Works for symphonic band performed April 19

Posted April 14, 2015 at 3:53 p.m.

BOONE—Works by contemporary composer Frank Ticheli will be featured during an April 19 performance by the Appalachian Symphony Band at Appalachian State University.

The concert will begin at 2 p.m. in the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts. Prior to the concert, the Appalachian Saxophone Choir will perform in the center’s atrium. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

Ticheli has been composer and conductor in residence in the Hayes School of Music. He is a professor of composition at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. He is well known for his works for concert band, many of which have become standards in the repertoire.

Conductor John Stanley Ross opens the concert with “The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare” by Percy Grainger. Grainger wrote the piece in 1939 and subtitled the composition “British War Mood Grows.” It is based on the English folksong “The Duke of Marlborough.”

Graduate student Onsby Rose will conduct Ticheli’s arrangement of “Amazing Grace.” Ticheli said he wrote the arrangement to “to reflect the powerful simplicity of the words and melody.”

Kevin Gray Richardson will conduct Gustav Holst’s “First Suite in E-flat.” Considered a staple in the modern wind band repertoire, the composition was one of the first compositions written for the military band.

Ticheli next will conduct his own composition “Wild Nights!” The seven-minute piece was inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name.

Graduate student Matthew Brusseau will conduct Ticheli’s composition titled “Rest,” an adaptation of Ticheli’s work for chorus based on the poem by Sara Teasdale.

Richardson returns to the podium to conduct “A Slavic Farewell” by Vasilij Agapkin and “Vesuvius” by Ticheli. Agapkin’s composition is one of the most well known and loved Russian marches. With its driving rhythms, Ticheli’s composition images of a dance from the final days of the doomed city of Pompeii.

About Appalachian State University

As the premier public undergraduate institution in the state of North Carolina, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives as global citizens who understand and engage their responsibilities in creating a sustainable future for all. The Appalachian Experience promotes a spirit of inclusion that brings people together in inspiring ways to acquire and create knowledge, to grow holistically, to act with passion and determination, and to embrace diversity and difference. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System. Appalachian enrolls more than 19,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and graduate majors.