The Santa Fe College Wind Ensemble will perform with international flair at the “Winds and Classics” concert, 7:30 p.m. tonight, Sept. 29, 2016, in the Fine Arts Hall at the Northwest Campus, 3000 NW 83 Street, Gainesville.
Tickets are $15 main floor and $12 balcony for adults; $9 for seniors, children and University of Florida students; and free for Santa Fe College faculty, staff and students with college identification cards. For ticket information, call the Box Office at 352-395-4181 or visit the Fine Arts ticket website at:
http://www.sfcollege.edu/finearts
“There are 24 students in the Wind Ensemble this year,” said Dr. Steve Bingham, Ph.D., who directs the college’s bands. “We have an excellent balance of brass, woodwinds and percussion, and we’ll be performing many audience favorites from classical band music and Broadway show tunes.”
The dramatic opening selection is “Rise of the Firebird” from “The Firebird,” written in 1910 by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (with choreography by Michel Fokine). “The Firebird” is based on Russian fairy tales about a magical bird and “Rise of the Firebird” depicts the bird’s rise from the ashes.
France is represented by “Bring Him Home,” a selection from “Les Miserables,” the musical by Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil. “Les Mis” is the longest-running musical in London’s West End and second-longest running musical in history. Lead trumpet player Michael Wyant will be featured in “Bring Him Home.”
Jaime Texidor’s “Amparito Roca” is “the essence of the traditional classic Spanish march,” Bingham explained. “You will say, olé!”
“Irish Tune from County Derry” (also known as “Londonderry Air” and “O Danny Boy”) by the Australian composer Percy Grainger is “one of the most beautiful ballads ever written for wind bands,” according to Bingham.
The USA is represented by two tunes. John Philip Sousa’s “King Cotton March” was written for the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895. Alfred Reed’s “Hounds of Spring” was inspired by a line of poetry from Swinburne—“When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces”—and is “a magical picture of young love in springtime,” Bingham said.
The concert ends with another melody from France, Maurice Ravel’s famous “Bolero” featuring first chair clarinet player Kristen Hunt.
“Winds and Classics” is sponsored in part by SF College and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and Visit Gainesville, a Tourist Development Tax Grant from the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners in conjunction with the Alachua County Tourist Development Council.
For more information about “Winds and Classics,” call Bingham at 352-395-5313.
For more information about the Santa Fe College Fine Arts Department or Fine Arts Hall, call Alora Haynes at 352-395-5296.