Wind Symphony with David Maslanka on Tuesday

The OU Wind Symphony's first concert of the fall semester arrives Tuesday at 8:00 PM in Sharp Hall, in the Catlett Music Center on the OU campus. It's not your ordinary concert, though, because it features Symphony No. 4 by David Maslanka at the end of a four-day stint as composer-in-residence at the University of Oklahoma. Wind and percussion groups around the country often perform Maslanka's work. If you've attended OU symphonic wind concerts over the past several years, you've heard some of his pieces, including the haunting A Child's Garden of Dreams (in 2007), portions of his Symphony No. 2 (in 2006), and the two-movement Give Us This Day: Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble (in 2008). His complete works for wind ensemble include several concerti, three symphonies (with three more in progress), Testament (written in response to the events of 9/11), and many more. Mr. Maslanka is spending several days at the OU School of Music, teaching a series of master classes and rehearsals on his work with OU wind, percussion, and composition students. Many of these are in Sharp Hall, and all of those are open to the public and have been added to our Events calendar. These include two master classes on Symphony No. 4 with the OU Wind Symphony under Dr. Wakefield (one Sunday night at 8:00 PM, the other Monday at noon), a composition and advanced orchestration master calss on Tuesday at noon, followed by a master calss with solo marimba performances of My Lady White and Variations on Lost Love, and a rehearsal with the OU Percussion Orchestra (conducted by Dr. Lance Drege) on Crown of Thorns, a Maslanka piece the OU Percussion Orchestra commissioned and premiered in 1991 under Dr. Gipson. The residency culminates in two Sutton Series concerts in Sharp Hall. On Monday night at 8:00, the CanAm Piano Duo (Karen Beres and Christopher Hahn), with percussionists Lance Drege and David Steffens, perform three pieces, including their Maslanka commissioned piece This is the World We Know, the world of air and breathing and sun and beating hearts. You can see other details in the poster on the right (click on it for a printable PDF version of your own). On Tuesday night, Maslanka's Symphony No. 4 anchors the OU Wind Symphony in concert. The program includes William Walton's Crown Imperial (a personal favorite), Ron Nelson's Morning Alleluias for the Winter Solstice, and Karl King's march, The Melody Shop, written when the composer was just 19 and featuring a difficult euphonium solo in the trio. (There's somewhat of a funny story behind that.) Admission to each Sutton Series concert is $8, or $5 for students, faculty, staff, and senior citizens. Both Maslanka concerts are to be streamed live from the OU School of Music, so feel free to listen from home if you can't be there. (Some of the rehearsals or master classes may be streamed as well, but since those things usually aren't done with microphones, I don't really know.) There's also a Symphony Band and Concert Band concert on Thursday, February 25, in Sharp Hall, with several familiar band pieces by Grainger, Nelson, and Sousa; I'll post more about that next week. In the meantime, it's wonderful that Mr. Maslanka is spending so many days at OU this week giving the students insights into his works and their complexities. We hope to see you there Tuesday night for the concert! Posted by Webmaster on 2/20/10; 3:04:59 PM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

Excitement building in the symphonic winds

I do go on a bit about the fantastic concert scheduled for Monday night from our Wind Symphony and Symphony Band, but with good reason: this thing's going to be incredible. Here are just a few of the phrases you'll find inside to describe it: "The work is largely inspired by games of chance, logic and strategy, both ancient and contemporary." "you can hear them live, in person, with the composer at the piano accompanied by our own Wind Symphony." "Recent or current students may be more familiar with the work of Wataru Hokoyama from his orchestral music in the video games Afrika and Resident Evil 5." "Find out why the piece quotes U2." Interested? Click here to learn why you want to be there Monday night. Posted by Webmaster on 11/18/09; 3:13:52 AM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

Want to see a band concert on July 11?

The Norman Transcript has details on how: Honors wind ensemble students from across Oklahoma and Texas high schools will be on the University of Oklahoma campus Thursday through Saturday to collaborate with University of Oklahoma School of Music faculty for the OU Honors Wind Ensemble Camp. The experience culminates in a free concert 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Sharp Concert Hall in Catlett Music Center, at the corner of Boyd Street and Elm Avenue. …The program for the concert includes Percy Fletcher's Vanity Fair Overture, Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium, Kevin Walczyk's Children's Folk Song Suite, and John Philip Sousa's Pathfinder of Panama March. The wind ensemble is conducted by school of music faculty members William Wakefield and Brian Britt. The OU Honors Wind Ensemble Camp advances wind and percussion studies for high school students, many of whom will be considering music as a collegiate major. During the three-day event students stay in University Housing while rehearsing and studying with University artist faculty to enrich their artistic skills. Read the full article for more details on the 16-year history of the camp and for the names of students from Norman and Moore who are participating. Posted by Webmaster on 7/7/09; 2:44:45 PM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

Final concert: British Eighth and Blue Shades

The OU Symphony Band and Concert Band, directed by Brian Britt and Jeff Jahnke, present a joint concert on Monday night, April 27, in the Paul F. Sharp Concert Hall in Catlett Music Center on the University of Oklahoma campus. Admission is free. It's the final concert of the 2008-2009 academic year—some recitals with symphonic winds are ahead, as usual, but this is the last full-band concert of the season. A live stream is available if you really can't make it (those of you who live in Alaska, for example, are excused). In case you've been away from the band program for a while: the Symphony Band is an undergraduate ensemble of up to 70 players, whose members and parts are chosen by audition. It's been part of the band program for about 10-12 years now. The Concert Band has been around much longer, and is open to absolutely anyone who wants to play—no one is turned away, and auditions are solely for chair placement. The Symphony Band is mostly composed (no pun intended) of music majors, while the Concert Band, like The Pride of Oklahoma, has a majority of players with non-music majors. I did not get to see these bands in concert earlier in the year, which I regret. I've heard that Concert Band participation is lower this year, but I haven't seen it. If it is, I understand—when times get tough, students are under more and more pressure to drop "optional" activities. Yet if the Concert Band becomes optional, that makes it far too easy for The Pride to appear optional when the fall semester arrives. Every one of you knows exactly how much work and effort is required of a member in The Pride of Oklahoma, and how disappointing it is when the students with the talent and leadership to be a major part of The Pride wind up not participating due to other pressures. That's why we like band scholarships to be for both semesters and to include participation in a spring ensemble like the Concert Band. So, again, if you have some extra cash, please consider a tax-deductible donation to one of our scholarship funds so that more students can participate in both fall and spring ensembles each year. With that future-building plea now said, click here to read more about Monday night's program, including links to PDF scores, audio samples, and more. Posted by Webmaster on 4/26/09; 7:19:00 PM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

The Symphonic West Side Story [UPDATED]

(Click here to read more about the rest of Tuesday night's program.) In 1985, just before Rod Harkins put together the first West Side Story show for The Pride's 1985 Texas show, this groundbreaking musical's composer decided it was time for him to conduct a definitive recording of the music. The resulting recording (also available for purchase on if you want to hear it right now) is often called "the operatic version" because the roles were performed by the world's leading opera singers: José Carreras as Tony, Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, and the composer's own children as the dialogue voices for Tony and Maria. The dialogue substitutions were because the operatic singers, especially Carreras, had significant non-New York-gang accents. Indeed, while the performances are brilliant, it's hard to believe that any of the singers have ever been on a street, much less in a street gang. It's a masterpiece, in part because the music is all Bernstein. He conducted it, and as the "making of" documentary showed, he didn't hesitate to be a bastard about what he wanted. There were no cuts in the music for staging, no tempos reduced to accommodate singers or musicians—just the brilliant, riveting music (and lyrics) of the show as the maestro intended them. Even without lyrics, the music is powerful—possibly explaining why The Pride has been called back to this show in every decade since its 1985 debut, most recently in 2007 for the Broadway musical's 50th anniversary. While I'm the first to advocate for the power and clarity of the modern marching ensemble, a symphonic group still has more colors available to it—the ability to hear a solo clarinet, the flexibility to use Bernstein's demanding changes in time signature (and the original key signatures, which lean heavily towards sharps because they're more natural for string players), and little details like oboes and multiple horn parts. In 1961, to make West Side Story available to symphony orchestras, and not just musical theater, Bernstein created Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, a 24-minute suite of orchestral music faithful to the original Broadway score. It includes not just the moments you'd expect from having seen the musical (Somewhere, Cool), but also the most dynamic parts of the score (Mambo! as well as the Prologue, the quiet Finale, and the Rumble [molto allegro]). Earlier this year, PBS's Live from Lincoln Center presented a concert in honor of Bernstein's 90th birthday, and it opened with the Symphonic Dances. It was amazing—every fantastic moment from the score, just like the original, but pure music without other distractions. I was an instant fan, and if you'd heard it, you would have been as well. The 50th anniversary of the musical also inspired renowned band arranger Paul Lavender to revisit the Symphonic Dances for the modern wind ensemble: three flute parts (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (two parts, that is), one English horn, two bassoons, one contraboassoon, E♭ clarinet, three B♭ clarinets, bass clarinet, two E♭ alto saxophones, tenor sax, baritone sax, three B♭ trumpets, four horn parts, three trombones, euphonium, tuba, string bass, and five percussion parts not including separate timpani, harp, and piano. (This turns out to be remarkably similar to the original, adding more harmony saxophones and additional flute and clarinet parts to help deal with the absence of all strings except for the string bass.) It's in the original keys, just like the orchestral version. And in case the image to the left hadn't filled you in, the University of Oklahoma Wind Symphony presents Symphonic Dances from West Side Story in concert this Tuesday night, April 21, at 8:00 PM, on the stage of Sharp Hall in Catlett Music Center. This is a monster work, challenging even to the professional musicians who performed it on Broadway and for the operatic version under the composer's baton. That's why it's the final piece on Tuesday night's program—it's really hard to top. Click here to read more after the jump about the four other pieces on the program by Chabrier, Pann, Salfelder, and Lauridsen, and about how to get (cheap) tickets for Tuesday night, or even to listen live for free at home! Posted by Webmaster on 4/17/09; 5:58:39 AM from the Concerts, OU Music, Pride of Oklahoma dept. Discuss #

Something's Coming on Tuesday night

Could be! Who knows? There's something due any day. You will know right away Soon as it shows. (Do you know what it is yet? Stay tuned!) Posted by Webmaster on 4/16/09; 3:44:34 AM from the Concerts dept. Discuss #

Concert tonight: Surprise!

Tonight, the Symphony Band and Concert Band perform in Sharp Hall at Catlett Music Center. The concert begins at 8:00 PM, and admission is free. This is actually all I know about the performance. The "surprise" idea was Brian Britt's, when I saw him at the Wind Symphony concert and asked him what they would be performing tonight. "It's a surprise." Well, the concert's not a surprise, since the time and place are known (see paragraph 1). Presumably the band members know what they're performing, as it's described as a "concert" and not a "sight-reading clinic." But that's all I have for you. Why not go and see what's on the program? It's free, it's many of the same students in The Pride of Oklahoma, and you know they'd love to see you in the seats. We hope you can attend! Posted by Webmaster on 3/2/09; 3:46:54 AM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

Solo Artistry with the Wind Symphony

Nothing fun, cheap, and local to do on a Thursday night? Not true! The OU Wind Symphony, under the direction of Dr. William K. Wakefield, with guest conductor Danh Pham and guest soloists Jonathan Ruck and Brandon Ridenour, present "Solo Artistry with the Wind Band" on Thursday night at 8:00 PM in the Paul F. Sharp Concert Hall at Catlett Music Center. It's the first Wind Symphony concert of the spring semester, and it's quite the lineup. Even The Oklahoman is starting to take notice, as you might have seen in Sunday's paper with a short profile of Dr. Wakefield and a write-up of this concert: During his long teaching career, Wakefield has remained a passionate advocate for new music for the wind ensemble. He’s put together a program of mostly new works that he’ll conduct at 8 p.m. Thursday in Catlett Music Center. The OU Wind Symphony will perform works by Kevin Walczyk, Michael Schelle, Marvin Lamb, Aaron Copland and Dimitri Shostakovich. Let's add details, because we can! The Wind Symphony shall perform SACRED GROUND: Fanfare for Brass and Percussion (2001) by Dr. Lamb, head of the composition faculty at OU. The piece was commissioned by the Oklahoma Arts Institute for the rededication of the Quartz Mountain facility, with "musical gestures [that] evoke the vast, breath-taking expanse of open prarie mixed with stone outcroppings." The performance also includes Prayer: Schöne Maydl for cello and winds (2004) by Michael Schelle, performed on the anniversary of the composer's father's birth. Guest soloist Jonathan Ruck is assistant principal cello of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and a new faculty member at the OU School of Music. Guest conductor and doctoral student Danh Pham, whom many of you met at homecoming, conducts Aaron Copland's Emblems (1964), and is Copland's only work for symphonic band. Kevin Walczyk's Concerto Gaucho: For Trumpet and Wind Ensemble (2007) in three movements features guest soloist Brandon Ridenour, an award-winning soloist as well as composer in his own right, and a member of the famed Canadian Brass. Walczyk's piece builds upon blocks based on the African-influenced music of Uruguay while using the formal construction of the concerto, making "one large, continuous musical expression" defined by energetic and unique rhythmic structures, lyrical folk expressions with the distinctive rhythms of the payada, and a trumpet soloist in the role of the gaucho. Through the magic of the Internet, you can click here to learn more about the piece and—I Am Not Making This Up—download a full score in PDF format. The score has a watermark, and can't be printed without a password that's not supplied for free, but this is still really amazing to find a full score with a section-by-section analysis by the composer online for free. This is the second Walczyk piece for the Wind Symphony this academic year—in the October concert, the ensemble performed the world premiere of the wind symphony version of the composer's Celebration Fanfare (2003). Good stuff! The program concludes with Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2 (1938), a reconstructed work because soon after its original performances in the late 1930s, it became lost—until 1999, performances of a piece with the same title were actually "the composer's totally independent eight-movement Suite for Light Orchestra, incorrectly believed to be Jazz Suite No. 2. It should be a bang-up performance. It's a Sutton Series concert, so tickets are $8 for adults, and $5 for students, seniors, faculty, and staff. You can get them at the Fine Arts Box Office in Catlett just before the performance, or by contacting the Fine Arts Council Ticket Service (F.A.C.T.S.) at 405-325-4101. Click on the image above to download your own 11" by 17" poster to print and distribute! Posted by Webmaster on 2/25/09; 3:56:26 PM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #

The entire OU School of Music, condensed into one concert

On Monday, February 16, the University of Oklahoma School of Music presents the third annual Musical Mosaic performance, featuring over 200 performers from the school in a showcase emphasizing the diversity of musical forms and styles taught each semester to the students. That wasn't really very clear to me either, so I asked Dr. Wakefield for more information. He said: This unique concert is a fabulous opportunity to experience the many different facets of the School of Music from bands, orchestra, choral, jazz, percussion, etc . Performances are staged throughout the hall with theatrical lighting effects focusing on each group in a dark hall. More and more university-level music programs are performing annual programs like this, giving the community (as well as students and their families) a chance to hear some of all of the vast repertoire performed each year. Sometimes it's difficult to get to the Wind Symphony or Concert Band concerts—let's face it, we all have other obligations, and as much as we may love hearing outstanding wind music performed by the students who are building on our traditions, they only perform four concerts per year, or two per semester. (I've updated our Events calendar with all of this semester's band department concerts, including all three large wind ensembles and the jazz band concerts.) The Pride really is the exception in performing student ensembles: thanks to the football schedule, they perform at six to seven home games per year, as well as during at least two and usually three or more away games to boot. What if you'd like to hear the University Choirs every now and then? Or the outstanding percussion ensemble, built largely of the same students and staff from the Pride's drumline? The OU orchestra is pretty good, too (and I don't just say that because my niece is in it!), as are the other smaller ensembles. Hence the annual Musical Mosaic—an opportunity to see a little bit of everything, presented as a cohesive program that directs your attention from one group to another. It's the School of Music Smorgasbord! We hope you can turn out on Monday to see a sampling of everything going on inside Catlett this semester. The Wind Symphony represents the large wind ensembles, and will perform two movements from Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2 in the concert. It's a Sutton Series Concert: tickets are US$8 for adults, and US$5 for students, faculty, staff, or senior citizens. They're available at the Sharp Hall Box Office or by calling F.A.C.T.S. at (405) 325-4101. Wearing colorful clothing in the mosaic theme is, of course, optional. See you there! (Click on the poster above to download your own printable PDF concert poster, too!) Posted by Webmaster on 2/10/09; 2:03:39 PM from the Concerts, OU Music dept. Discuss #