MetWinds Spring 2024 Concert: "Transformations"

Pre-Concert Lecture by Conductor Richard Wyman at 2:30 pm

* On the day of the concert, tickets can be purchased at the door.

About the Concert

Enjoy this afternoon of transformative music, opening with a 1906 opera overture, The Wreckers, by English composer and member of the women’s suffrage movement Ethel Smyth, whose amazing music is now, a century later, gaining its due recognition. Musical variations and transformations are explored in Copland’s treatment of the famous Shaker melody Simple Gifts, as well as the wonderful 2010 composition by New England Conservatory composition faculty member Michael Gandolfi, Flourishes and Meditations on a Renaissance Theme. Meghan MacFadden conducts the “riotously funky” Blow it Up, Start Again, for which the score’s program note indicates, "If the system isn’t working anymore, then do what Guy Fawkes tried and go anarchist: blow it all up, and start again." Local middle school and high school students join the MetWinds for performances of selected works, including Old Home Days by American renegade and New England’s own master of musical transformation, Charles Ives.

PROGRAM

The Wreckers Overture - Ethel Smyth / arr. John Morrison

Variations on a Shaker Melody - Aaron Copland

Flourishes and Meditations on a Renaissance Theme - Michael Gandolfi

Americans We - Henry Fillmore

Blow It Up, Start Again - Johnathan Newman

- Meghan MacFadden, Assistant Conductor

The Liberty Bell March - John Philip Sousa / ed. U.S. Marine Band

A Little Tango Music - Adam Gorb

Old Home Days - Charles Ives / arr Jonathan Elkus

Metamarch - Steve Bryant

About the Conductor

Dr. Richard E. Wyman is the former Assistant Director of the United States Coast Guard Band, where he regularly conducted throughout the United States and abroad in concert tours of Japan and Taiwan, and led the Band’s educational initiatives. He also served as the Band’s producer for ten CDs and two White House “Pageant of Peace” PBS specials.

Dr. Wyman is currently the Executive Director of the Community Music School in Centerbrook, CT and Music Director of the MetWinds (Metropolitan Wind Symphony) of Boston. He enjoys working with musicians of all ages, regularly appearing as clinician and guest conductor with a variety of school and honor festival ensembles. Wyman’s work as a saxophonist earned two year-long residency grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, four performance visits to the White House, an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and employment at Disneyworld and Busch Gardens (FL). He holds degrees from the University of Connecticut, University of Illinois, and Eastman School of Music.

About the Assistant Conductor

Meghan MacFadden is a musician and educator based in Amherst, Massachusetts. Currently, she is the Director of the Wind Ensemble at Smith College, Assistant Conductor of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony and The Valley Winds, and Staff Accompanist at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. Meghan has taught instrumental music at Beaver Country Day School, the Dana Hall School, Clark University, and Tufts University. In addition to her conducting role at MetWinds, Meghan plays piccolo in the ensemble. She also plays piccolo with the Valley Winds and is the former second flute with the New England Philharmonic. Meghan’s teachers include Flora May Edmondson and Melody Lord on piano, and Donna Milanovich, Alex Murray, and Jonathan Keeble on flute. She holds her Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Illinois and received her Master of Music in Conducting from Sam Houston State University.

About MetWinds

The Metropolitan Wind Symphony was Founded by Jerry Gardner in 1971, and was awarded the prestigious 2015 Sudler Silver Scroll Award for Community Concert Bands by the John Philip Sousa Foundation. Currently celebrating its 53rd anniversary, MetWinds comprises over 60 talented woodwind, brass, and percussion instrumentalists who audition for membership and seating. It makes a significant contribution to the cultural life of the Greater Boston community by providing its audiences with high quality concerts and its members with opportunities for musical growth.

MetWinds presents formal performances of traditional and contemporary wind band literature, as well as more informal pops concerts throughout the metropolitan Boston area. Members rehearse Wednesdays from September through June, traveling from more than 30 communities in Massachusetts and neighboring states. All volunteers, they also pursue careers as varied as education, engineering, computer science, medicine, law, music, and public health.