Listed in reverse chronological order
With the Jönköping Conference coming soon, the Conferences part of the web site has made 2003 its focus. A news page (similar in format to the English home page) is now the "home" page for that area. As a part of that news page, we will be posting regular features on the ensembles that will be performing at the conference as well as the guest soloists. Visit the page regularly to get all the latest information!
Three concerts by the world-famed Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra will feature a newly commissioned work from British composer, Adam Gorb, Towards Nirvana.
TOKYO METROPOLITAN ART SPACE
TOKYO KOSEI WIND ORCHESTRA
COND: DOUGLAS BOSTOCK
18 OCTOBER 2002
"ANGLO-SAXON WIND WORLD"
Masque Kenneth Hesketh
William Byrd Suite Gordon Jacob
Towards Nirvana Adam Gorb
world premiere
Colonial Song Percy Grainger
The Wait of the World Stephen Melilo
ULM CONGRESS CENTER
ULM SYMPHONIC WIND ORCHESTRA
COND: DOUGLAS BOSTOCK
SOLOIST: ANTONIO PIRICONE (PIANO), ITALY
24 NOVEMBER 2002
Godspeed Stephen Melilo
Ikaruga Tetsonusuke Kushida
Piano Concerto Howard Hanson
(European Premiere)
Towards Nirvana Adam Gorb
(European premiere)
Aztek Theme and Dance Elliot del Borgo
Evocations Martin Ellerby
CHICAGO HILTON
MIDWEST INTERNATIONAL CLINIC
TOKYO KOSEI WIND ORCHESTRA
COND: DOUGLAS BOSTOCK
18 DECEMBER 2002
Programme to include US premiere of Gorb's Towards Nirvana
Marc Crompton, the coordinator of the current WASBE Schools Network commission, reports that he has just received a draft of the nearly completed Dance Sequence by Marco Pütz. "It is nearly 12 minutes in length and in three movements. At first glance, it seems to successfully fill the goal of providing a grade four level piece. I'm extremely excited by this addition to the repertoire and ecstatic by Mr. Pütz's efficiency in getting the piece composed way ahead of schedule."
There are still a number of shares in this commission available. For US$55, you will receive your own copy of the published score (not parts) with your name and affiliation (school) listed as a contributor to this important project. Contact Mark at crompton@stgeorges.bc.ca for further details on how you can make your contribution. For more information on the commissioning project itself, check out the WSN pages on this site.
WASBE conducting scholarships for symposia and workshops in the summer of 2002 have been awarded to:
Congratulations to these deserving conductors and special thanks to the Directors who have generously offered to support this initiative.
Conductor Development Committee
Following his residency at Baylor University, Texas, WASBE President Tim Reynish has awarded a scholarship on behalf of WASBE to Tim Linley, a Junior saxophone player at Baylor University to study conducting at the Canford School of Music. Linley has studied conducting with Michael Haithcock, Jeffrey Grogan, Matthew Smith and Isaiah Odajima.
The Canford Wind Band Conducting Course is run in connection with Maecenas Contemporary Music and BASBWE from 3 – 10 August.
Works to be studied this year are:
For the experienced student
Martin Ellerby: Paris Sketches
Kenneth Hesketh: Masque
Stephen McNeff: Ghosts
Buxton Orr: John Gay SuiteFor all students
Derek Bourgeois: Serenade
Gustav Holst: Suite in Eb
Adam Gorb: Bridgewater Breeze
Wolfgang Mozart: Serenade in C Minor K 388
Other courses include Chamber and Symphony Orchestras, Brass Band, Percussion, wind and string chamber music.
Canford Wind Band Conducting Course
Kurt Masur took his farewell of the New York Philharmonic audiences with a carefully constructed programme of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Bartok's Divertimento for Strings and a new piece for the wind, brass and percussion by Joseph Turrin called Hemispheres.
The title of the work, Hemispheres, refers to Turrin's use of half of the orchestra, and this led him to reflect on Eastern and western religious traditions and creation myths, particularly biblical, Hindu and those of the Yakima Indians, and finally he was influenced by the events of September 11, for which Kurt Masur led a minute of silence before the premiere.
The music critic of Newsday wrote, “All these philosophical musings receded into the background of a piece that was effective, attractive and well-crafted but fairly square. The three-movement structure adopted the venerable alternation of fast, slow, fast. The rhythms were quick and tricky, but stiff. Crescendos broke off predictably into sudden hushes. But if both Masur and the orchestra visibly loved the piece, it's because Turrin knows how to make a band — especially this band — sound gleaming and limber.”
Following the première in New York on May 30, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played the work in Cologne and Baden-Baden and in July will tour it to cities in Japan, Taiwan and Korea.
Michael Good of Recordare reports that the San Francisco Symphony has programmed a good deal more wind music in the last few seasons:
The SFS has performed several wind pieces over the past few years, including the Ingolf Dahl “Saxophone Concerto” with John Harle, Edgard Varese's “Deserts”, and John Harbison's “Music for 18 Winds”. Schoenberg's Theme and Variations was also on the tour program this year in its orchestral Op. 43b version. We missed that one, but the Dahl and Harbison were fantastic performances. The Varese was well done, but this is still not one of my favorites by this composer — I always enjoy the electronic segments more than the wind and percussion parts.
Still, Deserts was the opening piece of one of the most audacious and great concerts of Michael Tilson Thomas's directorship here. This was a regular subscription concert two weeks before Christmas.
The program:
Edgard Varese: Deserts
Henry Brant: Ice Field
Astor Piazzolla: Tangazo
Heitor Villa-Lobos: Choros No. 10Michael was autographing books after the concert, and when someone in front of us complemented him on the superb program, he said "Now that's my idea of a holiday concert!" Ice Field, one of Brant's great spatial works, later won the Pulitzer Prize. He has composed a lot of band and wind ensemble works, much of which is unfortunately out of print, but well worth investigating.
Mr. Tilson Thomas is also composing more these days, and in some interviews he has mentioned he is working on a wind ensemble piece. His new contrabassoon concerto is scheduled for next season. It was Michael Tilson Thomas who commissioned and premiered Steven Stucky's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary".
John Stanley reports that Michael Tilson Thomas opens San Francisco Symphony Orchestra concert series beginning on May 29 with William Schuman's powerful "George Washington Bridge" written for the Michigan School Music Association in 1950.
Between 25 November and 6 December 2002, the Pori Sinfonietta of Finland is sending the string players home and devoting two weeks of its regular winter season to wind music.
WASBE member Mark Heron will conduct the orchestra's wind, brass and percussion players in works ranging from 8 - 16 players by Mozart, Grainger, Sallinen, Rautavaara and Woolfenden.
David Rakowski's Ten of a Kind, a work commissioned and premièred by "The President's Own" United States Marine Band, was named as one of two finalists for the 86th annual Pulitzer Prize in music. Jurors selected the award winner and finalists from a field of 103 entries. The Marine Band presented the world première on July 13, 2001, in Lucerne, Switzerland, in conjunction with the 10th Annual WASBE Conference. Ten of a Kind is structured as a four-movement symphony and features a section of 10 clarinetists on E-flat, B-flat, alto, bass, and contrabass clarinets, creating the impression of a single, large solo instrument.
United
States Marine Band
Press Release
In a ceremony at the Mita ARtrium on February 15, the Singapore Chapter of WASBE was officially launched. The chapter will provide the organisational support for the 2005 WASBE Conference in Singapore. RAdm Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defence, was at the proceedings and spoke about the benefits of wind bands and the coming WASBE conference.
Text
of Speech
(Ministry of Education, Singapore site)
Photos
from Event
(WASBE Singapore site)
The WASBE Web Site is now being hosted at the University of Calgary (Canada). To find out more about the transition, read the University's News Release.
©2003 WASBE