7th Annual Invitational Band Festival
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
STEPHENVILLE, Texas—Tarleton State University’s band program hosts its seventh annual Invitational Band Festival on Tuesday, Feb. 28, and Wednesday, March 1, with performances by several area high schools and a concert featuring the work of guest conductor and composer David Maslanka.
Free performances take place in the auditorium of the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center Auditorium and are open to the public. Performance times are:
Tuesday, Feb. 28
9 a.m. – Stephenville’s Henderson Junior High School
10 a.m. - Alvarado High School
1:30 p.m. – Maypearl High School
2:30 p.m. – Stephenville High School
Wednesday, March 1
9 a.m. – Eastland High School
10 a.m. – Burleson High School
A collaborative concert, featuring Maslanka’s work and Tarleton’s Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble, is set for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28. Tickets are $5 or free with a current Tarleton ID.
In addition to compositions by Maslanka—Rollo Takes a Walk, Hell’s Gate and Give Us This Day: Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble—the concert will include works by Dmitri Shostakovich and Percy Grainger. Guest judges for the invitational will conduct, and a student saxophone trio consisting of William Whaley, Ste’fon Landers and Ricardo Allen Jr. will perform.
Maslanka attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did master’s and doctoral study in composition at Michigan State University.
Maslanka’s music for winds has become especially well known. Among his more than 130 works are 40 pieces for wind ensemble, including seven symphonies, 15 concertos, a Mass and many concert pieces. His chamber music includes four wind quintets, five saxophone quartets, and many works for solo instrument and piano. In addition, he has written a variety of orchestral and choral pieces.
Maslanka has served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York and, since 1990, he has been a freelance composer.
Besides Maslanka, other guest judges for the Tarleton Invitational Band Festival are William Malambri, retired Winthrop University professor, and Douglas Droste from Ball State University and the Muncie Symphony Orchestra.
The festival is sponsored by Saint Gobain Abrasives, the ULTRA Club, Theta Kappa chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, Eta Nu chapter of Tau Beta Sigma, and the Mu Theta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha, Sinfonia.
Tarleton, a member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow’s professional leaders. With campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of integrity, leadership, tradition, civility, excellence and service.
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Contact: Dr. Anthony Pursell, Director of Bands
254-968-9242
[email protected]
