Wind Symphony Concert

TICKET PRICES
$5 / Free w/ GC ID

November 7 at 8:00 PM

Program

The concert opens with David Maslanka’s bright, urgent Mother Earth (A Fanfare)—a call to become wide-awake to the needs of our planet. Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium follows, offering a quiet, luminous meditation on mystery and wonder. Michael Markowski’s City Trees turns to human resilience: melodies that sweep over a pensive, rhythmic undercurrent and celebrate the courage it takes to grow and thrive in harsh places.

At the center of the program is Aaron Copland’s Emblems, the composer’s only original piece for wind band and one of the most significant works in the repertoire. Emblems is not the Copland of Appalachian Spring or Rodeo—it’s leaner, more introspective, and boldly dissonant, at times reduced to a single shimmering triangle. Yet it still carries Copland’s unmistakable grandeur and rhythmic vitality. Quoting Amazing Grace within a landscape of shifting harmonies, Emblems stands as a symbol of the many emotions and identities that make up the American sound. Copland wrote “An emblem stands for something - it is a symbol. I called the work Emblems because it seemed to me to suggest musical states of being: noble or aspirational feelings, playful or spirited feelings. The exact nature of these emblematic sounds must be determined for themselves by each listener.”

Paired with Emblems is “The Promise of Living” from Copland’s opera The Tender Land, a heartfelt hymn to gratitude and community that captures the warmth and openness many associate with his music. The concert closes with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Folk Song Suite, a cornerstone of the wind repertoire that draws on English folk tunes with warmth and charm.

Each piece on this program can be read as an emblem—a symbol of earth, endurance, faith, or tradition—and each asks you to find your own meaning in the music.

Wind Symphony

The Wind Symphony is the premier wind and percussion ensemble in the Sunderman Conservatory of Music. Conducted by Director of Bands Dr. Russell McCutcheon and comprised of a select group of 40-50 musicians, the ensemble rehearses and performs some of the best new literature and wind band masterworks in four major concerts each year. The Wind Symphony is designed for the development of the professional performer, the professional educator, and the dedicated musician.

The Wind Symphony has toured Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and in 2014 embarked on a two-week performance tour of China and Singapore. In 2018, the Wind Symphony toured Berlin, Leipzig, and Prague, performing a feature concert in Mendelssohn Hall at the Gewandhaus and a festival concert at Smetana Hall by invitation as part of the Prague Instrumental Music Festival. In 2019, the ensemble performed its Kennedy Center debut in Washington, D.C. as the invited feature college/university ensemble for the Sousa Band Invitational. In 2023, the Wind Symphony completed a tour of the Baltics, performing in the Kaunas Philharmonic Hall in Kaunas, Lithuania, the Great Guild Hall in Riga, Latvia, and the MUBA School of Music and Dance in Estonia.

Tickets will be available before the show inside at the Box Office, 25 Carlisle St., Gettysburg.