326 APRIL 5 MARKS FINAL CHAMBER WINDS CONCERT OF PERFORMANCE SEASON

Free April 5 Concert Highlights Two Seldom-Performed Works, Thomas Says

(MURFREESBORO)—The MTSU Chamber Winds will perform its final concert of the season at 8 p.m. April 5 in the T. Earl Hinton Music Hall of the Wright Music Building on the MTSU campus.
“For the final concert of the Chamber Winds season, I have chosen two terrific works that do not receive many performances and will introduce strings into the mix for the first time,” said Dr. Reed Thomas, MTSU director of bands and conductor of the group.
The group will perform Octet by Franz Joseph Haydn, The Easy Winners by Scott Joplin, with arrangement by Gunther Schuller, and Symphony for Brass and Timpani by Herbert Haufrecht.
Thomas said Haydn’s Octet is based on mid-18th century Europe when a wind octet consisting of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons proved the ideal medium for aristocratic social events.
Per Thomas, Joplin’s The Easy Winners was discovered in the ‘70s as a set of seven ragtime compositions, or “rags,” for instruments that had not been attributed to Joplin because of their unique instrumentation. After the origin of the pieces was researched, it was determined that Joplin had indeed written these for this ensemble of winds.
Thomas noted that Haufrecht’s Symphony for Brass and Timpani was written as a meditation on war and peace and is scored for the traditional orchestra brass section with timpani.
"The three movements are all related through the use of material derived from an bass line introduced at the outset of the first movement," Thomas said.
The MTSU Chamber Winds is a highly select group of musicians within the McLean School of Music dedicated to the study and performance of wind literature from the Renaissance period to the latest compositions.
The April 5 concert is free and open to the public.
• For more information on this and other events in the McLean School of Music, please visit www.mtsumusic.com or call 615-898-2493.

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