Wind Ensemble to Perform Nov. 19

by Richard Veit

The Baylor University Wind Ensemble, led by Michael Haithcock, professor of conducting and director of bands, will present its second concert of the 1998-99 academic year at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, in Jones Concert Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building.
Opening the program will be the "Ceremonial Fanfare" of Richard Willis, written in 1981 for the inauguration of Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds as President of Baylor. The 1924 "Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare" of Richard Strauss will follow.
The Wind Ensemble will then play Donald Hunsberger's transcription of organ music by Johann Sebastian Bach, his "Fantasia and Fugue in C minor."
George Gershwin's only compositions for solo piano were the "Three Preludes" of 1936, the year before his death. Donald Grantham, professor of composition at the University of Texas at Austin, has written a set of "Fantasy Variations on Gershwin's Second Prelude," and the Wind Ensemble will present this innovative work immediately following pianist Mason Conklin's performance of the original piano version.
After intermission, the Wind Ensemble will open the second half of the concert with Igor Stravinsky's "Symphonies of Wind Instruments," which the composer scored for 21 woodwind and brass instruments. It was inspired in 1918 as a tribute to Stravinsky's friend, Claude Debussy, who had died earlier that year.
The concert will also feature David Gillingham's "Concertino for Percussion and Wind Ensemble," written last year on a commission from the Oklahoma State University Wind Ensemble, and "Dished Up for Band," Percy Grainger's clever arrangements of three folk tunes just before the World War I. Grainger's set consists of "Molly on the Shore" (1907), "Colonial Song" (1911), and "The 'Gum-suckers' March" (1914).
This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.