The UCLA Wind Ensemble opens its second concert of the winter quarter with Óscar Navarro's celebratory Downey Overture, written originally for the Downey Symphony Orchestra here in the Los Angeles area. Two recent compositions by young American composers follow: Nicole Piunno's beautiful With Love and Grace and Henry Dorn's Harper's West, named for Dorn's daughter and the rare seizure disorder (West Syndrome) through which she has persevered. The program concludes with Steven Bryant's five-movement Ecstatic Waters, a major work for wind ensemble an electronics; though it premiered in 2008, its theme of dialectical tension between the human and the machine are relevant as ever in this age of rapidly expanding artificial intelligence.
This performance is made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2024-2025 Dobrow Series.