Band and Symphonette to perform

Northwestern College’s Symphonic Band and Symphonette will perform a wide variety of music at a concert on Friday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Christ Chapel. The performance is free and open to the public.

The concert will feature four pieces performed by the Symphonic Band. Commando March, by Samuel Barber, will be performed as will David Gillingham’s And Can It Be? Amazing Grace, arranged by William Himes, will be presented as well as Ian Polster’s arrangement of Four Dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. 

The Symphonette will play two pieces from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3: Air and Gavotte I & II. Elegy from Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings and Béla Bartók’s Romanian Dances also comprise the concert. Senior music major Aubrey Weger from Huron, S.D., will be featured playing a violin solo for Bartók’s piece. Weger is this year’s recipient of the Lawrence and Dorothy Van Wyk Music Scholarship.   

The Symphonic Band is directed by Dr. Tim McGarvey, professor of music at Northwestern. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in wind conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music degree in instrumental conducting at Western Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in music education at Taylor University in Indiana.

Jungho Kim, originally from Seoul, Korea, is the adjunct Symphonette instructor this year as Dr. Kimberly Utke Svanoe is on sabbatical. Kim is the associate conductor/education director for the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra. He completed master’s degrees in violin performance and orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.