For immediate release: December 2, 2016
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
603.646.3991
Two concerts, a tour and a mentoring = a busy winter for college wind band
Photo: Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble performs in May 2016. In foreground, trombonist Barrett Clark ’17, conductor of Dartmouth Youth Winds Ensemble 2017.
HANOVER, NH—No hibernation is in store for the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble during winter term 2017. These mainly student players of woodwinds, brass and percussion kick it into higher gear with two winter concerts—one collaborating with the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble and another by chamber ensembles from within the group featuring a DCWE-co-commissioned work—and volunteering on Saturday mornings as mentors to middle-school musicians in the Dartmouth Youth Winds Ensemble program. (Registration has opened for DYWE 2017, which starts January 21.)
First up is a concert entitled Winds of Change, Part II: Chamber Winds, Then and Now, on Sunday, January 22, 4 pm, in Spaulding Auditorium, a concert played entirely by groups of eight and 13 players. The concert shows how composers over the past 240 years have used the voices of woodwind and brass instruments—a period during which the instruments themselves underwent enormous change, as advancements in metallurgy and manufacturing allowed inventors to improve instruments with valves, articulated keys and more and develop entirely new instruments, like saxophones.
The concert starts with Mozart’s Serenade in E Flat Major, K. 375 (1781), considered the first great work for wind ensemble, by any composer; then skips ahead a century to 1881 for Strauss’s melodic and lyrical Serenade for 13 Winds in E Flat, Op. 7 (1881); then Stravinsky’s Octet (1923), in which the composer celebrates the extreme clarity of timbre and texture of each individual instrument; and the New England premiere of Krummholtz Variations, a new work by Boston-based composer and 2004 Dartmouth graduate Oliver Caplan, co-commissioned by the DCWE. DCWE Director Matthew Marsit sets the context for this program in a free pre-show talk at 3 pm in Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center.
On Sunday, February 19, 2 pm, in Dancing in the Wind, exciting contemporary music by the full Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble meets the creative force of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble, under the direction of Brooklyn-based John Heginbotham (“a new language…strange and alluring”—The New Yorker). Heginbotham’s brings the inventive choreography that’s winning him a global following to glorious new wind band music by noted young composers Zach Wadsworth, Kenneth Hesketh and John Mackey.
Born in 1983, Wadsworth has seen his compositions performed around the world, from Washington’s Kennedy Center to Tokyo’s Takinogawa Hall, and by such ensembles as the choir of Westminster Abbey, the Yale Schola Cantorum, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra. A colleague of Marsit’s on the Williams College faculty (where Marsit directs the wind band), he is also maintains an active performing life as a tenor and pianist. Hesketh, 48 and from the UK, was described by Tempo magazine as "a composer who both has something to say and the means to say it” and has worked with leading ensembles and orchestras in Europe, the USA, and the Far East. The ensemble plays his Diaghilev Dances, which “weaves an enchanting spell…brilliantly orchestrated” (Gramophone). Age 43, American composer John Mackey is especially known for music for dance and wind bands and has received commissions from organizations including the Parsons Dance Company, the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, the Dallas Theater Center, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the Dallas Wind Symphony and New York Philharmonic Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi. On the DCWE program is his Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band, which a Musicweb review called “wonderfully evocative… most inventive, with much for the band to explore and execute…genuinely symphonic in its scope and impact; it's a fine piece, and it deserves to do well.”
This concert will also be performed in Costa Rica during a joint spring break tour by both the DCWE and DDE that will include musical exchanges with students in that country’s innovative and broadly democratic SINEM national music education program, based on Venezuela’s famed “El Sistema.”
Amid the rehearsals for these two concerts, DCWE members also will be spending Saturday mornings with eager middle-school musicians taking part in this year’s Dartmouth Youth Wind Ensemble, a highly affordable program—now in its fifth year!—offering students grades 6–8 from the Upper Valley and surrounding regions the chance to attend weekly rehearsals and to learn side-by-side with the student musicians of Dartmouth College. The program begins January 21 and culminates in a free concert in Spaulding Auditorium on Sunday, March 5, 1:30 pm.
This six-week program is focused on advancing performing skills and confidence in young, developing musicians through the exploration and performance of carefully chosen, level-appropriate music for wind ensemble. During weekly rehearsals, students will enjoy the opportunity to learn in full ensemble rehearsal, as well as sectional practice for their unique instrument and occasional one-on-one pullout instruction. The sectional and one-on-one sessions are led by DCWE members who are trained as mentors.
The ensemble is conducted this year by Dartmouth senior Barrett Clark, a DCWE trombonist. Clark, who co-conducted the ensemble last winter, is from Hollis, NH, and in high school performed in the NH All-State Brass Choir, Orchestra and Big Band. At Dartmouth, he splits his time between the DCWE and the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble, and he completed an internship in New York City, helping the internationally-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra produce and market their music through their new record label. Clark will be mentored by DCWE Director Matthew M. Marsit.
The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble is a select, auditioned wind ensemble of 45 members, performing a wide variety of music from the late 19th, 20th and 21st century wind ensemble repertoire. The DCWE serves as a melting pot for the students of Dartmouth College as well as residents of the Upper Valley, sharing music with our community and those communities beyond the boundaries of our campus through concertizing, small and large outreach projects and performances, and charitable endeavors that bring the gift of music and music making to all who welcome it. The group is led by Matthew M. Marsit.
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CALENDAR LISTINGS
Winds of Change, Part II: Chamber Winds, Then and Now
As part of its year-long exploration of the evolution of the wind ensemble, the DCWE plays chamber works from several centuries that demonstrate the increasing musical possibilities that winds and brass offer—including music by Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky and a new DCWE-commissioned work by Boston-based composer Oliver Caplan ‘04.
Sunday, January 22, 4 pm
Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
$10, $5 for Dartmouth students
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
Dancing in the Wind: A concert by the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble and Dartmouth Dance Ensemble
Exciting contemporary music by the DCWE meets the creative force of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble, under the direction of Brooklyn-based John Heginbotham (“a new language…strange and alluring”—The New Yorker). Heginbotham brings the inventive choreography that’s winning him a global following to music by wind band music titans Zach Wadsworth, Ken Hesketh and John Mackey.
Sunday, February 19, 2 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
$10, $5 for Dartmouth students
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
Dartmouth Youth Winds Ensemble 2017
Join dedicated middle school musicians from throughout the Upper Valley for a free concert culminating the fifth season of this wildly successful Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble program.
Sunday, March 5, 1:30 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH
Free
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
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Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.