KSC Concert Band Has New Sounds And Faces
KEENE, N.H., 11/17/06 - The Keene State College Concert Band will perform “From Keene, New England, and Across the Land” on Friday, December 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Theatre of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for KSC students, senior citizens, and youth ages 17 or younger. Call the box office at 603-358-2168.
This will be the band’s first concert of the fall semester and their first concert with a new director, Jim Chesebrough. This debut program will consist of music for wind band by composers from Keene, New England, and the United States. It will feature a number of new works by contemporary composers, including pieces by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Colgrass and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Robert X. Rodriguez. It will also feature the world premiere of the wind band arrangement of “Plato” by Craig Sylvern, chair of Keene State’s Department of Music. Sylvern, who will be the soloist on this work, originally composed it as the first movement of In the Grove of Academus for Tenor Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra.
Chesebrough is the former conductor of the Yale Concert Band and former assistant conductor of the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble. He has also directed the Plymouth State University Symphonic Band and has been a guest conductor for festival and honors bands across New England. He replaces longtime KSC Director of Bands, Douglas Nelson. Before his retirement last year, Nelson had been the leader of the KSC Concert Band since 1971 and served as chairman of the Department of Music for 21 years.
“The City of Keene has had a long tradition of fine band music, and Doug Nelson was a part of that tradition,” stated Chesebrough. “It was Professor Nelson who first told me that Edward E. Bagley, the great march composer, lived in Keene from 1893 until his death in 1922. The town’s bandstand was named for Bagley in 1979, and his remains are interred locally in Keene’s Greenlawn Cemetery. I wanted the first concert, following Doug’s retirement to tie into Keene’s history, which he impacted, so I started by programming Bagley’s ‘National Emblem March.’ From there I began to think about other New England composers (Charles Ives is on the program) and then about composers from across our land. The next step was to include some living composers, which brought me full circle back to Keene and the music of Dr. Sylvern. The result is a concert of American music that spans more than 100 years of band music from the golden age of concert bands to the present.”
When asked what it is like to be preparing such a diverse and challenging program, KSC student bassoonist Amanda Kosloski ‘08 responded by saying, “Preparing this variety of music has been a challenge, but worth it in the end. It’s great to be able to perform such different music in one concert, and it’ll be great to see it all come together.”
A slightly different viewpoint was presented by KSC student flutist Melanie Prisby ‘09: “Working with such a varied program for the December concert is something I’ve never really done in the past. It’s always been the same type of music. I think it encourages everybody in the band to think outside the box. Not everyone is as comfortable with these musical selections as they would be, say, playing a march. I like the challenge.”
