The Illinois State University College of Fine Arts and School of Music invite you to the Wind Symphony concert at 8 p.m. Monday, March 26, in the Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $6 for students (with student ID) and seniors. This concert is part of the annual RED NOTE New Music Festival.
The concert will open with Patrick Lenz’s composition Pillar of Fire, winner of the 2018 RED NOTE large ensemble competition. Pillar of Fire was composed in the spring of 2016 and was named the winner of the 2016 Baylor University Composition Contest. The piece is approximately 7 minutes in duration, ternary in form, and features a neo-tonal language that emphasizes the division of the octave into three equal parts. The namesake and inspiration of the piece comes from a passage in Exodus: “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night”(Exodus 13:21, NIV). The image of a pillar of fire that begins on the ground and reaches endlessly into the sky, burns so brightly that it is painful to look at and so hot that nothing can approach it, and is the manifestation of the God of Israel, inspired the harmonic and melodic ideas. At the root of these ideas is the division of the octave into three equal parts. This concept serves to invoke images of the Holy Trinity and is the forefront symbolism in the piece.
The World Premiere performance of Martha Horst’s Who Has Seen the Wind will follow. Horst, a professor of composition at Illinois State University, has devoted herself to the performance, creation, and instruction of classical music. Her music has been performed by the Fromm Players, CUBE, Earplay, Alea III, Empyrean Ensemble, Susan Narucki, Left Coast Ensemble, Dal Niente, The Women’s Philharmonic, Composers, Inc., members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Eric Mandat, and Amy Briggs. Horst has won the Copland Award, the 2005 Alea III International Composition for her work Threads, and the Rebecca Clarke International Composition Competition for her work Cloister Songs, based on 18th century utopian poetry.
The concert will close with composer-in-residence William Bolcom’s Concerto for Soprano Saxophone, performed by Illinois State University’s very own professor of saxophone, Paul Nolen. National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and Grammy Award-winner, William Bolcom is an American composer of chamber, operatic, vocal, choral, cabaret, ragtime, and symphonic music. Bolcom joined the faculty of the University of Michigan’s School of Music in 1973, was named the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition in 1994, and retired in 2008 after 35 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano, and his setting of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience on the Naxos label won four Grammy Awards in 2005.
“The Wind Symphony is proud to be part of the Illinois State University RED NOTE New Music Festival. We will share our concert with the Illinois State University Choirs under the direction of Professor Karyl Carlson and are proud to welcome all three composers to be part of this incredible concert of new music,” stated Anthony C. Marinello, conductor of the Wind Symphony.
For a complete schedule of events taking place during the RED NOTE New Music Festival, visit the calendar of events located on the College of Fine Arts website.
For tickets or additional information, contact the College of Fine Arts Box Office, located in the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, at (309) 438-2535, or purchase tickets online at Ticketmaster. Performance parking is available for free in the School Street Parking Deck in spots 250 and above, 400 W, Beaufort Street.
