The Cascade Winds Symphonic Band will present its first concert of the 2016-2017 season on November 13th, 2016 at 2:00 pm in the Summit High School Auditorium. COCC music professor, Michael Gesme, will lead the ensemble in a concert that features a diverse array of wind ensemble classics, marches, and recent compositions. The four compositions on the first half will commence with a work by one of the band world’s foremost living composers, Belgian born, Jan Van der Roost. His Olympica: Festival Overture for Band is a showpiece for the entire band, which, from beginning to end, is a burst of joyous musical color. Drawing on the vivid musical heritage of his Jewish roots, composer Adam Gorb has created a serious tongue-in-cheek composition, Eine Kleine Yiddishe Ragmusik – a curious synthesis of Scott Joplin ragtime and Jewish folk song, subtly conveying the atmosphere of the 1930s Berlin cabaret scene. John Philip Sousa’s tribute to the Royal British Navy in with his Jack Tar March will follow. This rollicking nautical march has a quaint musical surprise in the trio section where the British sea shanty “The Sailor’s Hornpipe” makes a cameo appearance along with ship’s bells and whistles. Rounding out the first half is a work featuring the energetic music of Jerry Bock arranged by Ira Hearshen, the Symphonic Dances from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Highlighted dances include “Tradition,” “The Bottle Dance,” and “To Life.”
After intermission the Cascade Winds will perform Alfred Reed’s A Little Concert Suite for Winds, a brief work with four delightfully contrasting movements: a regal court procession, a hushed and melancholy Siciliana, a bubbling Scherzo and a rollicking and festive Gigue. A trip through Yosemite National Park inspired the next work, Yosemite Autumn by Mark Camphouse. The composition begins and ends with the peace and tranquility that marks sunrise and sunset each day in the park, while the middle is filled with the excitement and variety that is symbolic of the daytime action. The concert concludes with a classic band composition: the American Civil War Fantasy for Band by Jerry H. Bilik. The work is a collection of American folk songs, such as “Dixie,” “Camptown Races,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” cleverly woven together to tell the story of the buildup to the Civil War, the war itself and its aftermath. The work is at times, tender, haunting, jaunty, horrific and, ultimately, hopeful.
The concert is free of charge and tickets are not required. For additional information please contact Michael Gesme at 541-383-7516 or mgesme@cocc.edu.