CONCERTO GAUCHO for Trumpet and Wind Ensemble Kevin M. Walczyk (USA, 1964)
- 22 minutes ago
- 5 min read
[#363] July 06, 2026
USA | 2007 | Trumpet and Wind Ensemble | Grade 6 | 16' | Solo Work
Premiered on May 17, 2007
This piece is available for purchase at Keveli Music
Concerto Gaucho, by American composer Kevin Walczyk is our Composition of the Week.
Originally written for orchestra, Concerto Gaucho was soon afterward arranged for wind ensemble in 2006. The work received its first performance on May 17, 2007.
Walczyk later created an additional chamber septet version, scored for solo trumpet, piano, four percussionists, and double bass.
“Concerto Gaucho was composed for Oregon native and trumpet virtuoso Tim Morrison. The work's central building blocks stem from the African-influenced music of Uruguay, which is the birthplace of Oregon Symphony Music Director Carlos Kalmar, to whom the work is dedicated. The gaucho was traditionally known as a horseman who freely traversed and lived off of the unclaimed lands of Uruguay's Rio de la Plata region. The gaucho symbolized freedom and mobility during the first half of the Nineteenth Century and came to represent a national heroic archetype in Uruguay and throughout the southern cone of South America. Typically equipped with a guitar, the gaucho was a wandering minstrel of sorts, performing music that described the vagabond's life. The trumpet soloist is the protagonist of Concerto Gaucho, which features two distinctive musical identities indigenous to the Rio de la Plata region - the milonga and the candombe. The slow, lyrical second movement of the concerto is based on the milonga, a song form that was a hallmark of the payadores (folk singers of improvised verse) who, by the end of the Nineteenth Century, played a vital part in preserving the vanishing image of the world of the gaucho. The lyrics of the milonga often featured political, historical, and patriotic themes that helped chronicle real historical events and pay tribute to local heroes, especially the gauchos. Concerto Gaucho's milonga is newly composed but features musical traits characteristic of the payadores' song, including its distinctive rhythm. The rigid formal scheme is structured on the payada - a singing duel between two payadores (or in the case of the concerto, interplay between the trumpet soloist and the orchestra). The payada form of the milonga utilizes decimas, ten-line stanzas with specific rhyme patterns. The wordless milonga of Concerto Gaucho utilizes the same decima structure but replaces the rhyme scheme with corresponding phrase structures.” Program notes by Kevin Walczyk
Concerto Gaucho’s movements are Candombe, Milonga and Candombe reprise. It has a duration of 16 minutes, and it is scored for standard wind ensemble setting, including String Bass, Harp, and 5 percussion parts.
A native of Portland Oregon, Kevin Walczyk received a Bachelor of Arts in Education degree from Pacific Lutheran University in 1987 and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of North Texas where he was the recipient of the Hexter Prize for outstanding graduate student. Walczyk’s principal composition instructors have included Larry Austin, Jacob Avshalomov, Thomas Clark, Martin Mailman, and Cindy McTee. As an accomplished jazz arranger and composer, Walczyk refined his craft with prominent jazz arrangers Tom Kubis and Frank Mantooth, and served as arranger for the renowned University of North Texas One O’clock Lab Band (1988-89).
Walczyk is Professor of music at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon where he teaches composition, orchestration, jazz arranging, and film scoring/media production. Walczyk’s students have garnered awards that include the BMI Student Composers Awards, the National Association of Jazz Educator’s Gil Evans Jazz Arranging Prize, the National Band Association’s Young Composers Jazz Composition Contest, the Oregon Symphony Conti-Connection Composition Competition, and the Oregon Symphony Creative Kids Composition Competition. He has served as resident composition instructor and/or guest composer of young composer initiatives with the Oregon Symphony, Portland Youth Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Learning Center of Portland, and the International School of Brussels Belgium. Walczyk has also served as guest composer at multiple universities, including Indiana University, University of Oklahoma, Northwestern University, Mary Washington University, University of South Carolina, University of North Texas, and the University of Kansas. Walczyk was selected as Western Oregon University’s Pastega Faculty Excellence Award winner (1998-99), Pastega Faculty Scholarship Award winner (2014-15), and the Academic Outstanding Advisor of the Year (2006-07). As one of 13 faculty members nationwide, Walczyk was awarded the Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Faculty Advisor from the National Academic Advising Association (2008-09).
Walczyk’s recent composition honors include nominations for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music composition (2011) and the Grawemeyer Award (2012) and election into the American Bandmasters Association. His recent prizes include the 9th annual Raymond & Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize (2012) and the 2012 Big East Conference Band Director’s Association Composition Contest. He has received grants from Meet the Composer, Argosy Foundation, American Music Center, Reach Out Kansas, Inc., and Western Oregon University. He has earned prizes or finalist status from the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble’s Harvey Gaul Competition (commissioning prize), Chamber Orchestra Kremlin’s International-Blitz Competition (2nd Grand Prize), the National Band Association’s William D. Revelli Memorial Composition Contest, College Band Directors National Association, ASCAP, BMI, Lionel Hampton Creative Composition Contest, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Wind Ensemble Composition Competition, three Masterworks of the New Era recording prizes from ERM Media, Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, Los Angeles Philharmonic Synergy project, the Lionel Hampton Creative Composition Competition, and Pacific Coast College Jazz Festival Merit of Achievement in Composition. Walczyk was selected as the Midwest Clinic 2010 commissioned composer and was selected for a special commission for the 2011 Midwest Clinic international conference. For his commitment to composing for the wind ensemble, Walczyk was elected into membership of the American Bandmasters Association in 2017.
Walczyk’s works have been selected for participation by the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University, Tutti New Music Festival at Denison University, Ernest Bloch Composers Symposium, College Band Directors National Association (Virginia Chapter) Symposiums XXVI and XXXIII , Southeastern League of Composers, College Music Society, and national conferences of the Society of Composers, Inc., College Music Society, Midwest Clinic, CBDNA, American Bandmasters Association, World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), International Horn Society, and the North American Saxophone Alliance. His works have been featured throughout Europe, Asia, South America and North America and at new music festivals in the United States, Holland, Belgium, the Ukraine, Japan, Taiwan, Russia and Peru.
Walczyk’s commissions include the Oregon Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Third Angle Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Master Musicians Collective, the Portland Brass Society, SoundMoves, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, the Art Abrams Swing Machine Big Band, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, the Hutchin’s Consort, the American Guild of Organists, the Institute of Chamber Music, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and many professional musicians, educators, and arts-in-education residencies. Walczyk’s concertos have been commissioned by such luminaries as trumpet virtuoso Tim Morrison (Boston Symphony), trombonist Pete Ellefson (Seattle Symphony; Indiana University), and clarinetist Joseph LeBlanc (The President’s Own Marine Band). Walczyk’s commissions for band comprise over 70 institutions and ensembles, including Indiana University, University of Texas, Florida State, Michigan State, Texas Tech, University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory, University of Kansas, University of South Carolina, University of Oklahoma, Tokyo’s Musashino Academia Musicae, University of Washington, Washington State University, University of Oregon, Eastman School of Music, University of North Texas, and Northwestern University.
Other works for winds include:
• Children’s Folksong Suite (2007)
• Symphony N°2 “Epitaphs Unwritten” (2010)
• Symphony N°3 for Brass Quintet and Wind Ensemble (2013)
• Peloton (2018)
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