The Brevard College Wind Ensemble will present a concert centered around the theme “Where Did You Go This Summer?” on Thursday, September 26 in the College’s Porter Center for Performing Arts.
The program, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is free and the public is invited to attend.
To put the audience in the travel mood, the concert will open with Nitro a festive and energetic fanfare for band by American composer Frank Ticheli. This work was especially commissioned by the North Shore Concert Band of Chicago, Illinois to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
The next stop is the imaginary realm of Illyria, the setting for Shakespeare’s famous comedy Twelfth Night. British Composer Guy Woolfendern was inspired by Shakespeare’s play to create Illyrian Dances, a set of three different Renaissance music forms that capture the magic of a place that exists only in our imaginations.
Spanish composer Joaquin Turina invites audience members to attend a holiday in Seville in his 1912 composition La Procession du Rocio. Turina uses brightly colored Spanish themes and rhythms to recreate the sights and sounds of the “Festival of the Dew” in his hometown.
American composer John Barnes Chance first heard the folk melody that would be the basis for his Variations on a Korean Folksong while serving in the U.S. Army in Korea. His composition, which has become a band repertoire classic, consists of five different variations that reuse the folk melody in a variety of colors and shadings.
Stonehenge has always had an attraction for visitors from around the world. Anthony Suter’s composition Dancing at Stonehenge imagines what it would sound like if those different visitors were represented by their musical styles.
A trip to the Old World and the New are presented in William P. Latham’s arrangement of Johan Schop’s famous seventeenth century hymn tune “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light.” American composer David Bidenbender incorporated fragments of that same tune in his 2009 composition Luminescence.
The concert closes with a march written especially for band by Russian composer Sergei Prokofieff. This bright and snappy march is all the more interesting because it was written during the darkest days of World War II.
Dr. Miller Asbill, director of the Brevard College Wind Ensemble, will present a pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m.
For additional information, contact the Brevard College Division of Fine Arts at 828-884-8211.