The Arkansas Tech University Symphonic Wind Ensemble will conclude its 2024-25 performance season with a concert entitled “The Road is Life” on Sunday, April 27.
The performance will begin at 2:30 p.m. in Witherspoon Auditorium, 407 West Q Street on the ATU campus in Russellville. Admission will be free and open to the public.
Pieces scheduled for performance include “Fantasy of Colors” by Dr. Paul Dooley, “Concerto for Tuba” by Dr. John Cheetham and “Symphony No. 2: The Road is Life” by Dr. James M. David.
The ATU Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s performance of “Fantasy of Colors” will be a world premiere. The piece was commissioned by a group of music educators from around Arkansas and the United States and is dedicated to Dr. Daniel A. Belongia in commemoration of the completion of his first decade of service as director of bands at Arkansas Tech.
Belongia, who holds the ATU faculty rank of professor of music, serves as conductor for the ATU Symphonic Wind Ensemble.
The consortium that commissioned “Fantasy of Colors” includes Brenton Alston (Florida International University), Craig McKenzie (University of Miami), Hal Cooper (Arkansas Tech University Cooper Repertoire Collection), Steven Davis (University of Missouri at Kansas City), Todd Dixon (Wylie High School in Texas), Michael Hancock (University of Central Arkansas), Rusty Hart (Cabot High School), Timothy Hendrix (Bentonville High School), Ryan Edgmon (Mustang High School in Oklahoma), Devin West (Greenwood High School), Josh Bradford and Connor Skelly (Harrison High School), Tina Christiansen (Mill Creek High School in Georgia), Max Chernick (Bloomington High School in Illinois), Melissa Gustafson-Hinds (O’Fallon Township High School in Illinois), Philip Obado (Allen High School in Texas), Albert Nguyen (University of Memphis), Ceon Rumphs (Lawrence University), Nicholas Balla (Arkansas State University), Jacob Wallace (South Dakota State University) and Alexandra Zacharella (University of Arkansas at Fort Smith).
Sunday’s performance of “Concerto for Tuba” will feature Dr. Ryan Matejek, ATU visiting lecturer of music, and will mark the Arkansas premiere of the piece.
David’s “The Road is Life” features four movements. Sunday’s performance at ATU will mark the consortium premiere of a piece the was inspired by the beat generation of American writers from the 1940s and 1950s.
“They wrote on the joy of America’s natural beauty and grandeur…its powerful music and poetry, but also the suffering and malaise of its citizens, weighed down by those who would exploit them,” wrote David in the program notes. “My second symphony ruminates on the words of four beat poets and how they might relate to our current mindset in the second quarter of the 21st century. In four movements, a musical road trip of the mind is cast as each one is built on a different author and American place.”
Learn more about the ATU Department of Music at www.atu.edu/humanities/music.
