McKenna Liebenow Per­forms Se­nior Recital

MISHAWAKA--McKenna Liebenow, grad­u­at­ing se­nior, per­formed her se­nior recital Sat­ur­day, Feb. 20. As a per­cus­sion­ist, she used a range of in­stru­ments, from a marimba to a floor tom, and she played a range of pieces writ­ten from 1965 to 2000 by a di­verse group of com­posers. 

The recital started with the Dean of Arts and Sci­ence Janna McLean, Ph.D., in­tro­duc­ing Liebenow and lead­ing every­one in prayer. The recital then went a lit­tle dark and the lights came up in the house and the stage. Liebenow ap­peared with a mask and dress combo of pur­ple sparkles. Roland Kins­man, the lights per­son for the recital, con­sid­ered the themes of each piece and wanted to pro­vide the ap­pro­pri­ate mood for each one. Pieces he found strik­ing he put red lights on and mel­lowed-out pieces took a cooler tone with blues.  

Many of Liebenow’s pieces were played on the marimba, her pri­mary in­stru­ment. A marimba is com­prised of wooden bars re­sem­bling a pi­ano; these bars are then struck with mal­lets, wooden sticks with yarn on the ends. The first two pieces were on the marimba. Liebenow’s mother de­scribed the first piece as the “plunka-plunka” piece. She changed the sticks for each move­ment, green to blue then back to green again.  

The sec­ond marimba piece Liebenow per­formed has a story be­hind it. A grad­u­ate school pro­fes­sor chal­lenged Liebenow with this piece, say­ing it would be im­pos­si­ble. Liebenow took that chal­lenge and ran with it. It is a very stren­u­ous piece that re­quires a lot of sta­mina. Her fa­ther, who called this piece his fa­vorite, said it took a lot out of McKenna. 

“This is the most ath­letic recital I’ve seen,” Liebenow’s fa­ther said. 

The third piece was a thun­der­ous dis­play on a tim­pani. This piece was ac­com­pa­nied by Rob Rhein D.M.A. He said he has only ac­com­pa­nied a tim­pani piece once be­fore, and the pi­ano part was lack­lus­ter in his opin­ion. For this one, he was chal­lenged, and it pro­vide some lyric pas­sages he en­joyed.  

The fourth was an­other dis­play on marimba. The sec­ond move­ment of this piece was in­ter­est­ing be­cause the mal­let col­ors were dif­fer­ent. She had two red mal­lets in her left hand, and one blue and one red in her right. When asked about that, Liebenow said it was to bring out the melody with a harder mal­let. The blue mal­let is harder to bring out a unique tim­bre for the piece.  

The next piece, “Suomineito,” tells of the time that its com­poser, Zivkovic, spent in Fin­land. This piece was es­pe­cially en­joyed by Liebenow’s boyfriend, Mike Lee.  

“It put chills down my spine; it felt like a night scene,” Lee said.  

Liebenow fin­ished with the piece she was look­ing for­ward to the most, “Cold Pressed.” This piece fea­tured five move­ments and 19 in­stru­ments.  

This recital had a spe­cial mean­ing for Liebenow be­cause she was scared that it might not hap­pen. She has been deal­ing with wrist pain for a while due to ten­donitis, and she talked to her phys­i­cal ther­a­pist about her con­cerns. The ther­a­pist rec­om­mended that Liebenow go through with the recital, but then take it eas­ier go­ing for­ward.  

“I was ex­cited, but wor­ried, go­ing in,” Liebenow said. “I’m glad it’s over. I’m so thank­ful.” 

Liebenow plans on go­ing to phys­i­cal ther­apy every other day for re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion for her ten­donitis.