The musical finale to Frederick Community College’s Mallet Day was set to cap a unique opportunity for musicians and fans on Sunday.

A concert that featured experts and the students who participated in a day of percussion clinics would appeal to any music lover, said Greg Herron, director of the FCC percussion ensemble and adjunct music instructor.

“They’re in for a sound they haven’t heard before,” Herron said Sunday as classes were still going on at the Jack B. Kussmaul Theater. “No electronic machine they’ve heard will compare to the unique sound they’re going to hear from the stage.”

Students in one of the day’s many master classes learned from Lee Hinkle, marimba soloist and University of Maryland percussion ensemble director. He shared his enthusiasm for percussion instruments’ unique characteristics while showing marimba technique.

“We have the loudest instruments and the softest,” he said.

Hinkle explained that an audience hears music in part by what they see on a musician’s face and in the body language. He suggested performers make up a storyline for each composition they play, “so you are saying something to the audience,” Hinkle said.

The concert featured solos performed by some of the day’s instructors, a trio performance featuring jazz vibraphonist Tony Miceli, and a performance by the area’s only mallet orchestra, Herron said.

— Patti S. Borda

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