2003 WASBE Conference

The opinions expressed
herein are those of the
authors and not
necessarily the opinions
of WASBE.

Conference Article Archive

Tuesday, 01 July — Repertoire

Today at 09:00, the first of five repertoire sessions will begin, exposing conference delegates to literally dozens of quality selections at various difficulty levels. Combining this with the 13 concerts over the course of the week, delegates will be exposed to 110 different titles by a similar number of composers, arrangers and transcribers. But while the repertoire sessions may officially start on Tuesday, my day on Monday was one big repertoire session.

The morning keynote by Gary Hill, followed by an invigorating panel discussion, asked a number of questions, not the least of which were about the quality of repertoire we select. Some of the imagery was hard to escape: Gary's verbal picture of "forests" of bad music that deserved to be burned was the most striking. The theme that kept coming back was that we as conductors have a responsibility to program quality music — music that will connect with the audience emotionally. Even if you are conducting a "pops" or "light classics" concert, there are ways to program that will satisfy that criterion.

I then attended a session on Canadian Wind Band Music by my compatriot Keith Kinder. While I was certainly familiar with some of the repertoire and most of the composers, the session uncovered a few new pieces that my community band at home might be able to reach and gave me a really nice compilation that will be a useful future reference for me. (There were other repertoire-centric sessions at the same time yesterday, and there will be more during the week.)

Raoul Camus' presentation on historical dances was one of those that made me think about the various dance repertoire we have in the canon (e.g., Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances) and how we may have butchered such pieces without this type of important historical knowledge. Raoul bridged the gap between dance and musical terminology with the fine assistance of video tape of the dances, providing a wonderful resource for those of us who were in attendance. (Any chance we could get that tape for the research portion of the WASBE Web Site?) It made me think about what dance pieces I could program next season.

Finally, attending the concert of the Symphonic Band of Kiskunfélegyháza was another repertoire-expanding experience. Quite frankly, you don't often get a chance to listen to an all-Hungarian programme, especially in my part of the world. While this repertoire was technically outside of the grasp of the band I conduct at home, a couple of the works would be appropriate for a couple of other bands in town, and I will be recommending those works to them. I think that's one of the things I came to the conference for: the experience of something different; the experience of something new. Not only do I hope to take away from this conference something for my own personal benefit, I hope to spread the word about some of the great repertoire that is out there when I get home. Isn't that what WASBE and WASBE Conferences are all about?

Anthony Reimer, WASBE Web Team