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

 

oswblog

oswblog, a set on Flickr.

OSW St. Paul's Methodist Church, Papillion Nov2010 - 49

OSW St. Paul's Methodist Church, Papillion Nov2010 - 49, a photo by Saxhorn on Flickr.

OSW at St Andrew's

OSW at St Andrew's, a photo by Saxhorn on Flickr.

American Premiere Concert, St. Andrew's United Methodist Church, Omaha, October 21, 2012.

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.