“Made In America” will be the theme for the final Eastern Shore Wind Ensemble concert of the 2015-2016 season. The band concert will present works by American composers of classical, popular, and stage, film and TV music. Washington College student Emma Hoey will be featured as trumpet soloist. The free concert will begin at 4 p.m., Sunday, May 22, at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Cross and High streets, Chestertown. The church is handicapped-accessible at the entrance from the old courthouse green.
The program will open with “Fanfare for the Common Man.” Aaron Copland wrote the piece in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under conductor Eugene Goossens. It was inspired in part by a famous speech made earlier in the same year where vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the dawning of the “Century of the Common Man.”
“American Riversongs” by Wisconsin composer Pierre La Plante is a moving tribute to an earlier time when waterways were the lifeline of our growing nation. It features “Down The River,” “Shenandoah” (aka “Across The Wide Missouri”), “The Glendy Burk,” and a delightful Creole dance tune based on the music for the bamboula, a drum made from a section of giant bamboo with skin stretched over the ends.
“Love’s Old Sweet Song,” words by G. Clifton Bingham and music by James Lyman Molloy, was an immensely popular Victorian-era parlor song. Melodic and sentimental, it was often played and sung in homes around the increasingly common upright piano or parlor organ of that period. During the great American concert band era of a century ago, virtuoso brass soloists often played it as an encore, and in that spirit this arrangement by Andrew Glover is programmed as a trumpet solo with band accompaniment.
“A Gershwin Tribute to Love” is an arrangement by Brent Heisinger of lovely melodies that George Gershwin wrote for stage and screen. “’S Wonderful” is from the 1927 Broadway musical “Funny Face,” “Love is Here to Stay” from the 1938 film “The Goldwyn Follies,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” from the 1937 Fred Astaire movie “Shall We Dance,” and “Embraceable You” from the 1930 Broadway musical “Girl Crazy.”
“The Golden Age of Broadway” is arranger John Moss’s nod to the fabulous show music of Richard Rodgers from the 1940s and 1950s. It features “Bali Ha’i” from the 1949 show “South Pacific,” “The Carousel Waltz” from 1945’s “Carousel,” “Getting To Know You” from the 1951 show “The King and I,” “Oklahoma” from the 1943 show of the same name, and “Climb Every Mountain” from the 1959 show “The Sound of Music.”
“Mancini!” is an arrangement by Stephen Bulla of some of Henry Mancini’s most memorable television and film music. It includes the “Pink Panther” theme from the 1964 film of the same name, the “Baby Elephant Theme” from the 1962 John Wayne film “Hatari!,” “Moon River” from the 1961 Audrey Hepburn film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and two selections from the 1958-1961 “Peter Gunn” private eye TV show: “Dreamsville” and the “Peter Gunn Theme.”
The program will conclude with “American Barndance,” Richard L. Saucedo’s lively work that contains elements of an early American character. It features a calm and poignant section of light texture with interlaced lyric themes, builds to a dramatic peak, and becomes even more frenzied as it races to an exciting conclusion.
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 October 30, will begin in early September. 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 or 410-810-1834. The ensemble is partially supported by a grant from the Kent County Arts Council.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.