The Eastern Shore Wind Ensemble’s “European Tour” concert features charming works that paint musical pictures of parts of Europe (and Egypt, across the Mediterranean). This free band concert is at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Cross and High streets, on Sunday, March 20, 2016, at 4 p.m.
The program will open with Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s “Grand March” from his 1877 opera “Aida.” Sometimes played today at graduations and weddings, it evokes the grandeur of Egypt.
Next, Italy will be visited, in the light and festive “Italian Polka,” written by Sergei Rachmaninoff after a family trip to Italy in 1906, a contrast to the dark and heavy works for which he is better known. Then the band will play “Capriccio Espagnol,” an 1877 piece by another Russian composer, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His fiery and energetic piece, based on Spanish dance and folk tunes, captures the flavors and rhythms of Spain.
The English countryside and its rural small towns and villages will be evoked by “Covington Square,” by James Swearingen, a contemporary American composer.
Eastern Europe and the characteristic rhythms of Slavic folk music will be represented by “Slavonic Dance No. 8,” written by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak in 1878. It is based on a furiant, a fast and fiery Bohemian dance.
Vienna, Austria, will be visited via Franz von Suppé’s 1844 overture “Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna.” In “One Night in Athens,” contemporary American composer David Bobrowitz captures the joy and excitement of the dance music he heard during a memorable evening at an Athens restaurant.
The program will conclude with a return to Italy via “Italian Holiday,” a medley of well-known and beloved songs and arias from Italy’s popular and operatic traditions. Some inclusions will be “Funiculi, Funicula,” “La Donna è Mobile,” and “O Sole Mio.”
Directed by Dr. Keith Wharton, the Eastern Shore Wind Ensemble is an all-ages community concert band. It was formed in 2001 to offer area wind and percussion musicians the opportunity to continue or return to the pleasures of playing quality music in a large ensemble. New members are always welcome, without audition or fee.
Rehearsals for the next concert, on May 22, will begin on Monday, March 21. They start promptly at 7:00 p.m. and run until 8:30 p.m in the Washington College band room in Gibson Center for the Arts.
For further information, call 410-778-2829. The ensemble is partially supported by a grant from the Kent County Arts Council.
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