March 2011 - World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles

NEWS
News in Brief
Jess Turner, who recently completed a
masters degree in composition at the Hartt
School of Music, was awarded the 2010
Walter Beeler Composition Prize for the
Wind Band version of his composition
Rumpelstilzchen. The prize includes a
US$ 3000 cash award and a professionally
produced recording by the Ithaca College
Wind Ensemble.
Adam Gorb’s fourteen minute Concertino
for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble was
premiered by saxophonist Tim Watson and
the Northampton County Youth Concert
Band under the direction of Peter Smalley at
St. Matthews Church in Northampton,
England on 17 December 2010.
Frank B. Wickes, a long time member of
WASBE, received the Midwest Clinic’s Medal
of Honor at the 64 th Annual Midwest Clinic
in Chicago in December 2010. In May 2010,
Wickes retired from the Louisiana State
University, where he was Director of Bands
for thirty years and where he established an
outstanding Wind Ensemble and marching
band. Before moving to Louisiana, he served
as Director of Bands and saxophone
professor at the University of Florida from
1973 to 1980. After serving as Band Director
at Dupont High School in Delaware for eight
years, he was Director of Bands at Fort Hunt
High School in Virginia, where his bands
were honored by the John Philip Sousa
Foundation as among the nation’s most
outstanding bands from the decades 1960-
1980. He has served as President of the
American Bandmasters Association, the
National Band Association, and the Southern
Contact for Advertising:
Division of the College Band Directors
Association.
Albatera Santiago Quinto Serna won the
Third Vile de Muro International Wind Band
Composition Competition with the Rapsodia
Hernandiana. The composition was selected
from twenty works that were submitted by
composers from Australia, Argentina,
Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and
Spain. The € 5,000 prize was presented to
the composer on 22 January 2011 at the
Fireta de San Antoni in Muro.
Stephan Fiegenbaum’s Rooms by the Sea
was premiered by the Yale Concert Band
under the direction of Thomas C. Duffy on 8
October 2010 at Woolsey Hall at Yale
University. The nine minute composition,
which was commissioned by the Yale
Concert Band, was inspired by the realist
painting by the same name by Edward
Hopper on display in the Yale University Art
Gallery. The composition, which is available
from the composer, is divided into four
sections with the first three reflecting the
composer’s impressions of the three major
segments of the painting and the final
section expressing a sense of longing for the
seascape depicted in the first segment. The
21 year old Fiegenbaum from Winchester,
Massachusetts is a music major a Yale
University. His music has been performed in
major concert hall in North America and
Europe, and one of his compositions was
recorded by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
under the direction of Erich Kunzel and
released on a CD by Telarc in 2009. He has
already won a number of awards for his
music, including an ASCAP Morton Gould
Young Composer Award and the San Diego
Sacra/Profana Choral Composition Contest.
Andrea Iven
kölnerverlagsagentur
Kemperbachstr. 53
51069 Cologne/Germany
T. +49 221 297708-11
F. +49 221 297708-29
E. andrea.iven@
koelnerverlagsagentur.de
New Work for Wind Band
by Martin Ellerby
Martin Ellerby has agreed to undertake
the creation of a new work for
Wind Band commemorating the 150 th
anniversary of the initiation of one of
the world’s most significant organizations,
the International Committee of
the Red Cross. This will be a 4-5 minute
quiet/reflective piece, with a quasiprogrammatic
scenario, based on one of
the most significant battles in European
history. The work will be approachable
and accessible to bands of modest
technical background (US grade 3) but
worthy of performance by those with
advanced skills. Martin notes:
“I have held on to the title A Soliloquy
for Solferino for some time.
Solferino was a battle in Italy in 1859
and caused the Red Cross Movement to
be born. I thought of it as an elegy that
represents many other such situations
with antiphonal trumpets and the like
echoing across the centuries through
which we learn (it would seem) very
little or nothing...”
The work is scheduled for completion
by the end of December 2011. A bound
score will be provided to all commissioners,
with parts to be electronically
distributed (with password protection)
as pdf. files Commission fee is US$250.
Those interested in joining the
commissioning consortium should
contact:
James Ripley, commission coordinator,
by email, jripley@carthage.edu or by
phone, +1-262-551-5854.
Payments are made in US dollars to a
Swiss bank account set up expressly for
the purpose of the commission.
Deadline for joining the consortium has
been extended to April 1, 2011.
The work will only be available for
performance to commission members
through December 2012.
32 WASBE World