Sax Ensemble Presents Spring Concert
The UWG Saxophone Ensemble will present its spring semester concert on Tuesday, April 7 at 8:15 p.m. in the Richard Dangle Theatre at the Townsend Center for the Performing Arts. Admission is free and the community is invited to attend.
The program will feature only one large work, Modest Mussorgsky's “Pictures at an Exhibition.” The ensemble will perform the arrangement composed for saxophone ensembles by William Schmidt.
The promenade melody that opens “Pictures” is one of the most recognizable melodies in all of classical music. It is also one of the most personal: a self-portrait of the composer, who casts himself in the principal role of the visitor wandering through the exhibition that the title suggests.
The other principal character, which appears vicariously through his paintings, is Victor Hartmann, a prominent Russian artist and close friend of the composer. When Hartmann died in 1873 at the age of 39, Mussorgsky was shattered. The two young men shared artistic ideals and ambitions as part of their close friendship.
A year after Hartmann’s death, an exhibition of his work that included oils, watercolors and architectural drawings opened in St. Petersburg at the Imperial Library.
To illustrate the exhibit in music and pay tribute to his friend, Mussorgsky composed a set of piano pieces. “Pictures at an Exhibition” remains one of the cornerstones of the virtuoso’s repertoire.
The UWG Saxophone Ensemble is one of the premiere chamber ensembles in the Department of Music. The ensemble is made up of graduate and undergraduate students, alumni and faculty. Their repertoire spans from Renaissance transcriptions to recent original works for a large saxophone ensemble.
The ensemble, conducted by saxophonist and associate professor of music, John Bleuel, has performed at national and regional meetings of the North American Saxophone Alliance and on campus at the UWG Saxophone and Percussion Symposium, Honor Band Festival, Honors Day convocation, and the Carrollton Mecca Arts Festival.
For more information, call 678-839-6516.
