College of Visual and Performing Arts

Keys and Bridges Duo
2026-03-31 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Organ Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
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Prof. Billie Feather is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjoist, bassist who originally hails from Johnstown, PA. Raised in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains and surrounded by a family of avid music lovers, Billie’s love of performing music in all forms was fostered.

In her sixth grade year, Billie began saving for her first guitar by doing odd jobs and begging her parents for music lessons. Her parents finally gave into their daughter’s pestering for lessons and it happily grew into a lifelong passion of music performance and songwriting.

For her senior year in high school, Billie was accepted into the prestigious music conservatory at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Classical Guitar Performance and remained there for her college studies. During her years at UNCSA, Billie was a guest classical guitarist in The Carolina Wind Symphony and has been able to perform all over North Carolina as both a solo artist and in classical guitar ensembles. After graduating in 2006, Billie expanded her musical studies by learning the double bass, electric bass, banjo, and mandolin.

After graduation, Billie founded a private teaching studio in Winston-Salem, NC and began performing in several local bands – most notably the bo-stevens (a North Carolina honky-tonk band) and The Darnell Woodies (an old-time Appalachian punk string band). During her tenure in these bands, Billie was able to tour the United States and Europe.

While in Winston-Salem, she began studying stringed instrument repair at Separk Music. Eventually, Billie was asked to take a position in Chapel Hill, NC as instrument repair technician at Wes Lambe Guitars. Currently, Billie operates her own stringed instrument repair shop in Durham, NC.

Eventually, Billie began to hear the call of academia once more and enrolled in North Carolina Central University for a second undergraduate degree with a focus in jazz guitar and arranging.

Graduating with honors, she was invigorated to share her love of jazz with her community and students by starting a local Beginner’s Jazz Jam and a Suzuki Guitar Jazz Curriculum to keep jazz traditions alive for the next generation.

Merging her love of both classical and jazz, Billie returned to the UNC School of the Arts where she earned Master’s Degree in Guitar Performance and a Professional Artist Certificate in Recording Engineering and Guitar.

An active performer, Billie can be found in a variety of musical groups and settings. See more about Billie’s bands in the “Projects” page, her songwriting examples in the “Songwriting” page, and recordings featuring her musical work on the “Recordings” page.

You can find Billie at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro teaching guitar as part of their Popular Music and Technology Program. Her previous appointments include Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington where she taught Group Guitar/UCORE Classes and Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina where she was the college, community music school, and Suzuki guitar professor.

Billie’s performances have been hailed as “spectacular, athletic, and… narrative and epic rather than simply a recreation of recorded work” and a “live music find and stage presence of the first order and deserves the stellar career that is clearly in front of her” by the Camel City Dispatch blog.

Dr. Courtney Miller is Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she teaches oboe, chamber music, reed making, and graduate seminars. Before coming to the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, she served on faculty at the University of Iowa in Iowa, Boston College in Massachusetts, and Ashland University in Ohio.

A highly regarded performer and pedagogue, Dr. Miller tours as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. Dr. Miller is a versatile artist devoted to performing new compositions and lesser-known works alongside standard repertoire. Her 2019 album Portuguese Perspectives introduces a collection of world-premiere recordings for the oboe by Portuguese composers and includes several new commissions by Miller. This album and her 2015 release, Modern Fairy Tales, are available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. American Record Guide praises her “seamless consistency in the various registers of the oboe…and sensitive phrasing and articulation.” Fanfare Magazine hails Courtney Miller as “a performer of considerable skill, with an unfailingly lovely sound, abundant technical ability, and a special gift for turning notes into poetry.”

An experienced orchestral musician, Miller has performed in many orchestras in the United States, such as the Chicago Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Quad Cities Symphony, and the Jacksonville Symphony. Dr. Miller performs as Principal Oboe with the North Carolina Opera.

In addition to collaborations within the field of music, Dr. Miller has a flair for interdisciplinary work. She has collaborated with hip-hop dancer Ernest “EKnock” Phillips, belly dancer Janelle Issis, and most recently, choreographer and dancer Kristin Marrs.

Dr. Miller has authored articles published in the Double Reed Journal and the Journal of the American Viola Society. She has also presented recitals and papers at the College Music Society’s Northeast Regional Conference. Dr. Miller performs regularly at the International Double Reed Society’s annual conferences. In 2017, she was a featured artist at the first international conference of the Associação Brasileira de Palhetas Duplas (Brazilian Double Reed Society or ABPD).

Courtney Miller has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Boston University, a Master of Music from Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from Florida State University. Her primary teachers include John Ferrillo, John Mack, and Eric Ohlsson.

Julianne Kirk Doyle, clarinet
2026-03-28 19:30 - 21:00 | Organ Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
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Dr. Julianne Kirk Doyle joined the faculty of the Crane School of Music in 2006 and serves as Professor of Clarinet and Admissions/Auditions Coordinator. She was Director of the Crane Youth Music Camp from 2009-2023. Dr. Doyle is the New York State Chair and served as Pedagogy Coordinator for the International Clarinet Association from 2022-2024.

Dr. Doyle’s debut CD “Dante Dances” premiered in 2019, including works by Crane composers Arthur Frackenpohl and Elliot DelBorgo. She joined saxophonist Robert Young and pianist David Heinick on Young’s 2018 album “Hybrid,” performing Heinick’s “four letter words,” which she and Young commissioned for premiere at the 2016 International Clarinet Association Conference in Baton Rouge, LA.

An active soloist and chamber musician, she is a founding member of the Aria Reed Trio and serves as Principal Clarinet with the Orchestra of Northern New York and Northern Symphonic Winds.

Passionate about the music of our time, Julianne has joined numerous commission consortiums for new works by Stacy Garrop, Reena Esmail, Jenni Brandon, Paul Schoenfeld, Margaret Brower, Jim Stephenson, Erich Stem, and Tyler Mazone (’21), as well as Crane colleagues Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez, Timothy Sullivan, Jerod Sommerfeldt, and David Heinick. She looks forward to participating in many more consortiums and commission projects to continue to grow the 21st-century clarinet repertoire.

Dr. Doyle specializes in solutions to Stress Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (SVPI/soft palatal air leak) in wind playing. She has published articles and given conference presentations on pathways to alleviation and prevention. She regularly assists professionals and students in minimizing and correcting soft palate air leak.

She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in Performance and Literature, an Arts Leadership Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Oklahoma. Her primary teachers include Jon Manasse, David Etheridge, and Bradford Behn. Dr. Doyle is honored to be an artist with Backun Musical Services and DANSR/Vandoren.

Dr. Julianne Kirk Doyle’s visit has been generously sponsored by Backun Musical Services, Eastman Music, and Vandoren.

Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble: Música para Todos
2026-03-22 15:00 - 16:30 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
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Lorena Guillén, voice and artistic directorAlejandro Rutty, piano and bass Jacqui Carrasco, violinGuy Capuzzo, guitarAdam Ricci, pianoErik Schmidt, percussion

With its mesmerizing style and sound, the award-winning Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble has captivated audiences with soulful arrangements of Argentine tango standards and original compositions that create a dynamic tango and pan-Latin fusion since 2015. The musicians in the group each have rich and extensive experience in Argentine tango, jazz, classical and contemporary music, and other world and popular music styles, all of which can be heard on their two albums, Exótica Flor (2023) and The Other Side of My Heart (2018), both available on all streaming platforms.

“Not Your Average Folk Contest 2021″ Grand Prize Winner (NC Folk Festival) and “World Music” category winner of Music-At-the-Museum Contest 2021 (NC Museum of Art), the Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble has been featured on TV performances for NC PBS channel and Fox8News as well as live radio programs such as WUNC’s “The State of Things” with Frank Stasio (NPR affiliate in Chapel Hill, NC), KUNM’s “Corazón Tanguero” with Cristina Baccin (NPR affiliate in Albuquerque, NM), WFDD “Triad Arts” (Winston Salem, NC), “Musicaldo” (KGLP 91.7, Gallup, NM), and Radio DAMus (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Over the years, the ensemble has presented its music at various venues: Kleinhans Music Hall (Buffalo, NY), MusicBox Theater and Folk Research Center (Saint Lucia, West Indies), Frick Museum Summer Concerts (PA), Center Stage Series at the Sangre de Cristo Auditorium (CO), Winston-Salem’s FIESTA Festival, Music Carolina SummerFest, NC Museum of Art, Greensboro’s NC Folk Festival, Creative Greensboro Concert Series, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum Summer Concert Series, Western Piedmont Symphony Concert Series, and Los Angeles’ Alvas Showroom (Los Angeles, CA).

This September 2023, the LGTE will embark on their first concert tour to Argentina, with shows at various venues and a featured presentation at the Familia Club Atlético Fernández Fierro Tango Festival.

The group frequently collaborates with regional Latino organizations, tango-dance organizations and youth orchestras and choirs. The Other Side of My Heart reflects that commitment: an oral-history multi-media piece based on interviews with Latina immigrants to NC. In the Embrace of Tango Project explored the crossed-path between Argentine tango and Jewish-diaspora culture and involved workshops with the Triangle-Jewish-Chorale, the UNCG University Chorale, and Durham-Tango-Dance.

Many of these creative initiatives have been generously funded by grants from the following organizations, which have supported the group’s creation of original works, audio recording, video recording, and implementation of workshops: ArtsGreensboro “Regional Artist Project,” NC arts Council, New-Music USA, and “EDI Grant” from the UNCG College of Visual and performing Arts.

Ariel Detwiler, bassoon
2026-03-21 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
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Dr. Ariel Detwiler, owner of ACDC Reeds, is an active bassoon teacher, freelance performer, and reed maker based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Ariel holds three degrees in Bassoon Performance: a DMA from the University of Minnesota, an MM from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and a BM from DePauw University. Her primary teachers have included Norbert Nielubowski, William Ludwig and Kara Stolle. Ariel performs regularly as a freelance musician in various bands, orchestras, musical pits, and collaborates in many chamber music groups. An in-demand soloist, Ariel has recently performed three times with local groups. Ariel won the DePauw University Concerto competition in 2010, and in 2018 she won the second annual Wind Ensemble Concerto competition at the University of Minnesota; she then went on to perform as a soloist with the Encore Wind Ensemble and the Minnetonka Symphony Orchestra. With a lifelong passion for music education, she maintains her own private studio of more than 20 students and holds the position of adjunct professor of bassoon at two universities in Minnesota: Augsburg University and Northwestern University of St. Paul. As a doctoral student, she taught the Woodwind Techniques course for three years at the University of Minnesota. Ariel makes and sells high-quality handmade reeds under the name ACDC Reeds, which can be found at Midwest Musical Imports, Cadenza Music, Chemical City Reeds, Reed Supplies Canada, or here on her own website. Ariel is also a talented arranger. She frequentlywrites arrangements of film and popular music for mixed bassoon ensembles, including her unique Horn and Bassoon duo, Duo 231. You can find her arrangements by searching for her name on www.sheetmusicdirect.com.

Ariel’s teaching philosophy is centered around a positive music mindset and open awareness of oneself in order to become a master problem-solver. Her students are regularly chosen for honors ensembles and youth orchestras, with well-rounded technical abilities and a beautiful warm tone. Ariel’s passion is spreading the knowledge of the bassoon with those who don’t know much about the instrument, helping band directors recruit students, and creating access for students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to study the bassoon.

ACDC Reeds is a proud sponsor of many bassoon events and organizations, including the International Double Reed Society, Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and Symposium, Bassoons Without Borders, the Double Reed Dish Podcast, Nashville Yuletide Bassoons, and the Tennessee Tech Bassoon Forum. ACDC Reeds has been a vendor at Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and Symposium and MMEA Midwinter Clinic, supplying bassoon reeds and bassoon-themed gifts to all who need them. Ariel performs on a Puchner 5000 antique finish bassoon with a Heckel C2XL bocal.

Dr. Detwiler’s recital and visit is supported, in part, by the CVPA Inclusive Excellence Fund.

Steve Haines and Friends
2026-03-21 19:30 - 21:00 | Organ Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
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withJaninah Burnett, voiceThomas Heflin, trumpetAriel Pocock, pianoZaren Saddler, drums

Steve Haines (double bass) gratefully returns to playing and teaching after the repair of a heart aneurysm in August, 2025. This concert is dedicated to the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic as well as his incredibly supportive family. He has played with Wycliffe Gordon, Jason Marsalis, Jimmy Cobb, Ralph Bowen, Fred Wesley, and the Joey Calderazzo Trio & Quartet. His latest recordings are Swing State with Thomas Heflin, to be released shortly; Thomas Heflin’s Morning Star (Blue Canoe), alongside Greg Tardy and Mavis Poole; and with legendary drummer Joe Chambers on Samba De Maracatu (Blue Note). Steve has also written for Becca Stevens and full orchestra, heard on Steve Haines and the Third Floor Orchestra (Justin Time) which Japan’s Jazz Life Magazine calls “a masterpiece”. He also orchestrated and arranged the longstanding musical Ella: The Life and Music of Ella Fitzgerald. Steve’s primary teachers were Jeff Bradetich & Craig Butterfield in classical bass; and also Skip Beckwith & Lynn Seaton, who both studied extensively with Ray Brown. He and his wife Kim, who is the Dean of the Lloyd International Honors College, are the proud parents of three vivacious children, Ben, Violet, and Jimmy. Steve thanks God for his family, his health, and all the wonderful people around him.

SteveHaines.com

Lawrence Brownlee
2026-03-20 20:00 | Elliott University Center Auditorium, 507 Stirling St, Greensboro, 27402
Lawrence Brownlee is a leading figure in opera, both as a singer who has graced the world’s leading stages and as a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. Captivating audiences and critics around the globe, he has been hailed as “an international star in the bel canto operatic repertory” (New York Times), “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars” (The Guardian), and “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR).

In the 2024–2025 season, Mr. Brownlee makes his highly anticipated role debut in the title role of Mozart’s Mitridate, re di ponto with Boston Lyric Opera. He also returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Count Amaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia (broadcast Live in HD in theaters worldwide) and joins Opéra national de Paris as Tonio in La fille du régiment and Arturo in I puritani, as well as The New National Theatre in Tokyo as Count Almaviva, and Bayerische Staatsoper as Tonio. On the concert stage, Mr. Brownlee will join Levy Sekgapane in a duo concert with the Latvian National Orchestra, L’Auditori in the closing concert, and will embark on a recital tour featuring songs from his acclaimed Rising program across North America and Europe.

Highlights of Mr. Brownlee’s recent seasons include his return as Ernesto in Don Pasquale at Teatro alla Scala Milan and as Tonio in La fille du régiment at Lyric Opera Chicago, as well as his role debuts as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera, as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at The New National Theatre Tokyo, and Fernand in a new production of Donizetti’s La Favorite with Houston Grand Opera. In spring 2021, Brownlee joined The Juilliard School as a Distinguished Visiting Faculty Member. He serves as artistic advisor for Opera Philadelphia and is an Ambassador for Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited as well as Opera for Peace.

Orchestra/MezzUNCG Students$7.50UNCG Faculty/Staff$25.00Adults$45.00Seniors/Military$35.00Children (K-12)$10.00

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* Tickets to CVPA and UCLS events are sold exclusively through our box office locations and ETix website, and nowhere else. Tickets purchased through third-party vendors cannot be honored.

In recent years, Mr. Brownlee has emerged as a pivotal voice around equity and diversity in classical music. Mr. Brownlee works with companies and engages civic organizations in the cities he visits to create programs and experiences seeking to expand opera audiences. His critically acclaimed solo recital program Cycles of My Being, a song cycle that centers on the black male experience in America today, has toured extensively, including performances at Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and virtual broadcasts throughout 2020.

Mr. Brownlee is a Grand Prize Winner of the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including “Male Singer of the Year” (2017 International Opera Awards), the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Award, and the Opera News Award (2021). In October 2019, he had the distinct honor of singing at Jessye Norman’s funeral in her hometown of Augusta, Georgia.

In addition to public presentations, artists in the UCLS series have important interactions with UNCG students, such as holding masterclasses, talkback sessions, and seminars, often just hours before performing on stage. Thanks to a grant from The Cemala Foundation, some of these artists also work with K-12 students in the Guilford County Schools.

Symphony Orchestra
2026-03-04 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
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Jungho Kim, conductorSuyahan, morin khuur/horsehead fiddleSiana Wong, violin (First Prize Winner, Student Artist Competition)Hexigetu (Wenze), guest composerJordan Owen, graduate conductor

Program

CARL MARIA VON WEBER

Overture to Der Freischütz, op. 77

HEXIGETU (WENZE)

Horqin Rhapsodie

HEXIGETU (WENZE)

Capriccio on a Pastoral Theme for Horsehead Fiddle and Orchestra

world premiere

JEAN SIBELIUS

Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47, Movement I

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Academic Festival Overture, op. 80

About the Program
Overture to Der Freischütz, op. 77

The Opera

Carl Maria von Weber’s 1821 opera Der Freischütz (The Freeshooter) is widely recognized as the foundational work of German Romantic opera. Composed between 1817 and 1821 and premiered in Berlin, this three act Singspiel with spoken dialogue draws on German folk legend and early Romantic interests in the supernatural, the natural world, and the moral tension between good and evil. At its center is Max, a huntsman whose confidence and marksmanship fail him at the very moment he must win a shooting contest, declared by Cuno, Agathe’s father and hereditary forester, to marry Agathe and become his rightful successor. In his desperation to improve himself and secure his future, Max is persuaded by his brooding companion Caspar, who has already forfeited his soul to Samiel, the Black Huntsman, into entering a Faustian bargain. Together they summon seven magic bullets, six of which Max controls, while the seventh belongs to Samiel and will strike whatever target the demonic power chooses.

The Music

The Overture condenses the opera’s dramatic trajectory into a concentrated musical narrative that foregrounds its central moral question concerning the conflict between good and evil. It begins with broad orchestral gestures and a noble horn chorale that evoke the hunting community and the forest environment, before the atmosphere shifts suddenly with tremolo strings and a diminished seventh chord associated with Samiel’s diabolical presence. The principal fast section unfolds in sonata form. Its turbulent first theme, derived from Max’s Act I aria, reflects his unsettled and darker character as it moves from agitated C minor writing into a grim, marchlike quality. In contrast stands a luminous second theme in C major, taken from Agathe’s Act II aria, initially shaped by antiphonal exchanges between woodwinds, low strings, and brass that suggest lingering uncertainty. By the conclusion, however, C major ultimately prevails over C minor. Agathe’s loving and redemptive music triumphs over Samiel’s sinister influence, and the Overture, like the opera, resolves its opening question by affirming that love and grace overcome the forces of darkness.

Note by Jordan Owen

Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47

Jean Sibelius composed his Violin Concerto in D minor, op.47, between 1902 and 1904, marking his only completed foray into the genre due to a naturally solemn disposition. While encouraged by German virtuoso Willy Burmester to write the piece, Sibelius was forced by financial strain and personal turbulence to move the premiere to a date that Burmester could not accommodate, leading the offended violinist to never perform it. Over a barely audible murmur in the strings, the solo violin introduces the principal theme of the first movement, a dark, sighing idea that gradually gains intensity. The theme conveys both longing and passion and returns multiple times throughout the movement. The composer’s stylistic features are evident throughout, including somber orchestral colors, swelling brass chords, slow harmonic motion, and expressive melodic writing.

Note by Jordan Owen

Horqin Rhapsody for Orchestra

Horqin Rhapsody is an orchestral work composed in the Mongolian style. The music is magnificent and grand, characterized by a tempestuous performance that evokes the vast and majestic landscape of the grassland. The piece is divided into four sections:

Introduction: Ancient horns awaken the slumbering grassland.

First Section: Depicts a magnificent scene of herds of horses galloping across the plains, stirring and awe-inspiring.

Second Section: Portrays the profound and serene expanse of the grassland.

Third Section: Presents a vision of nature and humanity in perfect harmony, celebrating the passionate, unrestrained, and optimistic spirit of the grassland people in the face of hardship.

Horsehead Fiddle Concerto: Capriccio on a Pastoral Theme

Capriccio on a Pastoral Theme depicts the vast pastures, gentle winds, clear skies, and serene waters of the northern frontier of the motherland. The piece is composed in a rhapsodic style and free form. Its inspiration is drawn from the pastoral songs of the grassland, incorporating traditional Mongolian folk songs praising the Mongolian horse. The work skillfully blends the horsehead fiddle with symphonic accompaniment, celebrating the grassland people’s love for their homeland and their efforts in building a magnificent northern frontier. It also reflects their noble inner world, dedicated to ecological preservation and harmonious coexistence with nature.

Academic Festival Overture

Johannes Brahms came from a working-class family in Hamburg. Money was tight. To help make ends meet, Brahms quit school at fourteen and headed to the seaport to work as a barroom musician. Brahms was unlikely to attend University, however his duo-partner, the violinist Joseph Joachim, invited Brahms into University life, over a couple of summer months in Göttingen, while Joachim and his friends took Philosophy and History classes.(It was to Joachim that he would late dedicate his monumental violin concerto.) It was during these summer months that Brahms acquainted himself with beer halls and student drinking songs. By 1879, Brahms was an established composer when the University of Breslau presented Brahms with an honorary Doctor of Philosophy. In return, the University requested him to compose a piece as a musical “thank you”. Brahms did not appreciate this and instead of the traditional symphony the academics expected, they received a beautifully orchestrate medley of student drinking songs that has become one of Brahms’ best-known works. In Academic Festival Overture, Brahms skillfully weaves together four traditional beer-hall songs that would have been well-known to German university students of his era. The first, “Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus” (“We have built a stately house”) is a majestic trumpet chorale that carried significant political weight; associated with student groups advocating for German unification. This is followed by the lyrical “Der Landesvater” (“Father of our Country”) in the strings and the humorous, bassoon led “Was kommt dort von der Höh? (“What comes from afar?”), a lighthearted tune traditionally used during freshman initiations. The piece culminates in a triumphant full-orchestra rendition of “Gaudeamus igitur” (“Let us rejoice, therefore”) a popular 13th-century commencement song that elaborates the rowdy, carefree spirit of student life.

Note by Jordan Owen

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About Suyahan

“My grandfather and my great-grandfather played the Mongolian four-stringed fiddle, told Mongolian stories, and sang traditional songs in the village. Then, when I was nine, I first heard someone play the horsehead fiddle to accompany a folk song. From that moment I was deeply captivated by the sound! I fell in love with it!”

Born in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia, China to ethnic Mongolian parents, Suyahan was fascinated from a young age by the expressiveness of the Morin Khuur—(Horsehead Fiddle or Matou Qin). After undergraduate study, he went to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to complete his MM and then his DMA at the Mongolia National University of Education.

Prof. Suyahan has won numerous accolades for his performances in China, and he has received many teaching excellence awards from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region during his teaching at the Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities (IMUN).

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About Siana Wong

Siana Wong is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, with Malaysian heritage. Before attending college she was a member of the Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphony Youth Orchestras, winning their concerto competition and performing as a soloist with them. She pursued her Bachelor of Music degree at UNC Chapel Hill under the tutelage of Nicholas DiEugenio, as well as a BA in biology. During her time at Chapel Hill, Siana was also a winner of the concerto competition. Siana is an avid chamber music performer in and out of her home state of NC, including performances with EMF and UNCG faculty. Siana spent many summers at the Luby Violin Symposium at Chapel Hill, having the opportunity to learn from first-class violinists from around the globe. She has also attended the Instrumental Program of Chautauqua Institution and participated in master classes with Ana Luque, Shannon Thomas and others.

Siana is a member of Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Western Piedmont Symphony, and she has recently been appointed Associate Concertmaster of Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. In addition to her performing career, she enjoys teaching in her private studio.

Currently, Siana is extending her studies at UNCG, pursuing a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Performance Studies with Dr. Fabián López.

She plays on a Wojciech Topa violin from 2017.

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About Hexigetu (Wenze)

Hexigetu (Wenze) is a Doctor of Musical Composition, a professor and Master’s supervisor at Inner Mongolia Minzu University. He holds several prominent positions, including Vice Chairman of the Inner Mongolia Musicians Association, Deputy Director of the Autonomous Region’s Steering Committee for Aesthetic Education, Council Member of the Chinese Society for Minority Music, and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education’s Alliance for the Innovative Development of Art and Technology. He has been selected for the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region’s “New Century 321 Talent Project” and is recognized as an “Inner Mongolia Prairie Excellence” talent. He has published over 30 academic papers and musical works.

His orchestral work Sacrificial Praise was selected for the 4th China Symphony Music Season and won the Inner Mongolia “Sarina” Award. His orchestral compositions include Sacrificial Praise, Horqin Rhapsody, Distant Recollections, the symphonic chorus A Riguma, the musical Noligerma, the symphonic poem Sengge Rinchen, and the Horqin Banquet Music Collection, among others. His piano works include Variations on a Goose Theme, Western Capriccio, and Dance of Life (which received an entry award in the “San Carlo Cup” National Piano Composition Competition). His chamber work Blooming won the Excellence Award at the 2nd Chinese Minority Chamber Music Composition Competition. The songs Horqin Grassland and Years Like a Song won first and third prizes, respectively, in the National University Music Alliance Song Composition Competition. Horqin Grassland and Searching for That Piece of Grassland received the Inner Mongolia “Five Ones Project” Award. The mixed chorus You Are My Lifelong Pursuitwas selected for the National University Archives of Original Classics Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China. The work Grassland Cavalry was awarded the Outstanding Creative Work prize at the First Northeast China Three Provinces and One Region Education System Art Performance. He is also the author of monographs such as Practical Piano Textbook and Horqin Rhapsody.

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UNCG Orchestras
The vibrant UNCG Orchestra program has long been recognized for performance excellence, adventurous programming, and high artistic standards. A diversity of offerings allow students the opportunity to perform repertoire for ensembles ranging from the largest cornerstone and contemporary works for full orchestra, to intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, to string orchestra.

Students in the UNCG Orchestra program are dedicated to the performance, study and cultivation of orchestral music of the highest quality. The UNCG Orchestras offer outstanding performances throughout the year and enhance the institutional spirit and community of UNCG. We seek to promote music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by supporting secondary school orchestra programs and other organizations through our outreach activities and other annual events on campus.

UNCG Orchestras

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Symphonic Band
2026-03-03 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/dF-pAABLE58

Jonathan Caldwell, conductorAbigail Pack, hornMolly Allman, graduate conductor

Program

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMSFolk Song Suite (1924)

March, Seventeen Come SundayIntermezzo, My Bonny BoyMarch, Folk Songs from Somerset

CATHERINE LIKHUTASure-fire (2023)

THÉO SCHMITTNetworks (2023)

About the Program

About the Artists
Abigail Pack

Dr. Abigail Pack, Professor of Horn at UNCG and a native of Roanoke, Virginia, received her training from East Carolina University (BMA), University of Iowa (MM), and University of Wisconsin-Madison (DMA) where she was a Bolz Teaching Fellow. Before assuming her current position at UNCG she was horn faculty at James Madison University from 2001 to 2008. She has also been on faculty at Knox College in Galesburg, Il, Western State College in Gunnison, CO and in the Gunnison Watershed School District. An avid symphony player Dr. Pack has held positions with the Barton Symphony Orchestra, Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Green-Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and currently has a position with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest Chamber Orchestra, the Greensboro Opera, Amici Musicorum (chamber orchestra), and the Opera Roanoke Orchestra. Other orchestral subbing engagements include the Greensboro Symphony, Winston Salem Symphony, and the Charlotte Symphony. Other venues have included performances with the Western Piedmont Wind Symphony, North Carolina Brass Band, the Iowa Brass Quintet, Western Slope Brass Band, and Massanutten Brass Band. Performance and presentation highlights include the National Flute Association (Washington DC with the Montpelier Winds), the International Horn Symposium (University of Cape Town, South Africa, Ithaca, NY, Montreal, Canada), the International Midwest Band and Orchestra Conference (Chicago 2009, 2022), International Double Reed Society (Athens, GA), Western International Band Clinic (2022), the American Band College (2017, 2021, 2024) and The Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts (Washington). She is a founding member of System 5 Brass Quintet and CORalina Horn Quartet and can be heard on the Centaur label.

UNCG Bands
The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.

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Sinfonia: Folk Tunes and Folk Tales
2026-03-02 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/K96dBkh7A6I

Scott Glasser, conductorJennifer Aikey, graduate conductorJordan Owen, graduate conductor

Program

HEINRICH IGNAZ FRANZ BIBERBattalia

Sonata: The Gathering of the MusketeersThe Profligate Society of Common HumourAllegroThe MarchPrestoAriaThe BattleThe Lament of the Wounded

TRADITIONAL KOREAN FOLK SONGAhrirang (Traditional Korean Folk Song)

PERCY E. FLETCHERFolk Tune and Fiddle Dance

KIRT MOSIERTwo Scenes from the Hollow

Ichabod’s WalkHessian’s Ride

About the Program

About the Artists

Lorena Guillén, voice and artistic directorAlejandro Rutty, piano and bass Jacqui Carrasco, violinGuy Capuzzo, guitarAdam Ricci, pianoErik Schmidt, percussion

With its mesmerizing style and sound, the award-winning Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble has captivated audiences with soulful arrangements of Argentine tango standards and original compositions that create a dynamic tango and pan-Latin fusion since 2015. The musicians in the group each have rich and extensive experience in Argentine tango, jazz, classical and contemporary music, and other world and popular music styles, all of which can be heard on their two albums, Exótica Flor (2023) and The Other Side of My Heart (2018), both available on all streaming platforms.

“Not Your Average Folk Contest 2021″ Grand Prize Winner (NC Folk Festival) and “World Music” category winner of Music-At-the-Museum Contest 2021 (NC Museum of Art), the Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble has been featured on TV performances for NC PBS channel and Fox8News as well as live radio programs such as WUNC’s “The State of Things” with Frank Stasio (NPR affiliate in Chapel Hill, NC), KUNM’s “Corazón Tanguero” with Cristina Baccin (NPR affiliate in Albuquerque, NM), WFDD “Triad Arts” (Winston Salem, NC), “Musicaldo” (KGLP 91.7, Gallup, NM), and Radio DAMus (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Over the years, the ensemble has presented its music at various venues: Kleinhans Music Hall (Buffalo, NY), MusicBox Theater and Folk Research Center (Saint Lucia, West Indies), Frick Museum Summer Concerts (PA), Center Stage Series at the Sangre de Cristo Auditorium (CO), Winston-Salem’s FIESTA Festival, Music Carolina SummerFest, NC Museum of Art, Greensboro’s NC Folk Festival, Creative Greensboro Concert Series, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum Summer Concert Series, Western Piedmont Symphony Concert Series, and Los Angeles’ Alvas Showroom (Los Angeles, CA).

This September 2023, the LGTE will embark on their first concert tour to Argentina, with shows at various venues and a featured presentation at the Familia Club Atlético Fernández Fierro Tango Festival.

The group frequently collaborates with regional Latino organizations, tango-dance organizations and youth orchestras and choirs. The Other Side of My Heart reflects that commitment: an oral-history multi-media piece based on interviews with Latina immigrants to NC. In the Embrace of Tango Project explored the crossed-path between Argentine tango and Jewish-diaspora culture and involved workshops with the Triangle-Jewish-Chorale, the UNCG University Chorale, and Durham-Tango-Dance.

Many of these creative initiatives have been generously funded by grants from the following organizations, which have supported the group’s creation of original works, audio recording, video recording, and implementation of workshops: ArtsGreensboro “Regional Artist Project,” NC arts Council, New-Music USA, and “EDI Grant” from the UNCG College of Visual and performing Arts.

UNCG Orchestras
The vibrant UNCG Orchestra program has long been recognized for performance excellence, adventurous programming, and high artistic standards. A diversity of offerings allow students the opportunity to perform repertoire for ensembles ranging from the largest cornerstone and contemporary works for full orchestra, to intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, to string orchestra.

Students in the UNCG Orchestra program are dedicated to the performance, study and cultivation of orchestral music of the highest quality. The UNCG Orchestras offer outstanding performances throughout the year and enhance the institutional spirit and community of UNCG. We seek to promote music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by supporting secondary school orchestra programs and other organizations through our outreach activities and other annual events on campus.

UNCG Orchestras

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Wind Ensemble
2026-02-27 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/KhTlxcXD6PE

Robert Young

John R. Locke

Sarah McKoin

William L. Lake, Jr.

Carolina Band Festival and Conductors Conference

Jonathan Caldwell, conductorRobert Young, saxophoneJohn R. Locke, guest conductorSarah McKoin, guest conductorWilliam L. Lake, Jr., guest conductor

Program

JOHN PHILIP SOUSASesquicentennial Exposition March (1926)

CAROLYN BREMEREarly Light (1999)

INGOLF DAHLConcerto for Saxophone and Wind Orchestra (1949/1953)

Recitative Adagio Rondo alla Marcia: Allegro brioso

MORTON GOULDYankee Doodle (1945)

LEONARD BERNSTEIN Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (1960)transcribed by Paul Lavender

About the Program
Sesquicentennial Exposition March

John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), America’s most celebrated band composer of his era, is widely known as the “March King.” Through his military band marches, he helped define the sound and identity of American band music at the turn of the twentieth century.

Born in Washington, DC, to a trombonist in the US Marine Band, Sousa was immersed in music from childhood. He trained as a violinist, studied composition, and at thirteen enlisted in the Marine Corps as an apprentice musician. After years as a theater conductor and performer, he returned in 1880 to lead the US Marine Band, a post he held until 1892. He then formed the Sousa Band, which toured internationally for nearly four decades, presenting more than 15,000 concerts.

Sousa composed 136 marches, along with operettas, dances, and songs, admired for their energy, craftsmanship, and expressive range. His most famous work, The Stars and Stripes Forever, later designated the national march of the United States, was the final piece he conducted before his death in 1932.

Commissioned in honor of the 150th anniversary of American independence, Sesquicentennial Exposition March was designated the official march of the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition. Dedicated to Philadelphia mayor W. Freeland Kendrick, the march received its premiere on the opening concert of the Sousa Band’s thirty-fourth annual tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1926, alongside premieres of Pride of the Wolverines and The Gridiron Club. The work captures the spirit of the struggle for American independence: its opening strain evokes the fiery resolve of revolutionary-era debate, with woodwinds and brass set in opposition to suggest conflicting viewpoints throughout, before converging in a unified, triumphant conclusion.

Early Light

Carolyn Bremer forged a path as a composer after extensive training as a double bass player. She studied at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, the California Institute of Arts in Santa Clarita, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, and later in her career served as associate director of the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach. She composed Early Light for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, which premiered the work in 1995. Its musical material is derived primarily from “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In this bright and uplifting piece, Bremer—a passionate baseball fan since childhood—frames her excitement at hearing the national anthem before ball games. The percussive slapheard near the end echoes the crack of the bat on a long home run.

Concerto for Saxophone and Wind Orchestra

Ingolf Dahl conceived of his Concerto for Saxophone and Wind Orchestra in 1948 after receiving a letter from saxophone virtuoso Sigurd Rascher expressing interest in a large-scale work for saxophone. Rascher proposed the idea that the accompaniment should be scored so it could be performed with either band or orchestra, but Dahl quickly abandoned the idea of the orchestra, scoring it solely for band. Excited by the challenge of writing a new work for band, Dahl remarked, “Somebody has to write the big pieces, the symphonic works, if the medium is to be elevated.” The concerto, initially titled Fantasy, was conceived as a one-movement piece in three sections: recitative, arioso, and allegro. Later, Dahl transformed the work into a multi-movement piece.

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra was finished and premiered in May of 1949 by Rascher and the University of Illinois Concert Band. Dahl soon realized that Rascher was the only saxophonist in the world able to play the concerto due to its utilization of the very high “altissimo” register. This led to the concerto’s first revision in 1953, in which the third movement was substantially rewritten to give the soloist an alternative to the altissimo passages. A third revision was made in 1959, which included the removal of several sections, shortening the piece to about three quarters of its original length. As for the differences between the original and published versions, saxophone historian Paul Cohen writes: “When listening to the revised version of the concerto in comparison to the original, it is clear that Dahl was operating from a different compositional perspective.” This evening, we will perform the 1959 version.

Henry Cowell told Dahl that his concerto was “one of the most important and well-written band pieces he had ever seen.” One of Dahl’s closest contemporaries, Igor Stravinsky, was so moved by the piece that it brought him to tears. Within a decade of Dahl’s completion, the Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra was performed by an extensive list of collegiate and professional ensembles, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Orchestra remains one of Dahl’s most frequently performed works.

Yankee Doodle

In 1945, the final year of World War II, Morton Gould created a joyful setting of a tune that can be traced back to the very founding of our country and beyond, the iconic “Yankee Doodle.” Although there is incontrovertible evidence that the tune was in use at the time of the Revolution, its origins remain shrouded in mystery. Countries including England, France, Holland, and the United States have laid claim to it, and a definitive answer as to the source of the melody itself may never be known. The lyrics, however, can be traced back to the French and Indian War (1754–63). Although the British were fighting alongside colonial soldiers in this conflict, they had nothing but contempt for the unprofessional appearance and undisciplined bearing of their American cousins. Dr. Richard Schuckburgh, a British Army surgeon assigned to duty with the colonials in Albany, New York, found their shabby appearance so amusing that he penned the lyrics most associated with the melody today. Although his words were designed to insult the Yankees (“Doodle” is a Low German word meaning “fool”), by the time of the Revolutionary War Americans had come to embrace the song as their own. According to Moore’s Encyclopedia of Music, “When the battle of Concord and Lexington began the war, the English, when advancing in triumph, played along the road “God Save the King,” but, on their disastrous retreat, the Americans struck up “Yankee Doodle.”

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

A child of the Jazz Age, Leonard Bernstein grafted George Gershwin’s Russian immigrant roots onto Cole Porter’s Ivy League education (Harvard, for Bernstein). His protean career developed very quickly: his famous debut conducting the New York Philharmonic on short notice in a nationally broadcast concert in November 1943 was followed the next year by the premieres of his First Symphony (“Jeremiah”) with the Pittsburgh Symphony; his ballet Fancy Free, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, at the Metropolitan Opera; and his Broadway musical On the Town.

In 1955-57, Bernstein wrote the musical West Side Story, the work that would ensure his fame as a composer. Then—after a New York run of almost two years (772 performances) and a national tour—in the opening weeks of 1960, Bernstein revisited his score for West Side Story and extracted nine sections to assemble into the Symphonic Dances. They premiered at a “Valentine for Leonard Bernstein” gala concert by the New York Philharmonic (a fundraiser for the orchestra’s pension fund) under Lukas Foss’ direction, on February 13, 1961.

The stylistic diversity within the Symphonic Dances is partially created by the juxtaposition of classical techniques (fugue, etc.) with dance rhythms and jazz syncopations. However, the essence of the entire score is that most prominent opening melodic figure of “Maria” (C-F sharp-G), with its characteristic tritone interval. The suite ends, like the musical itself, on edge, with an evocative chord containing the same interval.

The crucial role of dance in West Side Story added to the challenge of adapting the music for the concert platform. The orchestrations call for vibrant instrumental combinations and a huge percussion section (not to mention the vocal talents of the orchestra members!) to enhance the kinetic quality of the rhythms. More deeply, they tilt the narrative weight from a love story to gang conflict. We hear first the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, then the utopian opposite; their juxtaposition creates a dramatic tension that shapes the entire work. The printed score includes the following descriptions:

Prologue (Allegro moderato)—The growing rivalry between two teenage street gangs, the Jets and Sharks.

“Somewhere” (Adagio)—In a visionary dance sequence, the two gangs are united in friendship.

Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero)—In the same dream, they break through the city walls and suddenly find themselves in a world of space, air, and sun.

Mambo (Meno presto)—Reality again; competitive dance between the gangs.

Cha-cha (Andantino con grazia)—The star-crossed lovers [Tony and Maria] see each other for the first time and dance together.

Meeting Scene (Meno mosso)—Music accompanies their first spoken words.

Cool Fugue (Allegretto)—An elaborate dance sequence in which the Jets practice controlling their hostility.

Rumble (Molto allegro)—Climactic gang battle during which the two gang leaders are killed.

Finale (Adagio)—Love music developing into a procession, which recalls, in tragic reality, the vision of “Somewhere.”

About the Soloist
Robert Young

Fueled by a deep desire to create an enthusiasm surrounding the classical saxophone, Robert Young connects with audiences with his musicianship, virtuosity, and authenticity. Praised for his “effortless expression and facile technique” (The Saxophonist Magazine), Robert maintains an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. His artistry has afforded him opportunities to appear with ensembles and musicians from across the globe including the PRISM Quartet, The Crossing, Chris Potter, Ravi Coltrane, Uri Caine, Charlotte Symphony, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and the Charleston (SC) Symphony Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, Robert collaborated with The Crossing and performed alongside the PRISM Quartet on the GRAMMY Award-winning album Gavin Bryars: The Fifth Century (available on ECM Recordings). The New York Times praised the collective performance on this album as “superb”and “eloquent.” Young has appeared with the PRISM Quartet on numerous concerts including residencies at the Curtis Institute, Shepherd School of Music (Rice University), and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He can be heard on several albums with this notable ensemble including The Curtis Project, Heritage/Evolution, Volume 2, and The Book of Days.

Appearing with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra as soloist in the 2023-24 season, he was hailed as “uncommonly expressive…and technically prodigious” (San Francisco Classical Voice) for his performance of Guillaume Connesson’s acrobatic concerto, A Kind of Trane. He has also been a soloist with the United States Navy Band, performing Quicksilver by Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop, and has been featured as a soloist with the Rock Hill Symphony Orchestra, Piedmont Wind Symphony, UNCSA Symphony, and Zagreb Soloists (Croatia).

Robert holds a teaching position at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Saxophone. Young’s students have received honors at several local, regional and national competitions and have been featured at several clinics and conferences throughout the country. He previously has served on the faculties of the UNC School of the Arts, The Crane School of Music – SUNY Potsdam, and Wichita State University. Young is often invited to give guest lectures and classes throughout the country. In Fall 2022, Robert was invited as be a guest teacher for the renowned University of Michigan saxophone studio as a sabbatical replacement for the award-winning saxophonist Timothy McAllister.

Robert earned his Doctor of Musical Arts (2011) and Master of Music (2008) degrees in saxophone performance from the University of Michigan where he studied with Professor Donald Sinta. At the University of Michigan, he studied jazz saxophone with Dr. Andrew Bishop and was a recipient of the Lawrence Teal Fellowship. Young received a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina (2006) in saxophone performance where he studied with Dr. Clifford Leaman.

As a Conn-Selmer Artist, Robert Young plays exclusively on Selmer saxophones. He also serves as a D’Addario artist/clinician and endorses Key Leaves products.

About the Wind Ensemble

The UNCG Wind Ensemble is the premier wind band of the UNCG School of Music, uniting fifty outstanding musicians from across the United States and around the world. Its members—ranging from first‑year undergraduates to master’s and doctoral students in performance and music education—are selected through a highly competitive audition process. Ensemble musicians regularly earn top solo and chamber awards, competitive scholarships and fellowships, and professional positions in orchestras, military bands, teaching, and arts leadership. Current students represent seventeen states, Slovenia, and Hong Kong.

For decades, the ensemble has built a distinguished record of artistic excellence, with acclaimed performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, and leading venues throughout the eastern United States. Its catalog of more than twenty commercial recordings has received national recognition and helped position UNCG as a leader in wind band performance, commissioning, and recording.

The Wind Ensemble has been featured at major national and regional conferences of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), National Band Association (NBA), American Bandmasters Association (ABA), and Music Educators National Conference (MENC). The ensemble has also collaborated with prominent composers and performers, including Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Karel Husa and other influential figures in the field.

Recent highlights include performances at the Music Center at Strathmore; a joint concert with the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own”; a twelve‑day international tour through the Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy, culminating in a featured performance at Prague’s renowned Dvořák Hall; and a tour of the Southern United States that concluded with an appearance at the national conference of the College Band Directors National Association.

UNCG Bands
The UNCG Bands are devoted to the performance, study, and advancement of wind band music at the highest artistic level. Recognized as one of the nation’s premier collegiate band programs, the UNCG Bands maintain an active and distinguished record of excellence through performances, recordings, tours, and appearances at major conventions.

Through exemplary organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands offer exceptional musical experiences for our members and share outstanding performances throughout the year. Together, we enrich the cultural life, spirit, and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands also proudly support music education across North Carolina and throughout the region by providing leadership, mentorship, and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other musical organizations.

UNCG Bands

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Michaela Kelly, soprano
2026-02-22 15:30 - 17:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/1XvyOXeJuEA

Soprano, researcher, and teacher Michaela Kelly is currently Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously, Kelly taught as lecturer at Scripps College and Chapman University in Southern California. Kelly was a recipient of the 2024 Emerging Leader Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and recently served as Vice President of Programs for NATS-Los Angeles.

Her article “The Composition of a Voice Lesson: How a Motor Learning Classification Framework Affects Teacher Effectiveness” was published in the May/June 2025 edition of the Journal of Singing. She will present her research in the fall of 2025 at the Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA) Conference hosted in Mexico City. Kelly was a presenter at the Cal-Western NATS Conference and poster presenter at the NATS National Conference where she shared her paper, “What Is in a Voice Lesson Anyway?” which analyzes the contents of a voice lesson through the lens of motor learning.

A flexible and dynamic performer, Kelly has most recently sung with the Los Angeles Opera Chorus and Los Angeles Master Chorale. She is an avid recitalist and passionate about Art Song. She was a recipient of the inaugural American Art Song Prize at SongFest where she performed a recital curated and coached by Libby Larsen, John Musto, and Martha Guth. She has performed as a recitalist at Toronto Summer Music Festival, the Classical Music Institute, Source Song Festival, and has appeared as a soloist with the Claremont Concert Orchestra, Thornton Wind Ensemble, I Cantori di Carmel, New England Conservatory Opera, and NEC Choirs and Orchestra.

Dr. Kelly holds a Bachelor of Music (BM) in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a Master of Music (MM) in Vocal Pedagogy from the New England Conservatory, and a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Vocal Performance from the University of Southern California.

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Stone's Throw Quartet
2026-02-19 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/wS69gfAWwlo

Dan Hartung, percussionMK Phillips, percussionLouis Raymond-Kolker, percussionAlex Richard, percussion

withCarey Harwood, guitarAjai Shaw, itótele

About the Artists
Dan Hartung is the Assistant Professor of Music, Percussion Coordinator, and Assistant Director of Bands at Elon University. He was recently the Percussion Director of the Tarpon Springs Leadership Conservatory for the Arts and is also the founder and artistic director of the Austin Percussion Collective (APC).

Dan has a longstanding commitment to commissioning new music. He has commissioned over 20 new works by prominent composers including Ian Whillock, Darian Thomas, Sophie Mathieu, Ivan Trevino, and Louis Raymond-Kolker. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician with APC, Density512, Flat Water Trio, and LNK Percussion Collective. He has also served as principal percussionist for The Orchestra San Antonio, Opera San Antonio, Ballet San Antonio, and the Classical Music Institute Orchestra for the Andrea Bocelli World Tour.

Since 2014, Dan has been an active marching percussion educator working with some of the foremost high school and collegiate programs across the country. In 2017, he marched snare drum with the Troopers Drum and Bugle Corps and has taught such schools as James Bowie High School, Vista Ridge High School, Gretna High School, Michigan State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and many more.

Dan is passionate about studying Afro-Diasporic percussion. He has studied Afro-Cuban percussion genres in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba with renowned musicians Octavio Rodríguez Rivera, Miguel Bernal, Michel Aldalma, Miguelito León, and members of the Latin Grammy Award winning Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Additionally, he has performed with the Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba group Tambores del Pueblo, the Austin West African Drum and Dance Company, and he participates in Afro-Venezuelan Tambor celebrations with San Juan USA in New York, NY and Miami, FL.

Dan has earned degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (D.M.A.), Michigan State University (M.M.) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (B.M.E.). He has been fortunate to study with some of the foremost collegiate educators including Dave Hall, Gwen Dease, Jon Weber, Kevin “Bujo” Jones, Ivan Trevino, Richard Huntley, and Tom Burritt. Dan is an endorsing education artist for Vic Firth sticks and mallets and Zildjian cymbals and a member of the Black Swamp Percussion Educator Network.

MK Phillips is a dynamic North Carolina-based percussionist and educator, currently serving as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Percussion at Wake Forest University, Adjunct Professor of Percussion at Winston-Salem State University, and Lecturer of Percussion at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). An active performer and clinician, MK has appeared as a guest artist, adjudicator, and clinician at universities, high schools, and conferences nationwide. They have also performed extensively at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC).

MK earned a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where they were recently recognized with the 2024–2025 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. They hold a Master of Music degree from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, as well as dual Bachelor’s degrees in Music Education and Music Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

An advocate for new music, MK has recently commissioned and/or premiered works by composers including Annika Socolofsky, Nick Werth, Russell Wharton, Von Hansen, Ivan Trevino, Michael Burritt, Robert Honstein, Katherine Bodor, Rob Rankin, and Isaac Pyatt. As a chamber musician, they have performed at Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) with InBloom Percussion (2019), the Indiana University Percussion Ensemble (2018), the PAS All-Star Ensemble (2015), and the UNCG Percussion Ensemble (2015).

As an orchestral musician, MK has also performed with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, Western Piedmont Symphony, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Piedmont Wind Symphony, North Carolina Brass Band, Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Davidson SCORE, Piedmont Opera, and the Greensboro Opera.

McKayla Phillips proudly endorses Black Swamp Percussion, Vic Firth, Balter Mallets, and Zildjian.

Louis Raymond-Kolker is a composer and percussionist from Austin, Texas. He is a member of Inside Out Steelband, Larkspur Percussion Duo, and the Austin Percussion Collective. He teaches percussion, composition, and music theory at High Point University.

Louis actively works to facilitate the creation and performance of new music, and foster connections between composers, performers, and audiences. His compositions blend a sense of sentimentality, vivid imagery, and treating silly things seriously (and vice versa). As a performer, Louis specializes on steelpan, the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, and regularly premieres new works for instruments in the steelpan family.

Louis is a member of the Dream Educators Collective and the Black Swamp Percussion Educator Network. His compositions are published through C. Alan Publications, Boxfish Music Publishing, and his website, louisraymondkolker.com.

Alex Richard is a percussion teacher and freelance artist based in Winston-Salem, NC. She currently serves as a Percussion Instructor for the Elon Marching Band, and serves as an Adjunct Instructor teaching drumset, American music history, and musical communication at High Point University. Alex has a vested interest in new and popular music, and how those intersect to inform contemporary performance. As an advocate for new music, Alex regularly commissions and joins consortium efforts for new and exciting percussion works. In the Fall of 2025, she performed Thierry De Mey’s Silence Must Be! as a part of the PASIC New Music Focus Day, and in Fall of 2024, she performed alongside several PAS North Carolina members, presenting accessible modern percussion ensemble works at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference.

Alex received her M.M. in Percussion Performance from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, studying with Dr. Dave Hall, and her B.M. in Music Education from The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, studying with Dr. Andrew Bliss and Keith Brown. She currently serves as the Secretary for the North Carolina Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society, and spends her free time baking and hanging out with her small gray cat, Bubbles.

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Michael Ippolito: The Seeds
2026-02-10 17:30 - 19:00 | Organ Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
withProf. Lindsay Kesselman, sopranoDr. Scott Rawls, violaDr. Annie Jeng, pianoMichael Ippolito, composer

Program

MICHAEL IPPOLITO with texts by Ceily ParksThe Seeds (2025)

This commission was made possible by funding from the Dean’s Research Initiative Fund.

About the Composer

Praised by the New York Times for his “polished orchestration” that “glitters, from big-shoulders brass to eerily floating strings,” Michael Ippolito’s music has been performed by leading musicians in venues around the world. Drawing on a rich musical background of classical and folk music, and inspired by visual art, literature, and other art forms, Ippolito has forged a distinctive musical voice in a body of work spanning orchestral, chamber, and vocal music.

His orchestral music has been conducted by Edo de Waart, Marin Alsop, and Michael Francis in performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and the Florida Orchestra. His chamber music has been performed by the Miro Quartet, Attacca Quartet, and Altius Quartet. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall and Chamber Music America.

Ippolito is currently Professor of Composition at Texas State University. He studied with John Corigliano at The Juilliard School and with Joel Hoffman and Michael Fiday at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

About the Artists

Recent and upcoming highlights include performances of Darkening, then Brightening by Christopher Cerrone across the country, premieres of wind transcriptions of Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose and Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, The Treachery of Sounds by Steven Bryant with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Energy in All Directions by Kenneth Frazelle with Sandbox Percussion at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the role of Anna in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with the Charlotte Symphony, a leading role in Louis Andriessen’s opera Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Dutch National Opera and an international tour of Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble (2012-2015).

Kesselman is Assistant Professor of Voice and Choral Music at UNC Greensboro and co-directs the Heretic’s Guide to Musicianship with Kevin Noe. More info can be found at: www.lindsaykesselman.com

Violist Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe.  Recent chamber music endeavors include performances with Anthony McGill, Branford Marsalis, Sergey Antonov, Michelle Cann and the Reynolda Quartet.  With the Nikkanen/Rawls/Bailey string trio, he has played tours in Alaska, Washington, Arizona and Texas.  His solo and chamber music recordings can be heard on the Centaur, CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels.

A strong proponent of new music, Rawls has premiered dozens of new works by prominent

composers.  Most notable, he has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians.  As the violist in this ensemble, he performed the numerous premieres of Daniel Variations, The Cave and Three Tales by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d’Automne a Paris, Holland Festival, Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

Under the baton of maestro Christopher Dragon, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.  During the summer season, Rawls plays principal in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program.  He was also appointed principal viola of the Palm Beach Opera orchestra, David Stern artistic director.

Dr. Rawls currently serves as Marion Stedman Covington Distinguished Professor of Viola and Chamber Music and String Area Chair at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, John Graham and Julius Levine.

Hailed for her “brilliant pianism” (Gramophone) and “acrobatic” performances (Take Effect), Taiwanese-American pianist Annie Jeng has performed widely as a solo and chamber musician in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Annie has commissioned and premiered dozens of new solo and chamber works, and is the pianist of contemporary chamber ensemble, Khemia Ensemble (khemiaensemble.com). The ensemble recently released their sophomore album, “Intersections,” with Parma Recordings. She is the Founder of A Seat at the Piano (ASAP) (aseatatthepiano.com), a non-profit that is dedicated to the promotion of inclusion in the performance and study of solo piano repertoire, and recipient of the 2023 MTNA Frances Clark Award for Keyboard Pedagogy. Annie is the co-creator of the Frances Clark Center online course “Hidden Gems: Four Centuries of Piano Music by Women Composers” and the writer for the column, “Teaching Tomorrow Today” published in American Music Teachers journal. This summer, she is on faculty at Nief-Norf Summer Music Festival, as well as Mosaic Music Festival, a new festival that she co-founded located in Pesaro, Italy that empowers emerging pianists to deepen their musical excellence through wellness, piano pedagogy, and lifelong musicianship. Annie has presented at Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) conferences at collegiate, state, and national levels, The National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP), and College Music Society (CMS) conferences. She served as the President of Greensboro Music Teachers Association (GMTA) from 2022-2025 and now serves on the board for the North Carolina Music Teachers Association (NCMTA). Annie received her DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Michigan, where she also received her MM. She earned her BM in Piano Performance with a minor in Public Health from New York University. She is currently Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (www.anniejeng.com)

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Student Artist Competition Finals
2026-01-20 17:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
TimeContestantRepertoire5:30 pmMonica Espindola-MataMiguel Meneses“Fin de miei primi anni… Pietà di me” from Luisa de la Vallière, s.d.W.A. Mozart“Giunse alfin il momento/ Deh vieni, non tardar” from Le nozze de FigaroF. Moreno Torroba“Petenera” from La Marchenera5:43 pmYi-Ju ShihPytor Ilyich TchaikovskyViolin Concerto in D Major, op. 35, Mvts. II and III5:56 pmZy’Miracle KearneyGustave CharpentierDepuis le jour6:09 pmChris WalkerFrigyes Hidas Euphoniada6:22 pmJoeli Schilling Joel Puckett The Shadow of Sirius6:35 pmAngelus Matthew RoxasGeorge GershwinPiano Concerto in F, Mvt. I6:48 pmMelissa Bonilla ParraCecil ForsythViola Concerto in G minor, Mvt. I7:01 pmNinon KirchmanAleksandra PakhmutovaConcerto for Trumpet and Orchestra7:14 pm 7:27 pm 7:40 pmDylan RoyalAlexander GlazunovConcerto for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra in E-flat Major, op. 1097:53 pmHayley JensenKevin DayUnquiet Waters

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Leslie Odom Jr.
2026-01-10 20:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
Leslie Odom Jr. is a multifaceted Tony- and Grammy-Award-Winning, three-time Emmy- and two-time Academy Award-nominated vocalist, songwriter, actor, and New York Times bestselling author. With a career that spans all performance genres, Odom has received recognition for his excellence and achievements in Broadway, television, film, and music. Most recently, Odom made his long-awaited return to Broadway starring in, and co-producing, the new Broadway production of the classic American comedy Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch by the legendary Ossie Davis, which opened in September 2023 to widespread critical acclaim. Odom was nominated for Lead Actor in a Play for his role, and the play received six nominations in total. Purlie Victorious was also recorded and aired as part of PBS’s Great Performances series.

Additionally, he starred in the highly anticipated sequel to the original iconic film The Exorcist for Blumhouse and Universal Pictures. Odom recently starred in Rian Johnson’s 2022 Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which broke records for Netflix and is currently streaming worldwide. In 2020, he starred as legendary singer Sam Cooke in the award-winning Amazon film adaptation of One Night in Miami…, directed by Regina King. His critically acclaimed and highly lauded portrayal of the soul icon and musical performance of original song “Speak Now” earned him multiple awards and nominations. He also starred in The Many Saints of Newark, a prequel to David Chase’s award-winning HBO series The Sopranos, released in October 2021.

Well-known for his breakout role as “Aaron Burr” in the smash hit Broadway musical Hamilton, Odom hosted “The Tony Awards Present: Broadway’s Back!” on CBS in September 2021 (2022 Emmy nomination). Additional film and television credits include Apple TV+’s Central Park (2020 Emmy nomination), Hamilton on Disney+ (2021 Emmy nomination), Abbott Elementary, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, Love in the Time of Corona, Harriet, and many more. Co-written with Nicolette Robinson, Odom’s first children’s book, I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know, was published by Feiwel & Friends on March 28, 2023. The book debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at #7 in its first week. Odom is a BMG recording artist and has released five full-length albums. His fifth studio album, When A Crooner Dies, was released on November 17, 2023.

Orchestra/MezzBalconyUNCG Students$7.50$7.50UNCG Faculty/Staff$25.00$25.00Adults$75.00$60.00Seniors/Military$65.00$50.00Children (K-12)$40.00$25.00

PURCHASE TICKETS

* Tickets to CVPA and UCLS events are sold exclusively through our box office locations and ETix website, and nowhere else. Tickets purchased through third-party vendors cannot be honored.

In addition to public presentations, artists in the UCLS series have important interactions with UNCG students, such as holding masterclasses, talkback sessions, and seminars, often just hours before performing on stage. Thanks to a grant from The Cemala Foundation, some of these artists also work with K-12 students in the Guilford County Schools.

Christian Sands
2025-11-21 19:30 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
Christian Sands, Jazz Pianist | Performing with Janinah Burnett Band & Terreon Gully

Christian Sands stands at the forefront of a new generation of jazz innovators, blending agile post-bop with soulful blues, cinematic orchestration, and an emotional depth that speaks directly to the human experience. A five-time recording artist for Mack Avenue Records and a GRAMMY nominee for Be Water, Sands returns with Embracing Dawn — a bold, deeply personal exploration of heartbreak, healing, and hope. Crafted during a time of profound personal loss, Embracing Dawn offers a journey through the stages of grief, inviting listeners into a space of connection and renewal.

Orchestra/MezzStudents$6.00Adults$12.00Seniors$9.00

PURCHASE TICKETS

* Tickets to CVPA and UCLS events are sold exclusively through our box office locations and ETix website, and nowhere else. Tickets purchased through third-party vendors cannot be honored.

Praised by The New York Times for his “crisp but forceful touch” and his genre-defying approach, Sands draws from a lifetime of musical influences, from gospel and classical music to the cinematic scores that first captured his imagination. Mentored by jazz greats Christian McBride and Dr. Billy Taylor, Sands brings a spirit of authenticity and inclusivity to every note he plays. With Embracing Dawn, he extends an open hand to anyone navigating loss — a reminder that music, like dawn itself, offers the promise of new beginnings.

Robinson Family Visiting Jazz Artists

A residency made possible by the Robinson Family Fund, established by Ward Robinson (’19 PBC Jazz, ’10 MPH) and Pamela Pittman, is bringing two jazz luminaries to UNCG’s School of Music this year. Pianist Christian Sands and bassist John Clayton will come to Greensboro for residencies with students and concerts which will be open to the public.

Wind Ensemble
2025-11-20 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/hztl84uanQ0?feature=share

Jonathan Caldwell, conductorJuan José Navarro, guest conductorTaylor Stirm, clarinet

Program

Mark Engebretson

Crossfade

Arnold Schoenberg

Theme and Variations, op. 43a

Scott McAllister

Black Dog

intermission

Amando Blanquer Ponsoda

Gloses II

ModeratoMossoModeratoMosso, con certa vivacitáAllegro jubiloso

Luis Serrano Alarcón

Invocación

Jaume Teixidor

Amparito Roca

Funding for Juan José Navarro’s residency was provided, in part, by the John R. Locke Endowment for Excellence in Music.

About the Program
Crossfade

Mark Engebretson is a professor of composition and music technology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His music explores melody, timbre, and virtuosity through clear formal design, while often integrating new media and popular influences. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, Engebretson’s music has been commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation and Barlow Endowment. Engebretson’s works have been performed widely in the United States and abroad.  Crossfade was commissioned by Stephen Squires and the Chicago College of Performing Arts Wind Ensemble and premiered in 2017. The title references the process of blending one sound or idea into another: a technique familiar in audio production. Throughout the piece, musical textures and colors overlap and transform as ideas emerge, fade, and reappear in new contexts. Crossfade unfolds in three large sections: an energetic opening characterized by rhythmic motion and bass-driven motives, a slower and more texturally experimental middle section, and a return of the opening material transformed with new energy and melodic material. The work’s vibrance, intricate layers, and buoyant rhythms create what the composer describes as “a bubbly concoction of energy, rhythm, and joy.”

Note by Mark Engebretson and Molly Allman

Theme and Variations, op. 43a

Arnold Schoenberg, largely self-taught and originally from Vienna, immigrated to Los Angeles in 1934. While in the United States, Schoenberg taught at UCLA while composing until a heart attack in 1945 led him to retire from teaching in order to focus on composition. Schoenberg is best known for “emancipating dissonance” through his move away from tonality and toward atonality where music lacks a key center. This idea led to his development of 12-tone technique, a revolutionary approach to composition that has come to define his legacy. However, this contribution represents only part of his creative output which also includes his significant and tonal composition for band: Theme and Variations, op. 43a. Written while Schoenberg was living in Los Angeles, Theme and Variations, op. 43a was composed at the request of Carl Engel, president of G. Schirmer Music, following a request from Edwin Franko Goldman, for an original composition for band. Centered in G Minor, the work consists of a theme, seven variations, and a finale. Each variation is based on the original theme and developed through fragmentation and motivic transformation, while incorporating tempo variation, a waltz, an inverted canon, and a chorale. The multi-part finale includes a double fugue and a coda that transforms the tonality from G Minor to G Major.

Note by Patty Saunders

Black Dog

Scott McAllister is an American composer, educator, and clarinetist. McAllister attended Florida State University where he studied conducting with the director of bands, James Croft, and clarinet with Frank Kowalsky. In 2001, following the success of his previous work for clarinet, X Concerto, Croft and Kowalsky commissioned McAllister to write another clarinet concerto which became Black Dog. Written to showcase Frank Kowalsky’s technique, Black Dog draws inspiration from 1970s rock music including guitarists Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and more specifically Led Zeppelin’s song “Black Dog.” The piece is intended to evoke the feeling of an outdoor concert, with the clarinet soloist serving as the lead singer in front of a screaming audience. To further emphasize the “rock” feel of the piece, McAllister chose to write it as a rhapsody, which allows for more formal freedom. The soloist is featured in several cadenzas before a “head-banging” bass line propels the piece to a rousing conclusion.

Note by Scott McAllister and Jaden Brown

Gloses II

Spanish composer Amando Blanquer Ponsoda studied horn with Don Fernando de Mora and composition at the Conservatory of Valencia with Leopoldo Magneti, Manuel Palau, and Miguel Asins Arbó. In the 1950s, he received a scholarship to study in Paris and studied composition with Olivier Messiaen. Blanquer won several awards including the Rome Prize in 1962. Upon moving back to Spain, he served as the chair of composition at the Valencia Superior Conservatory of Music. His prolific output of more than three hundred works spans symphonic, chamber, choral, and solo music. His significance as a band composer is evident in his works for band and with his background playing in the Primitive Band of Alcoy. Considering his compositional style, Blanquer remarked “each musical idea is born from the element that originates it—whether it be an orchestra, a band, an oboe, a guitar.” Gloses II is part of a trilogy, alongside Gloses for organ (1987) and Gloses III for symphony orchestra (1990). Commissioned for the Festliche Musik Tage in Switzerland, it was also featured at the Valencia International Wind Band Competition in 1991. In Spain, a “glosa” is a poetic form that expands on a pre-existing short text, typically a four-line stanza. In music, the “glosa” generates melodic variations—a tradition rooted in Valencian Baroque music, notably in the works of organist Joan Baptiste Cabanilles (1644–1712). The five-movement work is a musical interpretation of a “glosa” and opens with a four- note melody in the low brass, which serves as thematic material used throughout the work The second movement highlights the oboe and bassoon with contrasting lyrical lines and dance-like rhythms. Chimes signal the beginning of the third movement, which opens with a horn solo which is developed across the ensemble before resolving to a D Major chord. The fourth and longest movement features a chaotic texture, with frantic, fragmented rhythms interspersed with slower, lyrical passages. The final movement marked “Allegro jubiloso,” begins with tom-toms and marked chords. Woodwind and high brass rhythmic sections, a reintroduction of oboe and flute solos, and fanfare-like brass are showcased. The rhythmic motive is then imitated in the timpani in the final measures to bring the piece to a triumphant and full ensemble E Major chord.

Note by Patty Saunders

Invocación

Luis Serrano Alarcón is a Spanish composer and conductor who writes primarily for band. In 2017, La Armónica, the symphonic band at Centro Instructivo Musical (CIM) in Buñol, Spain, commissioned Alarcón to compose Invocación. The piece was premiered as part of the band’s competition repertoire for the World Music Contest, a month-long music festival in Kerkrade, Netherlands. Invocación is based on Isaac Albeníz’s piano suite Iberia, specifically, the second movement, “El Puerto” which Alarcón performed as a child. Alarcón draws inspiration from his experiences and memories with Iberia in Invocación. The piece’s subtitle, “Revisitando El Puerto,” refers to both the revisitation of old music and a revival of the actual location that inspired Albeníz’s “El Puerto”: El Puerto de Santa María in Cadíz, Spain. Additionally, the title Invocación is subtle reference to the first movement of the piano suite, “Evocación.” These similarities and connections were specifically chosen by Alarcón for a reason: “While to evoke is to remember in an intervening way or motivated by something external, to invoke is a request, and therefore denotes intention.”

Note by Luis Serrano Alarcón and Jaden Brown

Amparito Roca

Jaume Teixidor was a Spanish composer and conductor who spent most of his career leading municipal and military bands throughout Spain, including the Baracaldo Municipal Band in northern Spain. He wrote more than five hundred compositions for concert band, many of which became staples of Spanish band repertoire.  Amparito Roca is a pasodoble; a traditional Spanish military march in duple meter with brisk-like rhythms and bold melodic themes, often associated with bullfighting and festive celebrations. Named after Teixidor’s piano student, Amparito Roca, for whom he originally wrote the piece as a study work, the piece opens with a spirited introduction, followed by the main theme, alternating with lyrical and dance-like passages. Its lively rhythms, dynamic contrasts, and melodic flourishes capture the character of the Spanish pasodoble.

About the Artists
Taylor Stirm (Second Prize, Student Artist Competition)

Taylor Stirm is a current doctoral student at UNC Greensboro and the North Carolina student representative for the International Clarinet Association. Stirm is a clarinet instructor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Community Music School and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Community Music School. She also has a large private studio in North Carolina of clarinet and piano students.

Equally at home in solo, chamber, and orchestral situations, Stirm has performed throughout the United States and internationally. She has been featured at conferences of the International Clarinet Association, American Single Reed Summit, and HERo. Stirm is a founding member of the clarinet trio Chaos Incarné, which aims to expand the clarinet repertoire through commissioning emerging composers from underrepresented communities.

Stirm holds degrees from UNC Greensboro and Arizona State University. Her primary teachers include Anthony Taylor, Luke Ellard, Andy Hudson, Robert Spring, Joshua Gardner, and Theresa Martin.

Juan José Navarro

Juan José Navarro is currently teacher of clarinet and conducting at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Música of Almería. He also conducts the Almería University Symphony Orchestra and Choir and leads the master’s conducting program at Almería University. He has served as music director of the Sinfónica Municipal de Almería for eight years and is also the co-founder along with José Miguel Rodilla of the Academia de Dirección de Orquesta y Banda, “Diesis.” Academia Diesis gives classes in Almería, Murcia, Sevilla, and Valencia and has served more than eighty students from every part of Spain.

Prof. Navarro was awarded second prize for conducting the San Indalecio Wind Orchestra in the National Competition in Murcia and the first prize for conducting the Unión Musical de Godelleta in the Special Section of the Wind Bands Competition of Valencia. He has conducted in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Opera House in Cairo.

Prof. Navarro holds degrees in clarinet from the Conservatory of Music of Valencia, in orchestral conducting from the Conservatory of Music of Murcia, and a master’s degree in conducting and choral pedagogy from the International University of La Rioja.

UNCG Bands
The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.

UNCG Bands

Personnel

FLUTEJason EvinskyRebecca KleinmannColleen McCracken*Ericka SanchezJoeli SchillingLucien SmithGrace Spivey

OBOEMcKenzie CarrHailey CohenGer Vang*

CLARINETTJ BaudreauConcetta Brehmer*Katelyn CopelandLiam DeenNicole GrahamHayley Jensen*Graham MarvellMariah McClammyAubrey Russell

BASSOONEmily Klinkoski*Angela MorettiSabrina Wright

SAXOPHONERyan EhingerJames GrassArjuna RamachandranDylan Royal*Orazio ThomasChris Vega

TRUMPETCalvin Godfrey*Jack KannanNinon KirchmanRiver PrescottOliver RunkleZachary Seaman

HORNEli KinardJackson MeshawJT Sandlin*Kai Summerlin

TROMBONEHector JamarilloMichael Mangrum*Kristen McBrayerMegan Seyer

EUPHONIUMJohn Cowger*Jason LeeJonathan LowryKent Tingley

TUBANate Bridges*Trevor LongWill Wood

PERCUSSIONEli Alvarez-LopezSam ElyZach Foster*Gabe GenopolosLachlan GeorgeMadison KaranShelby Perez-Hendricks

DOUBLE BASSDominic Kilgore

PIANOYuxin Chen

HARPBethany Lancaster

All personnel are listed alphabetically.

*section leader

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Symphony Orchestra: Tchaikovsky's Fourth
2025-11-19 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/jCmzzTMRRoU?feature=share

Jungho Kim, conductorMajorie Bagley, violinScott Rawls, violaMark Engebretson, composer

Program

MARK ENGEBRETSONIncandescent Arcs (premiere)

W.A. MOZARTSinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364 (1779)

Allegro maestosoAndantePresto

PYOTR I. TCHAIKOVSKYSymphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36 (1877–78)

Andante sostenuto—Moderato con anima—Moderato assai, quasi Andante—Allegro vivoAndantino in modo di canzonaScherzo: Pizzicato ostinato—AllegroFinale: Allegro con fuoco

About the Program
Incandescent Arcs

Incandescent Arcs brings together two preoccupations that have long featured in my music: light and color (Luminous, Radiance, Dark Arts for Daylight) and arc shapes (An Arc in Solitude, Intensity Arcs and Blocks, d_forme). For me, an arc represents an intensity shape: in its simplest form, this could relate to dynamics or loudness, but it might also describe intensity, timbre, pitch level, rhythm, or levels of complexity. We experience arcs as musical shapes naturally: improvisers, for example, often create music that could be said to be in an arc shape. The golden section, which can be understood as an arc shape, has been cited as a structural feature of many musical works. In the end, the arc shape describes the most basic concepts of tension and release. Evocations if light and color in music are more elusive, although many composers have related notions of color to their music, for example Olivier Messiaen and Aleksandr Scriabin. For some, their interest is inspired by their own synesthetic experiences, but it is well known that their sound/color correspondences are highly personal and not universally heard or seen. I don’t have synesthesia myself, but still color is a musical preoccupation in many ways. The idea of incandescence is most often connected to bright lights. Think of what we used to have for light bulbs. It can also be used to refer to strongly felt emotional states, often in the angry spectrum, but more applicable in this case centered on enthusiasm, passion, love. Something incandescent glows or shines from within. This piece brings two main ideas (arcs) forward, one of which is, for me, a brilliant, bright white light. The other suggests deepest, darkest violet. In both cases, the emotional connections will be your own but hopefully will be strong and ardent. Of course, you may not hear the piece in terms of color or light, but there are always other ways to listen and experience the music. You might, for example, think of these arcs as stories, consider how each story is altered through its retelling, and enjoy the ride over the large-scale arc as they become inexorably entwined.

Note by Mark Engebretson

Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364

By 1779, Mozart was eager to break free from the constraints imposed by Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg. His recent travels to Mannheim and Paris immersed him in the evolving sinfonia concertante genre, a hybrid of symphony and concerto featuring multiple soloists. Inspired by the instrumental dialogue he encountered, Mozart composed his Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364, a work that embodies his mature synthesis of virtuosic flair and expressive depth. This composition marks a turning point, signaling artistic independence that soon led to his dismissal from Salzburg and relocation to Vienna. The scoring is notable for its timbral sensitivity: the bright violin is balanced with the darker, richer hues of the viola. Mozart enhances this by dividing the viola section, enriching the string texture, and employing scordatura tuning on the solo viola—raising its pitch a semitone to elevate its resonance and balance. The expansive opening Allegro maestoso builds on themes introduced by the orchestra, highlighting influences from Mannheim’s dynamic orchestral style, including the celebrated Mannheim crescendo. The Andante slow movement reflects an operatic sensibility, with the plaintive violin paired against the consoling viola in a dialogue suggestive of vocal lament. Its emotional depth, linked by scholars like Maynard Solomon to Mozart’s personal loss of his mother, adds profound lyricism. The final Presto rondo bursts with energy and joy, featuring lively exchanges and melodic inventions that culminate in an exciting conclusion.

Note by Jordan Owen

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36, completed in 1878, stands as one of the composer’s most intimate and confessional orchestral works, shaped profoundly by a time of great personal upheaval. Composed against the backdrop of his disastrous marriage to Antonina Milyukova and subsequent emotional crisis, the Fourth Symphony channels Tchaikovsky’s anxieties, vulnerabilities, and eventual moments of resilience into a gripping musical narrative. Throughout its composition, Tchaikovsky maintained a deeply personal correspondence with his patron and confidante Nadezhda von Meck, ultimately dedicating the symphony to her—a gesture reflective of the trust and solace her support provided during this troubling period. In his letters, Tchaikovsky described the work as an embodiment of Fate, casting the symphony’s opening fanfares as an inescapable force standing between the individual and happiness. This powerful motif, ushered in by the brass and winds, acts as the foundation for the symphony’s structure as well as its psychological landscape. The first movement, marked by urgency and dramatic turns, repeatedly confronts the listener with this idea of Fate’s interference and persistence, each thematic arrival shadowed by the specter of destiny. The movement’s restless momentum and orchestral color draw clear lines between internal struggle and artistic expression. The second movement, Andantino in modo di canzona, adopts an altogether more lyrical tone, introduced by a plaintive oboe solo. Here, nostalgia and sorrow intermingle, reflecting Tchaikovsky’s musings on solitude, exhaustion, and the bittersweet pleasure of reminiscence. Memories of happiness and youth emerge across sweeping melodic arcs, only to dissolve into sadness as the passage of time is gently mourned. This music does not simply dwell in melancholy; it gently urges its listener to accept the complexity of loss and memory. With the Scherzo, marked Pizzicato ostinato, the composer shifts into a world of playfulness and innovative texture. The strings’ pizzicato provides a bright, unpredictable backdrop, while wind and brass introduce episodes that recall folk festivities and military parades. These sections flit by like fleeting thoughts or half-remembered dreams, and Tchaikovsky himself likened them to errant, abstract images that pass through the imagination when the mind wanders. What emerges is a remarkable movement not only for its novelty but for its ability to capture the ephemeral nature of inner experience. The finale unleashes the full force of the orchestra in a rollicking outburst of energy, opening with a jubilant exclamation and quickly shifting gears with a Russian folk tune, “In the Field Stands a Birch Tree.” Tchaikovsky reveals that when joy cannot be found within oneself, the pleasures of the community—embodied in dance and festivity—may offer a way forward. Yet, as exuberance builds, Fate’s theme unexpectedly reappears, a reminder that suffering and joy are always in dialogue. Despite its return, the finale presses on to a conclusion brimming with vitality and affirmation, as if to suggest that life, for all its trials, offers moments of real joy when one partakes in the world around them. Known as one of the great Romantic symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth transforms personal struggle and existential questioning into a compelling drama rich with psychological insight and expressive color. Its confessional tone, forged through adversity, continues to resonate with audiences as a testament to the resilience of the individual spirit and the transformative potential of music.

Note by Jordan Owen

About the Artists
Marjorie Bagley

Violinist Marjorie Bagley joined the faculty at UNCG in the Fall of 2009 after teaching violin and chamber music at Ohio University in Athens, OH. She began her professional career as first violinist and founding member of the Arcata String Quartet upon graduating from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Pinchas Zukerman. The Arcata Quartet enjoyed nearly a decade of performances around the US and Europe, including concerts in London’s Wigmore Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, and their NYC debut in Town Hall. They can be heard in recordings on the VOX label, alongside members of the Tokyo and American Quartets. Her love of chamber music continues to this day as she performs with colleagues in NC and around the country, exploring classic and contemporary repertoire.

Bagley is Concertmaster of the Greensboro Symphony under the direction of Christopher Dragon. This season, she performed as soloist alongside mandolin player Chris Thile, and next season brings a solo appearance in Vaughn-Williams’ classic Lark Ascending. Bagley performed as both Associate Concertmaster and Principal Second Violin in the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, OH, under the direction of Music Director David Danzmayr and Principal Guest Artist Vadim Gluzman. For two decades, Bagley performed as member of the Berkshire Bach Society with keyboardist Kenneth Cooper.

Summers have taken Bagley to many festivals as both teacher and performer. The Arcata Quartet performed across Europe over several summers, including a concert at the Rheingau Music Festival. Her path as a teacher began at the Meadowmount Music School where she was an assistant teacher, and continued at a variety of summer chamber music festivals for high school students across the country. For six summers, Bagley was an assistant teacher at the Perlman Music Program. She has been on faculty at the Kinhaven Music School and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and the International Music Academy Plzen in the Czech Republic. Bagley was an artist teacher at the Brevard Music Festival for eleven summers where she frequently served as concertmaster.

Professor Bagley continues to give masterclasses and performances at universities around the US. She remains fascinated by the unique qualities of each student she interacts with, looking to combine an understanding of violin technique and learning strategies to help each student move towards their potential. She also loves to perform and teach works by living composers and works that draw from a variety of musical styles.

After growing up in Wingate, NC, she received her BM summa cum laude in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan and an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. Teachers and coaches have included Pinchas Zukerman, Josef Gingold, Patinka Kopec, Isidore Cohen, and members of the Tokyo and American String Quartets. Three decades of performances have taken her to five continents and led to many inspiring musical collaborations. She can be heard in recordings on the Equilibrium, Centaur, Albany, Summit, and VOX labels. Bagley’s time away from the violin is filled with family adventures alongside her husband, physics professor Ian Beatty, and their three children.

Scott Rawls

Violist Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Recent chamber music endeavors include performances with Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Branford Marsalis, Sergey Antonov, Michelle Cann and the Reynolda Quartet. With the Nikkanen/Rawls/Bailey string trio, he has played tours in Alaska, Washington, Arizona and Texas. His solo and chamber music recordings can be heard on the Centaur, CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels.

A strong proponent of new music, Rawls has premiered dozens of new works by prominent composers. Most notable, he has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians. As the violist in this ensemble, he performed the numerous premieres of Daniel Variations, The Cave and Three Tales by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d’Automne a Paris, Holland Festival, Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

Under the baton of maestro Christopher Dragon, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. During the summer season, Rawls plays principal in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program. He was also appointed principal viola of the Palm Beach Opera orchestra, David Stern artistic director.

Dr. Rawls currently serves as Marion Stedman Covington Distinguished Professor of Viola and Chamber Music and String Area Chair at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, John Graham and Julius Levine.

Mark Engebretson

Composer Mark Engebretson is Professor of Composition and Music Technology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  He is the recipient of a Barlow Commission (for Bent Frequency), North Carolina Artist Fellowship in Composition (for the Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra), a Fulbright Fellowship for studies in France, and has received commissions from Harvard University’s Fromm Music Foundation (Acrylic Waves), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (They Said: sinister resonance), the Thomas S. Kenan Center for the Arts (Deliriade), and the Chicago College for the Performing Arts (Crossfade). He is the founder of New Music Greensboro.

Engebretson’s creative work is driven by melody, timbre, virtuosity, clear and balanced formal structure, the integration of new media, multiple levels of associations, and a desire for fresh, engaging musical expression. Recent work has included strong overtones of pop music, creative intersections with written texts and using audience members’ smartphones as a form of interactivity.

Mark Engebretson taught composition at the University of Florida, music theory at the SUNY Fredonia and 20th-century music history at the Eastman School of Music. He studied at the University of Minnesota (graduating Summa cum Laude), the Conservatoire de Bordeaux (as a Fulbright Scholar), and Northwestern University, where he received the Doctor of Music degree.  At Northwestern he studied composition with M. William Karlins, Pauline Oliveros, Marta Ptaszynska, Michael Pisaro, Stephen Syverud and Jay Alan Yim and saxophone with Frederick Hemke. His teachers in France were Michel Fuste-Lambezat and Jean-Marie Londeix.

UNCG Orchestras
The vibrant UNCG Orchestra program has long been recognized for performance excellence, adventurous programming, and high artistic standards. A diversity of offerings allow students the opportunity to perform repertoire for ensembles ranging from the largest cornerstone and contemporary works for full orchestra, to intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, to string orchestra.

Students in the UNCG Orchestra program are dedicated to the performance, study and cultivation of orchestral music of the highest quality. The UNCG Orchestras offer outstanding performances throughout the year and enhance the institutional spirit and community of UNCG. We seek to promote music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by supporting secondary school orchestra programs and other organizations through our outreach activities and other annual events on campus.

UNCG Orchestras

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Symphonic Band
2025-11-18 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/8dXsdSsper8?feature=share

Jonathan Caldwell, conductorGarrett Klein, trumpetJuan José Navarro, guest conductor

Program

OSCAR NAVARRODowney Overture (2011)

ULYSSES KAYSolemn Prelude (1950)

PHILIP SPARKEManhattan (2004)

MANUEL MORALES MARTÍNEZSoñad el mar pasodoble (2020)

PERCY GRAINGERCountry Gardens (1918)Irish Tune from County Derry (1918)Shepherd’s Hey (1918)

About the Program
Downey Overture

Óscar Navarro is a Spanish composer and conductor. He studied clarinet, composition, and conducting in Spain and later specialized in film and television scoring at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. His music has been performed worldwide by orchestras and symphonic bands, including the Downey Symphony Orchestra, for whom this overture was written. Downey Overture was composed as a celebration of both Navarro’s native Spain and his time in California. It is dedicated to the Downey Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Sharon Lavery. Navarro describes the piece as “a Latin-American fusion…an amalgam of rhythm and musical color wrapped in an atmosphere of dance.” The overture opens with bold, dance-inspired rhythms, with percussion and winds engaging in rhythmic interplay. The music moves through contrasting sections, from lively to more dramatic, and concludes by returning to earlier themes, leaving a sense of energy and unity.

Note by Óscar Navarro and Molly Allman

Solemn Prelude

Ulysses S. Kay, an American composer and educator, was born in Tucson, Arizona, where he grew up surrounded by musical influence. His great-uncle, American jazz cornetist King Oliver, encouraged Kay to study piano. Kay studied at the University of Arizona, the Eastman School of Music, and Columbia University, working with mentors including Howard Hanson and Paul Hindemith. Over his career, he composed more than forty orchestral works, five operas, nearly fifty choral compositions, and seven original works for band, establishing himself as a significant twentieth-century composer. Kay was also one of the most successful African-American composers of his generation and gained widespread recognition in the classical world breaking barriers for other Black artists. He received numerous honors including a Guggenheim fellowship, two Prix de Rome selections, and six honorary doctorates. Despite his success and contributions, Kay’s band works remain lesser-known and infrequently performed. Solemn Prelude (1950) was commissioned by Donald I. Moore for the Baylor University Golden Wave Band. Initially published by Broadcast Music Incorporated and Associated Music Publishing, a typewritten note in the Ulysses Kay Archives indicates it was later listed as withdrawn, leaving it unclear whether Kay intended it to be published or performed. Solemn Prelude is composed in an ABA form and exemplifies Kay’s compositional philosophy: “I [am] using quite simple musical materials and avoiding all so-called ‘effects,’ [and] I have attempted to achieve symphonic expression while observing the characteristic qualities of the full concert band.” The slow and melodic work is built from a recurring rhythmic motive in D Minor, first heard in the saxophones and low brass, which accompanies the opening euphonium solo. Then solo passages are passed across the ensemble to include flute, oboe, trumpet, and bassoon. The initial rhythmic motive returns and dominates the texture in the closing measures.

Note by Patty Saunders

Song and Dance

Philip Sparke is an English composer who has written extensively for brass band. In 1983, the GUS Band, a British brass band, commissioned Sparke to write Jubilee Overture for an upcoming recording session and to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Following the success of Jubilee Overture, the band commissioned Song and Dance the next year. In 2009, Geoffrey Brand arranged Song and Dance for solo cornet and concert band. Song and Dance is a single movement piece in two sections, a song followed by a dance. The “Song” features a “Scotch snap” rhythm followed by a lyrical cadenza leading to a muted presentation of the opening theme. The “Dance” is lively and tuneful with frequently changing meters to accompany the dancing melody.

Note by Philip Sparke and Jaden Brown

Pageant, op. 59

Vincent Persichetti was an American composer, educator, and pianist, and an influential figure in early band literature. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, bands struggled to program substantial, original repertoire written specifically for band. Persichetti’s insistence on composing high quality music helped move the medium forward in many ways. In 1952, Edwin Franko Goldman, founder of the Goldman Band in New York City and the American Bandmasters Association (ABA), commissioned Persichetti to write a piece for the upcoming ABA Convention. Pageant was premiered at the 1953 ABA Convention in Miami, Florida with Persichetti conducting the University of Miami Band. Early manuscript sketches of Pageant show that the piece was initially meant to be titled Morning Music for Band. Traces of the idea of “morning music” can be heard in the opening horn motif and the clarinet soli that follows. The piece is in two sections, the first being slower and more lyrical and the second being a “parade” section introduced by the snare drum.

Note by Vincent Persichetti and Jaden Brown

Soñad el mar

Manuel Morales Martínez is a Spanish composer and conductor whose work focuses on wind ensembles across the Valencian region, a heartland of Spanish band music tradition. Soñad el mar was composed in 2017 for the Banda Primitiva de Rafelbuñol and is a concert pasodoble. While a concert pasodoble maintains the characteristic pasodoble rhythmic framework, these pasodobles are slower and more formally, harmonically, and melodically complex than a traditional pasodoble. The piece begins with a percussion-driven introduction, leads into a bold main theme, and features solos for horn and english horn in the trio section before returning to the main material. Throughout, the music recalls the gentle motion of the sea while retaining the characteristic pulse of the pasodoble. Martínez describes the work as “tonal, Romantic style and captures the calmness of the Mediterranean Sea.”

Note by Manuel Morales Martínez and Molly Allman

Country GardensIrish Tune from County DerryShepherd’s Hey

Percy Grainger (1882–1961), an Australian-born composer and pianist, played a pivotal role in the early development of band literature in the early twentieth century through innovative orchestration and adventurous rhythms and meters. Known for his inclusion of folk melodies, Grainger used Edison wax-cylinder phonographs to collect English folk songs throughout Britain often collaborating with Cecil Sharp, a renowned collector. Fascinated by the unique performances of the singers and often integrating the tunes into his compositions, he sought ways to capture the nuances of pitch and rhythm in his works. Grainger’s contributions to band repertoire include cornerstone works such as Lincolnshire Posy and Colonial Song. Country Gardens (1918) is an English folk tune shared with Grainger by Cecil Sharp based on the tune “The Vicar of Bray.” Grainger played improvisations on it as a concert pianist during his tour for the U.S. Army during World War I and later presented the song to his mother as a birthday gift. Despite its immense popularity, Grainger referred to it as “my wretched tone art.” Grainger arranged the piece for band in 1953. In his program notes, he wrote: “The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers in; it is more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it.” Irish Tune from County Derry (1918) highlights the lyrical beauty of folk song. The tune was collected by Miss J. Ross from New Town, Limavady, Co. Derry, Ireland without a specific tune being credited. Grainger stated, “The name of the tune unfortunately was not ascertained by Miss Ross, who sent it to me with the simple remark that it was ‘very old,’ in the correctness of which statement I have no hesitation in expressing my perfect concurrence.” The melody is shared by the song “Danny Boy,” whose lyrics were composed by English songwriter Frederic Weatherly after Grainger had already arranged the tune. Grainger also arranged the melody in a version for wordless chorus. Shepherd’s Hey (1918), published and sold with Irish Tune from County Derry for many years, is a lively arrangement of a Morris dance tune from rural English tradition. The “Hey” in the title refers to a specific Morris dance step, though Grainger noted, “This setting is not suitable to dance Morris Dance to.” Morris dances traditionally feature teams of “Morris Men” performing with bells and clashing sticks. Grainger collected the original melody and states that the work should be played “in a jolly, energetic manner—with bounce and relish.”

Note by Patty Saunders

About the Artists
Garrett Klein

Trumpet artist Garrett Klein has garnered an international reputation for his varied performing career and dedicated teaching. He is currently serving as Assistant Professor of Trumpet at UNC Greensboro where he leads the Trumpet Studio, directs the Trumpet Ensemble, and serves as Brass Area Chair. Aside from his teaching, Garrett is the Principal Trumpet of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and Principal Solo Cornet with North Carolina Brass Band. He is a former member of the world-renowned Dallas Brass and toured the nation with that ensemble for five years. He has also appeared as a guest musician with Charlotte Symphony, The Phoenix Symphony, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. A new music advocate, Garrett has worked with composers to commission several new works for trumpet, presenting newly composed works at three International Trumpet Guild Conferences. Garrett earned his DMA and MM degrees at Arizona State University, along with a Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy. Prior to ASU, he studied at the prestigious Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore and St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Garrett Klein is an endorsing artist for Conn-Selmer and proudly performs on Vincent Bach trumpets.

Juan José Navarro

Juan José Navarro holds a Superior degree in Clarinet from the Conservatory of Music of Valencia, in Orchestra Conducting from the Conservatory of Music of Murcia and Master in Conducting and Choral Pedagogy from the International University of La Rioja.

He has conducted for many of the productions of the Compaña Lírica Andaluza, such as El Barbero de Lavapiés, Agua Azucarillos y Aguardiente, El Dúo de la Africana…in venues such as the Teatro Alameda of Málaga and the Nuevo Teatro Infanta Leonor of Jaén.

He has run courses, lectures and given master classes for conducting in Universities as Almería (Spain), Virginia Tech University (Virginia), The University of Illinis (Illinois), Eastern Michigan University (Michigan), University of Northern Iowa (Iowa), University of Maryland (Maryland), University North Carolina Greensboro (North Carolina), Bolzano High Conservatory (Italy), Luisiana State University (Luisiana), University Jewel College ( Missouri), Kansas University (Arkansas) and in places as Murcia, Galicia, Jaén, Granada and Almería organized by such institutions as the Vicerrectorado de Extensión Universitaria of the University of Almería, the Federación Andaluza de Bandas de Música, the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Música of Almería as well as for the teaching staff at the Centro de Enseñanza al Profesorado.

He got the second prize conducting the San Indalecio Wind Orchestra in the National Competition in Murcia and the first prize conducting the Unión Musical de Godelleta in the Special Section of the Wind Bands Competition of Valencia.

He has been titular musical director for 8 years of the Sinfónica Municipal de Almería. He is co-founder along with José Miguel Rodilla of the Academia de Dirección de Orquesta y Banda, “Diesis“, which gives classes in Almería, Murcia, Sevilla and Valencia to more than eighty pupils from every part of Spain.

He has recently received the distinction of “Honorary Friend” of the University of Almería for his great contribution as director of the Orchestra, Choir and Music Department.

Currently he is clarinet and conducting teacher at the Real Conservatorio Profesional de Música of Almería, director of the Almería University Music Room where he conducts the Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Professor of the Conducting Master at the Almería University and Conducting teacher at Diesis Academy.

UNCG Bands
The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.

UNCG Bands

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Sinfonia
2025-11-17 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/FzW2EUsjaQ0?feature=share

Scott Glasser, conductor

Program

About the Program

About the Artists

UNCG Orchestras
The vibrant UNCG Orchestra program has long been recognized for performance excellence, adventurous programming, and high artistic standards. A diversity of offerings allow students the opportunity to perform repertoire for ensembles ranging from the largest cornerstone and contemporary works for full orchestra, to intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, to string orchestra.

Students in the UNCG Orchestra program are dedicated to the performance, study and cultivation of orchestral music of the highest quality. The UNCG Orchestras offer outstanding performances throughout the year and enhance the institutional spirit and community of UNCG. We seek to promote music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by supporting secondary school orchestra programs and other organizations through our outreach activities and other annual events on campus.

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Vincent van Gelder, piano
2025-11-11 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
“Dr. Vincent van Gelder is a formidably equipped, no-nonsense virtuoso”

– Carnegie Hall. New York Concert Review

“…essentially a poetic artist rather than a barnstormer, and his program, whilst it by no means avoided the technically challenging, was notable for the range of beautiful sounds”

– Deptford Concert Hall. London Musical Opinion/British Liszt Society

“…brought out the different layers in Chopin’s 4 Ballades with the precision of a brain surgeon”.

– St. Louis Post

“The performance of the Liszt bm Sonata was memorable. As for his master classes, the students were full of attention, and Dr. van Gelder was able to make major changes with just the slightest of suggestions”

– Twentse Courant Tubantia, The Netherlands

“Vincent composed romantic, impressive music in the spirit of Liszt and his contemporaries. The music was magnificent and magnified the atmosphere of the artwork”

– Harpa Concert Hall. Fretabladid newspaper, Iceland

Dr. Vincent van Gelder was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He won top prizes in several national and international piano competitions, including the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition, New York Artist International Competition, and St. Louis Artist Presentation competition. He has performed in many states in the US, as well as multiple countries throughout Europe, a notable example being a well-reviewed solo recital at Carnegie Hall. In 2008 he nearly lost the index finger of his left hand, but thanks to a successful surgery he made a near full recovery.

He has been a soloist with several orchestras, and worked with conductors such as Hans Vonk. As a chamber pianist Vincent, performed with musicians like Dmitri Sitkovetski, members of the Ciompi Quartet, Red Clay Quartet, and his wife, Dr. Ināra Zandmane. He has collaborated with several composers including the Argentinean composer Alejandro Rutty, who wrote a piano concerto for him that premiered at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Symphony orchestra.

Highly acclaimed performances were in London, England, the Van Cliburn Festival, and Harpa Hall in Iceland. As a composer, he won the 2025 International

Fidelio Piano Composition Competition in Madrid, Spain. Dr. van Gelder’s recordings have been played on radio and tv stations in the US as well as The Netherlands.

In June of 2018 he performed at Harpa Hall in Reykjavik Iceland, where he performed the world premiere of one of his own works, ‘Guardians of Iceland-Eylin’s Journey’—a large, multi-movement piece based on Icelandic legends, a piano performance accompanied by artwork from his then 13 year old daughter, Natalie van Gelder. Their next project, ‘Ardenuir: The Stone in the Sword,’ saw its premiere in 2022 at the Virginia Somerville Sutton Theatre in Greensboro, North Carolina. They subsequently toured many concert halls in North Carolina.

In September 2024, Natalie published her first animated short film, ‘Home Cooked Meals’, with an original soundtrack written and performed by Vincent van Gelder. This short film is a featured animation at the NC Film Festival, the Cary Film Festival, the Raleigh Film and Art Festival, and OUT at the Movies International Film Festival.

In 2024, Dr. van Gelder was invited to do record works by Jacobo Palm and other Caribbean composers for the Palm Foundation in The Netherlands. This is an ongoing project.

Dr. van Gelder studied in Holland, Latvia, and the US, receiving two Masters and subsequently a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. His most influential teachers were Leslie Howard, Czerny-Stefanska, Teofils Bikis, Arnis Zandmanis, Wilfred Delphin, and Richard Cass.

He has been a member of the piano faculty at Duke University. He is the founder and president of the Triad Institute for Young Musicians.

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un hilo a veces rio [a thread sometimes river] art exhibition
2025-11-11 12:00 - 2025-11-22 17:00 | Greensboro Project Space, 111 E February 1 Pl, Greensboro, NC 27406, USA
un hilo a veces rio

[a thread sometimes river]

Solo Exhibition by Vida Zamora

November 11 – 22, 2025

Reception: Friday, Nov 21st | 6-8p

More About un hilo a ceces río [a thread sometimes river]

un hilo a veces río [a thread sometimes river] is a collective, image based sculptural composition that weaves time, affect, and world-making. In its assembly of “images,” memory is not articulated through description nor representation, but as a felt and active force in all its porosity–extending itself behind, beyond and within singularity into the immanence of collectivity writ-large. The collaborators of this piece gathered, made, and worlded-with each other. In this act of sharing, the life that emanated from their time together has been carefully and intentionally assembled into a map that leads nowhere but to the act of remembering itself: a latent potentiality that refuses to be defined and that inaugurates affect in an outward (shared) and inward (opaque) motion. Vida co-orchestrates–with Petra, Patricia, Lucy, Martha, and with the assistance of Anna, Margaret, Meijuan, Sophie, and Jessica–an piece that does not want to materialize, but that finds a home in experience itself.

More About Vida Zamora

Vida Zamora [b.1998; Puebla] is a transdisciplinary artist in constant errancy. She graduated from MICA [MD] with a BFA, and was a UnionDocs [NY] Collaborative Studio Fellow. After graduating, she dealt with immigration and gender affirming care, yet recently gained access to a studio setting to continue her practice. Her work has been exhibited in programs at DIFFUSION [Canada], Millennium Film Workshop [NY], UnionDocs [NY], FISURA [Mexico], Badn?m [India], Cinema Parallels [Bosnia], and perfect lovers [NC] by curators such as the Re:assemblage collective, Adriana Trujillo, Michellè st. Michel, Dylan Angel and Victoria Bouloubasis.

To learn more visit vidazamora.art or follow them on Instagram: @vdzm__

Greensboro Project Space Open Public Hours

Tuesday-Friday, 12-5p

Saturday, 2-5p

Ephrat Asherie Dance
2025-11-01 20:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie is a New York City-based choreographer, performer, and b-girl and a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance. Asherie has received numerous awards to support her work including Dance Magazine’s Inaugural Harkness Promise Award and two National Dance Project Awards. In 2019 she was the recipient of a NYFA Fellowship and is currently a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.

As Artistic Director of Ephrat Asherie Dance, Asherie’s work has been presented nationally and internationally with commissions from companies including Malpaso and Parsons Contemporary Dance and additional commissions from Vail Dance Festival, Fall for Dance, River to River, Firatatrrega, and Works & Process at the Guggenheim. Her latest work, UNDERSCORED—awarded a 2019 Creation and Development Award from the National Performance Network and a 2022 National Dance Project—premiered in November 2022 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim.

Asherie is honored to have been mentored by Richard Santiago (a.k.a. Break Easy) and to have worked and collaborated with Michelle Dorrance, Doug Elkins, Rennie Harris, Bill Irwin, Gus Solomons, Jr. and Buddha Stretch, among others. Asherie earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University in Italian and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee where she researched the vernacular jazz dance roots of contemporary street and club dances. She is a co-founding member of the all-female house dance collective MAWU and is forever grateful to NYC’s underground dance community for inspiring her to pursue a life as an artist.

Orchestra/MezzBalconyUNCG Students$7.50$7.50UNCG Faculty/Staff$25.00$25.00Adults$45.00$30.00Seniors/Military$35.00$20.00Children (K-12)$10.00$10.00

PURCHASE TICKETS

* Tickets to CVPA and UCLS events are sold exclusively through our box office locations and ETix website, and nowhere else. Tickets purchased through third-party vendors cannot be honored.

In addition to public presentations, artists in the UCLS series have important interactions with UNCG students, such as holding masterclasses, talkback sessions, and seminars, often just hours before performing on stage. Thanks to a grant from The Cemala Foundation, some of these artists also work with K-12 students in the Guilford County Schools.

Collage
2025-10-25 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
The UNCG School of Music is proud to present our 18th annual performance of Collage at 7:30 PM on October 25, 2025! We are excited to welcome audiences back to UNCG Auditorium for our most exciting event of the year!

Collage is captivating and totally unique, featuring an incredible range of performers presenting one riveting work after another with special lighting. Join School of Music students and many of our world-class faculty members for this non-stop evening of amazing performances. It’s not to be missed!

All ticket proceeds benefit the School of Music Collage Scholarship Fund.

SectionAdultsSeniorsStudentsSection Afront orchestra, mezzanine$27$22$17Section Bmiddle and rear orchestra, lower balcony$20$16$12Section Cupper balcony$15$11$8

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The Juliet Letters
2025-10-22 19:30 - 21:00 | Organ Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
Lindsay Kesselman, sopranoMarjorie Bagley, violinSiana Wong, violinScott Rawls, violaCori Trenczer, violoncello

Program

ELVIS COSTELLO and THE BRODSKY QUARTETThe Juliet Letters (1992)

Deliver UsFor Other EyesSwineExpert RitesDead LetterI Almost Had a WeaknessWhy?Who Do You Think You Are?Taking My Life in Your HandsThis Offer Is UnrepeatableDear Sweet Filthy WorldThe Letter HomeJacksons, Monk and RoweThis Sad BurlesqueRomeo’s SeanceI Thought I’d Write to JulietLast PostThe First to LeaveDamnation’s CellarThe Birds Will Still Be Singing

About the Program
Elvis Costello writes, “…so there was this professor in Verona who answered letters to Juliet…

Well, if that sounds like the start of a tall story I suppose it is. There was a tiny newspaper item about a Veronese academic who had taken on the task of replying to letters addressed to ‘Juliet Capulet.’

This apparently continued for a number of years, until some gentlemen of the press exposed this secret correspondence. Quite how he came by these letters in the first place remains unclear. We can only make a guess as to their content. After all, these people were writing to an Imaginary woman, and a dead imaginary woman at that. Perhaps they were simply scholarly enquiries, or letters of sympathy from others disappointed in love, or even a plea from somebody forced into an unhappy arranged marriage. Whatever was contained in these letters and their replies, the idea of this correspondence provided the initial inspiration” for The Juliet Letters, a song sequence for string quartet and voice—a collaboration between Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet.

Lyrics
Deliver Us

Instrumental

For Other Eyes

I don’t know what I would doIf this letter should fall intoOther hands than it should pass throughFor other eyes

He said, “It was nothing… it’s over and done”But the rotten worm was burrowing stillIts spirit invades me bleeding me whiteFor other repliesI searched his pocketsI searched his eyesI searched his wallet for clues and liesAnd I found a number that I somehow dialledA woman answered, a woman smiledThen she hung up on the silence unperplexedInnocently spun her rolodexI dialled again I could not resistRevealing just the dentist receptionist

One day we’lI laugh about it or maybe we’lI curseBut there is one thing that is making it worseAnd it’s the lack of forgiveness that I can’t disguiseNo matter how well he liesNow we don’t know each other anymoreAnd when we touch our lips feel soreI question the longing left in his sighsFor other eyes

Swine

You’re a swine and I’m saying that’s an insult to the pigIn the foul furrow that you digWhy don’t you lay your head downIn that unconsecrated groundWAS she your MOTHER?Or WAS she your brldeTo defile and to blisterTo gnaw at her sideIs this the end of the world?Now that you’ve finished your lifeThis RIDDLE is the work of my little pen-knife

Expert Rites

I marvel at the wonder of it in our souless ageFast flow the tears upon the pageDon’t be alarmed I am her friendWill I be excused if I presumeIt’s more than disappointment that we shareYou share the same sorry life, the families fight,that unhappy blade you both inviteThis romantic ideal has a lonely appealI once loved someone the way that you doBut I had to let her goI live with my regretDon’t despair my would-be Juliet

Dead Letter

Instrumental

I Almost Had a Weakness

Thank you for the flowersI threw them on the fireAnd I burned the photographs that you had enclosedGOD they were ugly childrenSo you’re the little bastard of that brother of mineTrying to trick a poor old woman‘Til I almost had a weaknessLast week Cousin FlorenceBit your Uncle JoeHit him on the forehead with a knife and a fork(She) said that he looked like the devilThen she said… “pass the vinegar,” I’m beginning to think(That) I’m the only one who hasn’t taken to the drinking of itThough I almost had a weakness

It pains me to mentionThese delicate concernsWhile I have to tolerate you family jewelsI really mustn’t grumble(‘Cause) when I die the cats and dogs will jump up and downAnd you little swines will get nothingThough I almost had a weakness

Why?

Why is Daddy not here?Are you crying?Why?Does he still love me?Will you take care of me?If you both love me soWhy don’t you love each otherMummy’s gone missingDaddy’s on fireDaddy’s on fireDaddy’s on fire

Who Do You Think You Are?

The hunted look, the haunted graceThe empty laugh that you cultivateYou fall into that false embraceAnd kiss the air about her faceWho do you think you are?The tres bon mots you almost quote from yourQUIVER of literary dartsA thousand or so tuneless violins thrilling your cheaplittle heartWho do you think you are?

My cigarette burns right down to the ash, my coffeecup is unstainedThe waiter hovers close at handHis courtesy strained

Who do you think you are?I close with my regardsWell I’m the red-face gentlemanCaught in this picture postcardWho do you think you are?

Trying my best to make the best of your absenceThough the joke gets tired and sordidSea-shell hearts get trampled under footPunchlines unrewarded

But even at this distance it’s not easy to acceptThe vision that I chase returns when I least expect itI’ve fallen from your tired embraceI kiss the air around the place that should be your face.

Taking My Life in Your Hands

My dear impulsive darling, I suspect my letter got to you too lateAnd it’s really just a silly fragment of paperBut it means so much to those who wait

All the suffering days and nights ’til I dare dream againThere you suddenly stand and I’ll be damnedIf you didn’t disappear with the dawn

Hours pass and darkness comesSoon I will close my eyesWill you return if you don’t reply?

You’ll be taking my life in your handsYou’ll be taking my life in your handsTaking my life in your hands

I don’t know why my dearest darlingI can’t tell you how I feel when you are nearWhen I see you have returned my letters unopenedI will tear them up, your voice ringing in my ears

But you’re kidding yourselfIf you think this correspondence will endI can always pretend wordsI don’t have the courage to send, reaching you

Hours pass and darkness comesSoon I will close my eyesWill you return if you don’t reply?

You’ll be taking my life in your handsYou’ll be taking my life in your handsTaking my life in your hands

This Offer Is Unrepeatable

Don’t send any money!Your fate has no priceIgnore at your peril this splendid adviceAn invaluable link in an infinite chainAn offer like this will just not come againYou wish you had women to charm and bewitchPower of life and death over the richYoung girls will be swooningbecause you’re exciting themNot only fall at your feet but be biting themGuaranteed, guaranteed to capture your breathOr just possibly scare you to deathSign it and seal it and send it to friendsDon’t mention my nameDon’t make any long term plansIn thirty-six hours your fortunes will changeYour best friends won’t know youAnd neither will strangersDo not keep this letterIt must leave your handYou have been selected from over five thousandA twister and dupe will bamboozle or hoodwink youI can’t say more it would only confuse youThe wine they will offer will go to your headYou’ll start to see double in fishes and breadGuaranteed, guaranteed for a lifetime or moreGuaranteed for this world and the nextGuaranteed, guaranteed for the world and its motherCherish this life as you won’t get another oneUnless you should take up this fabulous offerDon’t leave it too late or you’ll be bound to sufferWoebetide anyone so woebegoneYou won’t know you’re born or about to pass onYou’ll never get tiredYou’ll never get boredBy the way I just hope you’re insuredAnd if you’re not satisfiedIf you want moreWe can always provide an improved overtureGuaranteed at a price that is almost unbeatableThis offer is unrepeatableYour troubles will vanishYour tears will dryYour blessing will just multiplyGuaranteed at a price that is almost unbeatableThis offer is unrepeatableGuaranteed, guaranteed to bring fortune and favorA riot of colours and flavoursGuaranteed at a price that is almost unbeatableThis offer is unrepeatableWould I lie to you? Would I sell you a dud?Just sign on the line. Could you possibly write it inblood?

Dear Sweet Filthy World

Dear sweet, filthy world, my wifeOr whoever reads thisI think that I’ve lived too longWith all of my promise unfulfilledBut there is a veil drawn over all of that

I know you’ll probably say“Spare us the melodrama”I don’t know how he choseThe pills or the stupid revolver”

I’m out of luckI’m not that strongMy hands, your neckI might have wrung

Don’t try to find meI’m not worth anything anymore

I am not leaving youWith all of your problems‘Cause the biggest one is meLife is dark and cold as the sea

Embrace me in my anguishPut seaweed in my hairAnd vow that you won’t cryBecause I’ve gone, I can’t go onI can’t go on, I can’t go onI must close now

The Letter Home

Care of St. Ignatius House, Willoughby DriveParramatta, New South Wales, this fifth day of JulyIn the year of Our LordNineteen hundred and thirty five

Why must I always apologizeEvery time that I sit down to writeThrough my own fault I may findYou’re no longer living at this address

Please excuse the lack of newsThe feeling of strange privilegeFor the hour of trial in these times of distressMean more than years imprisoned by etiquette

I can remember when we were childrenThough I could never imagine this dayYour brother told me we’d live forever“I’ll go on better”, I heard myself say

And it seems so strange, now that he’s goneTo recall all these gamesThough the years have divided usFriendships have strained and broken

Oh, by the way, how’s that girl that you wedI hated you then but I’m over the worst of itI can’t come home, I might as well sayLife is short, I shall not write again

Jacksons, Monk and Rowe

Sister 4 and Brothers 3Hanging off the family treePractising for getting oldDo you want your fortune toldThey’re looking for you high and lowNow there’s nowhere for you to goSo you’ll just have to come out and face the musicJacksons, Monk and Rowe

Long ago when we were kids and we cut your hair to bitsAs we carried off like spoils the heads we’d smash right offyour dollsBut the wind is changing you knowAre you sure of your friends and your foeHave you got what it takes to carry it offJacksons, Monk and Rowe

As the sun beats down and life begins to complicateWill we both incinerateIf we touch that brass name-plate

Messrs. All, noble SirsHighly paid solicitorsFind enclosed my signed divorceSad proceedings you endorseThe burden of pity will showIn the people we used to knowHave you got enough strength to carry it offJacksons, Monk and Rowe

This Sad Burlesque

I write in hopeBy the time you get this letterWe may liveTo see a change for the better

Or are we so devotedTo these wretched selfish motivesWhen the cold facts and figures all add upThey cannot contradict this sad burlesque

This sad burlesque with miserable failuresMaking entertainment of our fateLaughter cannot dignify of elevateThis sad burlesque

Now can they recall being young and idealistic?Before wading knee-deep in hogwash and arithmeticThe pitying smirk, the argument that runs like clockworkWill run down eventually and splutter to a stop

P.S. Well, by now you know the worst of itAnd we’ve heard all the alibis that they’ve rehearsedThe smug predictionsIf it’s not a contradiction

Please have faith in human natureAnd have mercy on the creaturesIn this sad burlesque

This sad burlesque with miserable failuresMaking entertainment of our fateLaughter cannot dignify of elevateThis sad burlesque

Romeo’s Seance

Is anyone there I can talk to?Give us a sign if you’re with meCan’t you see that I’m dying to hear you

Everyone else has lost interestAnd I’m all alone in this dream houseThough you’re gone, I don’t feel like crying

Romeo is calling you

Knock once or twice if you’re out thereSend me a message, my sweetheartWhen I’m out and about, I’ll be coming to see you

It isn’t easy to live with this matronly faceAt the window, try to contact meIf you can see how I’m suffering

Romeo is calling you

Scatter the paper and thimblesYou can take care of the candlesAn unplugged radio plays, she is close now

Me and my hand holdingBaby, you’re walking the floor and the ceilingAnd this is the song she dictated this evening

Romeo is callingRomeo is calling you

I Thought I’d Write to Juliet

I thought I’d write to JulietFor she would understandAnd when someone is already deadThey can no longer let you down

Instead I find myself talking to youAs my oldest friendTell me how I can advise someoneThat I don’t even know to welcome death

For I received a letter that is worth reportingAnd though it may raise a cynical smileIt leaves a sinking feeling

Like when a soldier in a story says to the sergeant“Have you seen my pride and joy?”

You know the restAnd it’s no jokeForgive me pleaseAs I quote

“This is a letter of thanksAs I’m so bored herein I can’t say whereSo I’m writing to people that I may never meetAnd I was thinking if something you said”

I’m a female soldier, my name is ConstanceI enlisted in the military needing funds for collegeI’m twenty-three years old and if I do get home aliveI imagine I may think again

I’m sleeping with my eyes open for fear of attackYour words are a comfort, they’re the best thing that I haveApart from family pictures and of course, my gas maskI don’t know why I am writing to you

Last Post

Instrumental

The First to Leave

I should open with a kissFor if you’re reading thisYou must have opened up your caseAnd found this letter where I placed itIn between the silk and laceThere were other clues, like your walking shoesBut I still refused to believeThat you were meant to be the first to leaveEverybody here sends you their loveHow can I forget you still walk aboveOrbelowPerhaps you’ll never know this purgatoryWe never could agreeThere’s a thought, there’s a pauseNo time to repentEternally yoursIn a permanent lent

But if I should give you upIf you’re right and life just stopsAnd I never see your face againThen from unearthly pleasures, proud and plainI shall abstain

Until you realise, my loss is your surpriseUnless you know otherwiseThen don’t grieveYou see I had to be the first to leave

Damnation’s Cellar

Did anybody notice, over marmalade and eggsIn between the princess’ legsWhat with wars and floods and beggarsNot to mention stocks and sharesIf you have a moment to spare

Can you write and reassure me that I have seenThey’re constructing a time machineAnd there will be no need for the obituary pagesWe can have any hero from the bygone ages‘Til the truth emerges, the argument rages

The major and the minorTurn from tallow into tarShould we leave them in their place?Down in damnation’s cellar

When any form of deity that you might enjoyCan be conjured with a test-tube and a flameIf it’s out there then science can explain itOr at least remove the blameAnd if there’s anyone, you’d like to see again and speak up quickly

Send us back Da Vinci then we don’t have to ponderThe maddening smile of La GiacondaThe critics say Nijinsky, the dancer, of courseWhile the punters would probably prefer the horseYou’ll find it’s quicker than history, cheaper than divorce

The major and the minorTurn from tallow into tarShould we leave them in their place?Down in damnation’s cellar

Bring back Liberace or Ollie and StanShakespeare will have to wait his turnElvis Presley and Puccini shall return, I suppose we live and learnThough it’s hard to believe as we cheerfully burnIt’s curious, some will call for justiceThere are murders to solve

What about Hitler? Or at least Lee Harvey OswaldGive us this day and everything we squanderAnyone beautiful, somebody blonderThey’ll never please mankind, so lie back and enjoy itStop press, they’ve just decided to destroy it

The major and the minorTurn from tallow into tarShould we leave them in their place?Down in damnation’s cellar

The Birds Will Still Be Singing

Summertime withers as the sun descendsHe wants to kiss you. Will you condescend?Before you wake and find a chill within your bonesUnder a fine canopy of lover’s dust and humourous bones

Banish all dismayExtinguish every sorrow

Eternity stinks, my darling. That’s no jokeDon’t waste your precious timepretending you’re heartbroken

There will be tears and candlesPretty words to saySpare me lily-white lilliesWith the awful perfume of decay

Banish all dismayExtinguish every sorrowIf I’m lost or I’m forgivenThe birds will still be singing

It’s so hard to tear myself awayEven when you know it’s overIt’s too much to say.

Banish all dismayExtinguish every sorrowIf I’m lost or I’m forgivenThe birds will still be singing

About the Artists
Lindsay Kesselman

Lindsay Kesselman is a twice GRAMMY®-nominated soprano known for her warm, collaborative spirit and investment in personal, intimate communication with audiences. She regularly collaborates with orchestras, wind symphonies, chamber ensembles, opera/theater companies, and new music ensembles across the United States, often premiering, touring and recording new works written for her by living composers. She is a passionate advocate for contemporary music, and has commissioned/premiered over 100 works to date.

Recent and upcoming highlights include performances of Darkening, then Brightening by Christopher Cerrone across the country, National CBDNA with the UNC Greensboro Wind Ensemble, premieres of wind transcriptions of Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose and Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, Pierrot Lunairewith Ensemble ATL, Energy in All Directions by Kenneth Frazelle with Sandbox Percussion at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the role of Anna in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with the Charlotte Symphony, Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space with Voices of Ascension, the John Corigliano 80th birthday celebration at National Sawdust (2018), a leading role in Louis Andriessen’s opera Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Dutch National Opera and an international tour of Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble (2012-2015).

She is featured on several recent recordings, including: David Biedenbender’s all we are given we cannot hold (2023, Blue Griffin), Chris Cerrone’s opera In a Grove (2023, In a Circle Records), Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose (2023, Blue Griffin), Chris Cerrone’s The Arching Path (2021, In a Circle Records), and Louis Andriessen’s Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2017, Nonesuch).

Kesselman is Assistant Professor of Voice and Choral Music at UNC Greensboro and co-directs the Heretic’s Guide to Musicianship with Kevin Noe. She holds degrees in voice performance and music education from Rice University and Michigan State University. She is represented by Trudy Chan at Black Tea Music and lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband Kevin Noe and son Rowan.

Marjorie Bagley

Violinist Marjorie Bagley joined the faculty at UNCG in the Fall of 2009 after teaching violin and chamber music at Ohio University in Athens, OH. She began her professional career as first violinist and founding member of the Arcata String Quartet upon graduating from the Manhattan School of Music as a student of Pinchas Zukerman. The Arcata Quartet enjoyed nearly a decade of performances around the US and Europe, including concerts in London’s Wigmore Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, and their NYC debut in Town Hall. They can be heard in recordings on the VOX label, alongside members of the Tokyo and American Quartets. Her love of chamber music continues to this day as she performs with colleagues in NC and around the country, exploring classic and contemporary repertoire.

Bagley is Concertmaster of the Greensboro Symphony under the direction of Christopher Dragon. This season, she performed as soloist alongside mandolin player Chris Thile, and next season brings a solo appearance in Vaughn-Williams’ classic Lark Ascending. Bagley performed as both Associate Concertmaster and Principal Second Violin in the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, OH, under the direction of Music Director David Danzmayr and Principal Guest Artist Vadim Gluzman. For two decades, Bagley performed as member of the Berkshire Bach Society with keyboardist Kenneth Cooper.

Summers have taken Bagley to many festivals as both teacher and performer. The Arcata Quartet performed across Europe over several summers, including a concert at the Rheingau Music Festival. Her path as a teacher began at the Meadowmount Music School where she was an assistant teacher, and continued at a variety of summer chamber music festivals for high school students across the country. For six summers, Bagley was an assistant teacher at the Perlman Music Program. She has been on faculty at the Kinhaven Music School and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, and the International Music Academy Plzen in the Czech Republic. Bagley was an artist teacher at the Brevard Music Festival for eleven summers where she frequently served as concertmaster.

Professor Bagley continues to give masterclasses and performances at universities around the US. She remains fascinated by the unique qualities of each student she interacts with, looking to combine an understanding of violin technique and learning strategies to help each student move towards their potential. She also loves to perform and teach works by living composers and works that draw from a variety of musical styles.

After growing up in Wingate, NC, she received her BM summa cum laude in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan and an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. Teachers and coaches have included Pinchas Zukerman, Josef Gingold, Patinka Kopec, Isidore Cohen, and members of the Tokyo and American String Quartets. Three decades of performances have taken her to five continents and led to many inspiring musical collaborations. She can be heard in recordings on the Equilibrium, Centaur, Albany, Summit, and VOX labels. Bagley’s time away from the violin is filled with family adventures alongside her husband, physics professor Ian Beatty, and their three children.

Siana Wong

Siana Wong is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, with Malaysian heritage. Before attending college, she was a member of the Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphony Youth Orchestras, winning their concerto competition and performing as a soloist with them. She pursued her Bachelor of Music degree at UNC Chapel Hill under the tutelage of Nicholas DiEugenio, as well as a BA in biology. During her time at Chapel Hill Siana was also a winner of the concerto competition. Siana is an avid chamber music performer in and out of her home state of NC, including performances with EMF and UNCG faculty. Siana spent many summers at the Luby Violin Symposium at Chapel Hill, having the opportunity to learn from first-class violinists from around the globe. She has also attended the Instrumental Program of Chautauqua Institution and participated in master classes with Ana Luque, Shannon Thomas, and others.

Siana is a member of Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra, Western Piedmont Symphony, and she has recently been appointed Associate Concertmaster of Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. In addition to her performing career, she enjoys teaching in her private studio.

Currently, Siana is extending her studies at UNCG, pursuing a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in violin performance with Dr. Fabián López.

She plays on a Wojciech Topa violin from 2017.

Scott Rawls

Violist Scott Rawls has appeared as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Europe. Recent chamber music endeavors include performances with Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Branford Marsalis, Sergey Antonov, Michelle Cann and the Reynolda Quartet. With the Nikkanen/Rawls/Bailey string trio, he has played tours in Alaska, Washington, Arizona and Texas. His solo and chamber music recordings can be heard on the Centaur, CRI, Nonesuch, Capstone, and Philips labels.

A strong proponent of new music, Rawls has premiered dozens of new works by prominentcomposers. Most notable, he has toured extensively as a member of Steve Reich and Musicians. As the violist in this ensemble, he performed the numerous premieres of Daniel Variations, The Cave and Three Tales by Steve Reich and Beryl Korot, videographer. And under the auspices of presenting organizations such as the Wiener Festwochen, Festival d’Automne a Paris, Holland Festival, Berlin Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival, he has performed in major music centers around the world including London, Vienna, Rome, Milan, Tokyo, Prague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

Under the baton of maestro Christopher Dragon, he plays principal viola in the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. During the summer season, Rawls plays principal in the festival orchestra at Brevard Music Center where he also coordinates the viola program. He was also appointed principal viola of the Palm Beach Opera orchestra, David Stern artistic director.

Dr. Rawls currently serves as Marion Stedman Covington Distinguished Professor of Viola and Chamber Music and String Area Chair at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He holds a BM degree from Indiana University and a MM and DMA from State University of New York at Stony Brook. His major mentors include Abraham Skernick, Georges Janzer, John Graham and Julius Levine.

Cori Trenczer

Cori Trenczer is a cellist, chamber musician, and teacher from the Hudson Valley region of New York. Coming from a musical family and a family of educators, Cori is both an avid performer and a teacher to a robust studio of cello students. Cori has their Bachelor’s Degree in Cello Performance from the Eastman School of Music and they are pursuing a Masters Degree in Cello Performance with Professor Ezerman at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Cori is also a section cellist with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, as well as a substitute cellist with the Winston-Salem Symphony and the South Carolina Philharmonic. A devoted chamber musician, Cori has furthered their experience with their classmates in the Juniper Quartet, along with colleagues at summer programs such as the Castleman Quartet Program, Green Lake Chamber Music Institute, and Emerald Coast Festival of Music.

Also passionate about contemporary music, Cori has played in various new music ensembles including but not limited to: OSSIA New Music, Musica Nova, and Switch~Ensemble. They have worked with several composer colleagues during their undergraduate degree and their masters so far, and would absolutely love to explore more newly created work. Cori currently has a studio of 11 online cello students, ranging from age 10 to mid 20s. Cori is on the faculty at Moore Music Company where they teach an additional 5 students in person. Cori also teaches 2 students in person through the UNCG Community Lessons Program.

Cori is in the process of creating and editing a method book called “Smorgasbord for your Fingerboard: Volume One Songs for the Beginning Cellist”. This is a method book full of works by living young composers from many underrepresented groups.

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George Fu, piano
2025-10-20 19:30 - 21:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
American pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu is “one of the most exciting pianists of our time… a deep thinker, thoroughly in command” (The Arts Desk). The winner of BBC Music Magazine’s 2024 Newcomer Award, he is garnering international acclaim as a fearless and probing interpreter of a wide array of music, combining “phenomenal technique with a profound sense of interpretative clarity” (Apple Music).

Highlights for Fu’s 2025-26 season include his solo debut at the Frick Collection in New York City, playing the entire cycle of Oliver Messiaen’ Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; as well as a new solo piano commission he is writing for his recital at Wigmore Hall in London. He also appears at the Concertgebuow and with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with his ensemble, Trio Zimbalist, comprised of violinist Josef Špaček and cellist Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin.

Fu has appeared throughout major venues around the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, 92nd Street Y, Konzerthaus Berlin, Kennedy Center, St Martin In the Fields, the Southbank Centre, and Kings Place. As concerto soloist he has performed with National Symphony Orchestra (USA), Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. He appears regularly at festivals worldwide such as the Aldeburgh, Ryedale, Presteigne, Tanglewood, Smetanova Litomyšl, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals. His performances and interviews have been featured on broadcasts around the world, ranging from BBC Radio 3 and National Public Radio, to appearances on PBS/American Public Television and On Stage At Curtis in Philadelphia. In addition to Trio Zimbalist, Fu enjoys fruitful collaborations with a wide variety of artists such as Roberto Díaz (viola), Dmitri Sitkovetsky (violin), Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin), Mika Sasaki (piano), Liv Redpath (soprano), and Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano).

As an emerging composer, Fu’s growing catalogue of original works and arrangements exhibits fresh imagination and virtuosity, all the while drawing from a lifetime of studying a vast repertoire spanning several centuries. His Passacaglia on a Theme by Radiohead was recently featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered and hailed as “kind of mind-blowing” by Robin Hilton; while his arrangements of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 and Smetana’s Dance of the Comedians have seen successful debuts internationally. This year Trio Zimbalist will debut his first Piano Trio throughout concerts in the US.

Fu’s second studio album, Colouring Book, was released with Platoon Classical in March 2025 to international acclaim, with Gramophone Magazine hailing it as one of the best classical releases of the year: “Fu plays his own music with tremendous authority and colouristic resources, as he also does with the Cruttwell-Reade and Aucoin selections… As for the Debussy Études, Fu’s recordings contain some of the most enchantingly characterised interpretations I’ve heard since those of Ju-Ying Song, Florent Boffard, Mitsuko Uchida and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. Yes, they’re that good!” (Jed Distler) His first solo album, MIRRORS (Platoon), won BBC Music Magazine’s 2024 Newcomer Award for best debut release.

Fu made his concerto debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center at the age of 17. After earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University, Fu studied with Jonathan Biss and Meng-Chieh Liu at the Curtis Institute of Music, and then with Christopher Elton and the Dame Myra Hess Chair of Piano Joanna MacGregor at the Royal Academy of Music. Additional mentors have included David Ludwig and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. He resides in London.

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Count Basie Orchestra
2025-10-17 20:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
In the history of Jazz, there is only one bandleader that has the distinction of having his orchestra still performing sold-out concerts all over the world, with members personally chosen by him, for nearly 40 years after his passing. Pianist and bandleader William James “Count” Basie was and still is an American institution that personifies the grandeur and excellence of Jazz. The Count Basie Orchestra, today directed by Scotty Barnhart, has won every respected jazz poll in the world at least once; won 18 Grammy Awards; performed for Kings, Queens, and other world Royalty; appeared in several movies and television shows; and at every major jazz festival and major concert hall in the world.

The most recent honor is a 2024 Grammy Win of Best Large Jazz Ensemble for Basie Swings the Blues! Other honors include their 2022 Grammy Nomination for Live at Birdland, a 2018 Grammy Nomination for All About That Basie, which features special guests Stevie Wonder, Jon Faddis, and Take 6 among others, and the 2018 Downbeat Readers Poll Award as the #1 Jazz Orchestra in the world. Their critically acclaimed release in 2015 of A Very Swingin’ Basie Christmas! is the very first holiday album in the 80-year history of the orchestra. Released on Concord Music, it went to #1 on the Jazz charts and sold out on Amazon! Special guests include vocalists Johnny Mathis, Ledisi, our own Carmen Bradford, and pianist Ellis Marsalis.

A BBC TV-produced documentary on Mr. Basie and the orchestra titled Count Basie: Through His Own Eyes premiered on PBS in the US and UK in 2019 coinciding with the orchestra’s 85th Anniversary. It features interviews by Quincy Jones, Scotty Barnhart, Dee Askew, John Williams, and several other important members and associates of Mr. Basie and the orchestra.

Orchestra/MezzBalconyUNCG Students$7.50$7.50UNCG Faculty/Staff$25.00$25.00Adults$65.00$50.00Seniors/Military$55.00$40.00Children (K-12)$30.00$15.00

PURCHASE TICKETS

* Tickets to CVPA and UCLS events are sold exclusively through our box office locations and ETix website, and nowhere else. Tickets purchased through third-party vendors cannot be honored.

Some of the greatest soloists, composers, arrangers, and vocalists in jazz history such as Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Frank Foster, Thad Jones, Sonny Payne, Freddie Green, Snooky Young, Frank Wess, and Joe Williams, became international stars once they began working with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. This great 18-member orchestra is continuing the excellent history started by Basie of stomping and shouting the blues, as well as refining those musical particulars that allow for the deepest and most moving of swing.

Current members include one musician hired by Basie himself: trombonist Clarence Banks (1984). Long-time members include Doug Miller (1989, formerly w/Lionel Hampton), guitarist Will Matthews from Kansas City (1996), and members who have 15-25 years of service; trombonist Mark Williams, trumpeters Shawn Edmonds and Endre Rice, saxophonists Doug Lawrence (formerly w/Benny Goodman) and returning on lead alto, David Glasser. Newer members include bassist Trevor Ware, lead trumpeter Frank Greene III, trumpeter Brandon Lee, pianist Reginald Thomas, lead trombonist Isrea Butler, bass trombonist Ronald Wilkins, alto sax and flute Stantawn Kendrick, and the youngest members, drummer Robert Boone and baritone saxophonist Josh Lee.

In addition to public presentations, artists in the UCLS series have important interactions with UNCG students, such as holding masterclasses, talkback sessions, and seminars, often just hours before performing on stage. Thanks to a grant from The Cemala Foundation, some of these artists also work with K-12 students in the Guilford County Schools.

Concert Band
2025-10-10 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/nqLlBEl5GwY?feature=share

Patty Saunders, conductorLuke Ellard, clarinetMolly Allman, conductorJaden Brown, conductor

Program

VÁCLAV NELHÝBELCorsican Litany (1796)

ELENA SPECHTTo Old and New Places (2024)

JODIE BLACKSHAWInto the Sun (2017)

JOHN WILLIAMSViktor’s Tale from The Terminal (2009)

KEVIN DAYSummit (2021)

JOHN BARNES CHANCEVariations on a Korean Folk Song (1967)

About the Program
Corsican Litany

Václav Nelhýbel was a prolific Czech composer and conductor who studied composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory of Music and musicology at Charles University and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He was the assistant conductor of the Czech Philharmonic and a composer and conductor of the Swiss National Radio. He co-founded and directed the Radio Free Europe in Munich and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and Bavarian Symphony. He emigrated from the Czech Republic to the United States in 1957.

Fascinated with the American concert band, Nelhýbel wrote Corsican Litany to explore the possibilities of the ensemble. Corsican laments were split into two categories: laments for deaths from natural causes and voceru, songs of grief and vengeance for victims of murder. The voceru that inspired Nelhýbel’s Corsican Litany was first sung in 1775 at the funeral of a country doctor named Matju who had been murdered by his patient. This piece begins with the sound of tolling chimes to announce the beginning of mourning, weaves sonically through pain and loss, and ends with the chilling reminder that, despite the voceru belief that vengeance can heal, the tolling chime remains.

Note by Patty Saunders

To Old and New Places

Elena Specht is a composer whose work often grows out of compelling stories and a strong sense of place. Her music has been performed by groups such as the U.S. Coast Guard Band and university wind ensembles. She currently works as a librarian with “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.

To New and Old Places is written in three movements; each tied to a scene in a different young adult novel. In the first, based on Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember, two young characters witness the sun rising for the very first time. The second, based on Caroline B. Cooney’s The Face on the Milk Carton, captures the bittersweet longing of a teenager imagining the life she might have had with her lost family. The final movement, from C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, carries the thrill of a voyage into uncharted seas.

Note by Elena Specht and Molly Allman

Into the Sun

Jodie Blackshaw is an Australian composer and conductor who studied composition with Larry Sitsky at the Australian National University. Blackshaw founded the Female Band Composer database in 2017 and the ColourFULL Music website in 2018. She is a composer that takes a student-centered approach in her works, often including storylines, options for student decision-making, and program narratives that connect the piece with a larger story.

Into the Sun is a compilation of stories told about the passage to Australia from the points of view of free settlers in the 1800s, post-World War II immigrants, and refugees seeking asylum. Blackshaw includes real-life stories that correspond to each of the piece’s six sections in her program notes that describe the emotional highs and lows of leaving home to find a new one. The sections include the Arrival; A New Land, a New Life; Camps and Confusion; Acculturation: A Yearning for Home and All That is Familiar; Opportunity: With New-Found Enthusiasm; and Reflection: With a Feeling of Inner Peace of Calmness. Written to raise awareness of the plight of refugees, Blackshaw broadens her programmatic message communicating a desire for all people to love one another. Blackshaw’s Into the Sun emphasizes this importance and the responsibility to help refugees in times of need.

Note by Jodie Blackshaw and Patty Saunders

Viktor’s Tale from The Terminal

John Williams is one of the most celebrated and influential film composers of the modern era. An American composer from New York, Williams was the son of a jazz drummer and studied at UCLA, the Juilliard School, and Eastman. His career has included collaborations with director Steven Spielberg and George Lucas that has produced some of the most recognized music in cinematic history including Schindler’s List, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. He has won numerous awards including five Academy Awards and twenty-five GRAMMY® awards. Williams remains active as a composer and conductor and continues to broaden his impact on modern film.

Viktor’s Tale is a composition for solo clarinet and orchestra that was developed from Williams’ score for the Steven Spielberg film The Terminal. Part drama and part comedy, the film follows the protagonist, Viktor Navorski, as he finds himself a man without a country, stuck in an airport terminal for days on end. Williams’ score brings to life this unfortunate circumstance and includes a musical portrait of Navorski’s warmth and friendliness through a dance-like piece for clarinet and ensemble.

Note by the United States Marine Band and Patty Saunders

Summit

Kevin Day is a composer, jazz pianist, producer, and conductor who is known to juxtapose diverse musical traditions including contemporary classical, jazz, R&B, and soul with classical composition. His father was a prominent hip-hop producer, and his mother was a popular gospel singer. Day is one of eight founding members of the Nu Black Vanguard, a collective dedicated to the advancement of Black composers, and a graduate of Texas Christian University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music. In 2024, Day joined the faculty at the University of California San Diego as a lecturer in theory and musicianship.

Day composed Summit in 2020 after being commissioned by the Indiana Bandmasters Association. The piece depicts a group of climbers as they journey up the face of a mountain. Along the way, they encounter many obstacles, including cliffs and chilling winds, but the team perseveres and makes their way to the top.

Note by Kevin Day and Jaden Brown

Variations on a Korean Folk Song

A native of Texas, John Barnes Chance was an American composer and arranger who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Texas, where he studied with Clifton Williams, Kent Kennan, and Paul Pisk. He performed as a percussionist with the Austin Symphony Orchestra and served as an arranger for the 4th Army Band in San Antonio and the 8th Army Band in Seoul, Korea. After leaving the Army, the Ford Foundation selected Chance to participate in the Young Composers Project. From 1960 through 1962, he was composer-in-residence for the Greensboro Ford Foundation Young Composers Project writing for the Greensboro, North Carolina public school system and Greensboro Senior High School, now Grimsley High School. Chance was a prolific composer for wind band with works including Incantation and Dance and Blue Lake Overture.

While stationed overseas in Seoul, Chance heard the popular Korean folk song “Arirang” which inspired Variations on a Korean Folk Song. A song of love and heartbreak, the theme is based on the ujo mode pentatonic scale and can be traced back to the 18th century. The tune was also used as a resistance anthem during the Japanese occupation of Korea when the singing of patriotic songs was criminalized. About the melody, Chance said, “The tune is not as simple as it sounds, and my fascination with it during the intervening years led to its eventual use as the theme for this set of variations.” The theme is followed by five variations that alternate between fast and slow tempos and use multiple time signatures and rhythmic patterns to alter the theme. Variations on A Korean Folk Song is a cornerstone work for band and received the Sousa/Ostwald Award from the American Bandmasters Association in 1966.

Note by Patty Saunders

About the Artists

Clarinetist, composer, educator, and new music collaborator Luke Ellard strives for art that continually reaches out, valuing a relational spirit, informed engagement, and unapologetic authenticity.

For Luke, collaboration is what gives music life. As a clarinetist, they have performed with members of Bang On a Can All Stars, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Arkansas Symphony, Winston-Salem Symphony, and Mallarmé Chamber Music. As a composer, their music has been performed and commissioned by ensembles such as North Texas Wind Symphony, HOCKET, New Trombone Collective, Barkada Quartet, among others. Their current performance projects center around their self-produced solo cross-genre/electronic band LE, performing with their new music quartet Sounding Board, and commissioning new exciting works for the clarinet.

Dr. Ellard serves on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Clarinet, having previously served on faculty at the University of Oklahoma and Midwestern State University while teaching privately and performing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Luke earned their Doctor of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance with related studies in Contemporary Music and Music Entrepreneurship at the University of North Texas, studying under Kimberly Cole Luevano. Additionally, Luke has earned degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (James Campbell & Eric Hoeprich), the University of Texas at Austin (Yevgeniy Sharlat, Dan Welcher, & Donald Grantham), and Louisiana Tech University (Lawrence Gibbs, Joe L. Alexander).

UNCG Bands
The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.

UNCG Bands

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Calypsus Brass
2025-10-10 17:30 - 19:00 | Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St, Greensboro, 27412, United States
https://youtube.com/live/4R0uVnQIvUk?feature=share

Carrie Blosser and Jennifer Oliverio, trumpetsEmily Schaefer, hornLauren Rudzinskas, tromboneStephanie Ycaza, tuba

Founded in 2021, Calypsus Brass is a professional chamber ensemble performing new works recitals, creating high-level professional recordings for composers, and working with chamber musicians at all levels. The members are avid performers and educators who give recitals and masterclasses worldwide.

A 501(c)3 Nonprofit, Calypsus Brass is a groundbreaking musical group founded by women who earned doctoral degrees in music, the first of its kind. Between them, the members hold multiple doctorates, a total of 14 degrees, 3 minors, and 4 advanced certificates in cognates such as pedagogy and jazz improvisation. Calypsus Brass serves as a recording ensemble for composers whose works have never been recorded.

Calypsus Brass is committed to prioritizing recording and performing works of historically marginalized composers to uplift the highest quality of music. To further this mission, Calypsus Brass is proud to be the Ensemble in Residence for Rising Tide Music Press. This organization publishes and promotes BBIA (Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian) musicians in their first 10 years of professional-level work as composers and arrangers.

Because professional recordings can be cost-prohibitive for composers and many composition competitions and calls for scores require recording with real instruments for consideration, Calypsus Brass is committed to recording works by emerging artists. We encourage all musicians to program music by a diverse array of composers so that the music we perform is inclusive of the community we serve as artists. Calypsus is proud to lead by example in this mission with recording and commissioning projects. When premiering and recording works, Calypsus Brass creates a relationship with composers, helping to build their portfolios with recordings that the composers are proud to showcase while providing expert advice and coaching regarding idiomatic writing for brass instruments.

As devoted educators, Calypsus members bring a robust pedagogical background to each masterclass and outreach event. Combining 80 years of educational experience, Calypsus Brass presents specialized masterclasses and clinics on topics including: chamber music, classical, orchestra, and jazz performance, wellness, audition preparation, military and orchestral careers, performance anxiety and psychology, music career development, marketing and branding, arts administration and nonprofit management, commissioning, audio engineering, and intersectionality in the music community. Calypsus Brass is a registered nonprofit.

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Wind Ensemble
2025-10-09 19:30 - 21:00 | UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, United States
Hub New Music

https://youtube.com/live/JESfALSDeL4?feature=share

Jonathan Caldwell, conductorHub New MusicGala Flagello, composerPatty Saunders, graduate conductor

Program

ANNA CLYNEMasquerade (2013/2018)transcribed by Dennis Llinás

SHUYING LIIn This Breath (2025)

GALA FLAGELLOThe Bird-While (2022)

Avian GodsFragile, Vanishing GiftsSurvive

SILVESTRE REVUELTASSensemayá (1938/1990)transcribed by Frank Bencriscutto

PAUL HINDEMITH Symphony in B-flat (1951)

Moderately fast, with vigor Andante grazioso Fugue (rather broad)

About the Program
Masquerade

Masquerade draws inspiration from the original mid-18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens. As is true today, these concerts were a place where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music. Other forms of entertainment ranged from the sedate to the salacious with acrobatics, exotic street entertainers, dancers, fireworks and masquerades. I am fascinated by the historic and sociological courtship between music and dance. Combined with costumes, masked guises and elaborate settings, masquerades created an exciting, yet controlled, sense of occasion and celebration. It is this that I wish to evoke in Masquerade.

The work derives its material from two melodies. For the main theme, I imagined a chorus welcoming the audience and inviting them into their imaginary world. The second theme, Juice of Barley, is an old English country dance melody and drinking song, which first appeared in John Playford’s 1695 edition of The English Dancing Master.

— Anna Clyne

In This Breath

In This Breath was premiered by the Baylor University Wind Ensemble at the March 2025 CBDNA National Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. It was composed in memory of Glen Adsit. Li offers the following regarding the piece:

“My nature is the nature of the cloud—the nature of no birth and no death. Just as it is impossible for a cloud to die, it’s impossible for me to die. I enjoy contemplating my continuation body, just as the cloud enjoys watching the rain fall and become the river far below. If you look closely at yourself, you will see how you too are continuing me in some way. If you breathe in and out, and you find peace, happiness, and fulfillment, you know I am always with you, whether my physical body is still alive or not. I am continued in my many friends, students, and monastic disciples.” Thich Nhat Hanh – The Art of Living

This quotation comes from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Living. This book is a collection of the Vietnamese monk’s ruminations on life and death that guided my partner Glen Adsit through his personal struggles when confronted with his own mortality. As well as being my beloved life partner and musical collaborator, Glen was a beloved figure in the music community who touched the lives of countless collaborators and students. In the wake of Glen’s sudden passing in January 2024 we have all become the rain to Glen’s cloud. His inextinguishable spirit and profound influence continue to resonate deeply within all of us. Although his physical body is no longer with us, we now constitute his continuation body and are charged with continuing his legacy of support and love for one another.

This piece is a tribute to Glen, the physical life we shared together, and the new life we share as I continue his legacy in my own way. It reflects the profound love and connection we share, both personally and through our collaborative musical endeavors. The piece is lyrical and tender, inviting listeners into the intimate emotional spaces Glen and I navigated together. It captures the essence of Glen’s loving spirit—missed by many, cherished by those who experienced his warmth and guidance, and still apparent in the life and work of his family, colleagues, and students. It is both a celebration of Glen’s life and the enduring bond he and I share and a tribute to the legacy of love and artistic collaboration that he left behind for all of us to continue together. Glen Adsit was a conductor and trombonist. He served as the director of bands at The Hartt School and the national president of the College Band Directors National Association.

As the piece concludes, the ensemble decrescendos to silence making space for a solo trombone crescendo as a tribute to Glen Adsit, a trombonist, and his enduring legacy.

— Shuying Li and Patty Saunders

The Bird-While

The Bird-While (2022) is a concerto for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and symphonic winds commissioned by Hub New Music. The piece is titled after and based on Keith Taylor’s poem Acolytes in the Bird-While, which explores the flora and fauna of Michigan and the struggle to persist in the face of climate change. I aimed to write a concerto for an unconventional group of instruments that demonstrates their virtuosity while providing a platform for awareness of and education around environmental and climate justice. Each movement derives its title from Taylor’s poem, drawing attention to pivotal lines in the poem’s narrative.

The first movement, Avian Gods, is inspired by the calls of the pileated woodpecker and redstart warbler, two Michigan bird species central to Taylor’s poem. This movement’s 5/8 motif follows the woodpecker’s five-note call, often separated into three- and two-note groupings that can be heard in both the soloists’ and ensemble’s parts. Snap pizzicato in the solo violin and cello evoke the woodpecker’s pecking, and the ensemble’s driving 5/8 ostinato conjures the warbler’s high, repetitive five-note shriek.

The second movement, Fragile, Vanishing Gifts, highlights the individual natural elements that surround us every day. The flute, clarinet, violin, and cello articulate the future loss of these elements due to climate change as they introduce the movement’s theme separately, then come together in canon; our environment is a delicate balance between the individual and the collective. This theme originates from my Moon Dream (2020) for solo soprano saxophone, an early pandemic-era lullaby commissioned by Latitude 49 for their Bagatelles Project in support of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts.

The third movement, Survive, is both a question and a call to action: can the performers — and our environment — withstand disruption and damage? As I was writing this movement, my best friend and horn player, Marina Krol Hodge, suddenly passed, leaving me pondering my own ability to weather life’s storms. Dedicated to Marina, Survive features horn solos and a brass chorale throughout to commemorate her bright, resilient spirit and her support of new music. The movement’s title also references the way in which music itself might survive through history, which I illustrate by quoting the prelude of J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita No. 3. Two more nods to Bach appear later in this movement in the solo violin and cello. Piping plover calls are referenced in the fleeting, staccato woodwind parts, and the movement’s focus on quintal harmony and recurring fifths harken to the woodpecker’s opening five-note call.

5% of proceeds from The Bird-While sales and rentals will be donated to the Bird Center of Michigan.

— Gala Flagello

Sensemayá

Revueltas wrote little explanation about his composition Sensemayá, and the meaning/relationship of the music to the poem has been the basis for much scholarly debate for the past eighty years. Revueltas heard Afro-Cuban poet Nicholas Guillén recite his poem Sensemayá in 1937 and was taken by the text and rhythm of the poem. The word sensemayá is a combination of sensa (Providence) and Yemaya (Afro-Cuban Goddess of the Seas and Mother of Earth), one of the godSensemayá was the work that brought Silvestre Revueltas to international attention. It was through a recording of the work made by Leopold Stokowski in New York in December 1947 that widespread audiences outside of Mexico began to get an idea of Revueltas’ music.

Revueltas had died in 1940 from complications of chronic alcoholism, his music virtually unknown outside of Mexico, some performances given during a trip to Spain in 1937 notwithstanding. The last decade of his life had been devoted to music, with Revueltas active as a composer, teacher, and conductor in Mexico City. Between 1928 and his death, Revueltas had composed roughly 60 works, including orchestral, chamber, vocal, and theater pieces, as well as a handful of film scores, such as Redes (released in English as The Wave, 1936) and La noche de los mayas (The Night of the Mayans, 1939).

Revueltas had a varied and useful musical education, comprised of a fair amount of practical experience. After three years in Mexico City (1913-1916), Revueltas traveled to the United States, where he studied violin and composition in Austin and Chicago. In the late 1920s, he played violin in a theater orchestra in San Antonio and conducted an orchestra in Mobile, Alabama. He returned to Mexico in 1929, when Carlos Chávez, one of the country’s foremost composers and musicians, invited him to become assistant conductor of the Mexico Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1935.

These experiences combined to make Revueltas a sensitive and insightful writer for orchestra and a composer with an intrinsic ability to express Latin-American culture musically. Sensemayá first materialized in a (still unpublished) version for chamber ensemble in 1937. Revueltas based the work on a poem that describes the ritual killing of a snake from Cuban writer Nicolás Guillén’s collection West Indies Ltd., published in 1934. The atmosphere of the poem, which pits life against death, the snake against its ritual executioners, is ideally captured by Revueltas in his brief, vibrant musical work, even more so in the version for full orchestra premiered by the composer with a pick-up orchestra at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City on December 15, 1938. The obsessive rhythms (the work is in 7/8 – and occasionally 7/16 – time), the slithering, pictorial wind writing, and the threatening brass all combine to create a raw evocation of the ceremony, comparable to what Stravinsky did for pagan Russia in The Rite of Spring.

— John Mangum

Symphony in B-flat

The Symphony for Concert Band was composed at the request of Lt. Col. Hugh Curry, leader of the United States Army Band, and was premiered in Washington, D.C., on April 5, 1951, with the composer conducting. This three-movement work is the only symphony that Hindemith wrote expressly for the wind band. The suite shows Hindemith’s great contrapunctal skill, and the organized logic of his thematic material. His melodies develop ever-expanding lines, and his skill in the organization and utilization of complex rhythmic variation adds spice and zest to the strength of his melodies.

Although Symphony in B-Flat features unique uses of dissonant chords and nonharmonic tones, it preserves neo-classical tonality, forms, and rhythmic and melodic patterns. Short figures are apt to form themselves into ostinatos to provide the background to broad and declamatory melodies; these melodies will often repeat characteristic phrases of awkward lengths so as to disturb the even flow of the basic rhythm. A slow section will alternate with a scherzando section, and the two will combine to form the third portion of a movement.

The first movement is in sonata allegro form in three sections, with the recapitulation economically utilizing both themes together in strong counterpoint. The second and third movements develop and expand their thematic material in some of the most memorable contrapunctal writing for winds. The second movement opens with an imitative duet between alto saxophone and cornet, accompanied by a repeated chord figure. The duet theme, along with thematic material from the opening movement, provides the basic material for the remainder of the movement. The closing section of the third movement utilizes the combined themes while the woodwinds amplify the incessant chattering of the first movement. The brass and percussion adamantly demand a halt with a powerful final cadence.

The Symphony in B-Flat rivals any orchestra composition in length, breadth, and content, and served to convince other first-rank composers — including Vittorio Giannini, Vincent Persichetti, Paul Creston, and Alan Hovhaness — that the band is a legitimate medium for serious music.

— Andrew Grenci and Joel Baroody

About the Artists
Hub New Music

Called “contemporary chamber trailblazers” by the Boston Globe, Hub New Music is a “prime mover of piping hot 21st century repertoire” (The Washington Post). Founded in 2013, the “nimble quartet of winds and strings” (NPR) has commissioned dozens of new works for its distinctive ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, and cello. Hub actively collaborates with today’s most celebrated composers on projects that traverse a rich musical landscape.

Recent and upcoming performances include concerts presented by the Kennedy Center, Seattle Symphony, Kaufman Music Center, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Williams Center for the Arts, Yale Schwarzman Center, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, King’s Place (London), Soka Performing Arts Center, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, and the Celebrity Series of Boston.

To celebrate its recent 10th anniversary, Hub co-commissioned and premiered new works by Angélica Negrón, Nico Muhly, Tyshawn Sorey, Andrew Norman, Jessica Meyer, and Donnacha Dennehy. Upcoming commissioning projects include substantial electroacoustic works by Christopher Cerrone and Daniel Wohl (2025); a work by Yaz Lancaster co-created with Black Mountain College Museum & Art Center (2025); and a collaborative project with composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Bora Yoon (2026).

Hub New Music’s recordings have garnered consistent acclaim. The group’s most recent record with Silkroad’s Kojiro Umezaki, a distance, intertwined , features five works for Hub and shakuhachi which I Care if You Listen called “beautiful, haunting music that presents a clear and authentic dialog between varied cultural paradigms and traditions.” Hub’s debut album, Soul House, released on New Amsterdam Records, was called “ingenious and unequivocally gorgeous” (Boston Globe) and “intensely poignant” (Textura). In 2022, Hub’s album with Carlos Simon, Requiem for the Enslaved , was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Composition.

Hub is also dedicated to educating, inspiring and guiding future generations of artists. The ensemble has been a guest at leading institutions including Princeton University, University of Michigan, University of Southern California, and Indiana University. In 2021, Hub was a resident ensemble for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship program for high school aged composers. As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, Hub designed a fellowship program with the Luna Lab in NYC that was awarded to Luna Lab alumna Sage Shurman.

Hub New Music is Michael Avitabile (flutes), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinets), Magnolia Rohrer (violin/viola), and Jesse Christeson (cello). Currently based in Detroit, the ensemble’s name is inspired by its founding city of Boston’s reputation as a hub of innovation. Hub New Music is exclusively represented by Unfinished Side.

Gala Flagello

Gala Flagello (b. 1994) is a composer, educator, and nonprofit director whose work is inspired by a passion for lyricism, rhythmic vitality, and fostering meaningful collaboration. Her music, described as “at times endearingly whimsical, at times ominous, but always moving” (Cleveland Classical), resonates with audiences through its emotional depth and dynamic expression. Flagello’s collaborations with leading ensembles, artists, and institutions on national and international stages build impactful projects for audiences and performers alike.

Flagello’s 2024/25 season features the European premiere of Vitality with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, including an international performance broadcast, along with orchestral performances of Bravado by Detroit Symphony, Chautauqua Festival, Lansing Symphony, Wichita Falls Symphony, Central Ohio Symphony, and Dearborn Symphony. She is a recipient of the 2024 Barlow General Commission, which will support a new work for the Thalea String Quartet. This season also includes consortium premieres of Flagello’s Love & Nature, a wind band work commissioned by 55 ensembles across the United States.

Upcoming projects include a new piano concerto for soloist Henry Kramer and commissions from the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, the University of Nebraska–Omaha School of Music, and the University of Florida Bands. Album releases this season include Tallā Rouge’s Shapes in Collective Space featuring Burn as Brightly and a commercial recording of The Bird-While with Hub New Music and the University of Illinois Wind Symphony.

UNCG Bands
The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.

UNCG Bands

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