Cleveland Winds and Friends - Postponed

The March 15 concert has been postponed due to the coronavirus situation. We hope to have a date for the rescheduled concert soon.

The Cleveland Winds will host the Lakeland Civic Band in Waetjen Auditorium on Sunday, March 15, 2020, at 4 PM.

The Lakeland Civic Band

Composed of Lakeland students, high school players, school music teachers, directors, and community musicians; the Lakeland Civic Band is one of the few community college groups that received the Sudler Silver Scroll Award for musical excellence and service to the community.

The Lakeland Civic Band has been honored by invitations to perform for national, state and regional conferences including the Ohio Music Education Association Conference; the North Central Regional Conference of the College Band Directors National Association at The Ohio State University; the National Convention of the American School Band Directors Association in Columbus; the National Convention of the Association of Concert Bands in Lisle, Illinois; and at the Chautauqua Institution.

Founded in 1977, the Lakeland Civic Band has commissioned two original compositions including "Poem for Band" by Dr. Rex Mitchell and "Ode to a Clocktower" by Dan Rager. During its history, the Lakeland Civic Band featured world renowned Dr. Frederick Fennell and Col. John Bourgeois as guest conductors, with Dan Crain as the current conductor.

On Sunday, March 15 at 4 PM, The Lakeland Civic Band repertoire will include Ringling Brothers Grand Entry - Al Sweet, Mysterious Marvels - Matthew Saunders, O Magnum Mysterium - Lauridsen/Reynolds, and El Camino Real - Alfred Reed.

The Cleveland Winds

The Cleveland Winds is a professional-quality wind ensemble based at Cleveland State University. The ensemble roster includes many of the best musicians in the Cleveland area, including professional performers, music educators, and exceptional amateur musicians. The Cleveland Winds is dedicated to excellence in wind band performance and repertoire.

The Cleveland Winds is the winner for the American Prize in Band/Wind Ensemble Performance—Community and School Division and performed at Severance Hall at the Northeast Ohio Band Invitational, sponsored by the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony, at Severance Hall in January 2018.

On the second half of the program, The Cleveland Winds will perform Carter Pann's Serenade for Winds, Dana Wilson's A Piece of Mind, and Joe Kreines' setting of Percy Grainger's Irish Tune from County Derry.

Serenade for Winds

About his Serenade for Winds, Carter Pann wrote:

My Serenade for Winds is an exploration in the kind of melodic writing usually equated with Schumann or Brahms. Nearly every gesture in this work was placed with the hope that the performers who play them would attain their highest echelon of musical expression. I had very recently written a soft, subdued work called Hold This Boy and Listen (2008) for winds. That work represented a departure from the fast and brilliantly technical works I had written for bands in the past ... but I wanted to be under the spell of the molto espressivo for more than one wind piece. Hence this work is a grand expression of harmony and melody (quite equally so) for wind symphony.

~ Carter Pann

A Piece of Mind

Piece of Mind is a musical pun on an old expression. It is composer Dana Wilson's representation of the workings of the human mind. The first movement, Thinking, begins with a very simple four-note idea that grows seemingly of its own inertia -- as thinking about something often does -- while sometimes being joined or overwhelmed by other, related ideas.

Remembering, the second movement, is structured in a manner similar to the way memory serves most of us -- not as complete, logical thought, but as abrupt flashes of images or dialogue. In this case, the flashes provide a view of the original four-note idea through various musical styles vividly entrenched in the composer's own memory and, hopefully, that of much of the audience.

The third movement, Feeling, explores various states throughout the emotional spectrum, and the final movement, Being, addresses a mental state that is rarely considered in our culture. Non-Western -- particularly East Indian -- musical styles are called upon to shape the four-note idea so as to conjure up and celebrate this marvelous attribute (this piece, this peace...) of mind.

Piece of Mind was premiered in New York City by the Ithaca College Wind Ensemble under the direction of Rodney Winther.

~ From the printed score

Irish Tune from County Derry

Fans of wind band music are undoubtedly familiar with Percy Grainger's setting of Irish Tune from County Derry. The well-known version "has stood the test of time for a number of reasons: colorful sonorities, straightforward accessibility, and a memorable climax" (from Great Music for Wind Band). This is not the version programmed for this concert.

"In 1916, Grainger scored a highly chromatic version for orchestral instruments employing his 'elastic' (flexible instrumentation) method, from which he derived a final setting for organ and brass instruments" (from A Catalog of Folk Song Settings for Wind Band). In the early 1980's, Joe Kreines, a Florida-based conductor and Grainger scholar/fanatic, created a setting of this chromatic version for standard wind band instrumentation. This is the version performed to conclude this concert.

Concert Information

The concert is at 4 PM on Sunday, March 15 in Waetjen Auditorium, in the School of Music at Cleveland State University.

The concert is free and open to the public, although donations are requested to cover the concert production costs. Parking will be available in the Central Garage one hour prior to the concert.