MARSHALL — When Southwest Minnesota State University music professor and director of the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra Dr. Daniel Rieppel looked to create a musical piece based on one of the late Bill Holm’s poems, he chose one that was well-known in the area.

“As its subject matter, the humble boxelder bug, is such a persistent, somewhat annoying, utterly trivial, yet emblematic feature of life on the prairie,” Rieppel said. “It also is the most recognizable work of the great Minnesota writer and poet and my dearest friend. Bill’s ‘good-natured hatred’ of these bugs and his observations of their modest approach to life serves as a metaphor for one of his favorite themes — looking for beauty in the small, out-of-the-way, the humble, the overlooked.”

The Southwest Minnesota Orchestra is presenting the concert “Song of the Prairie: A Celebration of Music for the University” at 7:30 p.m. today in the Schwan Community Center for the Performing Arts at Marshall High School.

The concert is featuring the premieres of “Songs of the Prairie,” music by Jocelyn Hagen, Jesse Lee, Daniel Rieppel and Peter Lothringer. The compositions are based on works by southwest Minnesota poets Philip Dacey, Bill Holm, Susan McLean and John Rezmerski. The works feature mezzo-soprano soloist Dr. Anna DeGraff.

The concert includes a piece by graduating Southwest Minnesota State University senior Paul Schell — “Can We Adventure Again?”

The Meadowlark Quartet will perform, along with its apprentice chamber ensemble, Pontem Firmissimum. The entire orchestra will perform the middle movement of the late Robert Whitcomb’s “Concerto for Harpsichord,” which was written in honor of Rieppel’s late wife Julieta Alvarado. The concert includes music by Aaron Copland and Johannes Brahms.

DeGraff said she got a grant from Southwest Minnesota Arts Council grant to have four composers write four pieces for “Songs of the Prairie.” She said each of the pieces would use poetry by someone connected to SMSU.

The four composers are from Minnesota, DeGraff said, and three are connected to SMSU.

“Each has written for a mezzo-soprano soloist,” DeGraff said. The concert is meant to be part of SMSU’s 50th anniversary, she said.

DeGraff said each of the works has a certain sound.

“Jesse’s and Peters’s are more lyrical and lush,” DeGraff said. “Jocelyn’s is full of wild energy. “Dan’s is a little more playful.”

Rieppel chose Holm’s work “Boxelder Bug Variations” for his piece “Boxelder Bug Boogie.”

The materials he used for his project, Rieppel said, he took from Holm’s own writing.

“His essay on ‘The Art of the Fugue’ warrants an appearance of this monumental work in the middle of the boogie, as well as a references to marches and fanfares and an ‘envoi’ just before the end of the piece, where I quote from Bill’s own inclusion of Rilke’s great poem ‘Auch Kleine Dinge,’ amplified and made yet more lovely in Hugo Wolf’s exquisite setting in an art song of the same name.

“But why a boogie? I don’t know — it seems kind of ‘bugly’ to me. Busy, without a terribly defined sense of direction, American down to its shorts, a state one often found Bill in when at ‘leisure,’ a perfect, working-class foil against the European high culture artifacts of fugue and art song.”

Lee created his work from Rezmerski’s poem “Cataloging the Flow: Elegy.”

“We had a few selections to choose from, and we kind of divvied it out,” Lee said.

Lee said he spent the first three months digesting the material.

“It has a common theme throughout, a metaphor of a river, reflecting the time,” Lee said of Rezmerski’s poem.

Lee said he doesn’t think he’s ever done poetry as an orchestra piece before.

“After long hard thought, it started to come a lot easier,” Lee said. “I let the flow of the poetry direct how the music should sound.” He said it took about five to six months to complete the piece.

Lee said his piece is fairly inspired by the Romantic period with some jazz elements.

Hagen used Dacey’s poem “The Racing Form” to create her piece.

“This one jumped out at me right away,” Hagen said. “I loved how it’s an exciting poem. I saw that there was movement there. I loved that it was about a female jockey.”

Hagen said she was excited to think about what it sounds like to be racing.

“I analyzed the sounds of horses running and incorporated that into a string quartet, that rhythm,” she said.

Lothringer created his composition with McLean’s poem “Moonburned.” McLean said she was “delighted” it was turned into a musical piece.

“He talked to me about the poem and about the small changes he expected to make to it, and I am very happy to have my work adapted for music, even though this is the first year that that has happened,” McLean said. She said she’s heard Lothringer’s musical pieces before and have liked them very much. McLean said she is an admirer of DeGraff’s singing. “But so far, I have not heard the piece performed, so it will be a surprise.”

Schell said Rieppel was looking for another song to end the first half of the orchestra’s program.

“He was asking the orchestra suggestions for a piece,” Schell said.

In the back of his mind, Schell said it would be a good opportunity for him.

“I need to compose an orchestra song in order to graduate,” he said. Composing a piece for the concert would give him a deadline for the assignment, Schell said. “This is my motivation to get it done.”

So some time ago, Schell said he secretly decided to get the piece done before the orchestra rehearsed the next week.

“I had him (Rieppel) listen to a digital version of it,” Schell said. Schell said Rieppel liked the piece and wanted it to end with a bang. It took him another two weeks to get the end.

“I wanted it to be exciting and fast-paced,” Schell said.

Schell said the inspiration for “Can We Adventure Again?” came from video games he used to and still does play.

“It’s supposed to sound like a hero’s journey,” Schell said. He said it was his first orchestra song. “This is maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever written.”

The concert is being filmed by Pioneer Public Television, DeGraff said.

“From my perspective, premiering music is such an honor, and to be able to do it in a smaller community like Marshall really shows the incredible support this city has for the arts,” DeGraff said.