Dances, dreams and the key of D minor will be featured when two student ensembles take the stage tonight.

Penn State's Symphonic Band and Concert Band will perform at 8 p.m. in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Dennis Glocke, director of the Symphonic Band, said the concert will feature a variety of pieces meant to educate the student performers as well as entertain the audience.

"They're just wonderful pieces of music and they challenge the students," he said.

The Concert Band, directed by School of Music professor O. Richard Bundy, will open the concert with four pieces.

Bundy said the arrangement of "Prelude and Fugue in D Minor" by J.S. Bach the band is performing comes from the original written for organ. A "fugue" refers to a single melody that is repeated by different sections of the band, he said.

"In a fugue, the melody starts and in comes a different statement," Bundy said.

"You hear something, and it's imitated in other voices."

The band will also perform "Chorale and Shaker Dance" by John Zdechlik, which similarly uses adaptations of one melody, but in a more modern style than Bach, Bundy said.

"It puts [the melody] through lots of variation and combines it with the original chorale theme the composition opens with," he said.

The band will also perform a piece called "Dreams and Fancies" by Timothy Broege.

Bundy said the music ranges from ethereal to dramatic to intense based on the mood of the music.

The Symphonic Band will perform five pieces during their portion of the concert.

Matt Butterfield (junior-music education) is a featured oboe soloist in the band's performance of "Outdoor Overture" by Aaron Copeland, the American composer famous for "Fanfare for the Common Man" played at the beginning of many sporting events.

"I think he knew what he wanted to put on the paper and how to put the American people and their spirit in his music," Butterfield said.

The band will also perform selections from "On the Town" by another famous American composer, Leonard Bernstein.

The piece will feature Caleb Rebarchak (junior-music education) on alto saxophone. Rebarchak said Bernstein's jazz style allowed him to enjoy the solo's flexibility.

"It's not an improvisation, but you can put a lot of jazz inflection in it," he said.

"You can give it your own twist."

Butterfield said the different styles performed by both the Concert Band and the Symphonic Band create a better concert for both the performers and audience members.

"There's a lot of variety and it makes for a more interesting concert," he said.