Trinity students ended the year with a musical bang. They held concerts to celebrate the conclusion to this school year and say goodbye to the graduating seniors.

The Choral Union and the Trinity Symphony Orchestra came together at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 21, at the Parker Chapel. Ken Greene, professor of music, and Gary Seighman, director of choral activities, were the conductors for the night.

This annual concert allows the choral union and the orchestra to come together and perform alongside their professors.

“It’s sort of the repertoire every year,” Seighman said. “It’s also a great opportunity, because we have a lot of alumni, community club members and a lot of faculty and staff who join and perform with us. We usually have a good number of faculty that do that every year, so it’s good, it gives a nice opportunity to sing next to your science professor doing a piece like that, it’s a totally different context outside the classroom, which the students love and the professors love.”

The concert began with “Te Deum, H. 146″ which was composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and performed by both the Choral Union and the Trinity Symphony Orchestra. It included various solos sung by Trinity students. Then, the Orchestra performed “Pastorale d’été, H. 31″ composed by Arthur Honegger. It concluded with the Choral Union and the Orchestra performing “Toward the Unknown Region” composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The conclusion to the concert was successful in leaving the audience feeling the energy and the fire of the music.

“The last one is a piece that is very humanistic and it’s about the limitless possibilities that people have that they can explore and the music affirms that with the huge sound at the end,” Greene said.

These two talented groups came together that night to bring to life these historical pieces and they truly excelled in doing so. They gave an exciting performance that brought the audience to their feet in a standing ovation fit for the marvelous performance.

The Trinity University Handbell Ensemble and the Brass Quintet gave a concert at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 22, 2012 at the Ruth Taylor Recital Hall. The Handbell Ensemble was conducted by director Diane Persellin. The Brass Quintet is a student-led group that performed alongside the Handbell Ensemble.

“This was the spring concert for the Trinity University Handbell Ensemble and for the first time we combined forces with the new ensemble, Trinity Brass, and that’s a student-led group so we thought it would be really fun to put our two groups together,” Persellin said.

They performed a series of songs that included “Magnifica Fanfare,” “Tempest,” “Dorian Dance” and “All American Hometown Band.” One song, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” included a solo by Valerie Jeannin. The Handbell Ensemble made the concert even more interesting by adding many techniques.

“I look for really challenging music and I also look for music that is very diverse. I don’t want everything to sound the same because with hand bells there aren’t a lot of different things. We look to try different things through the concert, try different techniques and different instruments and solos. We want some fast pieces of course and some slow pieces,” Persellin said.

Another way in that they made the concert a big hit was by performing Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” which Matt Hawley arranged and turned out to be a very successful endeavor.

“I told the seniors they could do a piece on their own and that they could pick it. I thought they would just order something online but Matt decided to arrange something, so he told me he was going to do this Michael Jackson piece and I said, “˜Go for it!’ and so he did it totally on his own. They practiced on their own, they arranged the music on their own. It was really a hit, too,” Persellin said.

Both concerts turned out to be very successful. They accomplished their mission of leaving the audience wanting more and bringing about the anticipation for next year.

The music department will be offering several other concerts before the end of the semester. The Trinity Symphonic Wind Ensemble, directed by James Worman, will perform Johann de Meij’s “Lord of the Rings” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 29, in Stieren Theater.