Symphonic Band concert to highlight folk music
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Northwestern College’s Symphonic Band, under the direction of Dr. Timothy McGarvey, will perform in concert on Friday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Christ Chapel. The public is invited to attend. The band will open the evening with the end title music from the 1985 film Silverado, composed by Bruce Broughton and arranged by Randol Bass. The piece will feature senior Larissa (Harwood) Poppen as the student conductor.
Following are Country Gardens and Near Woodstock Town, two folk song settings by well-known composer and arranger Perry Grainger. Next in the program will be Bugs by Roger Cichy. According to McGarvey, this piece musically depicts the real and folklore characteristics of various bugs. “After a prelude, he portrays a dragonfly, a praying mantis, a black widow spider, a tiger swallowtail and army ants,” says McGarvey.
The fifth piece is from Escales, a composition by Jacques Ibert. Through Northwestern’s Summer Scholarship Grant program, McGarvey translated the third movement of this piece, Valencia, from Ibert’s orchestral work to a band transcription. Valencia is a musical depiction of the port of call in Valencia, Spain.
In honor and remembrance of September 11, 2001, the band will perform A Hymn for the Lost and the Living by Eric Ewazen. The ensemble will close the evening with Donald Grantham’s Baron Cimetiére’s Mambo, a highly energetic piece based on Caribbean lore, which is seen in the rhythms and excitement of the mambo dance.
