VSU Concert Band, Wind Ensemble Perform Feb. 19

VALDOSTA — Valdosta State University’s Concert Band and Wind Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, in Whitehead Auditorium. Admission is free of charge and open to the public.

Conducted by Dr. Benjamin Harper, acting director of bands and director of athletic bands at VSU, the 54-member Concert Band will open the performance with Karl King’s “Hosts of Freedom,” a favorite of municipal bands across the country, as well as a fast finale for the elephant acts of the Beatty-Cole, King Brothers, Royal Hanneford, Carson and Barnes, and other circuses.

The Concert Band’s program also features Percy Grainger’s “I’m Seventeen Come Sunday,” which represents some of his earliest folksong collecting; “Dusk,” a simple, chorale-like work that, according to composer Steven Bryant, “captures the reflective calm of dusk, paradoxically illuminated by the fiery hues of sunset”; and “Melodious Thunk,” which was inspired by the famous jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and, according to composer David Biedenbender, features “big, fat thunks … interspersed with pointy, clunky, bluesy blips, which are then transformed into a long, smooth, laid-back melody accompanied by a funky bass line.”

The 45-member Wind Ensemble, led by Dr. Ryan Smith, a faculty member in VSU’s Department of Music, will perform “UFO” by Michael Daugherty. Commissioned nearly two decades ago by Arizona State University, Baylor University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and the University of North Texas, this piece was inspired by the unidentified flying objects that have become an obsession in American pop culture.

Whitehead Auditorium is located on the first floor of VSU’s Fine Arts Building, at the intersection of Brookwood Drive and Oak Street.

VSU is committed to offering all students, regardless of major, opportunities to perform in a wide variety of bands, ranging from full symphonic band to small chamber groups to high-power marching band.

Please contact Dr. Benjamin Harper at (229) 249-4965 or bgharper@valdosta.edu to learn more.