KSC Concert Band Performs Early American Music
KEENE, N.H. 10/28/02 - As a prelude to the Thanksgiving holiday, the KSC Concert Band, under the direction of Professor Douglas Nelson, will perform a concert featuring early American music of celebration and praise on Friday, Nov. 22.
A patriotic salute to the Presidents on Mount Rushmore and a musical tribute to John F. Kennedy will highlight a program that includes works by Aaron Copland, John Philip Sousa, and James Curnow. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Theatre of Keene States Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for KSC faculty, staff, students, senior citizens, and youth 17 and under. Call the Box Office at 603-358-2168.
KSC percussion instructor William Hanley will serve as announcer during the concert and narrator for Curnows Heritage of Freedom, a patriotic salute to the four presidents honored on Mount Rushmore - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. The program opens with Curnows recent work, Fanfare and Flourishes for a Festive Occasion.
Ronald LoPrestis Elegy for a Young American was written as a tribute to Kennedy and premiered less than five months after JFKs Nov. 22 assassination, 39 years ago.
Aaron Coplands Variations on a Shaker Melody from the ballet Appalachian Spring, Purcells Voluntary on Old Hundredth, and Edward Maddens A Colonial Rhapsody are three of the celebratory pieces on the program.
Senior music major Sarah Kelly, clarinet, will be the featured soloist in Carl Maria von Webers Concertino, Opus 26, the most popular solo in the clarinetist repertoire which established the clarinet as a leading wind instrument in the early 19th century. Kelly also will conduct Blessed Are They from Johannes Brahmss German Requiem.
The program concludes with Sousas George Washington Bicentennial March, which premiered during the 1932 celebration played by the combined bands of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
In addition to conducting the KSC Concert Band, Nelson is a professor of music at Keene State, where he serves as chair of the Music Department and teaches classes in music education. He is frequently called upon as an adjudicator, guest conductor and clinician throughout New England. He has conducted seven concert tours of Europe with the New England Ambassadors of Music. In 1999, he was selected by Keene State faculty, students, and alumni to receive KSCs Distinguished Teacher Award.
