Music Review: IU Wind Ensemble
Eclectic sounds thrilled crowd
ByPeter Jacobi
October 19, 2007
At the end of Wednesday evening’s interesting program for wind instruments in chamber dimensions, the focus changed as the whole of the IU Wind Ensemble gathered on the stage of Auer Hall to perform a wildly energetic composition appropriately called “Convolution.”
It’s the brainchild of Stefan Freund, an honors-laden alumnus of the Jacobs School of Music and son of Don Freund, a prominent member of the IU’s composition department, who was on stage as participating pianist in the performance. So, too, prominently heard were fellow faculty members John Rommel on trumpet and Howard Klug on clarinet, as well as doctoral candidate Kevin Meyer on drums.
Bring Gershwin, Bernstein, and Big Band sounds into the present, with added dollops of bracing dissonances and rhythms in delicious conflict at any given moment, and you’ve got “Convolution.” The score proved decibel rich and exhilarating. The composer described it as “a giant wheel, which is constantly turning but changes speed, sometimes getting stuck and suddenly skipping back to where it begins again.” Perhaps so, but on first hearing, it simply came across to this listener as a romp, compressive enough to retain its impact, and fun, thanks also to the players and conductor Stephen Pratt.
Earlier, Pratt and a dozen members of the Wind Ensemble performed fetchingly the Serenade in D Minor by Dvorak, that composer’s effort to mimic an 18th century wind serenade.
And even earlier, chamber groups carved from the Concert and Symphonic Bands took their turns. Paul Popiel spiritedly led 13 Concert Band musicians in Gordon Jacob’s bow to English folk songs, “Old Wine in New Bottles.” Patrick Casey, employing 10 members of the Symphonic Band, contributed a clever arrangement by Friedrich Wanek of five selections from Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” One missed chorus and orchestra. Still, despite here-and-there precision problems, the buoyant reading invited favor.
Conductor-less, still another combine of 10, again from the Symphonic Band, handled with charm two movements of Schubert’s Little Symphony for Winds. In it, a comely feast, clarinetist Sheng-hsin Lin and oboist Asher Kelly provided particularly bonny riffs.
In all, here was a program challenging to performers and pleasing for listeners. As for those listeners, they were friendly but, once again, too sparse in number. Little wonder: the disseminated pre- concert information gave no clue of content.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
