This preview has been provided by the Triangle Wind Ensemble.
On Saturday, November 21 at 7:30 p.m. the 55-member Triangle Wind Ensemble, under the musical direction of Dr. Evan Feldman, takes the stage at the Cary Arts Center for its fall concert, inspired by the musical imaginations of six different composers. Each composer has produced a vivid musical description of an experience or journey to be shared by the performers and the audience.
The concert will begin with the fanfare Through the Looking Glass by the young midwestern composer Jess Langston Turner, setting the tone for the imaginative trips to follow. Traveler, by the popular and prolific 21st century composer David Maslanka, continues TWE’s exploration of Maslanka’s substantial ouvre for wind ensemble. Evan Feldman says “David Maslanka’s music has become a favorite of mine. His approach to scoring is symphonic, muscular, and it strikes a colorful balance between bright and dark. His musical narratives are grandiose and accessible. The great Gustav Mahler was fond of saying that a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything. Maslanka clearly feels the same way, which makes his music fun to conduct, rewarding to play, and satisfying to listen to.”
Michael Marskowski, a young New York-based composer, will be represented by his beautiful and evocative work, City Trees, a meditation on growth and perseverance in the face of adversity. Travis Cross’ gorgeous piece entitled And the grass sings in the meadows is a heartfelt and joyful expression of the beauty to be found in nature. In addition to his talent as a composer, Turner is conductor of the wind ensemble and symphonic bands at the University of California-Los Angeles.
The Triangle Wind Ensemble is especially pleased to be offering its interpretation of Durham-based composer Scott Lindroth’s work Passage. Lindroth is a member of the faculty at Duke University. Feldman says, “We are looking forward to playing this piece not only because it is challenging — and we like a challenge — but because Lindroth has become one of our most respected contemporary composers. He has been generous to the wind band world. Passage is expertly crafted, relentlessly rhythmic, and pleasantly romantic in tone — especially its sometimes intimate, sometimes soaring melodies that Lindroth plucked from his youth and spins into a tour de force for the entire ensemble.”
Finally, another sort of trip is depicted in the March to the Scaffold, movement four from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. While this romantic composer’s work may seem out of place in a concert of music by living contemporary composers, according to musicologist Alexander Silbiger “Berlioz was always modern in his approach.” This somewhat ghoulish programmatic symphonic movement describes what could be called the final journey — although in the end, it was merely an opium-induced dream.
Tickets for TWE’s Wanderlust! concert are $15 adults, $5 students/children.
They may be purchased in advance through etix (www.etix.com – search Cary Arts Center), or on concert night in the lobby of the Cary Arts Center. For more information please visit www.trianglewind.org or call 919-462-2055.
