Symphonic Band Plays on October 13

by Richard Veit

The Baylor University Symphonic Band will present its first concert of the 1998-99 academic year at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, in Jones Concert Hall. The program will be conducted by Michael Haithcock, professor of conducting and director of bands.
The concert will open with the "Parade" movement from Roger Nixon's Pacific Celebration Suite, written in 1979 to commemorate the city of San Francisco's bicentennial celebration. "Parade" is a musical depiction of San Francisco's army installation, The Presidio.
The Symphonic Band will perform Baylor graduate Alfred Reed's arrangement for winds and percussion of Johann Sebastian Bach's sacred song "My Jesus! Oh, What Anguish."
American composer Vittorio Giannini's Symphony No. 3 dates from 1958. A four-movement work, it was written on a commission from the Duke University Band.
A much more recent commission was Mark Camphouse's A Movement for Rosa, written in 1992 for the Florida Bandmasters Association. This tone poem tells the story of Alabama civil-rights activist Rosa Parks which will be led by graduate conductor Isaiah Odajima.
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his Tuba Concerto in 1954 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the London Symphony Orchestra. Soloist in the Symphonic Band's performance will be Michael Fischer, lecturer in low brass.
Another British composer, Adam Gorb, attempted in his Awayday (1996) to capture the musical essence of such modern American composers as George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, with a dash of Igor Stravinsky thrown in for good measure.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at 710-3991.