Contact: Michele Abba

805-756-2406; mabba@calpoly.edu

SAN LUIS OBISPO — The Cal Poly Wind Bands Spring Concert will feature the Wind Ensemble and Wind Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 20, in Miossi Hall of the Performing Arts Center’s Christopher Cohan Center.

The Wind Orchestra will perform works composed specifically for the band medium. It will open the concert with Viet Cuong’s intricately scored work “Heart on Fire,” inspired by the pastoral poetry of Mary Oliver, winner of the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.

The Wind Orchestra will also perform Yo Goto’s “Dancing in Rain” and Dello Joio’s “Variants on a Mediaeval Tune.”

The Wind Ensemble will perform works with roots in the orchestral tradition. The group will also perform one of Joio’s compositions, a rousing piece based on a string quartet by Franz Joseph Haydn, “Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn.”

The concert will conclude with “Pines of Rome,” the expansive tone poem by Ottorino Respighi. It paints four distinct scenes set among the Italian pines in and around the capital city, ending with the ground-shaking return of the Roman army.

Director of Bands Christopher J. Woodruff and Associate Director of Bands Nicholas P. Waldron will conduct the concert.

Tickets to the concert are $15 and $20 general and $10 students. Tickets can be purchased from the Cal Poly Ticket Office between noon and 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. To order by phone, call 805-SLO-4TIX (805-756-4849). Event parking is sponsored by the PAC. The Music Department offers a 20% discount to patrons who buy season tickets to four of its events through the Cal Poly Ticket Office.

The concert is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program.

For more information, visit the Music Department’s calendar website, email music@calpoly.edu or call 805-756-2406.