Southwest Baptist University News Release
Contact: Sharina Smith, Office of Marketing & Communications
BOLIVAR, Mo. – The Southwest Baptist University Department of Music will present “Winds and Friends” Thursday, March 15, at 7:30 p.m., featuring music performed by the SBU Wind Symphony, Brian K. Hopwood, conductor. The concert is free and open to the public.
Works by Stamp, Margolis, Giannini, Dello Joio, Paulson, Himes, and Shostakovich, will be featured. Guest ensemble will be the Reeds Spring High School Band with John Devos and Heather Vondrasek, conductors. The free public performance will be held at Pike Auditorium on the SBU Bolivar campus.
The Reeds Spring High School Band will perform a variety of music including “Boy Scouts of America March” by John Philip Sousa and ”Anthem for Winds and Percussion” by Missouri composer, the late Claude T. Smith. The band performance also will include “Queen Anne's Revenge” by Robert W. Smith. The Wind Symphony performance will open with “Gavorkna Fanfare” by Jack Stamp, which is dedicated to his teacher and mentor, Eugene Corporon, director of wind studies at the University of North Texas.
“Dedication Overture” by Vittorio Giannini was the composer’s fourth band work and was written for the commencement ceremony of the first graduating class of the North Carolina School of the Arts. The composition, “Epinicion,” was written during the final days of the Vietnam War and is the composer John Paulson’s personal abstraction of war, in general. An epinicion is an ancient song of victory sung at the conclusion of a triumphant battle.
Additional works include “Satiric Dances” (for a Comedy by Aristophanes) by Emmy award-winning composer Norman Dello Joio and William Himes’ arrangement of one of the world’s most beloved hymn tunes, “Amazing Grace.” Claude Gervaise’s “Fanfare, Ode & Festival,” a suite of French dance music originally written for a small Renaissance wind band and arranged for the modern wind band, by Bob Margolis and “Folk Dances” by Dmitri Shostakovich will round out the Wind Symphony’s performance.
William Latham’s “Brighton Beach” will be performed jointly by both bands and will conclude the concert.
###
Southwest Baptist University is a leader among private universities in truly integrating Christ-centered academic pursuits with comprehensive professional programs at an affordable price. At SBU, the faculty and staff create a caring, academic community to prepare students to be servant leaders in a global society. For more information, visit www.SBUniv.edu.
SBU’s Office of Marketing and Communications is available to news media 24 hours a day at (417) 399-7918.
