NOTICE: Classes canceled today due to weather conditions. Check Blackboard for communication from your instructors.
BOLIVAR, Mo. – The Southwest Baptist University Division of Arts and Humanities presents the Wind Symphony and University Band in concert at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 18 in Pike Auditorium on the Bolivar campus.
The program is free and open to the public.
The Wind Symphony’s performance will feature compositions spanning more than a century of wind band literature. The vibrant “American Overture” opens the concert with melodies reminiscent of early folk tunes. “Until the Scars” is an unsettling piece adapted from a larger work by John Mackey, depicting Homer’s “Odyssey.”
“Grace Before Sleep” is a lush instrumental adaptation of a choral work by local composer Susan LaBarr. The setting of Percy Grainger’s “Children’s March” is whimsical and child-like. Johan de Meij’s award-winning “Symphony No. 1 Lord of the Rings” portrays J. R. R. Tolkien characters from Middle Earth through musical motives. The Wind Symphony brings their portion of the concert to a close with Rossano Galante’s thrilling “Rise of the Silver City.”
The program for the University Band will include some of the best-known compositions in the wind band repertoire, beginning with Frank Erickson’s “Toccata for Band,” a piece found in almost every band program’s collection of music. “Ye Banks and Braes o Bonnie Doon” is another classic folk music adaptation by Percy Grainger, while Frank Ticheli’s masterpiece “Abracadabra” is becoming a local favorite among SBU and Bolivar High School students.
Also on the University Band program is the English folk suite style of “Three Ayres from Gloucester,” a gem of the concert band world penned by Hugh Stewart. “On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss” is a beloved piece by Missouri native David Holsinger, featuring the melody from the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.” Douglas Wagner completed the unfinished “The Golden Vanity” march by Ralph Vaughan Williams adding classic folk tunes to pay tribute to the master. Wrapping up the evening’s performance will be a flex band arrangement of classic Americana in Clare Grundman’s “Kentucky 1800.”
For more information, please contact Jared Brown at jrbrown@SBUniv.edu, or the SBU music office at (417) 328-1644.
*Published: 11-15-2021
