UW Wind Symphony to Present Fall Pops Concert Sept. 30

The University of Wyoming Wind Symphony will present its fall opening concert Thursday, Sept. 30.

UW Department of Music Professor Robert Belser will conduct the concert in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets cost $12 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and $6 for students not attending UW. The concert is free for UW students. To purchase tickets, visit the Performing Arts box office, call (307) 766-6666 or go online at www.uwyo.edu/finearts. The concert will be livestreamed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlnnC-OR-1g.

The program features a variety of popular music, from masterworks to toe-tappers, and pieces from film and folk music.

-- “Bravura March” is American composer Charles Duple’s most popular march, inspired by the “bravura” shown by circus performers. Duple was a trombonist for 23 years in various circus bands -- most notably, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus -- and traveling rodeos.

-- Composer Gustav Holst’s “First Suite in Eb” was revolutionary in 1909 for being composed exclusively for wind bands.

-- “A German Requiem” is considered Johannes Brahms’ greatest vocal work. “Blessed Are They” is the opening prelude of the seven-movement requiem, scored for concert band in this version by Barbara Buehlman.

-- “Ritual Fire Dance” is the best-known selection from Manuel de Falla’s ballet “El Amor Brujo,” or “The Bewitched Love.” The ballet is based on a Spanish folk legend about the love of a heroine for a bullfighter, frustrated by an evil spirit and curse.

-- English composer Haydn Wood, a native of the Isle of Man, is most known for his melodic writing and scoring, exemplified in “Mannin Veen,” a classic wind band composition based on four Manx folk songs.

-- Minnesota-based composer and educator Shelley Hanson composed her four-movement suite, “Islas y Montañas,” based on Puerto Rican folk music. The UW Wind Symphony will perform the third movement, “Seis Manuel,” which represents the traditional song and dance of Jibaro people, peasant farmers from the mountains of Puerto Rico.

-- “Tico-Tico no Fubá” is the popular Brazilian choro piece, composed by São Paulo native Zequinha de Abreu in 1917. It was later made famous by Carmen Miranda and Disney animation in the 1940s, and Ray Conniff in the ’60s. Japanese composer Naohiro Iwai created the arrangement for concert band.

-- The UW Wind Symphony will perform “Symphonic Suite from ‘Star Trek’” by Michael Giacchino, who created the score, intensifying the original piece with an homage to music by Alexander Courage and Gene Roddenberry from the 1960s series.

For more information, call Kathy Kirkaldie, UW Fine Arts coordinator, at (307) 766-2160 or email kirisk@uwyo.edu.