Marshall University’s School of Music and Theatre presented Mozart’s Birthday Celebration Tuesday at the Jomie Jazz Forum.
Wendell Dobbs, flute and theory professor, and Júlio Alves, guitar and theory professor, performed with special guest Richard Spece, clarinetist and music director of the Mannheim Rocket Orchestra.  “The performance, you are talking about a period in which things like all these distractions, like video games and all these things that the modern world has, they didn’t have at the time,” Alves said. “At the time, music was the entertainment.”
The pieces were performed on replicas of instruments created in the 18th and 19th centuries.Alves said modern-day instruments create a different tone than 18th and 19th century instruments.
“The instruments aren’t as loud as modern instruments,” Dobbs said. “There range of expression is much more subtle.”
Dobbs said Mozart played a big role in the music industry for a long time period.
“Mozart was such an influence on everything that happened for the next hundred years,” Dobbs said. “Everyone imitated Mozart. You can hear Mozart in those opportunes that we did.”

Along with a piece by Mozart, the trio also performed pieces by Mercadante, Rossini and Kreutzer.
Spece has performed with Dobbs and Alves in the past as part of a week of wind quintet music for the past three years.
The quintet also toured in Richmand and Willamsburg, Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth.
Spece will perform with the Mannheim Rocket Orchestra along with other Marshall faculty March 13 at the Monumental Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Mikaela Keener can be contacted at [email protected].