May 5th Concert Poster

Omaha Symphonic Winds presents MONUMENTS

Omaha Symphonic Winds will present the third concert of the season, MONUMENTS, on Sunday, May 5, 2013, at 3:00 pm in the Elkhorn High School Auditorium (1402 Veterans Drive). Two monuments of the concert band repertoire, the Giannini “Symphony No. 3” and the Mennin “Canzona” will highlight the program. Featured soloist is Jaime Tyser, trumpet, who will perform the Oskar Böhme concerto in F minor. 

Vittorio Giannini (1903-1968) came from a well-known Philadelphia operatic family. He studied composition at the Milan Conservatory and at Julliard, and taught at the Manhattan School of Music, Curtis Institute, and North Carolina School of the Arts. Giannini created four works for band, including the Symphony No. 3, which was commissioned by Duke University in 1958. The symphony is cast in the conventional four movement forms with beautiful soaring melodies and lush harmonies.  

Peter Mennin (1923-1983) was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and studied music at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. For many years Mennin was President of the Julliard School of Music. A composer of symphonies and chamber music, Mennin was commissioned in 1951 by Edwin Franko Goldman through the League of Composers to write a piece for concert band. Mennin chose the Renaissance instrumental form of Canzona for this work. The music alternates between chordal and polyphonic textures while frequently employing imitation, characteristics of the Renaissance style.

FEATURED SOLOIST: JAIME TYSER

Jaime recently earned her Master of Music degree at Lynn University where she studied with Marc Reese, second trumpet of the Empire Brass Quintet.  She grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska and completed her Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance in the studio of Dr. Keith Benjamin. Jaime was a National Trumpet Competition semi-finalist in 2009, winner of the 2009 Lincoln Municipal Band Young Artist Competition, and the 2008 Lincoln Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition. In the summer of 2010 she attended the summer program at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestra Musicians.

OSW New Web Site Goes Live

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, Omaha Symphonic Winds published a new web site to inform the public about its activities. The site, loacated at: http://www.omahasymphonicwinds.org, contains new graphics and layout. The website contains concert posters, photographic slideshows of recent concerts, news releases, a list of repertoire performed, a schedule of upcoming concerts and rehearsals, and information about the ensemble, the conductor, and the musicians.

To enjoy the photos and to learn more about OSW, just click the above link.

ROB McCARTNEY TO APPEAR WITH OMAHA SYMPHONIC WINDS

KETV Senior News Anchor, Rob McCartney will collaborate with Omaha Symphonic Winds in a performance of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” on Sunday, March 10, 2013, at 3:00 PM in the Elkhorn High School Auditorium. McCartney’s appearance is part of OSW’s American Masters concert featuring the works of Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

Although Rob grew up in an Air Force family and lived in a number of different states, he has spent more than 35-years in Nebraska, marrying a local girl, and raising three children. He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln majoring in Journalism, and spent much of his time playing sports and music.

Rob first came to KETV as the station's Capital Bureau Chief in 1992 and then moved to the Anchor desk in 1995. As Senior Anchor for KETV Newswatch 7, Rob has been honored with numerous awards for his work and has had the opportunity to cover stories from Bosnia, to the White House, to flying with the Blue Angels, to going into a burning house as part of a firefighting crew, to Husker National Championship games.

Rob is involved in several charitable organizations and feels being part of the community is an important part of being a civic leader. If he isn’t volunteering or on KETV, Rob’s probably doing something with his lovely bride, Sherry, playing with the kids and the dog, messing around with the guitar, or on the golf course. Rob is an experienced bandsman, having played euphonium in his high school band.

For the concert, Rob will perform the narration on “Lincoln Portrait.” Aaron Copland assembled the script from several of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. The work was commissioned in 1942, shortly after the United States entered World War II, by conductor Andre Kostelanetz for an upcoming concert tour. The patriotic message of Lincoln’s words have inspired audiences ever since. Rob has performed the narration on several occasions.

In addition to “Lincoln Portrait,” Omaha Symphonic Winds will also perform Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” and “Variations on a Shaker Melody.” Compositions by Leonard Bernstein will include “Candide Suite,” “Lonesome Town” from the musical On the Town, and the rollicking overture “Slava!”

Admission for the concert is $10 adults, $5 seniors and students, and $25 for families of 3 or more. Tickets are available at the door. For more information contact William Hall at 402.575.8220 or email whall@omahasymphonicwinds.org.

Next OSW Concert: March 10, 2013

OSW Presents Sacred Christmas Program

Omaha Symphonic Winds Presents Sacred Christmas Program

 

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 6 PM at Bethel Christian Ministries

36th and Giles, Bellevue, NE

Dear Friends of OSW,

You are invited to a Sacred Christmas Program presented by Omaha Symphonic Winds this Sunday evening, December 2, 2012, 6:00 PM at Bethel Christian Ministries, 36th and Giles, Bellevue, Nebraska. There is no cost for admission, and a free-will offering will be taken.

Join OSW in celebrating Christmas with favorite carols including Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, O Come All Ye Faithful, Away in the Manger, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Silent Night, and many more. Musical arrangements are by some of the best in the business, Warren Barker (Midnight in Bethlehem), Frank Erickson (American Christmas Festival), Alfred Reed (Greensleeves, Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring), Robert W. Smith (In the Bleak Midwinter), and more.

 

Come to Bethel Christian Ministries for an uplifting evening of Christmas favorites.

 

MAP

 

American Premiere A Success!

On Sunday, October 21, 2013, Omaha Symphonic Winds and violist Brett Deubner gave the American Premiere of Houston Dunleavy’s concerto for viola and wind ensemble “A Kiss Before the World’s End.” The concert was performed at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska to an appreciative audience that included collegiate viola students and their instructors as well as the general public.

Brett Deubner’s solo performance was masterful in portraying the “angst and tension” as described by one audience member. Dunleavy’s concerto is dedicated to his former music student, Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reported who was captured and killed in Pakistan in 2002. Pearl’s birthday was in the month of October, and his family created the Daniel Pearl World Music Days that encourages concerts dedicated to promoting diversity and understanding throughout the world.

The American Premiere was a registered event of 

the 11^th annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days.

Other works on the program were well received by the audience including Percy Grainger’s Children’s March, Keith Michael Davis’ A Western Plains Overture, Eric Richards’ Of Mythic Battles: Past and Future, and Howard Hanson’s Laude” Chorale, Variations, and Metamorphoses. Encores for the performance were given by Brett Deubner (Spectre) and OSW (Hands Across the Sea-Sousa).

The Premiere venue (St. Andrew’s) was a wonderful location. The sanctuary is very aesthetic visually while acoustically enhancing the music. Both the OSW musicians and the audience members expressed the desire for the ensemble to return to St. Andrew’s for future performances.

Omaha Symphonic Winds next concert is Sunday, March 11, 2013, at 3:00 in the Elkhorn High School auditorium (1400 Veterans Drive, Elkhorn, NE). The program features works by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

American Premiere Composer

HOUSTON DUNLEAVY, COMPOSER

www.houstondunleavy.com

Houston Dunleavy was born in Ulster in 1962, and first immigrated to Australia in 1973.

Since 1985, Dunleavy has pursued a national and international career as a composer and conductor. His composition teachers include Peter Tahourdin, Barry Conyngham, Donald Erb, David Felder and Charles Wuorinen, and his conducting teachers are Roland Yeung and Gilbert Brooks.

He served as Visiting Composer at James Madison University, The Cleveland Institute of Music, Ball State University, the University of Florida, Georgia State University, The University of Southern Florida, The University of Melbourne and the University of Tasmania.

Dunleavy is also a former Adjunct Research Fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, Senior Lecturer in Composition and Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Wollongong, and currently serves as an academic staff member at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney and Musical Director of the Sydney Male Choir.

Recent performances of his music include the 2007 Florida Electro-acoustic Music Festival, the 2008 Aurora Festival, the 2008 Albert Roussel Festival, and The Delaware New Music Festival. In 2010, Dunleavy’s music had performances at the "Organs of the Goldfields" Festival in Ballarat, Vic., Adelaide, Wollongong, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, as well as Taipei, Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, (Oregon) in the USA, and Manchester, England.

In 2011, "Flying in Paradise" was premiered at the Tubamania Festival in Bangkok (the Australian premiere was given at the 2011 Melbourne International Festival of Brass). There were further performances at the 2011 Australian National Flute Festival and in the Opera Prometheus "Sydney in Love" Festival.

2011was capped off in grand style by the world premiere (December 3, Melbourne), of Dunleavy’s concerto for viola and symphonic winds "A Kiss Before The World's End" given by Brett Deubner, viola and the Grainger Wind Symphony, conducted by Roland Yeung.

American Premiere Soloist, Brett Deubner

BRETT DEUBNER, VIOLIST

http://www.brettdeubner.com

Brett Deubner, one of this generation’s most accomplished violists, has inspired worldwide critical acclaim for his powerful intensity and sumptuous tone. He has performed across the United States, in nine countries on four continents. As an experienced soloist, chamber music collaborator and educator, Brett Deubner has made a lasting impression on musical life the world over.

Recent performances include the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, the Filharmonic del Quito, the New Symphony of Sofia and the Kiev Camerata in Ukraine. He has collaborated with some of today’s leading conductors such as Ann Manson, Lucas Richman, Patricio Aizaga and Rossen Milanov. Equally at home with Baroque, Renaissance and Classical styles, Mr. Deubner performs the music of Bach, Telemann, Purcell, Dowland as well as concerti of Stamitz, Zelter, Hoffmeister, Vivaldi, Rolla, and Bach.

Brett Deubner’s commitment to extending the repertoire for the viola is made evident by collaborations some of today’s greatest composers such as Samuel Adler, Lalo Schifrin, Andrew Rudin, David Del Tredici and several of this generation’s leading young composers. To date, over 25 viola concerti and numerous solo and chamber works for viola have been written for Brett Deubner.

As a recitalist and active chamber musician collaborator, Brett Deubner has appeared at the festivals of Caramoor, Heidelberg, Norfolk, Kent-Blossom, Sitka, Juneau Jazz and Classics, CapeMay, East Coast Carolina, Bravo in Vail, and the Windham Festival. He has collaborated with pianist Joseph Kalichstein, Anton Nell, Marcantonio Barone, violinists Timothy Fain, Paul Rosenthal, Zvi Zeitlin, Nina Beilina, as well as the Colorado, Tokyo, Vermeer quartets and Claremont Trio.

His many recordings include concerti as well as recordings with piano, trio and quartet. Brett Deubner’s debut Cd entitled English Viola Romance (Eroica Classics 2005) garnered instant praise: "This CD is a must for any fan of the viola and English music!" Minneapolis Post, Viola Dreams (Eroica Classic 2006) Brett received rave reviews for his recording of the 2 Viola Concertos of Frank Lewin with the New Symphony of Sofia, Bulgaria under the baton of Phildelphia Orchestra resident conductor Rossen Milanov (Albany 2007), and this past season, Brett’s newest CD recording festuring Andrew Rudin’s Viola Concerto for Centaur (2010) brought great reviews and acclaim.

Brett Deubner serves on the faculty of Temple University's Boyer School of Music and Dance in Philadelphia and during the summer is on the faculty at the Luzerne Music Center in Upstate New York and the Round Top Festival Institute in Texas. Brett is the Artistic Director of the concert series, “Music and More” in New Jersey where he makes his home.

Omaha Symphonic Winds Performs Premiere

An AMERICAN MUSICAL PREMIERE is coming to Omaha!

At 3:00 PM, on Sunday, October 21, 2012, OMAHA SYMPHONIC WINDS will present the American Premiere of Houston Dunleavy's concerto for viola and wind ensemble "A Kiss Before the World's End" at St. Andrew's United Methodist Church (15050 W. Maple) in Omaha, Nebraska. The violist is international soloist Brett Deubner who performed the world premiere in Melbourne last December.

Houston Dunleavy, composer of the concerto, was a visiting composer at James Madison University, The Cleveland Institute of Music, Ball State University, the University of Florida, and Georgia State University, and now is a university music instructor and composer in Melbourne, Australia.

While at American University in Washington, DC, Dunleavy was journalist Daniel Pearl's voice teacher. Houston writes, "When the news of Danny’s death came through in 2002, I, like thousands of musicians and journalists around the world, was rocked. It took me a long time to think about placing my reactions to all of this into music. At first, I wanted to write a work for violin, as Danny had been a violinist. However, when I was approached by violist Brett Deubner for a new work, I thought that a concerto for viola might have a timbral quality that could be just as exciting as the violin, but with an extra somberness that only the viola could convey."

The concerto, a juxtaposition of ethnic musical elements, begins with a keening melody on the penny whistle, while the second section of the work, played by viola, bongos, and the entire ensemble, presents constant interjections from a harsh, even barbaric set of chords which represent the intrusion of barbarism into Danny’s life. This instability of rhythm comes to an end with a lament for viola and brass chorale. Over descending chords, one can hear the piccolo’s keening and the Middle Eastern scales in the viola, bringing the work to a quiet close.

The title, "A Kiss Before the World's End," Dunleavy says, "reflects the premature end of something more than the life of a good man, as tragic as that was. Instead, it acknowledges the end of a world for those left behind as well, and the pain and loss such an end leaves in its wake." The American Premiere is a registered event of the 11^th annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days.

Brett Deubner, soloist for the American Premiere, is one of this generation’s most accomplished violists, and has inspired worldwide critical acclaim for his powerful intensity and sumptuous tone. He has performed across the United States, in nine countries on four continents. Recent performances include concerto appearances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, the Filharmonic del Quito, the New Symphony of Sofia and the Kiev Camerata in Ukraine. Brett Deubner’s commitment to extending the repertoire for the viola is made evident by collaborations with some of today’s greatest composers such as Samuel Adler, Lalo Schifrin, Andrew Rudin, David Del Tredici and several of this generation’s leading young composers. To date, over 25 viola concerti and numerous solo and chamber works for viola have been written for him.

OMAHA SYMPHONIC WINDS is a select group of adult musicians from the Omaha metropolitan area whose concerts feature outstanding original band compositions and orchestral transcriptions. The ensemble was founded in August 2009 and is a 501c3 tax-exempt public benefit corporation. OSW presents three regular season concerts yearly, and has performed at the 2010 Nebraska Music Educators Association Professional In-service Conference and the 2012 Nebraska State Bandmasters Association Convention. Most recently, OSW premiered the wind band version of Jonathan Russell’s “Double Concerto for Two Solo Bass Clarinets and Concert Band" at the 2012 International Clarinet Association ClarinetFest in Lincoln.

OMAHA SYMPHONIC WINDS is led by its founder and conductor Dr. William Hall, a former member of The United States Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”) and Director of Bands at Dana College. The fifty-five member musicians of OSW are drawn from area band directors, music teachers, retired military musicians, and area professionals.

"Presenting a new work for viola and wind ensemble to the American audience is indeed a privilege for us," said Hall. "We are so excited to collaborate with an artist like Brett Deubner, and anticipate an incredible musical experience that will not only enrich the lives of the Omaha community, but will have reverberations throughout the country. Following our performance, I expect many other ensembles to program Houston Dunleavy’s concerto." 

Admission for this important musical event is $10.00 adults, $5.00 seniors and students, and $25.00 for families of 3 or more. Tickets are available by calling 404.575.8220 or at the door. For more information go to www.omahasymphonicwinds.org.

Daniel Pearl, subject of our American Premiere

Daniel Pearl

www.danielpearl.org

The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just four months after 9/11. People around the world, along with his pregnant wife and family, prayed for his release. Since then, he has been remembered as a symbol of hope: a man who built bridges between diverse cultures -- as a writer and a gifted musician.

Danny was born on October 10, 1963, in Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he displayed an insatiable curiosity for music, academics and sports. Music turned out to be an essential form of expression for Danny and led him to become a fixture in several bands throughout the world, where he improvised on the electric violin, fiddle, or mandolin.

A gifted writer from a very young age, Danny's aptitude for journalism became apparent as a student at Stanford University where he graduated in 1985 with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He joined the Wall Street Journal in 1990 starting in the Journal's Atlanta bureau and moving successively to the Washington and London bureaus, serving as a Middle East correspondent.

In October of 2000, he moved to Bombay, becoming the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. From Bombay, Pearl covered the "war on terrorism," occasionally venturing into Pakistan. He was retracing the steps of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid when he was abducted in Karachi on January 23, 2002. Several weeks elapsed without word of his fate; his murder was confirmed on February 21, 2002. Four of the kidnappers were convicted on July 15, 2002, including mastermind Omar Saeed Sheik.

Following his murder, Danny's family and friends established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to carry on his legacy, using music and words to address the root causes of the hatred that took his life.