Kisinger ensembles featured in back-to-back concerts

In unusual back-to-back concerts, Purdue Bands offers the fast pace of a musical variety show in its Stagedoor Spectacular on Friday, Feb. 24, and the musical power of concert bands found in its Windworks concert on Saturday, Feb. 25.

Both events begin at 8 p.m. in the Long Center , 111 N. Sixth St. in downtown Lafayette . Both are free.

“The whole weekend will be an extraordinary musical ride,” says Bands publicist Kathy Matter. “Friday night's concert recalls the war time canteen shows with several bands and lots of pretty girls performing. The Golduster dancers and Purdue's solo twirlers will take the spotlight on various numbers along with the vocal soloists from American Music Review.”

In contrast, Saturday's concert features three concert bands – the Varsity, Collegiate and Purdue Concert Bands – in a program that features guest conductor Ed Nickol, the co-founder and conductor of the Ohio Valley British Brass Band. There will be pieces by Camille Saint-Saens, Percy Grainger, John Philip Sousa, Robert Jager, Caesar Giovannini and others.

Ensembles led by William Kisinger, honored Feb. 13 at the Indiana Statehouse as Arts Educator of the Year for 2006, are featured on both programs. Kisinger's Collegiate Concert Band performs Saturday night, and both his American Music Review big band and Boiler Brass basketball bands perform on Friday night.

American Music Review, a swing era big band with singers, is the unique group the conductor created at Purdue in 1982. Before Kisinger retires this spring he's leading American Music Review on a performance trip on a Caribbean cruise ship, reminiscent of several cruise tours the group made in the 1980s. The program for the Feb. 24 concert is a preview of music they'll take on the ship including “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Moonlight Serenade,” “The Pink Panther,” “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Route 66.”

Kisinger's Boiler Brass group, usually only heard at Purdue men's basketball games, will step out of the box to perform a wide variety of selections including “Ghostbusters,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Take the A Train,” “Hot Hot Hot” and “Going Out of My Head.”

The veteran director is known for slipping his favorite composers, George Gershwin and Cole Porter, into concerts. On Friday, American Music Review and its soloists will perform Gershwin's “Summertime” and Porter's “Night and Day.” On Saturday, his Collegiate Band will perform “Gershwin!” arranged by Warren Barker.