January 24, 2008

New Purdue Bands group to debut with Wagner, Copland, Barber

The players, all hand picked by conductor Andrew King, will perform at 8 p.m. at University Church, 320 North St., West Lafayette. The group will perform works by Richard Wagner and Aaron Copland and spotlight guest soprano Karen Goff, a frequent Bach Chorale soloist, in Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915." The ensemble is sponsored by Purdue Bands & Orchestra. The suggested donation at the door is $10.

King said the new group serves as a musical challenge for his top players and showcases their advanced skills. He said the first concert will show how audiences respond to a chamber orchestra and the student musicians.

"If it's a huge hit, I hope to do one concert each semester," he said. "We won't always use the same instrumentation due to the varying demands of the pieces presented, so the Sinfonia won't always be made up of the same members."

For the debut concert, King picked three pieces he said he always wanted to conduct but never had the right kind of group to do them until the Sinfonia. Along with Barber's composition, the performance will feature a short non-operatic work by Wagner, "Siegfried Idyll," and the original version of Copland's "Appalachian Spring," scored for 13 instruments.

Writer: Christy Jones, (765) 494-1089, christyjones@purdue.edu

Source: Kathy Matter, Purdue Bands public relations director, (765) 496-6785, kcmatter@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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