Los Alamos Community Winds Features Blockbuster Pieces In Final Concert Of 2022-2023 Season

Submitted by Carol A. Clark
on May 10, 2023
- 5:07 pm

The Los Alamos Community Winds rehearses Tuesday at White Rock Baptist Church in preparation for its concert at 7 p.m. Saturday at Crossroads Bible Church. Photo by John McHale/ladailypost.com

Los Alamos Community Winds Musical and Artistic Director Ted Vives conducts the concert band. Photo by John McHale/ladailypost.com

Flutist Heidi Morning, right, will be a soloist in Saturday’s concert. She will perform Cècile Chaminade’s ‘Concertino for Flute’. Photo by John McHale/ladailypost.com

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

Los Alamos Community Winds is ending its 2022-2023 season on a definite high note.

Its last concert for this season is 7 p.m. Saturday, May 13 at Crossroads Bible Church. Admission is free but there is a suggested donation of $10 per guest.

The program for the concert is featuring blockbuster pieces from famous composers including Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”, John Phillip Sousa’s “Sabre and Spurs” and Cècile Chaminade’s “Concertino for Flute”, which features a solo by Flutist Heidi Morning.

In looking at the program, Community Winds Musical and Artistic Director Ted Vives said he is excited to perform “Appalachian Spring” because “it’s one of those iconic pieces of literature for symphony orchestras and we are playing a transcription of it for concert band.”

“It’s a challenging work,” he added, “…it gives our players a chance to show what they can do. It’s one of the most iconic American pieces … we’re excited about it.”

Vives described “Sabre and Spurs” as a cavalry march and even has an effect to mimic horses’ hooves. He said he also is excited for Morning to take center stage for “Concertino for Flute”.

“It’s always great to feature one of our own players for the community,” he said. “It’s a very virtuosic piece for the flute.”

Morning added that she is excited to present this piece, too.

“I performed the Chaminade for the first time during the Santa Fe Flute Immersion in 2017, a masterclass for flute performance hosted by the New Mexico Performing Arts Society (NMPAS),” she said. “In fact, the Chaminade was the very first solo that I ever performed. Since that experience, I have performed the piece for several local events including my own personal Brown Bag concert at Fuller Lodge. Seeing my evolution as a musician through this piece is fulfilling as an artist, and I am looking forward to sharing this beautiful piece with a greater audience.”

Other program highlights include, “The Suncatchers”, which Vives said is “a very easy, 70s jazz fusion kind of piece we think the audience will really like.”

The other piece combines visual media in the form of the classic Warner Brothers’ cartoon, “One Froggy Evening”. Meshing music to the cartoon is a challenge, Vives said, adding that the cartoon has a lot of drama packed into its six-minute run time. In fact, Vives said the famous film director Steven Spielberg described the cartoon as “the Citizen Kane of cartoons”.

The final concert of the season packs in complex, challenging pieces, but it is an opportunity to show off the Community Winds’ skills, he said.

“The idea is when we perform something we want to show the community what a concert band can do,” Vives said. “A lot of the concert-going public see the concert band as the stepson or stepdaughter of the ensembles.”

This is just not the case, he said.

“Concert band is just as viable as a symphonic orchestra,” Vives said. “We like to showcase the capability of the concert band.”

The Community Winds has been proving its mettle for 24 seasons.

In that time, Vives said they have tackled pieces people don’t typically associate with concert bands such as the “Firebird Suite”.

It’s not only through music that the Community Winds has shown its fortitude but also by the way it has responded to changing environments. For instance, Vives said at COVID’s height, the Community Winds adapted by hosting outdoor concerts and smaller gatherings.

Then in May 2022, the Winds co-hosted the Association of Concert Bands National Convention along with the Albuquerque Concert Band and the Santa Fe Concert Band in Santa Fe.

“It was really good to be able to go there and perform and show at that time that we kept it together during COIVD,” Vives said. “We went out on a real high throughout the season. We have talented players and people enjoy doing this and rise to the challenge. It’s an outlet for the players to do something challenging and something that they wouldn’t normally get to do. There are things that the bands have that orchestras don’t. It gives more players a chance to experience that thrill of performing that other ensembles wouldn’t afford them. I think our players do very well and they seem to enjoy the music.”

The 2023-2024 season will begin in October but this isn’t the last the public will hear from the Winds in the interim. Vives said they will perform at the June 30 Friday night concert and are scheduled to play July 4 at Overlook Park.

Plus, plans are already in the works for the upcoming season.

“We have a lot of music that we are planning for the 2023-2024 season and as always we’ll have something big to bring to the table,” Vives said.

For more information, visit http://www.lacw.org or email info@lacw.org.