The WVU Wind Symphony will present a concert Sunday, Nov. 10, at 3:15 p.m. at the Eiesland Hall Auditorium on the downtown campus. Conducted by WVU Director of Bands Don Wilcox, the concert features music by Hugh Bagley, Malcolm Arnold, Karel Husa, Igor Stravinsky, Norman Dello Joio, and Jacques Offenbach.

Also conducting will be WVU Associate Director of Bands John Hendricks, and doctoral conducting student Jay Drury.

For each Wind Symphony concert during 2002-2003, the opening selection is based in some way on the National Anthem. The Nov. 10 choice is”National Emblem March”by Bagley. For the melody of this famous march, Bagley used the first twelve notes of”The Star Spangled Banner”played by the baritones and trombones, instruments Bagley himself played in bands throughout New England.

Next on the program will be”Sarabande and Polka,”by English composer Malcolm Arnold, two short movements taken from his ballet”Solitaire.”This arrangement for band offers two delightfully contrasting works, a Sarabande that is warm and expressive and a lively and energetic Polka.

The third selection,”Music for Prague,”by Karel Husa, is a composition that had a major impact on the music written for band after its debut in 1968. Its creativity and emotion present a powerful image of the Russian invasion of Prague, the city where Husa was born and raised. The Wind Symphony performance of this work is being conducted by Drury as part of his doctoral studies.

“Symphonies of Wind Instruments”by Stravinsky is a landmark composition by one of the most famous composers of the 20th century and was written in 1920 in memory of Claude Debussy. The composer was not satisfied with his work and revised it in 1947. The composition is scored for 23 winds�€the wind section of an orchestra.

“Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn”by Dello Joio was commissioned by the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association and dedicated to Leonard Falcone, who was formerly the director of bands at MichiganStateUniversity. It is based on a theme from a piano composition by Franz Joseph Haydn. Hendricks, who also directs of the WVU Marching Band, will conduct.

The final work,”Galop,”by Jacques Offenbach, was transcribed by Col. John Bourgeois, former director of the United States Marine Band. Bourgeois was guest conductor with the WVU Wind Symphony when the group performed at the KennedyCenter in 1988. He also conducted the National Anthem with the WVU Marching Band in 1997 when it received the Sudler Trophy.

Offenbach is best known as a composer of light opera.”Galop”is a spirited work containing the earliest known origins of what we know as the Marines Hymn.

For tickets to the Wind Symphony Concert, contact the Mountainlair Box Office at (304) 293-SHOW.