The Ithaca College Concert Band will conclude its season with a free concert entitled “Celebrations!” on Wednesday, April 26 at 8:15 p.m. in Ford Hall. Alex Shuhan will be the horn soloist, and the concert will be conducted by Mark Fonder.
Richard Strauss’s Concerto No. 1 for French horn, transcribed for band by John Anderson, will feature Alex Shuhan as soloist. Shuhan was a founding member of the ensemble Rhythm and Brass and has performed with the Dallas Brass. He has performed as soloist with many orchestras throughout the United States, including those in Dallas, Milwaukee, Rochester, and Syracuse. He now performs with the Ithaca Brass, Ithaca Wind Quintet, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and other ensembles.
Other music on the program includes Gordon Jacob’s “Music for a Festival,” Warren Benson’s “The Solitary Dancer, and Yasuhide Ito’s “Gloriosa.” Conductor Fonder notes that “’The Solitary Dancer’ is considered a masterpiece in economy of resources, sensitivity for wind and percussion colors and subtle development and recession of instrumental and musical frenzy. As the composer wrote, the work refers to ‘the quiet, poised energy that one may observe in a dancer in repose, alone with her inner music like when a group of people get together and whisper, there is a lot of intensity and excitement, but it never gets loud. It never goes anywhere in that sense. It may bubble and cook but it never really blows the lid off. There are a lot of situations in life like that – just quiet moments.’”
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20060420094454727