The Symphonic Wind Ensemble held their fall 2023 concert, “Come Dance with Us.” The Symphonic Wind Ensemble is the highest-level instrumental ensemble on the UW-Platteville campus.
The band is composed of 42 members playing a range of brass, woodwind, stringed and percussion instruments, and is directed by Matthew Gregg.
The concert was held on Wednesday, Nov. 15 in the Brodbeck Concert Hall. The performance began with Björk’s “Overture from Dancer in the Dark.”
As the music began, all lights in the theater shut off as dancer Ashley Harty entered the stage. Harty performed expressive dance of her own choreography throughout the song. This was followed by “Dance of the New World,” a piece inspired by the Indigenous music of the West Indies. Ernesto Lecuona’s “Malagueña” was then performed, featuring multiple solos through the Latin piece.
After a brief intermission, the concert continued with the first movement of the piece “The Glass Bead Game,” featuring the Concerto Competition winner Guinevere Diehl on the French horn.
“It was a source of pride for me. I came from a small school, so it was really cool for me to represent people who did not come from much, but got the opportunity to do something so amazing. It was also just fun; I really like music.” Diehl stated, commenting on her performance.
The following piece, “Italian Polka,” was conducted by Aaron Cooley. “(Symphonic Wind Ensemble) is full of extremely talented musicians and I was just lucky to be a part of the moment,” Cooley stated.
Prior to taking the stage to conduct, Gregg introduced Cooley with the story of how they met, mentioning his “Popeye-like arms and round haircut.”
When asked about his choice to include a guest conductor, Gregg said, “I believe very strongly that instrumentalists learn a lot from having different conductors in front of them. There is a part of you that always wants to conduct because they are so good, but I think sharing them makes better educational sense because Aaron is such a fantastic conductor, there’s things they are going learn from him that they are not going to learn from me.”
The concert was briefly paused as Gregg thanked each graduating SWE member, mentioning to the audience his personal experiences with his students and his pride in their musicianship.
Finally, the concert was closed with “Lorva Horovel,” the third movement from Armenian Dances II by Alfred Reed.
“It is a lot of hard music, so it is never going to go perfectly, but I think they did a great job. I am really proud of them. That is a lot of challenging literature and some of the people in that ensemble are music major seniors, some of them are non-music major freshman. I thought they did great. I think that in some ways everybody sees the marching band and I think the other bands, they are kind of hidden gems sometimes because not a lot of people are aware of them, but I think what you just heard is worth spending the time to come and check them out.”
Gregg said he would like to thank Ashley Harty, Connie Furlan and Josh Lawyer for making the performance run smoothly.
Overall, the inclusion of dance brought an extra level of depth to the performance, while also displaying the skills of UW-Platteville musicians and artists. The choice of a dance-themed performance that featured such a wide range of music also broadens the perspective of dance music as a whole.