Medfield Band students to perform at MIT

At 8 p.m., Friday, Dec. 1, close to 30 members of the Medfield High School Concert Band will perform with the MIT Wind Ensemble in the third annual Prism Concert Spectacular in Kresge Auditorium on the MIT Cambridge campus.

The concert is open to the general public, and tickets are only $5 each. They can be purchased online here or at the door.

The concert involves music for large and small ensembles with special lighting for each piece (light passing through a spectrum of music). The program includes music by Holst, Grainger, Ives, and Hindemith for full wind ensemble and chamber works by Susato, Weill, Piazzolla, and others performed by saxophone, brass, and percussion ensembles.

“There is something in this concert for everyone,” said MIT Wind Ensemble conductor Fred Harris, pictured at a recent practice. “I’ve been very familiar with Doug Olsen’s incredible teaching and playing ability for decades as well as the excellence of the Medfield program. Several years ago we did a joint concert in Medfield, and I thought it would be terrific to invite Medfield students to MIT to perform with us again on several concert pieces."

Harris noted, "This kind of connection between our schools is so important, and it helps demonstrate that music education is a priority for many collegiate students regardless of their majors."

MIT has a long history of integrating the study and performance of music in its educational offerings and campus culture, including ground-breaking research on the impact of music on the brain.

In the 2013 campus magazine Spectrum, focused entirely on the intersection of science, technology and the arts, President L. Rafael Reif noted, "Each incoming class deepens and renews MIT’s creative enthusiasm. Today, unprecedented numbers of incoming students—80 percent—arrive at MIT with deep experience in the arts, especially in music."

In fact, one of the MIT students performing at the Dec. 1 Prism concert is senior Wind Ensemble flutist Rachel Thornton. A MHS Band and Jazz Band alumnus (class of 2014), Thornton is pursuing a degree in computer science at MIT.