YSU ensembles to preview Carnegie concert
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown State University Concert Band and Wind Ensemble will head to New York this week to perform Friday at Carnegie Hall.
But before it does, it will perform the same program it will play in New York in a Monday concert at at 7:30 p.m. at Stambaugh Auditorium.
Titled “New York, Here We Come,” the program will begin with Stravinsky’s masterpiece, “Octet.” The YSU Concert Band will then play music by several American and British composers.
Nicholas Marzuola, graduate conducting assistant, will lead the band in Gordon Jacob’s classic, “Original Suite.”
John Sebastian Vera, a newly appointed trombone instructor at the Dana School of Music at YSU, will be the soloist on Arthur Pryor’s “Thoughts of Love,” which will close the first half of the concert. Vera, a Texas native, became the principal trombonist of the Pittsburgh Opera in 2010 and also joined the River City Brass as principal trombonist this year.
The Wind Ensemble will open its program with the poignant setting of “The Star Spangled Banner” set by Jack Stamp, who released it in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks.
The singer will be Victor Cardamone, a senior tenor at the Dana.
John Adams’ invigorating “Short Ride on a Fast Machine” will be next. It will be followed by Steven Bryant’s “Radiant Joy” and the program will conclude with John Mackey 2013 composition “The Frozen Cathedral.”
The Concert Band is under the direction of Brandt Payne, and the Wind Ensemble is under the direction of Stephen Gage.
Tickets for Monday’s concert at Stambaugh Auditorium, 1000 Fifth Ave., are $5 ($4 for seniors and students) at the door and in advance at stambaughauditorium.com, or by phone at 330-259-0555.
Friday’s concert at Carnegie Hall will be the second at the storied venue for the YSU Wind Ensemble, which also performed there in 2005. Tickets for the Carnegie Hall performance are available at carnegiehall.org.