The University of Central Arkansas Wind Ensemble will present an evening of music on Thursday, Dec. 2, at 7:30 p.m., in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus.
The concert, free and open to the public, will feature a “Young and Old” theme, with music composed as early as 1838 to music written in 2009. Composers range in age from 38 to one born in 1803.
Dr. Ricky Brooks, conductor of the Wind Ensemble, said that at 38, Steven Bryant is one of America’s talented new-generation band and orchestra composers and conductors. A native of Little Rock, Bryant attended North Little Rock High School and later studied composition at Ouachita Baptist University, the University of North Texas and the Julliard School of Music in New York.
“The UCA Wind Ensemble is proud to perform Steven’s Radiant Joy, a work influenced by the 1970s funk/jazz/fusion music scene and featuring vibraphone, baritone saxophone and soprano saxophone,” Brooks said.
The Roman Carnival Overture (1838), by Hector Berlioz (b. 1803), is based on themes from his opera “Benvenuto Cellini.” Although the opera fizzled with the 1838 premiere, the overture was a smashing success. The overture’s first concert performance in Paris in 1844 pleased the audience so much that it had to be repeated.
Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, one of the most popular and long-running musicals on Broadway, has been adapted for almost every type of entertainment media from stage to TV. The Wind Ensemble will perform Four Dances from West Side Story, featuring the most recognized dances of the musical: Scherzo, Mambo, Cha-cha, and Cool.
The concert finale will be the Concertino for Four Percussion and Wind Ensemble by David Gillingham. This high-energy showstopper will feature UCA Percussion Professor Blake Tyson and percussion music majors Veronika Mauder (Germany) Brant Blackard (Vilonia), and Ashley Burnham (Vilonia).
The Wind Ensemble concert will be held in conjunction with the first UCA All-Honors High School Wind Ensemble Clinic on Dec. 2-3, hosted by the UCA Band Department. This clinic brings together the top all-state band students from across Arkansas for two days of rehearsals and masterclasses with a guest conductor and the UCA instrumental music faculty. The clinic culminates in a final concert by the All-Honors Wind Ensemble at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3 in Reynolds. That concert is also free and open to the public.
The UCA Wind Ensemble has performed in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria; Carnegie Hall, New York City, and the Capitol in Washington D.C.
For more information, contact Brooks at (501) 450-5764 or rickyb@uca.edu.
