Concerto for Wind Ensemble (Husa)

Last updated

The Concerto for Wind Ensemble is a concerto for wind ensemble by the Czech-born American composer Karel Husa. It was written for the Michigan State University Wind Ensemble in 1982 and won the first Sudler International Composition Prize in 1983. [1] [2]

Reception

Classical Music: The Listener's Companion compared the work favorably to Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra and praised the work for "...show[ing] a lightness of texture that allows the exposure of everyone's talents." [3] Author Frank L. Battisti also lauded the work, saying:

The Concerto for Wind Ensemble is one of Husa's most brilliant pieces. The two outside movements are energetic and powerful, while the inner movement is intense and expressive. The piece displays the virtuoso capabilities of solo woodwind, brass and percussion instruments, as well as instrumental groupings, within the wind ensemble. [1]

Related Research Articles

Symphony Type of extended musical composition

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, written by composers, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts.

Irena Grafenauer

Irena Grafenauer,, is a Slovenian flute player and soloist, a pupil of Boris Čampa, Karlheinz Zöller and Aurèle Nicolet.

John Paul Corigliano is an American composer of classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Oscar. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School.

Willy Hess was a Swiss musicologist, composer, and famous Beethoven scholar. He achieved fame after compiling and publishing a catalogue of works of Beethoven that were not listed in the "complete" edition. He orchestrated the Piano Concerto No. 0 (Beethoven), in E-flat from a piano score.

Yakov Kasman is a Russian classical pianist, professor of piano, and artist-in-residence at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Steven Stucky

Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.

Ulf Hoelscher

Ulf Hoelscher is a German violinist.

Kappa Gamma Psi

Kappa Gamma Psi (ΚΓΨ) is a performing arts fraternity in the United States that was founded in 1913. Its last surviving collegiate chapter (Iota) went inactive in 2008, but the National Organization continues and is founding alumni chapters. Its membership was restricted to males, before it became coeducational in the 1970s.

Paul Coletti is a prominent Scottish viola soloist and chamber musician. He has performed throughout the world, making solo appearances at the Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) and Teatro Colón. He has performed Béla Bartók's Viola Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin conducting, and has recorded Robert Schumann's Märchenbilder and Rebecca Clarke's Sonata for Viola to some acclaim.

Johan de Meij

Johannes Abraham (Johan) de Meij, born November 23, 1953, in Voorburg, Netherlands, is a Dutch conductor, trombonist, and composer, best known for his Symphony No. 1 for wind ensemble, nicknamed The Lord of the Rings symphony.

A clarinet-violin-piano trio is a standardized chamber musical ensemble made up of one clarinet, one violin, and one piano participating in relatively equal roles, or the name of a piece written for such a group.

Kenneth Fuchs

Kenneth Daniel Fuchs is a Grammy Award-winning American composer. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut (Storrs).

Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.

David Hurwitz is a classical music writer, record reviewer, and percussionist. He was born in Wilmington, Delaware and grew up in Connecticut. He earned graduate degrees in Modern European History from Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University, and has studied and played the piano, clarinet, viola, and percussion.

Richard Traubner

Richard Traubner was an American journalist, author, operetta scholar and historian, and lecturer on theatre and film. His best-known book, Operetta: A Theatrical History, was first published in 1983.

Steven Bryant is an active American composer and conductor with a varied catalog, including works for orchestra, wind ensemble, electronics, and chamber music. Mr. Bryant states: "I strive to write music that leaps off the stage to grab you by the collar and pull you in. Whether through a relentless eruption of energy, or the intensity of quiet contemplation, I want my music to give you no choice, and no other desire, but to listen."

Concerto Grosso No. 1 for string orchestra with piano obbligato is a 1925 concerto grosso composed by Ernest Bloch.

National Intercollegiate Band

The National Intercollegiate Band (NIB) is a concert band, sponsored by honorary band fraternity and sorority Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, that performs every two years at the national convention of the two organizations. Organized in 1947, the NIB is the oldest national intercollegiate band in the United States, and is open to all collegiate band members regardless of membership in Kappa Kappa Psi or Tau Beta Sigma.

The Concerto for Wind Ensemble is a concerto for wind ensemble in five movements by the American composer Steven Bryant.

Camilla Kolchinsky

Camilla Kolchinsky was a Jewish conductor who was born in Russia. She was born in Moscow and made her debut as a conductor in Leningrad, now is known as St. Petersburg, while still a student. In 1976 she emigrated to Israel. She had conducted performances of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and according to Gramophone was "one of the few Russian women to have made a successful international career as a conductor." At the time of her death she was the emeritus director of the El Camino Youth Orchestra.

References

  1. 1 2 Battisti, Frank L. (2002). The Winds of Change: The Evolution of the Contemporary American Wind Band/Ensemble and Its Conductor. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 110–111. ISBN   0634045229.
  2. Snow, Shauna (April 27, 1993). "Music". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  3. Moore (2002). Morin, Alexander J. (ed.). Classical Music: The Listener's Companion . Hal Leonard Corporation. pp.  462. ISBN   0879306386.