Premiere of New Composition, Faculty Tuba Player in Wind Symphony Concert Sept. 23

Two School of Music alumni will be featured at the Wind Symphony concert Sunday, Sept. 23, at Illinois State University’s Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall.  Admission is $6 for the general public, $5 for faculty-staff and $4 for students and senior citizens.  Children 6 and younger are admitted free.

The Wind Symphony, conducted by Stephen K. Steele, director of Band, will feature tuba player and Illinois State faculty member Andy Rummel performing “Three Miniatures,” a 1992 piece by composer Anthony Plog for tuba and wind ensemble.  Rummel, a Delavan native, earned bachelor’s and master’s degree in music from Illinois State.  He is currently pursuing his doctorate in musical arts at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. 

Prior to joining the Music faculty, Rummel was the principal tubist with the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band and the Heritage Brass Quintet located at Langley AFB in Virginia.   He also was the instructor of tuba at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va., and was the substitute tubist with the Virginia Symphony in Norfolk.  Rummel was a guest soloist with the Vermont Youth Philharmonia and has been a featured recitalist at the United States Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Washington, D.C.  In 1999, he was selected to perform with the Disney Collegiate All-Star Band in Orlando, Fla.  

The other guest at the Sept. 23 concert will be composer Roy Magnuson, a 2005 bachelor of music graduate of Illinois State, whose piece, “Jack in the Box,” will have its premiere that evening.  The work is a fanfare for wind ensemble. 

Magnuson, who is working on his master’s degree in composition at Ithaca College in New York, has composed music for concert band, orchestra, chamber ensembles, vocalists, video games and films. His works for concert band have been performed throughout the United States by high school, university and professional ensembles including the University of Arkansas Fort Smith, the University of Miami, Illinois State University and the Air Force Band of Mid-America.

In 2004, Magnuson was chosen to participate in the National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project with Mark Camphouse for his piece, “Harvest Moon: A Celebration for Symphonic Band.” The piece was performed in 2004 by the Air Force Band of Mid-America. Also that year, he was awarded the Dr. Charles Bolen Scholarship for Theory/Composition and the Mary Jo Brown Scholarship for excellence in the field of music by the School of Music at Illinois State University.

Other compositions on the program are Hammersmith, Op. 52, by Gustav Holst; and “Winds of Nagual” by Michael Colgrass.  The piece is a musical fable for wind ensemble on the writings of Carlos Castaneda.