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Cleveland Winds plans two concerts this season

By Mike Telin

The Cleveland Winds begins its 2011-12 season with a concert on Monday, November 7 at 7:30 in Cleveland State University’s Waetjen Auditorium under the direction of the group's founder and director. Birch Browning. “It is the beginning of our third season, and I am very excited about it”, Browning told us by telephone. Continuing the tradition of inviting other area wind ensembles to share Cleveland Winds concerts, Monday’s guest will be the Cleveland State University Wind Ensemble under the direction of Howard Meeker. “We have been making an effort to pair up with other ensembles for our concerts, and [Howard] has been incredibly supportive of the Cleveland Winds. It will be a full evening of great wind band music”.

Monday's concert features Edward Gregson’s Celebration, Walter Hartley’s Concerto for 23 winds, and Dennis Nygren’s setting of Victor Babin’s Hillandale Waltzes for clarinet and wind ensemble, with Bobby Davis as soloist. The concert also marks the beginning an ongoing project that will highlight the many performers and composers from around the world who have direct connections to Cleveland. “I am becoming very interested in performers and composers with Cleveland connections, and I’m at the beginning stages of developing a recording project [around this theme].”

Composer Victor Babin is probably best remembered as a duo-pianist with his wife, Vitya Vronsky: Newsweek Magazine called them “the most brilliant two-piano team of our generation’. Babin also served as director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1961–1972. Written as a gift for Washington D.C. arts patron Anne Archbold in 1947, Babin’s Hillandale Waltzes was originally written for clarinet and piano, and was orchestrated in 1990 by Kent State University professor of clarinet, Dennis Nygren, who also premiered this version on December 4, 1990 with the Kent State University Wind Ensemble conducted by Wayne Gorder.

Browning was first made aware of Babin’s work during a conversation with CSU professor and Cleveland Winds member John Perrine: “I mentioned to John that I was looking for a piece that would feature Bobby Davis: he’s just a fabulous player and I wanted to showcase him. Anyway John said that when he was a student at Stetson University he had played a piece called Hillandale Waltzes. So I tracked it down and low and behold there were some great Cleveland connections to the piece. After looking at the score and listening to a recording, I was certain we had to play the piece”.

Monday's concert also features a smaller group then previous Cleveland Winds concerts: “I wanted to program pieces specifically for orchestra winds, so this concert has smaller numbers then what we normally would use.” Both the Gregson and the Hartley are scored for the same instrumentation, 23 wind instruments, and while the Hartley has no extra forces, the Gregson includes piano and harp, as well as significant number of percussion instruments.

Starting a new ensemble is never easy, but Browning is pleased with the way things have progressed during the past two years. “It’s interesting because I am starting to get phone calls and e-mails asking me how people would go about getting into the group. This is nice because there is starting to be a buzz amongst the wind players in the area that it is a fun group to be in and we play great literature”. In order to expand the roster of musicians, the Cleveland Winds will hold open auditions for all instruments on November 20^th, and although at this time some of the sections are full, Browning is always looking for qualified substitutes. Interested persons can find more audition information on the Cleveland Winds Web site.

The next Cleveland Winds concert on March 5^th 2012 will feature composer and Cleveland native Eric Ewazen’s concerto for trombone and winds, Visions of Light, with Cleveland Orchestra assistant principal trombonist, Shachar Israel as soloist. During his visit, Ewazen will also be involved in residency activities at Cleveland State and the Cleveland Institute of Music. The invited guest ensemble for the concert is the University Circle Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Gary Ciepluch.

Published on ClevelandClassical.com November 1, 2011.

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