The College of Lake County Wind Ensemble concert May 1 will celebrate what director Michael Flack calls “six really good French horn players.” The French hornists will be featured in the opening number, “American Overture for Band” by Joseph Wilcox Jenkins.
“They really enjoy playing together and they’re all older adults who have a lot of experience,” said Flack.
The piece starts with French horns bellowing out a majestic melody, which gets repeated by other brass members and the woodwinds, and ends in a flurry of brass. Jenkins wrote the piece in 1955 and it’s become standard repertoire for concert band and wind ensemble, Flack said.
Jenkins was an arranger for the United States Army Field Band.
The woodwinds will get their chance to shine when the group performs another popular standard in wind ensemble music, “Celebrations” by John Zdechlik. Written in 1988, “it’s a tough piece, and it’s especially tough on the woodwinds,” Flack said.
Flack also will conduct a piece with a smaller group — two French horns, two flutes, two trumpets, two oboes and two bassoons — called “Old Wine in New Bottles” by Gordon Jacobs.
“It’s a four-movement piece. The title is a play on words. The old wine refers to the four English folks songs that the movements are based on. New bottles refer to the creative treatments that Gordon Jacobs gives to these old songs.”
The ensemble also will perform a piece by Julie Giroux. “I really like her writing. We’ve performed her work before,” Flack said. “Everyone loves her writing. She’s written for everybody — Dudley Moore, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson.”
The wind ensemble will perform her composition, “Paprikash,” which has a Slavonic flavor, Flack said.
For a change of style, the group will play the overture to “Das Pensionat” by Franz von Suppe, a 19th century composer.
“Von Suppe is known for his Viennese operettas,” Flack said. “It has a Spanish setting to it. That’s what makes it interesting, the Spanish flair.”
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance writer.
CLC Wind Ensemble Concert
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When: 4 p.m. May 1
Where: Mainstage Theatre, James Lumber Center for Performing Arts, 19351 Washington St., Grayslake
Tickets: $5-$6
Information: 847-543-2300 or visit www.clcillinois.edu/tickets