The Eastern Utah Wind Symphony, a college-community concert band at Utah State University-College of Eastern Utah, will present a spring concert on Saturday evening, April 9 at 7:30 in the Jennifer Leavitt Student Center, located at 500 North and 300 East in Price.
The April 9 program will mark the end of the Wind Symphony’s tenth concert season since its founding in Fall 2001 and will feature some favorite concert works performed over the past ten years. Former Price resident Brian Peterson will appear as guest bassoon soloist.
The concert will open with Winter Dances by Brian Balmages. This exciting work begins with a brilliant fanfare, followed by a spirited dance-like section. A slow, lyrical interlude is heard before the opening fanfare returns in a new form. Next on the program will be the familiar Amazing Grace, with the Wind Symphony performing a haunting and dramatic setting by Frank Ticheli, professor of composition at the University of Southern California. Bassoon soloist Brian Peterson will take the stage next to perform The Old Sore-Head, a somewhat comical work by Czech composer Julius Fucik that was published in 1910. The Wind Symphony previously featured Peterson on this piece on its April 2008 concert.
The concert will continue with Out of the Shadows by Michael Sweeney. This varied and appealing work is based on the traditional Welsh melody, “The Ash Grove.” Music by Jennifer Higdon, recipient of both a Grammy Award and the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2010, is next on the program. Higdon’s Rhythm Stand was composed several years ago and pays tribute to the constant presence of rhythm in our lives.
The concert will conclude with Malaguena, a Latin-style song by Ernesto Lecuona. The powerful Sammy Nestico arrangement to be performed by the Wind Symphony is reminiscent of Bill Holman’s arrangement of Malaguena made popular by the Stan Kenton Orchestra on the 1961 Kenton album, Adventures in Jazz, and on the 1962 American television show, Jazz Scene USA.
Guest soloist Brian Peterson began studying the saxophone at age ten and the bassoon at age twelve in his hometown of Chico, California. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Southern California and a Master of Music degree from Brigham Young University. Peterson received his MD degree from the University of Utah, followed by six years of training in New York and Michigan. He has been an ear-nose-throat surgeon for fifteen years, with nine of those years spent in Price. Dr. Peterson currently has a medical practice in the Salt Lake area and is married to Barbara, an oboist and pianist. They have five children and three grandchildren.
The April 9 Wind Symphony concert is presented by the USU Eastern music program and the USU Caine College of the Arts. Gregory Benson, vice chancellor and associate professor at USU Eastern, will conduct the evening’s performance.