WSW 30th Gala/my 10th year as conductor
It’s hard to believe, but I’m completing my 10th season with the Westchester Symphonic Winds this season. And on May 12, the ensemble is celebrating its 30th year of music-making in Westchester County. I am extremely proud of the work of dedicated musicians, and proud of their growth over these ten years. They have tackled progressively more difficult music during this time, honed their ensemble skills, and shown exponential growth. They have attracted the attention of some of the nation’s foremost wind band conductors and soloists. They have performed at Avery Fisher Hall, at Pick-Staiger Hall in Evanston, Illinois, and The Palace Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut, and at one state and one national convention. They have sold out Caramoor four times and will play the fifth performance on July 4. And the experience this has given me is beyond description. I’m honored and humbled to be celebrating these milestones with this wonderful group of people. And I’m hoping you can join in this celebration in some way with me, either by attending the concert on May 12, or by supporting us through a donation at this important milestone.
The arts are always in the cross hairs of government funding cuts, and now is no exception. We’ve mounted a GoFundMe fund-raising campaign to ensure that the excellence of the past 30 years continues into the future. Our goal is $10,000 to underwrite new percussion equipment, maintain and build our library, plan for educational programs here in Westchester, and continue to invite the very best guest artists. I hope you will consider a donation in any amount – small donations are actually our lifeblood! Just click the link above or the graphic on the right to go to our campaign page. At this point we’ve seen $2200 raised, but we have a way to go, so please consider a contribution.
If you live in the area, please attend this concert – click here for the ticket site. I promise a great concert and a real “barn burner” ending!
At this concert, we are raffling off the unusual opportunity conduct the final march, The Stars & Stripes Forever, even if you have no idea how to be a conductor. Just wave your hands until the music stops, turn around, and bow! But seriously, I’ll coach the winner before we play the march, and I guarantee it will go well. The winner of this raffle will also win this beautifully engraved conductor’s baton, crafted by Chris Blount, of Custom Batons, Inc, regarded as one of the finest baton craftsman in the country.
The concert on May 12 at 8:00 pm will once again be presented at our home, the Tarrytown Music Hall. Many important friends are sharing the stage with us that evening:
- Jack Stamp, nationally known composer and conductor, will be conducting his own new work, Prayer for a Troubled Nation.
- Tom McCauley, director of the Wind Symphony at Montclair State University, will conduct Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide.
- Shelley Axelson McCauley, director of the Campus Band at Montclair State University, will conduct The Dream of Oenghus, Part I by Rolf Rudin.
- Lois Hicks-Wozniak, alto saxophone, will join us again (for the fifth time!) as soloist, playing Tarantella, from the Concerto after Glière by David Canfield.
My part of the program includes Patrick Burns’s new fanfare, Sennet, written as a gift for our 30th anniversary. We’ll play one of the greatest Broadway overtures of all time, Gypsy, arranged by our own Barton Green. We will perform one of the most famous of core repertoire works for wind band – Lincolnshire Posy by Percy Grainger. And we’ll finish with my favorite Finale, from Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1, with twenty-two antiphonal brass in the Music Hall balconies. That’s the barn burner I promised!
WSW will also be the featured ensemble at the “Pops, Patriots, and Fireworks” concert at Caramoor on July 4. If you’d like to order tickets for that event, visit the Caramoor site here. This event has sold out every year since we joined the Caramoor family, so don’t delay.
Thank you for supporting my musical endeavors! I hope to see or hear from you soon!
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