The Gustavus Wind Orchestra 2017, James Patrick Miller, conductor
One of the nation’s foremost collegiate concert bands, the Gustavus Wind Orchestra from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., now in its third year under the direction of conductor and artistic director, James Patrick Miller, will present its 2017 Home Concert at Jussi Björling Recital Hall on Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 1:30 p.m. Admission to the wind orchestra’s Home Concert is free; tickets are not required.
The band’s 139th season included a concert tour through five New England states – New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine – under the leadership of Dr. James Patrick Miller. Miller succeeded long-time Gustavus Wind Orchestra Conductor Douglas Nimmo and came to Gustavus after serving as Director of Wind Studies at the University of Massachusetts for the past five years.
The Gustavus Wind Orchestra was organized at Gustavus in 1878 and is recognized as the oldest collegiate ensemble west of the Mississippi. It has earned international acclaim through the quality of its concerts and recordings, as well as its work with world-renowned composers and its national and international touring. In the 1940s, the ensemble toured with renowned Australian composer Percy Grainger. On its international concert tour in 1990, it was the first American ensemble invited to present a concert in the “open” East Berlin. Concert tours through Scandinavia, Western and Central Europe have followed.
GWO’s 2017 tour program opens with William Schuman’s Chester Overture, followed by David Maslanka’s Concerto for Trombone and Wind Ensemble, featuring senior soloists Joshua Mason, trombone and John Baron, cello. The program will continue with Satoshi Yagisawa’s Sentimentale, directed by senior Alvin Kong, and Karel Husa’s Les couleurs fauves. The band will return following a short intermission to present it percussion feature, Starship Groove, Yukiko Nishimura’s Star Ship, directed by Calvin Kong, and the bass clarinet solo, Drill, composed by Evan Ziporyn and performed by senior Stephanie Peterson. One final senior directed piece, Aaron Copland’s Down a Country Lane, directed by Nicole Skifton, will be followed by the concert finale, Michael Markowski’s joyRIDE.
This 1:30 p.m. Home Concert is free and open to the public. The performance will be presented in Jussi Björling Recital Hall on the Gustavus Adolphus College campus and will be live streamed on https://portal.stretchinternet.com/gacadmin/
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