Seats in Marshall University’s Smith Recital Hall were few and far between  Tuesday night as the Marshall Symphony Orchestra started its season.

The orchestra performed at 7:30 p.m. The music department ran out of programs soon after the doors opened.

The show began with the orchestra’s conductor walking to center stage to greet the audience. There she welcomed in the remaining instrumentalists and explained the orchestra’s first piece to the audience.

The first piece was “Prelude to Rigoletto” by Giuseppe Verdi. The Rigoletto Opera has three acts by Verdi and is considered to be the first operatic masterpiece from Verdi’s mid to late career.

The next piece was “In the Steppes of Central Asia” by Alexander Borodin. “In the Steppes of Central Asia” is also considered musical tableaux, which is a symphonic poem.

The third piece of the evening was “Suite Number 2 in D Major” from Water Music, originally composed by Georg Frideric Handel.

Following the third piece was a break, allowing for the orchestra to move around equipment and seating in order to perform their final piece.

The final piece was “Symphony Number 8 in G Major, Opera 88” by Antonin Dvorak.

“Symphony Number 8” was broken down into four sections. The first section was Allegro con brio followed by the next section entitled Adagio. The third section was Allegretto grazioso, followed by the final section, Allegro ma non troppo.

Some performers said they were nervous because this was their first performance of the year, while others said they were just enjoying having the chance to perform.

“It was just a lot of fun. I enjoyed it and it was one of the best performances I have ever done,” said Michael Wilcoxon, senior music education and performance major.

Other performers said they enjoyed their performance despite the difficulty of the music.

“I enjoyed the performance and I thought we did really well as a whole given the toughness of the music,” said Kaitlyn Fulks, sophomore music education and performance major.

Fulks and Wilcoxon both described the performance as intense and said it takes a lot of focus to watch the conductor and the music simultaneously.

“It is tough, but it is very exhilarating to be up there performing,” Fulks said.

Kalyn Bordman can be contacted at [email protected].