Washtenaw Community Concert Band Concert: American Portraits April 19, 2012

The Washtenaw Community Concert Band will be performing a program entitled “American Portraits” on Thursday, April 19, 2012, featuring the musical faces of American icons and composers. Each selection of music will feature a familiar face to the American musical landscape including Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, John Philip Sousa, Henry Fillmore, and others.

Associate Conductor Patricio Padilla will lead the band in Selections from West Side Story, and Conductor Emeritus Jerry Robbins will direct an arrangement of various pieces by George Gershwin. Associate Conductor Beth Wondolowski will conduct an arrangement of the hymn It is Well with My Soul, composed by composer Philip Bliss and arranged by David Holsinger. Band member Alan Singer has provided the band with his own original march entitled Three Ring Circus, and band member and Whitmore Lake High School Band Director Michael Kirby will conduct Lassus Trombone.

Conductor and Music Director Dr. Chris Heidenreich states “it’s an exciting program. The combination of visual portraits and the musical images that are ingrained in our American tradition of music and song writing is fun music to play and to listen. I think our audience is in for a real treat with the variety of selections that we are preparing.”

Other musical selections include Under One Flag by Jay Bocook, Henry Fillmore’s His Honor, and the music of noted film composer John Williams with music from Jaws, Star Wars and E.T. One highlight of the program will be a work entitled Elegy to a Young American by Ronald Lo Presti. This poignant work is one of the few works written exclusively for wind band upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Join the band for visual and musical portraits during one of the final indoor concerts of the season at 7:30 PM in the Towlsey Auditorium on the campus of Washtenaw Community College. For more information, please visit the band’s website at http://www.ypsicommband.org/.