Graduate Conductors Lead Wind Ensemble March 3

by Richard Veit

Two graduate students in the conducting program at Baylor University will lead the Baylor Wind Ensemble in concert at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, in Jones Concert Hall. This performance is part of the master of music degree requirements for Barry Kraus and Isaiah Odajima.
Both graduate conductors are students of Michael Haithcock, professor of conducting and director of bands at Baylor.
Kraus will open the concert by leading the Wind Ensemble in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Serenade No. 12 in C Minor, a four-movement work that dates from July of 1782.
Odajima will conduct the remainder of the concert, which consists of music by Poulenc, Persichetti and Barber.
Francis Poulenc's Suite Française was written in 1935. Its seven movements are based on themes from a dance collection by the French Renaissance composer, Claude Gervaise. American composer Vincent Persichetti wrote his Symphony for Band in 1956. It is the sixth of his nine symphonies and is scored for wind band and percussion. The program's concluding piece, Samuel Barber's Commando March, dates from 1943, when the composer was serving in the United States Army Air Corps.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.