FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 21, 2015
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
rebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu
603.646.3991
Conducting world great leads college wind ensemble in concert of Eastern gems,
October 30
Photo: Matthew Marsit conducts the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble. Photo by Rob Strong.
HANOVER, NH—The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble goes under the guest baton of a globe-trotting great
of the conducting world this fall for a program of music with an Eastern-European bent, on Friday, October 30,
8 pm, in the Hop’s Spaulding Auditorium.
Eastern European Treasures,
with special guest conductor
Timothy Reynish, is an
exciting program of works
spanning the 20th and 21st
centuries incorporating ideas
from Russia, Poland, Serbia
and Croatia. Along with
Nikolai Myaskovsky’s gleeful,
romantic symphony 1939
Symphony No. 19 in Eb are
newer works by living
composers imbued with their
home countries’ outstanding
musical cultures and the
music of dance, ritual and
pondering the great
unknown: Kenneth Hesketh’s
2012 Vranjanka, Davor Bobic’s 1997 Pictures from Zagorje and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski’s 2009 Music for
Winds.
The UK-based Reynish has emerged as one of the leading conductors of wind bands and wind ensembles in
the world, and in the past few years has conducted many of the principal professional bands and top military
bands in Asia, Europe and North and South America. He has given clinics, lectured, guest conducted and
adjudicated in competitions throughout the world, and has served in leadership positions in wind ensemble
professional associations and music publishing houses. After the tragic accidental death of his son, Reynish
established a fund in his name from which he commissions new works for wind ensembles—orchestras small
and large made up of woodwinds, brass and percussion.
DCWE Director Matthew M. Marsit himself had a chance to work with Reynish for a full academic term in
spring 2009 when Reynish filled in at Cornell University (Marsit’s former employer) for a wind ensemble
director on leave. “He took me right under his wing,” said Marsit. In 2012, Reynish guest-conducted the
Dartmouth ensemble in a concert of British music.
Along with being “a towering figure in the world in wind band conducting,” Reynish has strengthened that
whole musical genre, Marsit said. “His advocacy and research has inspired several generations of composers
to dedicate significant portions of their catalogs to music for wind ensemble. His work has helped to found
and shape the missions of several major organizations dedicated to music for winds, including the World
Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles and even the College Band Directors National Association,
here in the United States. These organizations would not be what they are today without Tim's great work.
Beyond this, he has served as a guest clinician and instructor at countless institutions, symposia, and music
festivals, influencing hundreds if not thousands of today's conductors.”
The program centers on the hour-long work by Myaskovsky. Sometimes referred to as “the father of the
Soviet symphony,” Myaskovsky composed 27 symphonies from 1908 to 1949—spanning from pre-Revolution
Tsarist times through revolution, Lenin, World War II and late into Stalin’s regime. Wrote the Guardian (UK):
“Born in 1881, the year before Stravinsky, he's the bridge between Tchaikovsky and the modernist
symphonists such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and was regarded as the ‘the musical conscience of Moscow’
throughout the Soviet period by his fellow composers.” The 19 th is his one symphony for wind ensemble but
has none of the bombast one might expect from a work for military band. Rather, it begins with a Prokofievstyle brusque quick-march and passages reminiscent of Vaughan Williams and Holst, and proceeds in a mainly
playful, gleeful, romantic direction.
Hesketh’s Vranjanka (the title means “from Vranje,” a town in southern Serbia) is loosely based on a
traditional Serbian folksong in an irregular meter. A brooding, incisive introduction leads into an exciting
Balkan dance mainly in 7/8. Born in Liverpool, England, in 1968, Hesketh has also composed music for opera,
dance, orchestra, chamber and vocal ensemble and solo voice.
Also born in 1968, Bobic is Croatian, educated in Kiev, Ukraine. His piece celebrates Zagorje, a region of
Croatia known especially for its nationalistic music and dance and its strong folklore traditions. The 12-minute
piece unfolds in three dramatic movement, each of which is its own miniature tone poem.
Born in Lwów, Poland, in 1923, Skrowaczewski was a musical prodigy who prospered in both pre-war and
post-war Poland before leaving Poland for a series of symphony conducting positions in the West, including in
Cleveland, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Having composed his first symphonic work at age 7, he continued
composing through his conducting career, earning a Pulitzer nomination in 1995. His Music for Winds was
commissioned by an international consortium of nine orchestras and wind ensembles from the US, Germany,
Austria and Japan.
The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble is a select, auditioned wind ensemble of 45 members, performing a
wide variety of music from the late 19th, 20th and 21st century wind ensemble repertoire. The DCWE serves
as a melting pot for the students of Dartmouth College as well as residents of the Upper Valley, sharing music
with our community and those communities beyond the boundaries of our campus through concertizing,
small and large outreach projects and performances, and charitable endeavors that bring the gift of music and
music making to all who welcome it.
An active conductor and clarinetist, Marsit has led ensembles and performed as a solo, chamber, and
orchestral musician throughout the United States. Currently on the artistic staff of the Hopkins Center for the
Performing Arts at Dartmouth College as Director of Bands, Marsit has previously held conducting positions
with the Charles River Wind Ensemble, Cornell University, Drexel University, the Chestnut Hill Orchestra, the
Bucks County Youth Ensembles and the Performing Arts Institute of Wyoming Seminary. Marsit has served as a
guest conductor, clinician and consultant for a great number of schools, institutions and festivals throughout
the eastern United States, and has produced a recording project for the United States Military Academy West
Point Band. In addition to his current work at Dartmouth College, Marsit is also Artist-in-Residence in Winds
and Music Director of the Williams College Wind Ensemble.
RELEVANT LINKS
http://www.dartmouthwinds.com/
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/fall15dcwe
http://www.timreynish.com/
http://www.dartmouthwinds.com/#!music-director/cfps
Download high-resolution photos:
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScont
ent::loadArticle::article_id=A14ACB33-679C-469F-9E075A08469894E7&sessionlanguage=&SessionSecurity::linkName=
CALENDAR LISTING:
“Eastern European Treasures,” a concert by the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble
A giant of the conducting world, UK-based Timothy Reynish takes a pause in his globe-trotting career to join
director Matthew Marsit to lead the Hop’s resident wind ensemble through an exciting program of works
spanning the 20th and 21st centuries incorporating ideas from Russia, Poland, Serbia and Croatia. Along
with Myaskovsky’s gleeful, romantic symphony from 1939 are newer works by living composers imbued
with their home countries’ outstanding musical cultures; music of dance, ritual and pondering the great
unknown.
Friday, October 30, 8 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
$10, Dartmouth students $5
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing
arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and
the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each
year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students
and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with
outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop
enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the
development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.