The UW-Platteville music department hosted their Band Extravaganza on Tuesday, Oct. 15. This unique performance is held at the beginning of each academic year and features all three of the concert bands, as well as Jazz 1, the top-performing jazz ensemble. Each ensemble played two pieces of their music for the performance season. Ranging from contemporary romance themes to Star Wars orchestral themes, each band showcased their musicians and their upcoming concerts.
Jazz 1 opened the concert with two tunes, one of which, “Down Home Girl” was composed and arranged by their director, saxophone professor Austin Cebulske. The other, Invitation, was composed by Bronislau Kaper. Jazz 1 was the smallest ensemble that performed that evening, with just 17 musicians, but contained some of UW-Platteville’s most talented musicians.
“The band extravaganza is the first concert of the year, and it feels like it comes up very fast. It’s just a little over a month from when these groups were formed, so all the groups are pretty new to the game,” director Matt Gregg commented, “but I thought they did a really great job tonight on some really difficult and varied literature. I thought the audience got a great performance tonight, and it was really cool to hear Jazz 1 under the direction of Cebulske, including an original work that he wrote, which I thought was really beautiful. We’re off and running, and there’s going to be a lot of concerts in the next two months.”
University Band performed next, composed of mostly underclassmen students. The group performed “Jumpscare Tango” and the first movement of “In the Forest of the King” under the direction of Aaron Cooley. Symphony band, also conducted by director Aaron Cooley, performed next. The Symphony Band is unique, as it allows community musicians to participate in the ensemble. The Symphony Band performed “Letters” by Kelijah Dunton, a contemporary band piece lamenting the stages of a broken relationship. Alfred Reed’s “Golden Jubilee” encapsulated the big band grandeur the name suggests.
Symphonic Wind Ensemble, known as SWE on campus, showcased their outer-space-themed repertoire by performing “Princess Leia’s Theme” and “The Imperial March” from the Star Wars trilogy. SWE is the top performance ensemble and later this season will perform their concert on tour as a way to draw more prospective students to the music department.
Dr. Aaron Cooley stated, “I thought it went very well. This is one of my favorite concerts of the whole year because we get to showcase all of the different ensembles, and it’s really early in the semester. It’s always amazing the amount of hard work that goes into making a concert sound so well so early in the semester. I’m very excited for what the ensembles will put together for their final performance because we have some great bands here at UWP.”
