Old Fashioned Band Concert Kicks Off UW Wind Symphony Schedule Sept. 29

“An Old Fashioned Band Concert” Thursday, Sept. 29, begins the fall season for the University of Wyoming Wind Symphony, the university’s premier concert band, featuring the best wind and percussion musicians from across campus.

The symphony will perform at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall.

Tickets cost $10 for the public, $7 for senior citizens and $6 for students. For tickets, call (307) 766-6666, visit the Performing Arts box office, or go online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts.

“If you like summer band concerts in the park, or the variety of music presented by community bands, join the crowd for the UW Wind Symphony’s opening concert,” says Bob Belser, UW Wind Symphony conductor and Department of Music professor. He is in his 22nd year as UW director of bands.

The concert, of classic band works, will reflect Belser’s research on the Goldman Band of New York City, America’s longest sustaining professional band. Included will be marches, classic band overtures, a bit of Frank Sinatra, some jazz and a rousing closer of the band version of Charles Ives’ “Variations on America.”

Opening will be the jazz-influenced “Shortcut Home,” followed by a work premiered in 1958 by the Goldman Band, which became a band classic, “Chester Overture.”

A Sousa march will be performed, along with the Norwegian march, “Valdres”; a Rossini overture; Debussy’s “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”; and a closing medley of Sinatra favorites and Ives’ “Variations on America.”

The UW band has performed for Wyoming’s Music Educators Conference, and twice has been selected and played for the College Band Directors National Association conference.

Renowned for its musical performances, the UW Wind Symphony also advocates for new music, both by the leading composers of today, and in promoting and performing works by UW student composers, all balanced by performing the popular classic band literature.

Future UW Wind Symphony concerts are:

-- Nov. 10, featuring UW Department of Music Professor Scott Turpen, saxophone soloist, and the Symphony No. 8 by David Maslanka.

-- Dec. 10-11, Holiday Gala Concert.

-- Feb. 9, featuring a work by 2016-17 Eminent Artist-in-Residence Libby Larsen.

-- Feb. 17, UW Festival of Winds.

-- May 6, Wind Symphony with UW Collegiate Chorale.

For more information, contact Belser at (307) 766-3877 or belserrs@uwyo.edu.