The Annual Gustavus Honor Band Festival and Concert will celebrate its 27th year on November 1 & 2 with the arrival on the Gustavus Adolphus College campus of over 230 high school musicians from 56 high schools in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. Two concert bands with over 100 members each and one jazz band will come to the campus and join in the intensive two-day music festival in Schaefer Fine Arts Music and Christ Chapel. Their work will be presented at the Festival Concert in Christ Chapel on Monday, November 2, at 7:00 p.m. At the Festival Concert, the bands will be directed by Conductors James Patrick Miller, Heidi Johanna Miller, Karrin Meffert-Nelson and Dave Stamps. They will be joined by the Gustavus Wind Orchestra. The festival concert is free and open to the public.
The Festival, one of the Music Department’s favorite annual events, has traditionally been a wind ensemble of approximately 100 high school students who are nominated by their directors and chosen to participate in this prestigious learning experience. Due to the overwhelming numbers of interested high school musicians and their directors, the Gustavus Honor Band Festival will once again feature two concert bands, organized and directed by James Patrick Miller, and a high school honor jazz ensemble, coached and directed by the Director of Jazz Studies at Gustavus, Dave Stamps. These students will spend November 1 & 2 rehearsing together, attending workshops, clinics and lessons with members of the Gustavus Department of Music. They will share their work publicly in the Festival Concert at 7:00 p.m. on November 2 in Christ Chapel. The concert is a collaborative effort and will include the three high school honor bands and the Gustavus Wind Orchestra. The Festival and Concert is a fantastic learning experience for these young musicians. Its primary goal is in the “pursuit of musical excellence,” as is stated in the invitation for band directors to nominate their students. The festival also serves to introduce students to a learning community at Gustavus. The students, both at the high school and undergraduate level, will find the intensive experience enjoyable, memorable, and life-changing.
The Frederic Hilary Honor Winds will open Monday’s Festival Concert with John Philip Sousa’s The Corcoran Cadets, followed by Night Dances by Bruce Yurko, Mock Morris by Percy Grainger and conclude with David Gillingham’s Be Thou My Vision. The Festival Jazz Honor Band and director Dave Stamps will then take the stage and perform two selections by Benny Carter, Vine Street Rumble and Katy-Do, followed by an Alan Baylock arrangement of Paul Simon’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Erik Morales’ Alianza and the Gilmore arrangement of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit. The Douglas Nimmo Honor Winds will begin their program with the “Gandalf” movement from Johan DeMeij’s Symphony No. 1, The Lord of the Rings, followed by Percy Grainger’s Ye Banks and Braes O’ Bonnie Doon, Henry Fillmores’s Americans We and Brant Karrick’s Bayou Breakdown. The Festival Concert will conclude with the Gustavus Wind Orchestra under the direction of James Patrick Miller performing the “Finale” from David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4 and featuring organist Zachary Anderson ’17.
The Gustavus Honor Band Festival Concert, in celebration of the 27th year of the Gustavus Honor Band Festival, will be presented in Christ Chapel on Monday, November 2 at 7:00 p.m. The concert is free and open to the public.
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