Windy City Winds - Spring Concert - Adventures

Admission is free, although donations are welcome.   
The concert will feature symphonic wind band music by Leonard Bernstein, Percy Grainger, Alfred Reed, Frank Ticheli, Richard Wagner and John Williams.  The concert will be conducted by co-founders Mark Mosley and Sarah Good Mosley, along with guest conductor Dr. Bruce Moss, music director of the Wheaton Municipal Band and director of bands at Bowling Green State University (Ohio).  
Windy City Winds is a community concert band of 60 talented volunteer adult musicians from all across Chicago. Members range in age from 21 to 90.  About half the band were music majors in college.  The band was organized in September 2015 by Mark and Sarah Mosley to provide a high quality musical experience for city musicians and audiences comparable to the finest community bands found in the Chicago suburbs.   
Dr. Moss, Mr. and Mrs. Mosley are all graduates of the University of Illinois School of Music who studied under Dr. Harry Begian, director of bands at the University of Illinois from 1970 to 1984. Several pieces will be performed in tribute to Dr. Begian, including Armenian Dances by Alfred Reed, which was commissioned by Dr. Begian.  
Dr. Moss will conduct the overture Slava! by Leonard Bernstein, as the band continues its year long celebration of Bernstein’s 100 birthday.  Bernstein wrote Slava! in 1977 for Russian cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostopovich’s opening concert as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC.  Dr. Moss will also conduct Elsa’s Processional to the Cathedral by Richard Wagner.
The concert will also feature An American Elegy, written by Frank Ticheli for Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado as an expression of hope and in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting there in 1999.  Recently Ticheli wrote, “When I composed An American Elegy in response to the Columbine Shooting tragedy, I thought it would be a singular episode, or at least a rare one, in our nation's history. Sadly, I am constantly reminded how wrong I was.” 
The concert will conclude with Adventures on Earth, an extended excerpt of music written by composer John Williams for the 1982 Steven Spielberg film E.T.  The Extraterrestrial.
To learn more about Windy City Winds, visit their website at www.windycitywinds.org  and their Facebook page www.facebook.com/windycitywinds. Anyone interested in arranging for a performance or inquiring about membership should email Mark and Sarah Mosley at mwsgmosley@outlook.com.