The horn ensemble concert tonight will feature pieces that range from "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocohontas to Pachelbel's "Canon in D."

Hearing the term "horn ensemble" might suggest the ensemble consists of a myriad of different horns. However, "horn" is the proper term for the French horn. The ensemble consists of 14 French horn players.

Lisa Bontrager, a music professor of French horn, the ensemble's director for the past 21 years, said having 14 French horns is far from limiting in a musical sense.

"I love the sound of the horn; it's just big and warm," Bontranger said. "The horn has a very large range, about four octaves. Because of this range, the horn can play really low, really high, and in between."

The ensemble will cover a wide range of music in its concert tonight, including baroque, jazz and popular. The band's repertoire covers Gregory Kerkorian's "Sextet for Horns," Pachelbel's "Canon in D," Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg," Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are," Giovanni Gabrieli's "Cantos I," Hardin's "Hornissimo," "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas and the theme from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The group is ending with two Disney arrangements that were arranged by one of Bontrager's former students.

"I like to program some pop pieces for variety," Bontrager said. "However, the students actually prefer the classical pieces. They like the challenge of playing difficult, serious music. I really respect that. It's important to reach the audience in addition to teaching the students a difficult repertoire."

Rebekah O'Brien (graduate-conducting), the assistant director for the horn ensemble, said the pieces are new and exciting because most of them weren't originally written for the French horn. The difficulty in finding particular music for the French horn contributes to the wide variety of music the ensemble will perform, she said.

"The Disney tunes are good because they can have a tendency to bring us back to our childhood. Most of the people in the band remember watching those movies as kids," she said. "We should definitely get a smile out of the audience, and that will make the performance better."

One member of the ensemble said the audience enjoys hearing songs they know.

"The Disney songs are a little cheesy, but it's always fun to have something people can respond to," Candace Bishop (graduate-music performance) said.

The ensemble seems particularly excited to perform Gabrieli's "Cantos I." The piece is an antiphonal piece in which the horns spread out and invoke a technique of call and response or question and answer, as well as playing in unison, O'Brien said.

"For 'Cantos I,' one choir is going to stand on one half, and the other group will stand on the other half, which will cause a pretty cool surround-sound effect," O'Brien said.

Bishop said she is equally excited to play the Gabrieli piece as her peers are, but she is even more interested in the original pieces for the French horn. "Sextet for Horns" and "Hornissimo" are the only two pieces in the set written specifically for the French horn, she said.

"I think that original pieces are key, I enjoy them much more than the arrangements because they are written specifically for the instrument," Bishop said. "They're newer pieces and are really effective at exposing the audience to new things and broadening their horizons and our horizons."

Despite the attempts at making the performance accessible to many groups with the inclusion of popular music, Bontrager stressed the need for young people to attend the concert. "We'd like to get more of a younger crowd. It's not a very long concert, and it's free," Bontrager said.