Conductor Paul Cummings will share the stage with the Wind Ensemble and two guest artists, retiring music professor Gil Cline, who will play the fluegelhorn solo on the classic Hoagy Carmichael ballade “Stardust,” and music student Aaron Lopez, who will make his conducting debut on the recital hall stage, leading the ensemble in John Mackey’s “Lightening Field,” a piece inspired by sculptor Walter De Maria’s land art work made up of 400 sharpened steel poles set into the ground in a one mile rectangular grid in New Mexico. Also on the program will be the exuberant and colorful “Lauds (Praise High Day)” by Ron Nelson, the famous Norwegian march “Valdres” by Johannes Hanssen, the brief but exciting “Galop” by Dmitri Shostakovich, and a wind band setting of Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria,” a stunning work originally composed for male chorus and made famous by the San Francisco-based vocal ensemble Chanticleer.
After a brief intermission to reset the stage, band leader Dan Aldag will guide the Jazz Orchestra through a varied set of new and old jazz treasures, including “Ir-Reggae-Ular Blues” by John La Barbera, which both utilizes a reggae feel and treats the venerable 12-bar blues form in some unusual ways, “Li’l Darlin,” the classic Count Basie tune written by Neal Hefti for the Atomic Basie album, a new Dave Mills big band arrangement of “This Here,” composed by pianist Bobby Timmons and made famous by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, the Charles Mingus tune “Love Chant” from his album Pithecanthropus Erectus, arranged by Steve Slagle for the Mingus Big Band, and “Hibernation,” a brand new piece composed by the Jazz Orchestra’s bassist, Loren Acosta.
The performance takes place on Saturday, March 9 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall. $10 general, $5 child, $5 HSU students with ID. For tickets, visit the Center Arts website or call 707.826.3928.
