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Winter Concert
Lynn Klock: Saxophone Virtuoso
Almost Everything You've Always Wanted to
Know about Saxophones and the Concord Band's Saxophone Section
Calendar of Upcoming Events
Saturday, March 5
Saxophone virtuoso Lynn Klock will be the featured guest artist at the
Concord Band's upcoming Winter Concert, which will take place on
Saturday night, March 5th, at 51 Walden Street in Concord.
In addition to several works featuring Mr. Klock, the Concord Band will
present an exciting program of great music from the concert band
repertoire.
The Concert will open with Joseph Willcox Jenkins' classic work,
American Overture for Band.
This exciting overture was written for the U. S. Army Field Band and
dedicated to its conductor at the time, Chester E. Whiting.
The work calls for near-virtuoso playing by several sections, especially
the French horns.
The Concord Band's outstanding horn section Kathryn Denney, Peter
Maaser, Cameron Owen and Jean Patterson is sure to be up to the
task.
The second work on the program is Vincent Persichetti's
Divertimento for Band.
Persichetti studied composition with Paul Nurdoff and Roy Harris
and conducting with Fritz Reiner.
His works, in virtually every form and for all media, are played throughout
the world.
The Divertimento is a six-movement suite with rhythmic and
contrapuntal savoir-faire blended neatly with tongue-in-cheek humor and
lyrical nostalgia.
Divertimento was Persichetti's first composition for concert band
and is still one of his most popular compositions.
The Band will close the first half of the program with performances of
two pieces associated with Ireland a setting of
Irish Tune from County Derry by Percy Grainger, and
Ireland: Of Legend & Lore by Robert W. Smith.
Irish Tune from County Derry, familiar to many listeners as the song
"Danny Boy," has been described as the "perfect" melody.
Grainger's rich sonorities in this arrangement have kept the
Irish Tune a favorite in the concert band repertoire for decades.
Ireland: Of Legend & Lore is an original composition for wind band
that draws upon the vast riches of traditional Irish melodies.
The composer has chosen three castles and/or colorful characters from Irish
history and folklore and put the legendary deeds to music.
The second half of the concert will open with Samuel Barber's stirring
Commando March.
One of America's great composers, Barber is perhaps best known for his
orchestral composition Adagio for Strings.
He composed Commando March in 1943, in the midst of the Second World
War.
It was first performed by the Army Air Corps Band.
Saxophonist Lynn Klock will perform two compositions with the Concord
Band.
The first, Woodland Serenade and Rondo, is a six-minute concerto for
alto saxophone by Catherine McMichael.
Its premiere performance was presented at the prestigious Midwest Band and
Orchestra Clinic in Chicago in 2002 by The Woodlands, Texas, High School
Band, Brett Johnson conducting, with Mr. Klock as the soloist.
The second piece featuring Mr. Klock will be Catch Me If You Can by
John Williams.
This work is based on the music from the film of the same name.
The film takes place in the 1960s and Williams attempted to capture the
spirit of the time by writing a jazz style piece featuring the alto
saxophone.
The concert will close with a performance of selections from Leonard
Bernstein's West Side Story, featuring such great tunes as "Maria,"
"I Feel Pretty," "Something's Coming," "Tonight" and many others.
Don't miss the opportunity to hear some great band music, as well as one of
America's great saxophone virtuosi.
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Lynn Klock Saxophone Soloist
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Lynn Klock is in demand as a soloist and Selmer clinician throughout the
United States and abroad.
As a featured artist in Great Britain, the British and American Virgin
Islands, Canada, and Poland, he has the distinction of being the first
saxophonist to be presented on the Warsaw Philharmonic Recital Series in
Warsaw, Poland.
His Carnegie Hall debut received great acclaim from the New York Times.
He has been a guest soloist with several professional orchestras and bands,
in addition to his numerous engagements with university, community, and
high school bands.
As a chamber musician, he has been a guest artist at the Monadnock,
Musicorda, North Country, Mohawk Trail, and Marlboro music festivals, where
he was the first saxophonist to tour with Musicians from Marlboro.
In 2002, in addition to appearing as a guest soloist/clinician at the
Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the Music Educators National
Conference in Minneapolis,
Mr. Klock appeared in Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, Ohio, Texas,
Washington and throughout New England.
In 2003, he was a featured soloist with the Belgian Air Force Band at the
13th World Saxophone Congress held in Minneapolis, and guest soloist and
clinician at the English Saxophone Congress in Cardiff, Wales.
As an advocate for new music on his instrument, Mr. Klock has had dozens
of new works dedicated to him, including a work by recent Pulitzer Prize
winner Lew Spratlan.
He has premiered works by other Pulitzer Prize-winning composers, including
Gunther Schuller, John Harbison and Michael Colgrass as part of the World
Wide Commissioning Project.
Mr. Klock has recorded three solo CDs with pianist Nadine Shank for Open
Loop Recordings.
Recent releases include an Albany Records CD of Mr. Klock performing the
Colgrass Concerto with Gary Green and the University of Miami Wind
Ensemble, and a Gasparo Records CD of music for saxophone and tenor voice
written for Lynn Klock and tenor Jon Humphrey.
Mr. Klock can also be heard on the CRI, Mark, and Orion recording
labels.
Graduates of Mr. Klock's saxophone programs are having great success as
performers and teachers.
His students have won international competitions in Europe, are members of
professional saxophone quartets, and have received appointments to the
military bands in Washington D.C. and West Point.
His students have been appointed to tenure-track professorships in
saxophone at James Madison, Central Florida and Washington Jefferson
(Pennsylvania) Universities.
Graduates of his saxophone programs have received assistantships at schools
including Eastman, University of Michigan, Indiana University, University
of Miami, University of Illinois, Arizona State University, Ithaca,
University of Minnesota, Louisiana State University, University of Houston
and Western Michigan University.
Mr. Klock is currently Professor of Saxophone at the University of
Massachusetts in Amherst.
He has also held teaching positions at the Interlochen National Music Camp,
The Hartt School of Music, University of Toledo, and Olivet College
(Michigan).
A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Interlochen Arts
Academy, he studied with Larry Teal, Donald Sinta, Jack Kripl, and William
D. Revelli.
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At a recent concert, the Concord Band's saxophone section, left to right:
Jerry Kriedberg (alto), Gwenn O'Keeffe (alto), Judy Piermarini (tenor),
Dave Southard (tenor) and Larry Rubin (baritone).
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According to the Instrument Encyclopedia, the saxophone is a
relatively young instrument, having been invented by Belgian manufacturer,
Adolphe Sax, and exhibited to the world for the first time at the 1841
Brussels Exhibition.
It is classified along with the clarinet as a single-reed woodwind, but is
actually a hybrid, borrowing elements from both the clarinet and
double-reed oboe.
The saxophone was originally available in fourteen different sizes and
keys.
Currently, four sizes and keys of saxophone have been standardized
the soprano (B♭), the alto (E♭), the tenor (B♭), and the
baritone (E♭) see insert below.
All four members of the saxophone instrument family appear in Concord
Band concerts.
However, the three larger (lower-pitched) instruments are always scored by
composers for concert band, while the soprano saxophone is used much less
frequently.
The saxophone and one other conventional concert band instrument are the
only band instruments that are not normally also part of the symphony
orchestra, though both are used occasionally.
The other is the baritone horn, usually referred to as a tenor tuba when
used in an orchestra.
When the saxophone appears in the orchestral literature, it is intended to
provide a sound that is unusual or special.
In the concert band, the saxophone section is a mainstay, but it is
special, nevertheless.
Which brings us to the five members of the Concord Band saxophone
section.
All five are excellent musicians.
Four have played solos with the Band (as has the section as a whole), and
the fifth, whose low-voiced instrument is rarely favored with the solo
role, does double duty during the Band's summer season as announcer for all
of our outdoor concerts.
All of the Concord Band saxophone players are accomplished musicians,
but only one has a degree in music.
Judy Piermarini was a music educator for a time, and now satisfies her need
to make music by playing with the Concord Band and several professional
groups.
In addition to our former music teacher (who is now an element crucial to
the smooth operation of the US Postal Service), we have in our saxophone
section two members of the health community and two practitioners of the
"hard" sciences: Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe is a board-certified pediatrician who
has fallen (please pardon the pun) into pediatric emergency medicine over the
years.
Dr. Jerry Kriedberg is an independent psychologist with a specialty in
neuropsychological testing and evaluation, affiliated with a number of
local hospitals and human service agencies.
Dr. Dave Southard is a computer scientist who specializes in avionics
(flight displays and navigation systems) for general aviation
(non-commercial, generally small, aircraft).
Finally, our senior saxophonist/announcer is physicist Larry Rubin, who has
been an MIT Visiting Scientist since retiring from the National Magnet
Laboratory at MIT about a decade ago.
These days he writes a column for the magazine Physics Today.
If you have a friend or relative who is a member of the Concord Band,
you know all too well that in addition to weekly rehearsals and many hours
of personal practice time, it takes an immense amount of non-musical effort
to make the Band the success that it is.
The members of the saxophone section have made and continue to make
enormous contributions of this kind.
We clearly do not have enough room to talk about all the things they
do.
You already know about Larry, the announcer.
If you attended the Band's Holiday Pops in December, you know the kind of
job Gwenn did as chairman.
Have you ever visited the Concord Band website (concordband.org)?
It is a virtual treasure trove of useful information about the Band and was
initiated in 1995 and managed for five years by Dave Southard.
Some believe that it's one of the finest websites associated with any
community band organization, anywhere.
Jerry's special talent seems to be drawing a crowd.
Somehow he got most of his old Dorchester neighborhood to buy tables at
Pops.
He probably just had to tell them that he was playing a solo.
Finally, if you have ever given money to help run the Concord Band (and in
the next and last paragraph of this story we're going to suggest that you
do just that), then you received a handwritten thank-you note from Judy,
who has also been involved with Pops and helped frequently to get
newsletters like this one into envelopes and then into the mail.
While none of the Concord Band's instrumentalists (saxophonist or
otherwise) is paid, it still costs about $40,000 a year to run the Band.
If you'd like to help out financially, please write a check for as much as
you can afford and mail it in the enclosed envelope.
If you have no return envelope, simply send your check to the address at
the top of this newsletter.
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Concerts will be held at 51 Walden, Concord, at 8:00pm.
Winter Concert
Saturday, March 5,
51 Walden, Concord
8:00 PM
For tickets call (978) 897-9969
Spring Pops
Friday, April 8,
sponsored by the Concord Rotary Club.
For tickets call Beth Sheldon at the Best Western Hotel:
(978) 369-1500
Saturday, April 9,
sponsored by the Emerson Hospital Auxiliary.
For tickets call (978) 287-3019
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