Commissions, Dedications, and Premieres

September 21, 2020October 17, 2007 by Reynolds

What’s this program about?

In today’s classical music world, there are not many composers who can stir up the excitement that might have accompanied the premiere of a new work by Brahms. But John Mackey is a composer who can. He has a popular following from all over the world. The Dallas Wind Symphony collaborated with a group of wind bands to commission Mackey’s new Concerto for Soprano Sax and Wind Ensemble. Mackey dedicated the work to Don Fabian, principal saxophonist of the Dallas Wind Symphony, and Professor Carol talks to Fabian about the upcoming premiere.

Works discussed: John Mackey’s Concerto for Soprano Sax and Wind Ensemble

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And Then There's This . . .

Vince Bielski, When Classical Learning Meets Public Education the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic. “Classical education, whose name gained traction in the 1980s to evoke the movement’s focus on liberal arts and the Western canon, is struggling to overcome local political opposition.”

Peter Wood, After College: The Coming Cultural Collapse of Higher Education. “Students graduate with a veneer of knowledge rather than a core. An increasingly obsolescent institution has wedded itself to an increasingly noisome cultural stance.”

Anthony Esolen, Heap Songs Upon Their Heads. “We are the most beauty-starved people, I am persuaded, who have ever trod the earth.”

Gregory Wolfe, The Wound of Beauty. “The time has come to bring beauty back, to give it the glass slipper and invite it to the prom.”