Alumni Band opens summer schedule with guest choir
Utah State University’s Alumni Band will share the stage with the Ames Children’s Choir in its opening concert of the summer Sunday, June 17. The concert begins at 7 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center on the USU campus. Admission is free and all are invited.
Iowa’s Ames Children’s Choir is in the spotlight for the concert’s Intermission Feature and will perform a number of selections. Following the intermission feature, the group will join the band in a combined performance in two selections.
The Ames Children’s Choirs program was founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Sylvia Munsen. Now in its 12th season, the ACC program includes boys and girls ages 8-16 in three choirs and focuses on the development of self-esteem through artistic experience.
The USU Alumni Band is under the direction of music department faculty member and interim department head Nicholas Morrison. Under his baton, the concert opens with “Strike up the Band” and “He’s Gone Away,” followed by a major work by Gustav Holst, “Second Suite in F.”
A four-movement work, “Second Suite” was written in 1911. It is a military band suite based on English folk songs. The composer used seven Hampshire songs, ranging from “Greensleeves” to “I’ll Love My Love.”
Born in 1874 in Cheltenham, England, Holst was a trombonist, organist, noted educator and accomplished composer. His compositions for British military bands and the instrumentation used in those compositions were adopted in the United States, Morrison said.
“There is a heritage of military bands as a functional organization,” Morrison said. “If you want to rally the troops, it’s harder to do it with a viola. Military bands were started for functional reasons. You can play brass instruments outdoors in all kinds of weather where string instruments would be damaged.”
The challenge for composers working in this form was to take functional music and turn it into an art form, and Holst was successful, Morrison said.
Next on the program is “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” featuring trumpet soloist John Skinner. Skinner is a long-time band member who travels from California every summer to perform several times with the band.
Soloists, both instrumental and vocal, appear with the Alumni Band throughout the summer. Additionally, soloists or groups perform at the concert’s mid-point in a segment called the Intermission Feature. The Ames Children’s Choir’s Intermission Feature will be expanded slightly to give the choir time to present a range of its repertoire.
The Ames Children’s Choir program is used as part of teacher training for choral music education students at Iowa State University. The ACC program founder is an associate professor and chair of music education at Iowa State University. She received degrees from the University of Illinois and St. Olaf College, where she sang in the St. Olaf Choir.
In addition to its appearance with the USU Alumni Band, the Ames Children’s Choir will perform at noon June 16 with the Cache Children’s Choir in the Logan LDS Tabernacle. The Ames Children’s Choir is completing a summer tour to Colorado and Utah and is in Logan as guests of the Cache Children’s Choir.
Following the Intermission Feature, the choir will combine with the band in two selections arranged by the respective directors of each organization. The choir and band will present “America the Beautiful” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
The band wraps up the program with four additional selections, “Tango for Band,” “Robin Hood” (music from the Kevin Costner film), “Colossus of Columbia” (a march) and “I’ll See You Again,” the band’s traditional closing number.
The band will be back in one week, with a performance June 24, also indoors in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center. Another choir is a featured guest for the concert, Logan’s own Imperial Glee Club. Concert time is 7 p.m.