The Eastern Mennonite University Wind Ensemble will present its spring concert 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Apr. 10, in Lehman Auditorium at EMU.
The 23-member group, conducted by James W. (Jim) Warner, will open the program with “Allerseelen (All Souls’ Day),” an art song by Richard Strauss, arranged by Albert Oliver Davis.
The ensemble will also perform “Amparito Roca” by Jaime Texidor Dalmau, a composer and conductor who lived most of his life in northern Spain. This piece is dedicated to a girl named Amparito (the diminutive of Amparo) Roca.
Also on the program will be “Cajun Folk Songs II” by Frank Ticheli and “Scootin’ on Hardrock (Three Short Scat-Jazzy Dances),” a musical homage by David Holsinger to Hardrock Road, the former Main Street of a once thriving community close to the railroad line between Dallas and Ft. Worth, Tex.
“One doesn’t mosey down Hardrock Road anymore,” the composer notes. “The only reason to drive there now is to go from somewhere you’ve been to someplace you haven’t. But once upon a time, Hardrock Road was the center of town.”
The concert will conclude with an arrangement of “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” a “Salute to Glenn Miller” and “Hymn for a Child (Jesus Loves Me).”
Ensemble members are equally divided between EMU students and the local community.
Warner, who also directs the EMU Jazz ensemble, taught in public schools for 34 years in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, with most of this time as director of bands at Harrisonburg High School. He retired from HHS in July, 2005.
Admission to the concert is free. Donations are welcomed for the EMU music department student scholarship fund.