Submitted by: Michael Hancock, mhancock@uca.edu on 04/09/2025
Please join the the UCA Wind Ensemble in our final concert of this academic year on Tuesday, April 15th at 7:30pm in the Windgate Concert Hall. This concert, titled “Reflections,” provides music that compels us to be both retrospective and forward looking in our thoughts.
Senior composition major Trenton Rhodes opens the concert with his new First Suite for Wind Ensemble. The work is inspired by Mahlerian figures in brass that are juxtaposed by florid woodwind lines that dance with vigorous energy. Second on the concert, graduate conductor Jon Yopp leads the ensemble in a stirring performance of Julie Giroux’s Riften Wed, a work that is inspired by the setting in the monumental video game Skyrim. This year’s Spotlight Concerto Competition Winner, Joshua Fuentes performs a new and technically brilliant euphonium concerto by composer Tom Davoren. Our final work of the evening is a consortium premiere of composer Brian Balmages’ Symphony No. 1 subtitled “Windows and Mirrors.” Balmages writes about the work, “Windows are a way for us to look at others while having a barrier between us, allowing us to judge freely without being in the same space. Mirrors provide a way for us to look at ourselves while also providing a barrier, but that rarely allows us to judge ourselves freely. Amidst so much turmoil throughout the world, it seemed that these two ideas could come together to form a challenging, yet compelling look at the very essence of our humanity.”
Please join us in this 70 minute concert, and celebrate our graduating musicians in their final concert at UCA!
