The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position.
Arthur Fiedler was an American conductor known for his association with both the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops orchestras. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the United States. Fiedler was sometimes criticized for over-popularizing music, particularly when adapting popular songs or editing portions of the classical repertoire, but he kept performances informal and sometimes self-mocking to attract a bigger audience.
Frederick Fennell was an American conductor and one of the primary figures who promoted the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and greatly affected the field of music education in the US and abroad. In Fennell's New York Times obituary, colleague Jerry F. Junkin was quoted as saying "He was arguably the most famous band conductor since John Philip Sousa."
The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band is the official marching band of Texas A&M University. Composed of over 400 men and women from the school's Corps of Cadets, it is the largest military marching band in the United States. The band's complex straight-line marching maneuvers are performed exclusively to traditional marches.
The Eastman Wind Ensemble was founded by conductor Frederick Fennell at the Eastman School of Music in 1952. The ensemble is often credited with helping redefine the performance of wind band music. Considered one of America's leading wind ensembles, its core personnel of 50 players consists of undergraduate and graduate students at the Eastman School of Music.
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 is a box set by Bob Dylan issued on Columbia Records. It is the first installment in Dylan's Bootleg Series, comprising material spanning the first three decades of his career, from 1961 to 1989. It has been certified with a gold record by the RIAA as of August 1997, and peaked at No. 49 on the Billboard 200 and No. 32 in the UK.
Kenneth Daniel Fuchs is a Grammy Award-winning American composer. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut.
Igor Stravinsky composed his Mass between 1944 and 1948. This 19-minute setting of the Roman Catholic Mass exhibits the austere, Neoclassic, anti-Romantic aesthetic that characterizes his work from about 1923 to 1951. The Mass also represents one of only a handful of extant pieces by Stravinsky that was not commissioned. Part of the motivation behind its composition has been cited by Robert Craft and others as the product of a spiritual necessity, as Stravinsky intended the work to be used functionally.
Donald Hunsberger was an American conductor and arranger. He served as the conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble from 1965 until 2002. He also held the position of Professor of conducting at the Eastman School of Music. Generally regarded as a key contributor to the rise of the modern wind ensemble in the twentieth century, Hunsberger's notable contributions include conducting, recording, and arranging music for winds.
Dr. Timothy Brett Rhea is director of bands and music activities at Texas A&M University. As director of bands, he leads the university band program, serves as conductor of the Texas A&M Wind Symphony, and coordinates the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band marching band. As director of music activities, he administratively oversees the activities of the jazz, orchestra, and choral programs. Rhea also served as the 79th president of the American Bandmasters Association from 2016-2017.
Julie Ann Giroux is an American pianist and composer of orchestral, choral, chamber, and numerous concert band works.
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century. Toscanini was a prolific recording artist, having conducted many recordings from 1920 until his retirement in 1954.
Greg Danner is a contemporary American composer, educator, and professional musician. He is currently the composer-in-residence and professor at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee. He is the 2010 Composer's Guild Grand Prize winner.
Jack Gallagher is an American composer and college professor. His compositions include orchestral, chamber, piano and choral works. He has written two symphonies, which have both been recorded.
The Wind Quintet, Op. 26, is a chamber music composition by Arnold Schoenberg, composed in 1923–24. It is one of the earliest of Schoenberg's compositions to use twelve-tone technique.
Jerry Junkin is an American conductor of wind bands and educator. Junkin serves on the faculty of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin where he holds the Vincent R. and Jane D. DiNino Chair for the Director of Bands. He conducts the University of Texas Wind Ensemble and instructs graduate as well as undergraduate conducting courses. Additionally, Junkin has served as the conductor of the Dallas Wind Symphony since 1993.
MUSA (Music of the United States of America) is a 41-volume series of critical editions of American music, representing the full range of genres and idioms that have contributed to American musical culture. It was established by the American Musicological Society in 1988 and is hosted by the University of Michigan at its American Music Institute. The criteria used in developing MUSA volumes are:
"Black Jack March" was written by Fred K. Huffer (1879–1943), an early 20th century composer. It was named after General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. Written in a 6/8 meter, trumpets and drums are featured with a trumpet call.
Andrew M. Boss is an American composer. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Texas and his masters at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. His teachers include Dan Welcher, Donald Grantham, Russell Pinkston, Kevin Puts, Daniel Crozier, and Donald Waxman. Boss's work, Tetelestai, was commissioned by Jerry Junkin and the University of Texas Wind ensemble and premiered in November 2014. The work reflects the feelings and emotions behind the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work has received its Australian premiere by John Lynch and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony in September 2016.
Peterloo, Op. 97, is a concert overture by Malcolm Arnold written in 1968 to commemorate the centenary of the first meeting of the Trades Union Congress. It is a programme piece which depicts the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. It was given a mixed reception by critics, but has nevertheless become one of Arnold's best-known works, being arranged several times for wind or brass band, recorded many times, and played twice at the Proms, once in its original form and once in a choral arrangement to words by Sir Tim Rice.
