Yale Concert Band to feature Gioacchino Rossini’s William Tell Overture and Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from “On The Town”

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director

Free Admission

Gioacchino Rossini’s William Tell Overture (trans. by Erik W. G. Leidzén) is often considered to be the composer’s masterpiece. In this opening to Rossini’s opera about thirteenth-century Switzerland, one hears the lake, the beginning rain, the violent tempest, the clearing and emergence of the sun, and finally the famous fanfare.

The five parts of Darius Milhaud’s Suite Francaise contain excerpts from French folk songs and are named after the French provinces in which the American and Allied armies fought together during World War II: Normandy, Brittany, Ile-de-France, Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence.

Fred Cohen wrote Gabrieli Infusion in honor of the 400^th anniversary of Giovanni Gabrieli’s death. The piece employs exciting metric modulation and is scored so as to highlight the many choirs within the wind ensemble.

Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from “On The Town” (trans. by Marice Stith) are drawn from the composer’s musical about three sailors who spend a day in New York City and discover love. The piece’s movements reflect the choreographic attributes of the three sailors. 

…plus O Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen) and Thunder and Blazes (Fučik).