Chamber Winds andWind Ensemble Perform December 7

SALISBURY, MD--The Salisbury State University Chamber Winds and Wind Ensemble perform in concert on Tuesday, December 7, at 8 p.m. in Holloway Hall Auditorium. The performance is free and open to the public.

Works to be performed include turn-of-the-century American composer Arthur Bird's chamber masterpiece "Serenade for Wind Instruments, Op. 40" composed in 1898. The serenade received its premiere performance in Berlin in 1908. American reviewers wrote, "Bird's melodies have character, imagination and fertility. Animation enlivens and fancy flavors his treatment of them. He leads his instrumentation ingeniously; he combines and contrasts their timbres with euphony and poetic suggestion."

Major works for the Wind Ensemble include David Holsinger's sacred composition "Ballet Sacra" (1990) which is based on universally known texts from the Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist service. Although envisioned as a liturgical collaboration between dance company and wind ensemble, "ballet Sacra" stands alone in its tri-part design without the visual element. Reminiscent of early liturgical chant, the composer has performers intoning two phrases from the Gloria of the Mass Ordinary, Gloria in Excelsus Deo and Quoniam tu solus sanctus (Glory to God in the highest/For you alone are holy). Other works include Lucien Caillet's arrangements of J.S. Bach's "Fervent is My Longing" and "Fuge in G Minor," Alfred Reed's monumental masterpiece "Armenian Dances-Part II" and Percy Grainger's "The Gum-Sucker's March" from his orchestral suite, "In a Nutshell."

Featured guest conductors and artists are SSU graduates Niko Iampieri and Thomas Cheezum II. Iampieri will conduct his original composition, "Waves." Cheezum, a graduate student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, will conduct two of Frank Tichelli's works for band, "Fortress" (1988) and the masterful arrangement "Amazing Grace."

The SSU Chamber Winds is comprised of students, semi- professional performers from the community and applied faculty.

The University Wind Ensemble and Chamber Winds are conducted by Dr. Richard L. Johnson, associate professor of music.

The event is sponsored by the Charles R. and Martha N. Fulton School of Liberal Arts. For more information call the SSU Music Department at 410-543-6385.