Northwestern State University

Presents

Our season opens with a patriotic tribute celebrating the ideals, courage, and history that shaped our nation.

Opening Season Concert, Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 7:30 p.m., Magale Recital Hall, NSU Campus

Salute to the Armed Forces with the Cane River Singers

These classic pieces hold a special place in national celebrations and military tributes and loved by all. Salute to the Armed Forces (Armed Forces Medley) is a combined medley honoring the distinct branches—Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard—where veterans and active-duty members stand as their respective service songs play. Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861, this stirring Civil War anthem pairs powerful spiritual imagery with themes of freedom and sacrifice. God Bless America: Composed by Irving Berlin in 1918 and popularized by Kate Smith in 1938, this song serves as a peaceful, prayerful national reflection.

Richard Rose's Celebration Overture

Richard Rose’s Celebration Overture

Celebration Overture was composed in 2013 to mark the 45th anniversary of my joining the Music Faculty of the School of Creative and Performing Arts at Northwestern State University.  Thus began a rewarding teaching career that ended in 2005.  I studied composition for two years at the University of Louisville. My teacher basically said that I should not pursue a career writing music.  So, I didn’t write again until 1980, while I studied at The University of North Texas.

After a brief introduction, the music introduces the main happy melody of the piece. I had previously used an unhappy version of this melody. As a celebration the melody became happy. I describe a career where I was allowed to expand my abilities and enjoy the faculty and students with whom I had the privilege to work.  The final section of the piece is taken from a song that the audience should recognize.  Thank you, Northwestern, for a wonderful journey. 

NSU alumna Nettie Chenevert's Dear Enemy Overture

In the fall of 1780, towards the end of the American Revolution, when General Benedict Arnold infamously defected to the British cause, his English “contact” in the negotiations was Major John André, an exceptionally able and talented young officer (also reportedly extremely handsome). Fortunately for America, the plot (which also included the planned turnover of the vital fortress of West Point) failed at the last minute.

Arnold made his escape to the British side, but André was captured, tried by a military court, and condemned to death as a spy. He was, of course, guilty of nothing but serving his own country’s cause (much like our own Nathan Hale), but he was taken out of uniform behind American lines, so the sentence was inevitable. His honorable conduct during his captivity and his unfailing courage in meeting his untimely fate won him the admiration and respect of his American “enemies” as well as of his own compatriots.

Adding poignancy to the situation is the fact that he had become great friends with several of the young American officers – Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Tallmadge (head of Washington’s Secret Service, and our French ally the Marquis de Lafayette), who then had to witness his execution, not by the “honorable” firing squad he had earnestly requested, but by hanging as a spy.

The overture to the musical play “Dear Enemy,” which tells André’s story, contains militaristic elements as well as romantic and celebratory music from flashbacks of his earlier life. Though the story is a sad one, it has a lot to say about the values of honor, patriotism, and the power of friendship which transcends opposing political loyalties.

It opens with a trumpet call which is a sort of leitmotif for André. This leads into a march-like tune entitled “Friends Inside,” sung by André and the young American officers to express their solidarity in spite of their opposing political loyalties. The tender melody which follows (“Anna”) is sung, in a “flashback” scene, by a youthful André to the somewhat older woman who was (though platonically) his dearest friend and mentor (he addresses her affectionately as his “guardian angel”).

The lilting melody heard next (“City of Brotherly Love”) is a toast to the “fair ladies” of Philadelphia, whose society André so much enjoyed during the British occupation of that city. It leads into the song “Honor” (accompanied by those characteristic trumpet calls), André’s credo of the high ideals which have guided him throughout his life and continue to sustain him in this difficult situation. As it builds to a climax, there is a brief reiteration of the “Friends Inside” melody, followed by the final trumpet call which summons him to his execution.

The above description is not intended to make John André seem like some kind of plaster hero; he was a thoroughly normal (though unusually gifted), fun-loving young man who happened to find himself unexpectedly trapped in unthinkably challenging circumstances and somehow found the strength to deal with them with remarkable grace and courage. The entire piece, like the play it precedes, is intended not merely as a memorial to a historical tragedy, but as an expression of the values of honor, loyalty, and patriotism and the transcendent power of friendship.