Annual Luther R. Hoffman Young Artist Concert
Join the Hornell Wind Ensemble this coming Saturday evening, April 26 at 7:30 PM in the Hornell High School Auditorium for our annual Luther R. Hoffman Young Artist Concert. Once again, we have two very fine young artists taking to our stage. Both of these young adults participated in our audition process last February 2nd.
Michael Schmidlin is our Young Artist Winner. He is presently a senior at Corning East High School and will be entering the Crane School of Music at the SUNY at Potsdam in the fall. Mike will be playing the Sonata For Trumpet and Wind Ensemble by Kent Kennan. Lily McGovern is our Young Artist Runner-Up. She is a junior at Genesee Valley Central School. Lily will be performing a solo piece for Alto Saxophone.
To make a connection to our past with this up-coming concert, in 2009, Robert J. Locker II was the Young Artist winner, and in 2011, his brother, Sean Thomas Ralph Locker was the Young Artist runner-up. It seems only fitting for this 2014 Young Artist concert, that the Hornell Wind Ensemble would bring the both of them back to our stage. And, we have done just that with an added surprise. Joining both of the brothers on the stage will be their father, Robert J. Locker, Sr. This unique trio will be performing Leroy Anderson’s wonderful Bugler’s Holiday with the band.
We will be featuring our trombone section in the novelty piece, Trombrero. All of them were encouraged to wear sombreros. Whether or not that will happen is unknown. What is known is just how much fun this selection is and just how very well they all play it.
Everyone loves a march, and the March King John Philip Sousa’s El Capitan will be a crowd pleaser for sure. What may be surprising to many, is that this concert march was written by Sousa for his operetta by the same name. It was Sousa’s first successful operetta and his most successful stage work. The march is composed of themes from the operetta.
Variations on a Shaker Melody by Aaron Copland will be a very familiar piece to you. It comes from Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, a ballet, which premiered in 1944 at the Library of Congress. The composer was awarded the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Appalachian Spring.
This performer’s favorite is Journey Through Orion. Sit back and let your imagination soar into the distance space. The composer, Julie Giroux, was inspired by the images recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope which was launched in 1990. She wrote that the images of the Great Orion Nebula, Barnard’s Loop, and The Horsehead Nebula captured her imagination, and having journeyed there many times in her mind, decided to sketch that journey with notes. We are thankful that her imagination was set to music.
Another piece to look forward to hearing at our concert is the Theme from Schindler’s List. This was composed by Academy Award winner John Williams for Steven Spielberg’s haunting movie “Schindler’s List”. What made this theme so memorable was violinist Itzhak Perlman’s remarkable interpretation of William’s music. The violin’s role in our concert band piece will be played by our wonderful solo flutist.
