The UCF Bands will cap an entire day of activity associated with their Concert Band Invitational affiliated with the national Music for All organization with a concert featuring the UCF Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band. The concert will feature world premiere performances, guest artists and guest composers.
The first half of the concert program will be presented by the Symphonic Band, directed by UCF Associate Director of Bands, Tremon Kizer. Amongst other top contemporary works composed for the wind band, the Symphonic Band will also present composer Adam Silverman’s Speaking Truth to Power for four solo percussionists and wind ensemble. Speaking Truth was written in 2018 as a response to and 50-year celebration of one of the most important works in the wind band repertory, Karel Husa’s monumental Music for Prague: 1968, about the Soviet invasion of the composer’s home country, and endeavors to embody the spirit of the statement, “When truth prevails, liberty will be restored.” This evening’s performance will feature guest soloists, Jeffrey Moore, Dean of UCF’s College of Arts & Humanities, Thad Anderson, UCF Head of Percussion Studies, Kirk Gay, UCF Professor of Percussion and Paige Madden ’21MA.
The second half of the concert will be given by the Wind Ensemble, directed by UCF Director of Bands, Scott Lubaroff. The Wind Ensemble will present two monumental world premieres, including Echo Chamber, by UCF faculty composer Alex Burtzos, and Zodiac Concerto II for solo horn, solo euphonium, and wind ensemble, by world renowned composer James Stephenson. Echo Chamber rethinks the way that the ensemble is setup on the stage to establish fields of sound that interact with and enhance one another, very much in the way that audio is fed through left and right channels in a stereo system. It incorporates pop music and jazz vocabulary into an exciting and innovative concert setting.
Zodiac Concerto II is a follow up on the first Zodiac Concerto performed and recorded by the UCF Wind Ensemble in 2018 and commercially released via Flying Horse Records. Like the first, Zodiac Concerto II will feature guest artists, William Caballero, Principal Horn with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Demondrae Thurman, Professor of Music in Euphonium and Chair of the Brass Department at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Composer Jim Stephenson will also be present for the performance, which will be simul-premiered by the President’s Own Marine Band.