Band recital coming up at NNEC

A band recital featuring the North Nova Education Centre band program and the visiting UPEI Wind Symphony will take place Sunday, Nov. 3, in the Performance Centre at NNEC, beginning at for 2 p.m. Admission is by donation. The UPEI Wind Symphony, under the direction of Karem J. Simon, has established itself as one of the finest among Canada’s premier university wind bands. It won the 2014 Music PEI Award for Achievement in Classical Music. It has a very progressive approach to its programming and has shared its music widely with 21 CDs to its credit.

Included in its mandate is the UPEI Wind Symphony’s many partnerships with school music programs. Each year, the UPEI Wind Symphony travels throughout the Maritimes, sharing its programming with wider audiences. One such sharing will take place at this concert when the band will be hosted by NNEC’s band program, under the direction of Ian Grant. A band from the school will open the program.

Programming for this ensemble often involves new compositions as well as showcasing masterworks for the wind band genre. Their programs also regularly feature outstanding student and professional soloists.

A centrepiece of the programming for this concert will be “Into the Silent Land” by American composer Stan Danyew. This work, scored for wind band and narrator, reflects on the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. Among other works will be Gustav Holst’s First Suite in E flat and Oscar Navarro’s highly descriptive and entertaining work, “The Fly.”

Soloist for this concert will be UPEI’s new professor of brass, Dr. Dale Sorensen. He will be featured in Guilmant’s “Morceau Symphonique,” a work that explores the tonal, technical and expressive elements of the trombone.

The public is invited to attend this concert.