The Baylor University Symphonic Band will welcome two distinguished guest artists to the stage on Monday, April 27, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall, located within the Glennis McCrary Music Building. Making guest appearances will be conductor Michael Haithcock, Director of Bands at the University of Michigan, and composer Charles Rochester Young, Director of the Computer Music Center at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point.
The Symphonic Band is a 69-member ensemble of woodwind, brass, and percussion players that is led by Isaiah Odajima, Baylor University’s Associate Director of Bands.
Opening the concert will be the Pequeña Suite (“Little Suite”) of contemporary Spanish composer Luis Serrano Alarcón. It is a four-movement set that dates from 2008.
Music by Baylor University alumnus Charles Rochester Young will be heard next, his Songs Without Words from 2005. This three-movement work was commissioned by the Wisconsin Chapter of the College Band Directors National Association. It is dedicated to James Arrowood, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Contemporary American composer Rob Smith wrote his Dance Mix on a commission from the Syracuse’s Society for New Music and the American Composers Forum’s Continental Harmony Project. It was premiered at an outdoor concert on Cazenovia Lake in Upstate New York in the summer of 2000.
The program will close with Michael Haithcock conducting “A Copland Duo,” two pieces by American composer Aaron Copland that were scored for band by Merlin Patterson and Mark Rogers, respectively. They are Down a Country Lane from 1962 and “Hoe-Down” from the 1946 ballet, Rodeo. Mr. Haithcock served as Director of Bands at Baylor University from 1992 to 2001.
This concert is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at 254-710-3991.