New Board Members Announced
During the Annual General Meeting (Part 1) on Monday, the results of the recent Board member elections were announced. The following people will serve on the Board from 2007–2013.
- President: Leon Bly
- Board Members: Virginia Allen, Eugene Corporon, Gustavo Fontana, Juan Ramirez.
Dennis Johnson commented on the strong voter turnout and thanked all candidates.
Gothenburg Home Guard Band
We had the pleasure of experiencing this fine ensemble from
Sweden Monday afternoon with their incredibly well-prepared performance of
Nordic and Nordic-linked repertoire. The programme offered an interesting
survey of repertoire of primarily Swedish composers and presented the world
premiere of the Slovak/Swedish composer Pavol Simai’s Baltic Breeze.
The afternoon got off to an exciting start with conductor Jerker Johansson’s own transcription of August Söderman’s Overture from The Maid of Orleans. It was an exciting performance of an otherwise ordinary operatic overture. All Things Beneath the Firmament (from Two Swedish Folk Tunes) was a setting of a beautiful folk song. Both the piece and the performance had a simple charm that made me want to programme the work myself.
The highlight of the programme, for me, was Versuche über einen Marsch by Luxembourg’s Marcel Wengler. I have to say that when the piece began, I wondered why we would had to endure 17 minutes of what seemed at first to be a very ordinary, traditional German march. I quickly was corrected as the composer’s sense of humour and inventiveness crept into the piece. The “statement” of the original march, upon which six mutations were about to be based, had in itself a number of trips and extensions of beats to keep the audience and players on their toes. The six succeeding experiments on this material often went far afield from the original but each movement was relatively short and the listener never lost hold of the source material. This is an excellent piece to introduce an audience to more dissonant styles of 20th century harmonic language and seems to be a good workout for the players.
The second half of the programme began with their solo Soprano Saxophonist, Daniel Rohde, playing a transcription of a big band setting of Swedish Folk music. Mr. Rohde should be complimented on his fine playing. The piece itself felt to me like it tried to be in both a concert band style and a big band style but never really fit in either. The premiere of Baltic Breeze by Pavol Simai was presented. It would have been nice to read more about this composer who is new to me. Another pretty slower work was Portia’s Palace Orchestra by Dag Wirén. Featuring some very fine playing by solo flute and clarinet players, this served as a nice interlude before the final number, Grainger’s Lads of Wamphray, March. Playing on Grainger’s connection with Grieg and Grainger’s wife the “Nordic Princess,” the piece fit comfortably in the programme. The band presented a very energetic and exciting performance of this standard in the repertoire. After this, two encores were performed.
I have personally always had trouble with encores. I suspect that both of the pieces that were played after the concert were decent works but they were significantly different enough from the preceding repertoire that I had a hard time making the adjustment. I have to wonder though when a programmer chooses to place pieces after the official programme has ended, are they not devaluing the works on the encore? If the pieces are worth playing, should they not be worked into the overall presentation? Are encores not like second and third servings of desert after an already satisfying meal?
Congratulations to the Gothenburg Home Guard Band on a very well played concert. I look forward to getting your CDs home and listening to the rest of your repertoire.
The Biennial Concert Programming Debate
Monday's two concerts were in sharp contrast to each other in a number of ways. They were similar in that they were both led by Composer/Conductors and that the ensemble musicians had strong technical skills, but that is where the similarities stopped. I have no intention of reviewing those concerts; Marc Crompton and Chris Morehouse will give their perspectives on this web site. What I want to reflect upon is the debate that such a contrast always seems to raise at our Conference. (For those of you who were not in the audience for the two concerts, take a look at the repertoire lists to get a better sense of the nature of the debate.)
In 2003, the poster children for this debate seemed to be the Danish Concert Band and Florida State University. In that case, both programmed plenty of recently-composed works, but their "language" or "vocabulary" was totally different. They were successful concerts in their own right, but what do we come to WASBE Conferences to hear? When I attend concerts at the Midwest Clinic, I expect to hear at least one piece of new repertoire in each concert that could be performable by my community band, and quite frankly, I also expect to sit through some dreck — performed well, but still dreck. At a WASBE Conference, I know that I am going to be challenged and that the reading sessions will provide the repertoire ideas that I can take home with me. The concerts themselves are there for inspiration.
The debate is not new. How many "standards" do we program during the conference? For instance, I liked hearing Grainger's Lads of Wamphray March because it just doesn't get performed enough and I heard different things in this performance than I was familiar with on the Royal Northern College of Music recording on Chandos. I wouldn't want a whole concert of that, however.
The level of chatter at intermission at the Louisville concert was the loudest this week. That may have partially been because of the strong attendance at the concert (more people = more ambient noise), but it seemed more lively in timbre as well. There were certainly plenty of things to talk about in the first half, where the oldest work was the one that finished the half; it was composed in 1980. To me, that level of engagement seems healthy.
So what do you come to a WASBE Conference concert to hear? We'd love to hear your thoughts. In fact, we've considered setting up an online discussion and/or collecting your thoughts on an audio recorder for inclusion on a future podcast. For now, if you want to add your two (Euro) cents, speak with me or Marc Crompton and we'll follow-up if there is interest.
©2007 WASBE