USA Wind Ensemble to perform All-State Band Festival Host Concert at Saenger Theatre April 15 at 8:00 p.m.

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Posted on April 11, 2016 by Keith Bohnet

Keith Bohnet

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As part of the All-State Band Festival, the USA Wind Ensemble will be performing the host concert on Friday evening, April 15 at 8:00 p.m. in the historic Saenger Theatre in downtown Mobile. The concert will be open seating and is free and open to the public!

The program for the evening opens with Steven Bryant's rousing Ecstatic Fanfare, a work that derives its material from Bryant's Ecstatic Waters. Dr. Greg Gruner, Chair of the Department of Music and former Director of Bands at USA from 1993-2014 will lead the group in Gustav Holst's masterpiece, Second Suite in F. Ray E. Cramer, Director of Bands Emeritus at Indiana University and the 2016 Alabama All-State Red Band Conductor steps to the podium to conduct his transcription of Grainger's 1903 work Near Woodstock Town.

The USA Wind Ensemble welcomes our newest faculty member Dr. Kip Franklin, in Scott McAllister's Black Dog, led by Dr. Will Petersen, Director of Bands at the University of South Alabama. Franklin serves as Assistant Professor of Music (Clarinet) and is in demand as a teacher and performer nationally.  

Following a short intermission, the USA Wind Ensemble welcomes back Professor Cramer to open the second half of the concert with Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Jesters" from the Snow Maiden, transcribed for concert band by the conductor. This work has quickly become a favorite on programs across the country and is now a standard work in the wind band repertoire. The concert concludes with Frank Ticheli's monumental 2003 composition for wind ensemble, Symphony No. 2. Dedicated to the late James Croft, its three virtuosic movements provide a rousing close to the concert.

We hope that you will join us!

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