| Members of a Carbon School District Symphonic Band prepare for a concert to be presented with the College of Eastern Utah Wind Symphony on Feb. 17 at the CEU Geary Theatre. |
The Carbon School District and College of Eastern Utah will join musical forces to present a combined concert by the Carbon High School Symphonic Band and Eastern Utah Wind Symphony on Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the CEU Geary Theatre. The program will feature separate performances by each group and a grand concert finale in which all of the musicians-high school, college, and community-will perform as a massed band.
To open the concert, the Symphonic Band will present “something old” – themes from Academic Festival Overture by Romantic composer Johannes Brahms – and “something new” – Midway March by film composer John Williams. Academic Festival Overture is a work that Brahms composed upon receiving an honorary doctorate in 1879, while Midway March is music that Williams wrote for the Steven Spielberg film, 1941.
The Wind Symphony will follow with its own version of “something old” – First Suite in Eb by English composer Gustav Holst – and “something new” – High Country Celebration by Utah composer Christian Earl. First Suite in Eb, composed in 1909, stands as one of the monumental works in the wind band repertoire, while High Country Celebration is a recently-published composition that is at various points brilliant, tender, and grand.
The program will conclude with both groups filling the Geary Theatre stage to perform a beautiful setting of the Southern hymn, Prospect, and stirring highlights from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Conductors for the evening will be Gregory Benson of College of Eastern Utah and Paul Brown of the Carbon School District.
Admission to the concert is free.