Dr. Nick Sullivan (Photo credit: Rob Lodermeier)
Sunday, May 19 at 2pm at the U of L Theatre get ready for “Renew” a wind band concert featuring over 80 musicians from Southern Alberta Winds and the U of L Wind Orchestra Alumni Ensemble. Not only are you going to enjoy an afternoon of musical brilliance, it’s also a benefit concert for Angel Tree. One of its organizers, Dr. Nick Sullivan tells us more:
How did this concert come to be?
Southern Winds last performed in 2018, and we were planning to perform again in 2020; plans were in motion but then the world stopped! It feels like ages ago, and yet still so near! Southern Winds was conceived as a group that would perform at a professional level, coming together for a cycle of 2 – 3 rehearsals and then the performance, with the goal of performing amazing and challenging music for wind band for our audiences and for our players. We’ve known that we wanted to follow up on our 2018 performance and give our musicians another opportunity to perform this caliber of music with each other, so it became a question of timing. Organizing a schedule for all the 40 players we knew we wanted involved takes quite a bit of looking ahead in the calendar, so the call went out to our musicians in the summer of 2023!
Talk about the people who are coming from out of town and how significant it is to have them participate.
What’s great about Southern Winds is that it is truly connected to musicians who have performed in Lethbridge over many years. Players are coming back to Lethbridge from all across Canada, but have spent time in our city as kids and still have family in the area, went to school or university in our city, or have lived and performed in Lethbridge. It is almost like a bit of a homecoming event for our musicians! The opportunity to come back together, perform with people you’ve had the chance to musically touch base (bass?) with over many years, and to put together music that is exciting to perform is an amazing experience. We hope our audiences feel the same!
One is a professional ensemble and one is an alumni ensemble. Talk about meshing the two groups together for a performance.
As my colleague Dawn Leite and I were looking at putting together a performance with Southern Winds, we realized that there are so many more players that we wanted to renew our musical connections with, many more than would fit into the ‘1 player per part’ ensemble that is Southern Winds. We also knew that a great many of us were connected through our conductor for Southern Winds, Dr. Thomas Staples. Tom is Professor Emeritus from the University of Lethbridge, and conducted the Wind Orchestra on campus for many years before his retirement. His musical leadership continues to influence so many of us! Dawn and I realized that we needed to not just have the Southern Winds group perform, but to also invite musicians who had performed with the U of L Wind Orchestra, at any point in the past decades, to return to Lethbridge to join us in forming a massive Alumni Ensemble, both conducted by Tom! At last count, we were at almost 90 performers who are going to perform in the Alumni Ensemble, which is going to be a bit of a logistical exercise fitting everyone on the University Theatre stage. Many players from Southern Winds will also perform in the Alumni Ensemble, and the two groups will split the concert between them.
Talk about how your involvement. What do you play and what got you into the wind instruments
Well, with this many musicians, it certainly isn’t a small undertaking. Dawn and I have been working since the summer of 2023 to build lists of musicians to contact, meet with Tom to determine which repertoire to perform, and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together for location, communications with players and stakeholders, getting music into the hands of the musicians, and more. But of course, between all of this we also need to practice our own parts! I play the bass trombone, which stereotypically gets thought of as a loud and brash instrument in the back row of a band. But that’s not even a fragment of the whole story! I love the sound of the bass trombone, how it has the ability to sing, to play in the vocal registers of a bass-baritone and can link together such beautifully lyrical lines of music and yet also be so powerful and commanding in its tone. I’ve been playing the trombone since I was around 7 years old, so that’s a few decades now (!!!), but I was influenced by the trumpet playing of my father at that young age. Once I heard the trombone, however, there was no going back to the trumpet! Now I get to perform across Western Canada, and to teach at the University of Lethbridge, and it is just an awesome privilege to get to share music with listeners, playing on the instrument that I feel is as much a part of me as my own voice.
What kind of repertoire can the audience expect?
Repertoire for both Southern Winds and the Alumni Ensemble will showcase a number of musical styles for our audiences and performers! Some of the repertoire is influenced by major world events at the time of their composition and seek to interpret and understand those events in a musical fashion; other repertoire is based on poetry and expresses those words through the lyricism and melody of the musical lines; other repertoire still is influenced by scenes or melodies from places around the world. Audiences can expect to hear music that is moving, music that is exciting, music that is thoughtful, and music that is fun for listeners and performers alike! (… and there may even be a march snuck into the program too…!)
The concert is free but the big benefactor is for the Angel Tree. Why the Angel Tree and why at this time of the year and how can people support the program?
The Angel Tree campaign through Lethbridge Family Services is something that has been in our local community for many years. When thinking about what we could do to support the community that we live and perform in, we knew that the Angel Tree campaign was important to so many in our city; some of our musicians have even had the opportunity to musically support the campaign in the past. In my household, it is just something that our family immediately connects with when the decorations start to go up around town, starting with getting the right Angel tags off a tree (usually at Cuppers!) so that we can shop for gifts as a way for us to give to the campaign. Since the timing of our performance isn’t in December, Christmas music is a little out of the question… but our goal is to help kickstart the 2024 campaign early! Audiences can support the Angel Tree campaign by making a cash donation or bringing an unwrapped toy to the performance, with volunteers from Lethbridge Family Services and the Angel Tree campaign present before and after the performance to accept gifts and financial support.
Are there any big surprises planned?
No musical surprises, but I think I might be surprised once we actually fit everyone into their chairs on stage at the University Theatre! 90+ musicians, plus all of the instruments!
How big is wind ensemble music in terms of participation in this city?
What is really amazing about Lethbridge is that there is a strong contingent of musicians in our community who love to perform in wind ensembles (bands!). Our local public school music programs are strong and vibrant, led by brilliant teachers in our schools. The Dept. of Music at the University of Lethbridge supports students to continue to refine their craft, not just in Wind Orchestra and wind instruments but also with opportunities for choir and vocal music, digital audio arts programming, and so much more. Our community ensembles and organizations, such as the Lethbridge Community Band Society or the Conservatory of Music, offer musicians opportunities to continue to make music together in our city. I’m sure we could do a count of musicians at some point, but I believe that seeing musicians engaged in making music in bands in so many settings around our city and across Southern Alberta indicates the strong desire to perform music from the wind ensemble repertoire.
Final thoughts?
The concert is FREE to attend; you only need to reserve your ticket! You can find information at http://www.southernwindsensemble.ca, including the link to reserve your ticket. Please consider bringing an unwrapped gift or making at donation to the Angel Tree campaign to kickstart the campaign!
Mark Boogieman 