Quad City Wind Ensemble: 2016

The 31^st season of the Quad City Wind Ensemble (QCWE) continues with a free holiday concert shared with the Big River Brass Band (BRBB). The concert will be Sunday, December 11 at 3:00 p.m.

in Allaert Auditorium located in the Galvin Fine Arts Center on the campus of St. Ambrose University, 518 West Locust Street, Davenport, IA 52803. The event is free and open to the public. This is the 5th year the BRBB has been featured during the holiday QCWE concert.

The Quad City Wind Ensemble is conducted by Brian L. Hughes, who was recently named a finalist in The American Prize award for band/wind ensemble conducting. In 2012 the QCWE was the Community Division winner of The American Prize in Band/Wind Ensemble Performance. The QCWE was founded in 1987 by Dr. Charles B. DCamp of St. Ambrose University and has become one of the finest adult wind bands in the nation. For additional information, please visit www.qcwindensemble.org, or http://www.facebook.com/ qcwindensemble. Please contact info@qcwindensemble. org for further information about the Quad City Wind Ensemble.

The Big River Brass Band was co-founded by Ed Butterfield, retired band director for Rock Island High School and Jerry Miller, John Deere retiree. Miller saw a picture of the Deere Cornet Band in a book about Deere's history and decided to revive a brass band using Deere employees in order to carry on the Deere tradition. Since 2006, regular concerts have been played in Aledo, Geneseo, Rock Island, Moline, Bettendorf, and at the Festival of Trees in Davenport. Now conducted by Nicholas Propes, the BRBB plays in the style of European brass bands and draws literature from the classic brass band repertoire , jazz arrangements for brass band, and continues to search for new music. For additional information, please visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ bigriverbrassband

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

It is with great pleasure that I announce the first concert of the Quad City Wind Ensemble's 2016-17 season. While we have a great line-up all year long, this program will define the virtuosity of our outstanding ensemble. The program includes:

Clifton Williams: Caccia and Chorale (1976). This, the final composition of one of the "greatest generation" of wind band composers, expresses Williams's the angst of Williams's final days as well as hope in the life afterward. It is, by far, his finest composition.

Gigantic March, by Julius Fucik (d. 1916). This great march deserves much more praise. It has all the hallmarks of the Czech composer's national style while offering several harmonic twists and turns: a refreshing change from his better-known works like The Florentiner and Entry of the Gladiators.

When asked why he would write a Symphony for Band, Vittorio Giannini's (d. 1966) response was basically, "Because I wanted to." And we are very fortunate indeed.

This year celebrates the centennial of Argentinian great Alberto Ginastera. While wind bands have forever played the "Danza Final" from Estancia, we've discovered an even more exciting work, rife with the composer's rhythmic intensity and local color. "Impetuosamente" is the middle movement from one of Ginastera's suites defining his homeland and the region of the Pampas.

One would not consider a program complete without the music of John Philip Sousa.Willow Blossoms (1916) is not a march, rather a delightful piece that will recall summer concerts at the gazebo.

Vincent Persichetti wrote a large number of works called "choral preludes" and we offer his 1966 work, Turn Not Thy Face. Commissioned by the great Ithaca High School band, it is dedicated to the memory of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. This is emotional music. Whether remembering that fateful day in 1963 or not, it is impossible not to be moved.

Variations on a Korean Folk Song, another work from 1966, is from the pen of John Barnes Chance, another composer who was taken too soon. Based on the traditional melody Arirang, This remains a hallmark of the modern band repertoire.

We sincerely hope that you can join us.

WHEN? Sunday, October 23

TIME? 3:00 PM

WHERE? Galvin Fine Arts Center, Allaert Auditorium, St. Ambrose University, 518 West Locust Street, Davenport, IA 52803

TICKETS? Available at the door. (A reminder that the ensemble offers free admission to students, high school and younger.

Please come out next Sunday to enjoy one of the country's finest ensembles presenting a concert of the best in wind band music!

Brian Hughes, D.M.A.

Winner of the 2015 American Prize, Wind Conducting
(563) 599-7730
maestroblh1@gmail.com
www.brianlhughes.com

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein