WASBE Day 6 & 7 cont.

It's over. I spent far too much time sitting yesterday. Sitting in planes. Sitting on busses. Sitting in airports. The added bonus was sitting waiting for the pilot's seat to be replaced before we borded the flight from Chicago to Vancouver.

I promised that I would wrap day 7, so here it is:

The morning sessions got harder and harder as the week progressed as the nights before them seemed to get extended. It was well worth waking up on Saturday morning for Mark Fonder's (Ithaca College, NY) session on repertoire for younger musicians. I have reviewed the session in detail again on the WASBE blog so won't go into detail here.

The WASBE AGM occurred immediately following. Much of the meeting was working through the formalities of such an event, but the highlights were the announcement of Odd Terje Lysebo as President-Elect and the presentations promoting the upcoming conference sites in Taiwan and Hungary. Glenn Price passed the ceremonial gavel to Leon Bly who now steps in as President.

The after lunch, the International Youth Wind Orchestra took the stage to perform a concert of what was billed as the top standard repertoire for winds conducted by the "Three Icons:" Frank Battisti, H. Robert Reynolds and Donald Hunsberger. The choice to play standard rep was somewhat of a departure for this ensemble as it generally programs newer works. But this entire project was about filming the three icons in rehearsal, interview and performance performing the three most major sets of repertoire available to us: both Holst Suites, Lincolnshire Posy, and Hindemith's Symphony in Bb. The DVD will be released at an unannounced future date.

The performance was outstanding. Each of these fine conductors out their own stamp on each of the pieces and the students did an outstanding job of playing the works. My favourite was Reynold's performance of Lincolnshire. There was a way that Reynold's got directly to the music and transported the listener that nobody else really did. I'm looking forward to hearing it again on disc and on DVD.

Having said that, all of the performances except the New Sousa Band from earlier in the week were recorded and are available for purchase from Mark Custom Recordings. I highly recommend getting a copy of at least the highlights disc.

A reception followed that was presented by the host city of the 2011 conference in Taiwan.

The final concert was presented by the US Marine Band, "The President's Own." I had been looking forward to this performance all week. The Higden Percussion Concerto, a performance of the Ives, The Alcotts and Husa's Music for Prague: 1968 drew me in with great anticipation. The band opened with the obligatory march which moved into an incredibly fast performance of Shostakovich's Festive Overture. I thought that from a programming perspective, the move from the march to the overture was a tasteful way of easing the audience toward the more challenging repertoire to follow. The Higden Percussion Concerto was masterfully performed but the piece itself seemed to fall into the trap that many other concerti do. It was a virtuosic showpiece with a couple of interesting ideas but little musical substance. I couldn't get images of Neil Peart out of my head at one point. The Ives was, by contrast, expressive and moving.

At this point, Glenn Price too the stage to present the first WASBE Lifetime Achievement award to Karel Husa. He is in his 80s now and seemed to be moved by the recognition. He returned to his seat to listen to a very powerful performance of his Music for Prague:1968. By the end of the piece, I felt that I had heard the best concert of the week, despite the fact that all of the repertoire didn't match my taste. What happened next, although not unexpected, was offensive and turned my stomach. The performance of the first encore of Stars and Stripes Forever was unquestionably the worst possible piece to follow the Husa. It was in direct opposition from musical and ideological perspectives. I understand that this is what the Marine Band does and this is what people expect. I also get that not everyone in the audience were trained musicians and may have not completely understood or even like the Husa. But I think that perhaps tradition could have been modified, just this once to either leave us with the Husa ringing in our ears or find a more appropriate piece to follow it with.

The week ended with a banquet, which I missed this time in favour of actually seeing a bit of Cincinnati and having dinner with a good friend that I only get to see once every two years. We did, of course, return to the hotel bar to spend our last evening with the WASBE crowd and start to say our goodbyes.

Thank you, so much PSWE for helping me get to WASBE again. I know that it has been a very worthwhile trip as much in inspiration as anything pragmatic. I hope that it translates into something tangeable for you.