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Paul Bauer We had a unique opportunity, with our percussion
students invited to participate in a really special performance in Millennium Park and
it coincided with our welcome meeting for the new students.
Abby Mungai We all congregated in the Music Building until
everybody arrived. We went on the nice NIU bus.
Paul Bauer We combined the bus ride into the city with
the normal meeting that we have. It’s a welcome and sort of orientation.
Trevor Murrey The bus ride was awesome. I really liked the
bus ride. It definitely reminded me a ton of marching band, my marching band days from
high school.
Abby Mungai We got there and it just kind of started.
It was really quiet and we were like, what’s going on?
Chris Hagendorn It’s was kind of surreal. It was nice because
it was a free trip to Chicago. It was definitely exciting. I got to see the Bean for the first
time and Millennium Park.
Paul Bauer It started with these sounds from shakers,
and shells, and sand blocks, and whistling tubes.
Chris Hagendorn It was neat to see all of the different percussion.
It was like one giant drum circle.
Paul Bauer One of the things that made this a truly unique
performance experience is it was distributed over a space larger than a football field,
and so you got to wander through the performers. And every individual person’s experience
was individual.
Chris Hagendorn Some of the symbols, the way they had them
setup were really cool. So where you had like, symbol, symbol, symbol, symbol on one giant
string so that if you hit one, you could go down the line and hit a whole bunch at the
same time. I had not known that percussion played conch shells, I’ve never seen that
before. There were lots of hand sirens.
Paul Bauer NIU had some very strong connections with
the performance. We had alumni, who are teaching at other places who brought some of their
students. And we had current students perform. We had current faculty perform.
Abby Mungai This is stuff you’re going to be doing for
the next four years, this is stuff you should start getting interested in.
Paul Bauer We have a common experience with this very
unique performance, but we had an hour-and-a-half bus ride on the way down, and an hour-and-a-half
on the way back. And these students, dozens of new students, who didn’t know each other
before, now know each other.
Robert Arcos I’m usually not very outgoing, and this
one actually, this trip here actually got me talking to people.
Chris Hagendorn Before the trip I hadn’t really met anybody
because I’m a commuter student and I’m not staying in the dorms.
Robert Arcos It was really fun. It was good.
Chris Hagendorn It was definitely very cool.