Families from the local community came to the Staller Center Main Stage on Tuesday, March 1 to see Stony Brook Orchestra’s annual Family Concert.

This year’s theme was “Musical Humor,” which meant that the musicians added a dash of comedy to their performances.  

Saffron Livacca, a freshman math major, said, “I liked that this concert was themed around humor and that’s what stood out to me.”

Once the lights dimmed, the orchestra started playing “Die Fledermaus Overture (The Bat)” by composer Johann Strauss, which got the audience’s attention.

The humor began when Bryan Kupferman started to play his solo. He played a song called “The Typewriter” by Leroy Anderson and used a typewriter to perform the music as a humorous twist.  When the orchestra played the song, Kupferman used his typing to match the beat of the music playing and at the end, it became a finished paper.

Susan Deaver, the conductor of the Stony Brook Orchestra, conducted “Fiddle-Faddle” by Anderson featuring the “Fiddlers” of the University Orchestra. During the performance, Lila Glansberg came onto the stage and performed her tap dancing for the audience, which had the crowd at the edge of their seats.

Deaver also announced the winner of the 2015 Stony Brook University PreCollege Concerto Competition as Samuel Wallach, a sophomore at Ward Melville High School, during the concert.

Wallach has been a part of the University PreCollege Chamber Music Program since 2014. After Deaver’s announcement, he took the stage and performed “Piano Concerto No. 12 in a Major, K. 414” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Livacca added that the music performed at the concert really stood out to her and she thought it was great.

The orchestra closed the night with Giachino Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.”  

The family friendly Stony Brook Orchestra will return to the stage yet again in May.