I’m thrilled to announce that our friend, Travis Cross, who was our guest conductor in March, 2011 and composed Let the Amen Sound, which we performed this past November in memory of Bob Wanninger, has accepted the position of WInd Ensemble Director at the Herb Albert School of Music at UCLA! He is sad to be leaving Virginia Tech, but this is a tremendous step for him. We know Travis as a gifted conductor, teacher, and composer. Please join me in congratulating him!
Category Archives: News
Spring Concert Flyers & Cards
We will have cards to distribute tonight to advertise the 25th Anniversary Gala concert. Thanks go to Matt Kowalski for spearheading this project.
I have 50 hard copies of the flyer for those interested. You can also download the flyer for distribution:
Two different CSW announcements
CSW stands for both Connecticut Symphonic Winds and Columbia Summer Winds. Please see the announcement and flyer below for the Connecticut Concert on May 11, and the summer band audition announcement at Columbia University.
First, here’s the information regarding the CSW Concert on Saturday, May 11, which includes the Grofé version of Rhapsody in Blue. Thanks go to Marc Perler for sharing this information.
The Connecticut Symphonic Winds would like to take this opportunity to announce our last concert of the 2012-2013 on Saturday May 11th, at 7:30pm at Fairfield’s Roger Ludlowe Middle School Theatre. There will also be a mini-recital at 7pm by the CT Flute Ensemble in the same hall.
The concert, “MADE IN AMERICA,” will boast some of the most popular band music in the wind repertoire and in this program, there will be two special happenings not to be missed.
First, with the performance of Sunrise at Angel’s Gate, CSW will present their fifth multimedia presentation since receiving their grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project in 2012. This performance will include projections of Angel’s Gate vista and the surrounding area of the Grand Canyon. These one of a kind images and music of the Philip Sparke will be sure to transport you on a trip to this famous American natural wonder.
The season will conclude with a performance of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with pianist Jeehyun Kim as soloist. The transcription being performed is the original band version scored by Gershwin’s good friend Ferde Grofe, famous for his Grand Canyon Suite. This will mark the first time in the CSW twenty-six season history that the band will perform a work for solo piano and winds, a major first for the ensemble’s feature artist program!
Please find attached a flyer advertising this not-to-be missed, free event! We ask for your additional support of CSW by forwarding this mail and flyer to anyone you feel may be interested in this concert and to please ask them to forward it to those they think may be interested. We hope to see you on May 11th and thank you for supporting CSW!
Call (203) 386-1625 for information or directions.
Second, here is a performance opportunity: consider an audition with the Columbia (University) Summer Winds, sent by Bill Tonissen at White Plains High School:
My name is Bill Tonissen and I am the Associate Music Director of the Columbia Summer Winds. We are a 70-person concert band composed of some of the most talented community musicians that make up our membership. We strive to play the finest literature available, from orchestra transcriptions to classic Sousa marches; from Broadway showtunes to the most current movie soundtracks. Since its inception, CSW has been committed to playing free concerts of the best wind music in the parks of Manhattan. We have given concerts in such diverse outdoor venues as Riverside Park, East River Park, Washington Square Park, Battery Park, South Street Seaport, Morningside Park, Bryant Park, Union Square and Columbia’s own Low Plaza.
We are gearing up for our 2013 season and are looking for wonderful players to come join us! If you are interested, please visit www.columbiasummerwinds.org. There you will find a link to email our Music Director, Andrew Pease, to set up an audition. Auditions will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, May 22 and 23 from 7-9pm at Teachers College, Columbia University
We rehearse Tuesday evenings starting June 4 from 7-9pm in room 435 Horace Mann at Teachers College, Columbia University. There will be no rehearsal on Tuesday, July 2.
Our 2013 Season is comprised of four concerts:
Saturday, July 13 at 2pm – Fort Tryon Park
Thursday, July 25 at 6pm – Union Square North
Saturday, July 27 at 1pm – Central Park Bandshell
Saturday, August 3 at 2pm – Washington Square ParkThey are all great venues and attract nice audiences.
We also have a wonderful program picked out and is as follows:
Procession of the Nobles – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, arr. Leidzen
A Summer Breeze – J. Scott McKenzie (last year’s contest winner)
Songs from the Catskills – Johan de Meij
Elixir – Michael Markowski
Down a Country Lane – Aaron Copland, arr. Patterson
Suite of Old American Dances – Robert Russell Bennett
Selections from Les Misérables – Claude-Michel Schönberg, arr. Barker
Light Cavalry Overture – Franz von Suppé, arr. Fillmore
Stars and Stripes Forever – John Philip SousaAll links go to our Music Directors fantastic wind band blog, andypease.wordpress.com. There you can read up on and listen to recordings on all of the music we are playing this summer.
Thanks for your time and I hope to meet many of you soon,
Bill Tonissen
Brass warmups demystified
Before I get to the topic mentioned in the headline, please allow me to remind you that we are back at the Music Hall on Monday night. The rehearsal order for this and all remaining rehearsals is posted on the Rehearsal This Week page. About a dozen NVOT students will be joining us for the Kalinnikov rehearsal this Monday. I think it will be a great experience on both sides of the aisle. Depending on the final count, I may or may not need to reorganize the seating for the first hour of rehearsal. Please be ready to be flexible.
This past Friday, I rehearsed the antiphonal sections of the Finale with students reading the brass parts out in the hall. It was a great eye-opener for the kids, who until this point, had only imagined what the cumulative effect would be. The experience made it a lot clearer. I also got a better opportunity to consider the ending, especially the effect of directional instruments close to audience members, and how we can make the final measure even more substantial in the Music Hall.
Barbara will be coming to work with us again for a second rehearsal as well on Monday. After my students leave, we’ll move the piano into place.
Last week I decided to make a program order change; I sent my suggestions out to the Board and received overwhelming approval for my choices. I have found over the years that my first instincts regarding the placement of the works in order often changes after we’ve lived with the pieces for several weeks. This was indeed the case this time. There were two things I didn’t like: I was concerned about starting this important concert with a 20th century work which many audience members would not find approachable, and I was finding that I didn’t like the idea of following the Kalinnikov with anything at all. So I moved the Sousa to the top of the program, moved the Persichetti to the end of the first half, and moved Mallory’s Galop to the second half. Now we have a great beginning and ending, and we still have one soloist and one guest conductor on each half of the program. You can see this all laid out for you here.
Lastly, Chris Wilhjelm from the Ridgewood Concert Band sent me this video of the Boston Symphony Brass. It details the complexities and rigors of the daily brass warm-up, and also shows what can happen when you allow brass players to use a video camera without adult supervision. See you Monday.