UNC, Duke join forces musically

A love for music might be the only thing — aside from a video portal — that can bring one of the best rivalries in college sports together.

The UNC Wind Ensemble and the Duke Wind Symphony will perform the results of their musical partnership tonight for the third annual “Two Shades of Blue.”

“Unlike athletics, in music, we’re not competitive,” said Evan Feldman, conductor of the UNC Wind Ensemble.

Feldman said the group started rehearsing immediately after winter break and has continued rehearsing for four hours each week since then.

The two schools will play their own separate music sets and then come together to play Gustav Holst’s “First Suite in E-flat.”

Verena Mosenbichler-Bryant, conductor of Duke’s Wind Symphony, said the schools created the collaborative venture in order to bring them together.

“The thought was that we’re a big rivalry school and music brings people together, so we thought it would be a great experience for our students to collaborate and get to meet each other and play music together,” Mosenbichler-Bryant said.

“You would never do it, if we talk about sports.”

The location of the show alternates between the two schools each year, so this year’s performance will take place at Duke.

Feldman said one of the perks of this collaboration is working in different performance venues.

“We perform often on our own campus, so any opportunity we have to kind of go somewhere else and perform is always a good experience to play for different audiences, in different halls,” Feldman said.

This is junior music major John Parker’s second year playing in the show.

Parker plays trumpet for the UNC Wind Ensemble, and he said it’s always exciting to put aside the rivalries and see what is going on east of Interstate 40.

“It’s always a blast working with them,” he said. “It’s fun to put aside all the rivalries and play some music just for the fun of it.”

The two schools’ respective orchestras differ somewhat in their makeups.

Feldman said the UNC ensemble is composed of mostly music majors while the Duke symphony is composed mostly of non-music majors.

Parker said preparing for the show proves the two schools are able to put aside their differences and create some great work.

“UNC and Duke can work together and things can end well,” he said.

“It’s just one more thing to add to the list of great experiences I’ve had as a music major at Carolina.”

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.