Graduate Conductors Lead Baylor's Wind Ensemble Oct. 14

by Richard Veit

Two graduate students in the School of Music will conduct the next concert by Baylor University's Wind Ensemble-at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14, in Jones Concert Hall. Julie Cromar will lead the opening work, the overture to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio." This overture was transcribed for wind band by Johann Nepomuk Wendt in 1784, just two years after the opera's premiere.
Isaiah Odajima will conduct the next piece, the finale from Émile Bernard's "Divertissement in F Major," Opus 36, which dates from 1892. Bernard was an organist who wrote in the style of his more famous contemporary, César Franck.
Cromar will return to the podium for a performance of the suite from Kurt Weill's popular theater-piece, "The Three Penny Opera." This seven-movement suite was arranged by the composer himself in 1929, one year after the work's world premiere in Berlin. It contains the familiar tune "Mack the Knife," which was transformed into a pop hit by Bobby Darin.
Odajima will lead the Wind Ensemble in the "English Folk Song Suite" of Ralph Vaughan Williams. This three-movement suite was premiered in 1923, and-especially in its later orchestral form-has been a concert favorite ever since. The Wind Ensemble will play it just as originally scored, for military band.
The last two compositions on the program will be led by Michael Haithcock, professor of conducting and director of bands. James Syler wrote his adagio for winds, "Fields," in 1994. According to the composer, "It exploits the unique sonorities of the woodwind and brass choirs." In the words of composer Dana Wilson, "'Dance of the New World' was composed during the months that-exactly 500 years earlier-Columbus was on his historic voyage, and I wanted to capture in the piece the spirit of awakening and burgeoning that resulted."
This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 755-3991.