Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 10880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 11/17/99
      Contact:                           Carol Dotson   97
SOUTHEASTERN WIND SYMPHONY PRESENTS CONCERT DEC. 2
     HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University's Wind Symphony will present its
final concert of the semester at 7:30 p.m., Thursday December 2, in the Pottle Music Building
Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.               
     The Wind Symphony, directed by Glen Hemberger,  is a concert ensemble comprised of
the finest wind and percussion musicians attending Southeastern.
     The program will include "The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare" by Australian-born
composer Percy Grainger and Gustav Holst's masterwork, "Second Suite in F," whose four
movements have become a staple of the wind literature. 
     The SLU Concert Choir, led by Dirk Garner, will join the Wind Symphony in a rare
performance of Brahms' "Begrabnisgesang, op.13" or "Funeral Hymn." According to
Hemberger, Brahms' 1858 work, set for 12 winds and percussion players with chorus, is a dark
and deeply serious composition with a solemn yet powerful spirit. 
     Southeastern music faculty member Emily Truckenbrod joins the Wind Symphony in a
Louisiana premier of three songs by John Philip Sousa. "Maid of the Meadow," "The Snow
Baby" and "I've Made My Plans for the Summer" were among the Sousa Band's most often
performed songs from the turn of the century until the ensemble disbanded in 1932. The
reconstruction of these three songs has been a collaborative effort by Hemberger and editor
Christopher Tucker as a part of the "Forgotten Songs of Sousa Project." In all, over 70 songs by
Sousa exist in the Sousa Archives for Band Research and are being re-examined for this new
edition.  Truckenbrod and the Wind Symphony will perform two more of the songs in the spring. 
     The concert will conclude with a 1997 composition by David R. Gillingham titled, "A
Light Unto the Darkness." The piece, commissioned in homage to the 168 victims of the 1995
Oklahoma City bombing disaster, seeks to evoke images of the ideas, setting and emotions
associated with the disaster. 
     "Gillingham has created a very special theme for the work, one that is central to its basic
understanding," said Hemberger. Representing the bombing victims, this final melody serves to
call attention to the 168 souls at rest as our "lights unto the darkness."
     For more information on the Wind Symphony Concert contact the Southeastern music
department at 549-2184.                  
                                                     -SLU-
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