Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Con Wind Orchestra

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Around the World in 80 minutes? Not pos­sible you say! Well on May 20 I had the pleas­ure in hear­ing this seem­ingly impossible feat.
It was driven by one of Australia’s most out­stand­ing con­duct­ors, edu­cat­ors and com­posers, Ralph Hult­gren, who mas­terly con­trolled the Con­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra, an exuber­ant, young, and gif­ted group of musi­cians. The rep­er­toire had the audi­ence trav­el­ling through Rus­sia, China, Aus­tralasia, Amer­ica and Ireland.

The pro­gram­ming reminded of a ses­sion given by Dr Peter Mor­ris at QBOC last year, where he gave numer­ous sug­ges­tions on how to pro­gram an inter­est­ing con­cert. My school band can­not do what the Con­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra can, but I did see the pos­sib­il­it­ies for future school con­cert programs.

The play­ing was ebul­li­ent, and clearly demon­strated the tal­ent of Brisbane’s young musi­cians. Speak­ing of tal­ent, the soloist, Emma DiMarco, demon­strated a mas­terly per­form­ance of the Fantasia for Alto Sax­o­phone by Claude T. Smith, and showed how beau­ti­ful the clas­sical sax­o­phone can be.

It was a great con­cert, but a pity that it wasn’t pat­ron­ized by more of Brisbane’s music teach­ers and con­duct­ors. They missed an enjoy­able night.

A Concise History of the Wind Band

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Whether used for per­sonal ref­er­ence or as a text for a class in the his­tory of the wind band this book is the most com­pre­hens­ive single-volume his­tory of the wind band ever writ­ten. This volume draws on the author’s multi-volume His­tory and Lit­er­at­ure of the Wind Band and fol­lows the devel­op­ment of the wind band through the civic, court, church and mil­it­ary per­form­ances of the Ancient World through the nine­teenth cen­tury. Writ­ten by Dr. David Whit­well and edited by Craig Dabelstein.

Dr. David Whit­well is a gradu­ate (‘with dis­tinc­tion’) of the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan and the Cath­olic Uni­ver­sity of Amer­ica, Wash­ing­ton DC (PhD, Musi­co­logy, Dis­tin­guished Alumni Award, 2000) and has done post-graduate study at the Uni­ver­sity of Vienna and has stud­ied con­duct­ing with Eugene Ormandy and at the Akademie fur Musik, Vienna. Prior to com­ing to North­ridge, Dr. Whit­well par­ti­cip­ated in con­certs through­out the United States and Asia as Asso­ci­ate First Horn in the USAF Band and Orches­tra in Wash­ing­ton DC, and in recit­als through­out South Amer­ica in cooper­a­tion with the United States State Depart­ment. David Whit­well stud­ied con­duct­ing at the Akademie für Musik, Vienna, with Hans Swarowsky, and with Eugene Ormandy. He has con­duc­ted res­id­ent ensembles in Aus­tria, Switzer­land, Israel, Japan, Wales, Eng­land, Ger­many, The Neth­er­lands, Bolivia, Peru, Korea, Taiwan, Rus­sia and the United States, among them the Phil­adelphia Orches­tra, Seattle Sym­phony Orches­tra, the Czech Radio Orches­tras of Brno and Brat­is­lava, and The National Youth Orches­tra of Israel.

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QBOC2010Live–Concert 5: band and strings

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Can­ter­bury Col­lege Ritor­nello
Can­ter­bury Col­lege is a co-educational Anglican School of 1400 stu­dents from PrePrep through Year 12. The col­lege sup­ports a music pro­gram of 400 stu­dents involved in seven choirs, four string orches­tras, a sym­phony orches­tra, two stage bands, three con­cert bands and numer­ous cham­ber ensembles. The Can­ter­bury Col­lege Ritor­nello is focused on devel­op­ing the tal­ents of the most advanced string stu­dents and is led by Mrs Belinda Wil­li­ams, a former mem­ber of the Aus­tralian Cham­ber Orchestra.

Hill­brook Wind Sym­phony
Hill­brook is a co-educational Anglican sec­ond­ary school of approx­im­ately 600 stu­dents. It was foun­ded in 1987 by a group of teach­ers look­ing for a dif­fer­ent approach to tra­di­tional school­ing sys­tems. Hill­brook Music is an ener­getic and dynamic pro­gram with a strong con­nec­ted­ness between aca­demic and co-curricular stud­ies. The Wind Sym­phony is Hillbrook’s senior con­cert band. It is made up of stu­dents from years 8 to 12. In recent years this ensemble has had the oppor­tun­ity to work with guests includ­ing, Ralph Hult­gren, Dr Mat­thew George, John Reyn­olds and Frank Ticheli. The Wind Sym­phony has also shared the stage with some of Australia’s finest bands includ­ing Queens­land Wind Orches­tra, Queens­land Con­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra, Queens­land Youth Orches­tra ensembles and tour­ing ensembles.

The Can­ter­bury Col­lege Ritor­nello opened the con­cert with the Hol­berg Suite, Op. 40 (“Suite in olden style”) by Edvard Grieg (Kalmus). Hill­brook Wind Sym­phony fol­lowed with:

Wash­ing­ton Post March, John Philip Sousa arr. Jay Bocook (Music Works)
Klezmer Dances, Stephen Bulla (Curnow Music)
Fate of the Gods, Steven Reineke (Barnhouse)

The stu­dents’ per­form­ances were a credit to their schools and their dir­ect­ors (Belinda Wil­li­ams and David Jones) and the con­cert was well-received and appre­ci­ated by the del­eg­ates, par­ents and friends.

QBOC2010Live—Concert 3: Brisbane Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

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Brisbane Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

Bris­bane Con­tem­por­ary Jazz Orches­tra fea­tures sev­eral of Brisbane’s most well-respected musi­cians and per­forms a wide range of mod­ern big band music includ­ing latin, funk, swing and gos­pel. The band is a show­case for estab­lished and emer­ging local musi­cians and there is a wealth of exper­i­ence and tal­ent in the play­ing ranks. The rep­er­toire focuses on jazz music from the last twenty years, with charts from com­posers such as Jaco Pas­torius, Michel Cam­ilo and Gor­don Goodwin.

Today’s con­cert by the BCJO featured:

Black­bird (Len­non & McCart­ney arr. Arturo San­doval)
Caribe (Michel Cam­ilo)
Love for Sale (as played by the Buddy Rich Orches­tra)
Round Mid­night (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
(I’m Get­ting) Sen­ti­mental Over You (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
Super­bone Meets the Bad­man (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
Hunt­ing Wab­bits (Gor­don Good­win)
Samba Del Gringo (Gor­don Good­win)
Alma Llanera (Paquito D’Rivera)

Trum­pets: Dale Richard­son, Shane Pur­nell, Nathan Schilling, Richard Settle, Grant­ley Sutch
Trom­bones: Rob Anders, Fran­cis Car­roll, Noel Steph­en­son, Sam Nolan
Sax­o­phones: David Humphreys, Scott Grif­fiths, Dar­ren McPh­er­son, Leon Wens­ley, John Ste­fulj
Rhythm Sec­tion: Louise Den­son (piano), Paul Hende­r­son (gui­tar), Lyle Den­man (drums), Andre Bonetti (percussion)

A great con­cert. If only our high school jazz ensembles were this good!

QBOC2010Live—Concert 2: Australian Army Band Brisbane

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Australian Army Band BrisbaneCap­tain Lind­say Mee, Conductor

Since its form­a­tion in 1949, the Aus­tralian Army Band-Brisbane (AAB-B) has become known through­out Queens­land as one of the finest Mil­it­ary Bands in Aus­tralia. The Band provides music for Regal, Vice-Regal, State and Cere­mo­nial occa­sions in addi­tion to per­form­ing at fest­ivals, giv­ing con­certs and present­ing pre­ci­sion march­ing dis­plays as well as ful­filling its mil­it­ary role as an Aus­tralian Army Band.

The pro­gram:

Com­mando March (Samuel Barber)
Fest­ive Over­ture (Shostakovich/Hunsberger)
Canticles (Johan de Meij)
Sym­phonic Dances from ‘Fid­dler on the Roof’ (arr. Hearshen)
I Dreamed a Dream (arr. King)
Bet­ter With a Band (arr. King)
Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans (arr. Wilson)
Land of Make Believe (arr. Taylor)
The Boy Does Noth­ing (Dick­son)
Hoe Down from ‘Rodeo’ (Cop­land)
Night­fall in Camp (Pope)

Fea­tur­ing con­cert band and jazz ensemble rep­er­toire, this con­cert was a ter­rific way to end the first day of QBOC2010. The AAB-B play with tech­nical pre­ci­sion and music­al­ity and are a much under­val­ued part of Brisbane’s musical life.

QBOC2010Live—Concert 1: QCGU Brass Band

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QCGU Brass BandThe Con­ser­vat­orium Brass Band is a unique ter­tiary ensemble. Formed in 2006, this ensemble is based on the tra­di­tional Brit­ish Brass Band format. The QCGU Brass Band involves stu­dents from the Bach­elor of Music and Bach­elor of Music Stud­ies degree pro­grams and enables mem­bers to fur­ther develop their brass band train­ing in many areas includ­ing per­form­ance, know­ledge of rep­er­toire and ensemble direction.

After a morn­ing of con­duct­ing tech­nique ses­sions, del­eg­ates enjoyed the chance to relax and watch the QCGU Brass Band per­form, under the dir­ec­tion of Head of Brass, Greg Aitken.

The rep­er­toire for the con­cert was:

The Red Machine (Peter Gra­ham)
Song and Dance (Philip Sparke)
Beneath the Wil­lows (Philip Harper)
Con­certo for French Horn and Brass Band, 1st movt (Edward Greg­son)
Slaid­burn (Wil­liam Rim­mer)
The King­dom Tri­umphant (Eric Ball)

The Brass Band played a pol­ished and musical per­form­ance and con­grat­u­la­tions must go to soloists Dani­elle Rich (cor­net), Shan­nan Lawrence (flu­gel horn) and Sharn McIver (horn). The per­form­ance was not fault­less, but when listen­ing to a high qual­ity ensemble such as this it must be remembered that these are not pro­fes­sional musi­cians: they are stu­dents and they are learn­ing how to per­form in dif­fer­ent envir­on­ments. Greg Aitken has done an excel­lent job in train­ing his musi­cians: they are exposed to new and stand­ard brass band rep­er­toire, they are exposed to the exper­i­ence of being soloists with an ensemble (there were three stu­dent soloists on this pro­gram) and, in Ben Crocker’s case, to the exper­i­ence of conducting.

While listen­ing to this con­cert I couldn’t help but won­der why wind band con­duct­ors do not insist on their trum­peters play­ing cor­net when it is called for by the score (espe­cially when the score calls for a com­bin­a­tion of trum­pets and cornets–five trum­pets do not sound like three cor­nets and two trum­pets!) Alto sax­o­phon­ists have to double on sop­rano, flut­ists double on piccolo–why is there not more emphasis put on trum­pet play­ers to double on cor­net when required?

The intro­duc­tion of the Brass Band to the QCGU, led by Greg Aitken, will hope­fully help to cre­ate brass play­ers who are musi­cians with exper­i­ence of many styles of music, not just orches­tral stand­ards that many will not get the oppor­tun­ity to play again in later life.

Bravo to the QCGU Brass Band and Head of Brass, Greg Aitken!

Live Longer and Lose Weight by Conducting

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Can it be true? Are we going to live to be 140 because we con­duct every day? Oh joy!

This is the publisher’s blurb for a new book by Dr Dale Ander­son (try to read it without laughing):

Dr. Ander­son has adap­ted the con­duct­ing motion into a full health and fit­ness pro­gram that will strengthen heart and lungs, improve pos­ture and appear­ance, reduce weight, reduce pain, reduce stress, and raise your endorphin level. A Simple Fit­ness Pro­gram that’s Music to Your Years. A study con­duc­ted by the Met­ro­pol­itan Life Insur­ance Com­pany shows that orches­tra con­duct­ors live 38 per­cent longer than the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. The reason is simple—conducting is good car­di­ovas­cu­lar exercise.

Any­one can bene­fit from this break­through technique—a great altern­at­ive to full-body workouts that doesn’t require spe­cial equip­ment or a lot of time. The Orches­tra Conductor’s Secret to Health and Long Life also includes other innov­at­ive health advice, sup­ple­mental exer­cises, and sug­ges­ted music to “con­duct” to.

Call me a cynic but I think the stress cre­ated by your first trum­pet player for­get­ting their music the night of the con­cert will wash out any pos­it­ive effects of the con­duct­ing fit­ness program.

Some­body give this book a read and let us know what you think. It is avail­able at Amazon.com or, my per­sonal favour­ite online book shop, The Book Depos­it­ory (free shipping!).

Conservatorium Wind Orchestra concert

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QCM, GUCon­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra
No Strings Attached
Fri­day 14 May
Con­ser­vat­orium Theatre, 8.00 pm
ADMISSION: Adults $26.50/Concessions & Groups $16.50/Schools $11.50. Book­ings: qtix on 136 246 or www.qtix.com.au.

Over­ture, Con­certo, Sym­phony — the musical forms of the clas­sical sym­phony orches­tra explode into life as the Con­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra presents works from the clas­sical period to the present day with — No Strings Attached.

Over­ture
Mar­riage of Figaro (Moz­art arr. Duthiot)

Suite
Second Suite for Mil­it­ary Band in F major, op. 28, no. 2 (Gustav Holst)

Con­certo
Con­certino for Trom­bone and Wind Orches­tra (Ralph Hultgren)

INTERVAL

March
Mil­it­ary March in D (Lud­wig van Beeth­oven ed. John R. Bourgeois)

Fantasia
Fantasia on Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair (Mark Camphouse)

Sym­phony
Sym­phony for Band: Sym­phony no. 6  (Vin­cent Persichetti)

Teaching Music Through Performance In Band, vol. 1, 2nd edn.

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The latest in the Teach­ing music through per­form­ance in band series is a second edi­tion of the first volume ever pro­duced. It was 1997 when the first volume was released and since then the series has expan­ded to 7 volumes for band (with volume 8 cur­rently in pro­duc­tion), 2 for begin­ning band, 3 for orches­tra, 2 for choir and one each for jazz ensembles and marches. The first volume was ground­break­ing when first released, but the depth of ana­lysis of the works was rudi­ment­ary com­pared to the later volumes. GIA Pub­lic­a­tions and editor Richard Miles have remedied this by com­pletely rewrit­ing volume 1: all 100 ana­lyses have been rewrit­ten as well as the open­ing essays by Larry Blocher, Ray Cramer, Eugene Cor­poron, Edward Lisk, Richard Miles and Tim Lautzen­he­iser. This was an import­ant pro­ject for GIA to under­take as volume 1 nat­ur­ally included the most pop­u­lar and import­ant works in the band repertoire.

Beethoven or Britney?

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This review was ori­gin­ally pub­lished in Music Forum, Vol. 16, No. 1, Novem­ber 2009—January 2010. Music Forum is the Journal of the Music Coun­cil of Aus­tralia.

Beeth­oven or Brit­ney?: The Great Divide in Music Edu­ca­tion
Robert Walker
NSW: Cur­rency House, 2009
ISBN: 978–0-9805632–0-7
67 pages

Robert Walker has a PhD from Lon­don Uni­ver­sity and has held the Chairs of Music Edu­ca­tion at the uni­ver­sit­ies of Brit­ish Columbia and Simon Fraser in Canada, before work­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of NSW. He is supremely qual­i­fied to write on the sub­ject of music edu­ca­tion and his opin­ion should be val­ued. Con­tinue read­ing →