Cal Poly Wind Ensemble, Wind Orchestra to Perform ‘A Season Finale’ June 9

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- The Cal Poly Wind Orchestra and Wind Ensemble will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 9, in Harman Hall in the Performing Arts Center's Christopher Cohan Center.

A highlight of this year’s spring concert, tilted “A Season Finale,” will be the world premiere of “Grand Opening” by film composer and former Wind Ensemble member Eric Schmidt.

The concert will feature Music Department Chair and award-winning pianist W. Terrence Spiller playing Frigyes Hidas’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

Hidas is the composer of “Requiem for Choir, Wind Ensemble and Solo Voices,” which the cornerstone piece performed by Cal Poly music students in Europe last July. Hidas, who met the students in Budapest, passed away on March 7.

Mark Miller, a graduating senior, will be featured in Eric Ewazen’s Concerto for Bass Trombone and Wind Ensemble. Ewazen is a professor of composition at the Juilliard School in New York City.

Also featured will be the Wind Ensemble’s principal euphonium player and graduating senior Neil Jansen, performing Edwin Franko Goldman’s Scherzo for Euphonium and Band.

Student conductor and principal trombonist Amanda Yoshimizu will conduct the Wind Ensemble in Howard Hanson’s original work for wind band titled “Chorale and Alleluia.” Yoshimizu is a music major who plans a career in orchestral conducting.

Other works to be performed include “Dynamica” by Jan Van der Roost, “A Moorside Suite” by Gustav Holst, “Watchman Tell us of the Night” by Mark Camphouse, and “Awayday” by Adam Gorb.

The Wind Orchestra and Wind Ensemble are under the direction of Professors William Johnson and Christopher Woodruff.

Tickets to the concert are $8 to $19 and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Ticket Office 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. To order tickets by phone, call 756-2787 (SLO-ARTS). Tickets may also be purchased at the door.

The concert is sponsored by Cal Poly’s College of Liberal Arts, Music Department and Instructionally Related Activities program. For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.

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(Note to Editors: Reporters and photographers are welcome to the ensembles’ rehearsals. The Wind Orchestra rehearses 5:10 to 6:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday; the Wind Ensemble rehearses from 7:10 to 9 p.m. Monday and Wednesday. All rehearsals are in Room 216 of the Davidson Music Center.