Today’s Wind Band
A diverse collection of musicians, lacking a standard instrumentation, and playing from a wide-ranging repertoire — As It Should Be!
It is always interesting to hear conversation and, in many cases, banter during intermission and following each concert. It is sometimes more interesting, however, to observe conversation after a research session. In either case, the provocation of emotions seems an important ingredient toward the future.
I have been hearing a lot about reaching back to move forward at pre-concert talks, discussions about programming, and during the late night sessions that wet the whistle and whet the appetite for debate. Gary Hill shared his perspective on reaching to the past, offering a bit of a mind bend to those who attended his lecture, “Today’s Wind Band … As It Should Be!” Laden with historical and statistical evidence (even some examples that made the keen listeners blush), Gary demonstrated that dynamism is perhaps the key to the future of the wind band. The ideas presented and the gauntlet laid down for conductors to think about not as much about what they are playing, but why, and to shape the future through dynamic forces that neither cause the perpetuation of habitual music making, since the beginning of the 20th century, or the current trend to be at the front of the “art music” movement, generated lively conversation after the lecture, particularly by delegates who missed the punch line. The premise that making music is (and always has been) a social activity that feeds people both mentally and physically, simply by nature of its essence … sound … deserves some serious thought by conductors at every level and speciality. The wind band world seems to work very hard to marginalize itself through the dichotomy practiced by its members, in lieu of making music simply for the love of it. Perhaps wind band music would touch members of the audience and the musicians generating the sound, if there were more careful selection of meritorious repertoire, even if it means breaking the standard instrumentation or causing a little controversy. Gary’s premise that the centuries-long history of the band being a fluid, dynamic ensemble, germane to its social context, deserves some serious thought, if we are to continue movement toward acceptance as a legitimate medium of serious artistic expression.
©2007 WASBE and/or the contributing author/photographer