Featured is Robert Bennett Russell’s “Suite of Old American Dances” which romps through early 20th century styles, beginning with the strutting cakewalk and continuing through the Western One Step and the Wallflower Waltz to the syncopated Rag. Though Russell is best known as a Broadway and Hollywood arranger for George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, this composition has been called “a crown jewel of the band repertoire.”
The theme continues with four dances by Malcolm Arnold inspired by Scottish folk music, and “Shepherd’s Hey” by Percy Grainger, based on a merry old English folk dance. The Ensemble also plays Grainger’s “Irish Tune From County Derry,” with the famous melody of “Danny Boy.”
Reaching back to the Renaissance, the program includes a work by Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck: a series of variations based on a dance tune played at the wedding ball of the Grand Duke Ferdinando of Tuscany, titled “Ballo del Graduca.”
The concert begins with “Overture for Winds” written by Felix Mendelssohn when he was 15 years old and fascinated by summer outdoor band concerts. With this piece, one scholar wrote, “Felix Mendelssohn contributed to the wind band repertoire one of the most notable works to come out of the nineteenth century.”
The North Coast Wind Ensemble performs this final concert of its third season on Saturday June 11 at 8 p.m. in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. $5/$2 from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Directed by Kenneth Ayoob, produced by HSU Music Department. http://HSUMusic.blogspot.com.