This preview has been provided by the Triangle Wind Ensemble.
Two outstanding wind symphonies, both under the musical direction of Dr. Evan Feldman, will join forces to present “Tradewinds,” a concert of rarely-heard wind music, on Sunday, April 23 at 3 pm in Meymandi Concert Hall, Duke Energy Center, Raleigh. Each ensemble will perform a set on its own, and the two will come together for the final number, a riveting work by Spanish composer Oscar Navarro. Navarro’s monumental composition Libertadores (Liberators) invokes sounds of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon region through the musicians’ singing and body percussion, while a triumphant march led by the brass and percussion references the heroism of two separatist leaders, Simon Bolivar and Jose San Martin, bringing the piece to a rousing conclusion.
Evan Feldman first learned about Oscar Navarro’s music during a recent guest-conducting trip to Spain. In that country Navarro is well-known as a composer for films, symphony orchestras and symphonic wind ensembles. Libertadores – a large-scale, high-energy piece, is an outstanding example of the kind of music performed by the many professional wind bands that flourish in that country.
Another rarely-performed work on the concert is Sergei Prokofiev’s Ode to the End of the War for winds, eight (8) harps, four (4) pianos, brass, percussion and double basses, Op. 105. The score has been called “extravagant” in its instrumentation, but more than that, is an unforgettable aural experience. Dr. Feldman says that he programmed it on this concert for partly practical reasons: UNC-Chapel Hill has a large and accomplished group of harp students led by Professor Laura Byrne, and he wanted to take this opportunity to feature them en masse. Feldman calls the piece “vintage Prokofiev” in the way it combines Prokofiev’s proclivity for bombastic gestures and features music that would be right at home in his neo-Romantic ballets, like Romeo & Juliet.
Other works on the program include the evergreen Lincolnshire Posy by Australian composer Percy Grainger, based on English folksongs the composer gathered in Lincolnshire, England. This exquisite work, one of the staples of the wind ensemble repertory, was composed in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association. The piece is in six short movements, only three of which could be performed at its debut, because the other three proved too difficult for the professional band hired for the occasion! Grainger wrote that each movement is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying folk melody, and called it his “bunch of wildflowers.”
The Triangle Wind Ensemble will also perform a movement from British composer Adam Gorb’s Bohemian Revelry – a lively dance – and two short pieces by contemporary American composers Aaron Perrine and David Biedenbender.
Tickets for the concert are $15 for adults, $5 for students and children age 12 and under. They may be purchased online in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com, or at Meymandi Hall on the day of the concert beginning at 2pm. For more information visit www.trianglewind.org.
