Jade Bolin’s senior percussion recital

At USD, every music major has to perform a half hour recital to fulfill their graduation requirements. For percussionists, this includes a mallet piece, a multiple percussion piece and a small or group ensemble piece. 

Senior music education major Jade Bolin performed her senior recital on March 27^th in Colton Recital Hall in the Fine Arts building. Bolin has been playing percussion for the last 12 years. To get ready for her recital, Bolin had to listen to a lot of different pieces during the summer to see what she could play. Bolin said the pieces she picked have a lot of intense spots but also a lot of mellow areas.  

“There’s one piece that I’ve been playing all year to get ready for this, it’s called “Stealing a Moment” and I guess it’s kind of like my last moment here like this is the last big thing I have to do,” Bolin said. 

Darin Wadley has been Bolin’s teacher for the last four years and has overseen everything she does. Bolin meets with him weekly for lessons. She said that starting off, their practices were mostly teaching, but now it’s advising on how to make the piece sound the best it can and more musical. 

“At the beginning, it’s a lot of learning notes, learning what’s on the page but probably two months ago or so it started changing to ‘What can I do here to engage the audience more, what can I do to make them go to the edge of their seats and wait for that next spot and be musical,’” Bolin said. 

Since only 26 people were able to be in the audience due to COVID-19, Bolin said it was nice that the performance was live-streamed. She said the Fine Arts building is on the edge of campus and not a lot of people come out to see the recitals.  

“It’s fun playing all this music and having so many different things to learn, but I think it’s fun to do my duo and my group piece that I have for my recital,” Bolin said. “I’m so used to playing alone because I don’t need an accompanist or anything so it’s a lot of alone time but having those groups and being able to play music with other people and show this is what I like to do.” 

Bolin’s performance was livestreamed on March 27, but all future live performances can be watched at usd.edu/livemusic.