into the next movement, Dirge. The background of the rest of the orchestra transforms the strained harmonies from before into a feeling of dark complexity as folk-like melodies. Those melodies are then freed into the Pastorales and Rustic dance movements that breathed bright new life into them. The orchestra then gives a powerful final blow with the ultimate movement, Fugue, with an array of different parts intertwining creating a sea of sound that enveloped the audience as they bid them farewell.
“The orchestra took me on a bright spiritual journey,” said Corey Wilcox, jazz performance major. “I felt as though my like my mind was somewhere else. What I really enjoyed was the celebration of other’s creativity.”

Photo By: Ben Watford

By ascending the elevator of a historic downtown skyscraper on March 6, 7 and 8, attendees of the Jacksonville University College of Fine Arts’ collaborative production entitled “Generations,” were transferred through reality and time into a carefully-crafted narrative world.

Held inside a two-storied labyrinth of interactive scenery, the show used a concoction of theater, film, dance, opera, music and photography to immerse the audience in the lives of three generations of the fictional Krol family, beginning in 1950s America and ending in present day.

“We worked in tandem really well to create an image,” said Lana Carroll Heylock, JU assistant professor of dance. “We really wanted to take the audience into a world.”

Upon entering, spectators were greeted by the Generations mistress of ceremonies, played by JU senior and dance major DeNaya Wilkerson. Steering guests through the scenery, she signaled transitions between eras and acts as she fittingly refashioned her attitude and attire.

“There was something unexpected at every turn,” said Erich Freiberger, JU professor of philosophy who attended the show. “You never really knew what you were going to get.”

The first generation, “The Planters” tale set the pace with simple love story told in theater in dance. Isaac Krol, played by senior Alejandro Rodriquez, immigrates to America where he falls in love with a girl named Mary, played by senior Jet Thomas, and works to starts a small paper business, which later becomes very prosperous.

Transitioning to generation two, the medium of film took over to tell the story of “The Growers” with a melancholy tone. As the audience surrounded a screen in a dimly lit room projecting Isaac’s funeral, cast members passed out memorial brochures and welcomed them to the funeral. Isaac’s two sons Daniel, played by senior Nick Boucher, and David, played by freshman Ciaran Sontag, then take over the business, until an ill-fated love triangle results in one brother killing the other.

The third generation, “The Harvesters,” centers on millennial and sole heiress to the company Theresa Krol, played by senior Caitlin Cavanagh. Trapped in the life that was given to her, this account is told through a series of dances where Theresa begins literally chained to her desk in a room with walls and a stage coated in paper. Unable to make real connections, she and her fellow millennials dance with smartphones in hand until ultimately breaking away.

Joshua Abbott, JU sophomore and dance major, performed in the third generation.

“The concept behind it really shows that life is just so much more than work,” Abbott said. “I mean, we say that, but it really opened my eyes to be part of this project.”

“Generations” was organized through weeks of planning and preparation amongst students and faculty in the fine arts departments.

“You have to be a collaborator in today’s world to succeed in the arts,” Heylock said. “The more you know about the other art forms, the better of an artist you will be because it is all about communication and how we communicate with one another.”

Photo By: Jon Martel

The recital began with Serenade in G major by Mozart, played by two piano duos of DA students. The piece is easily recognizeable and the eight hands working at the two pianos gave it an extra power to it’s natural upbeat and moving tempo. Next came two marches by Mozart played by Grace Han, who accentuated the contrast between the two with the first consisting of strong and powerful bass lines moving to the second which was more graceful with moving bass lines.
The concert hall was filled with the Latin flare of Dr. Watkins and Sabrina Morby playing Tango for Two by Rocherolle, that brought an atmosphere full of dancing rhythmns and singable melodies that warmed timbre changes. The melodies were then taken to the sounds of a joyous March in C major by Beethoven, played by Grace Han and Dr. Watkins, that started out with the sounds of horn calls to a dramatic fast-moving minor section that built tension, resolved to peaceful lulls with smooth arpeggios. The peace was abruptly ended with Tocatta, Op. 15 by Muczynski, performed by Christiana Schlelenger, as it’s dissonant modern harmonies and busy motion created the sound of an angry city with different notes all blending together in a mesh of melodies.

As the city settled, a blend of blues and tango could be heard as Mysha Frayman and Tyler Bechtle played Blue Tango by Anderson which brought tranquility to the audience.

Professor Edith Hubert, staff accompainist, and Dr. Watkins then took the audience to the symphony hall with an arrangement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 “The Military Symphony”. Even though the piece was played on piano, the qualities of different instruments such as strings and brass sections were displayed with the powerful force of the piano as well as its capability of extreme grace when contrasted. The piano’s capabilities were further demonstrated as Christiana Shelenberger and Tatiana Rusli played an arrangement of Saint-Saens’s finale to “Carnival of the Animals” with its brilliant and flashy introduction. The piece showed some of the acrobatics of the instrument and led into a child-like march that characterized the atmosphere of a circus march.

The concert was ended with the foreign textures of Rachmaninoff, Khachaturian and Bartok. Rachmoninoff’s Suite No. 2 showed a dramatic force that blended with sounds of a different land that paved the way for Khachaturian’s Toccata in E-flat minor, played by Sabrina Morby. The piece involved a blend of anxiety, mystery and hope that made it one of the more unique features of the evening. The finale of the concert being on the shoulders of Tyler Bechtle, senior Music Business student, with a powerful rendition of Barok’s “Allegro Barbaro” which created an almost primitive style that mixed with modern harmonies and professional realization, giving the recital a fitting ending.