People Should Take Chance on No-strings Ensemble
By Peter Jacobi, H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com
May 12, 2011
The auditorium of Bloomington High School North should have been much fuller than it was for Monday evening's concert by the Southern Indiana Wind Ensemble, the four-year-old area band of fine musicians that delivered a very well played program of challenging and interesting music.
The concert was free of charge. On stage were 51 instrumentalists of quality, more than a few even of reputation, who had prepared, under the guidance of music director and founder Eric Isaacson, an uninterrupted hour of satisfactions. What's more, the eminent flutist from IU's Jacobs School, Kathryn Lukas, came around to solo in a substantial Concerto for Flute and Wind Orchestra by Mike Mower, to which a cadenza had been added by IU jazz favorite, Brent Wallarab.
The concerto, as did all the selections, proved once again that Maestro Isaacson chooses repertoire, if not always well known, worth listening to, just as do the concert bands at IU. They, too, seem to have problems attracting an audience. Would that more lovers of genial outdoor band music had the courage to come indoors to hear more bracing material. Would that lovers of orchestral music had the flexibility to listen to an ensemble of quality, even though the strings are missing. There are satisfactions to be had. There were on Monday.
That flute concerto, for instance: Written in 2004, composer Mower infused it with a wealth of showy opportunities for the soloist and far more than just prosaic accompaniment for the collaborating "wind orchestra." From the brisk and insouciant first movement through the appealing and sometimes Debussy-like second and to the jazz-infused final section, Lukas could awe listeners with her total control, no matter what finger acrobatics were called for, and the band could shine right along with her because the score seemed to be an equal opportunity employer.
Monday's program also held a premiere, the first movement of a work called "Lunar Seas," being written for the Southern Indiana Wind Ensemble by Heather Schmidt, a Canadian composer of note who earned her doctorate from the Jacobs School. The ensemble had performed a second movement earlier and will tackle the whole in November. This first movement, titled "Sea of the Edge," is meant to musically reflect a feature at the edge of the moon's side that faces us. On hearing the music, one might think of distance and discovery and danger and — most of all — mystery. Isaacson and company treated the music with a sense of purpose, swiftly locating its atmospherics and mastering its intricacies.
The concert opened with a fast-paced and instrumentally dense "Canzona" written in 1951 by Peter Mennin. More interesting was Aaron Copland's mood-laden "Quiet City," for which the melancholy trumpet part was shared by four of the ensemble's trumpeters, one stage left, the second stage right, the third in the orchestra pit, the fourth at the rear of the auditorium: an effective gambit it turned out to be.
Percy Grainger's "Handel in the Strand" ended the program. The composer's salute to Handel and the street where London's musicals are centered, this lively piece received all the necessary life and swing.
Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2011
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