Carol found the U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps warming up for a concert at the Texas State Fair and took that opportunity to ask Sgt. Kyle Baker about the organization’s mission and its performances at the Fair.
U.S. Marine Drum & Bugle Corps from Carol Reynolds on Vimeo.
What’s this program about?
There isn’t exactly a Top 40 for the Band World. But if there were, every piece on this concert would be high on the list.
Works discussed:
Clifton Williams, Fanfare and Allegro; Vaclav Nehlybel, Symphonic Movements; Holst, Second Suite in F; Milhaud, Suite Francaise; Persichetti, Symphony for Band, Op. 69; Varese, Integrales
What’s this program about?
Professor Carol shows how composers use nationalist elements to take listeners on a journey across the Global Soundscape. She highlights colorful works by French, American, and Russian composers.
Works discussed: Francois Poulenc, Suite Francaise; Ron Nelson, Rocky Pointe Holiday; Carl Friedemann, Slavonic Rhapsody No. 1; Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition
Major Jim Keene took 
his musical training and talents into the Army, becoming conductor of the premier Army musical ensembles and now commanding the U.S. Army School of Music in Little Creek, Virginia. Professor Carol spoke with her former graduate student when he returned to Dallas to conduct the Dallas Wind Symphony’s Fourth of July concert. Major Keene talks about musical life in the military, performances at state events, and the role of musical ensembles in supporting the troops and representing the United States throughout the world.
What’s this program about?
Maestro Allan Halbert founded the Starlight Symphony Orchestra, a recent addition to Portland’s thriving arts community. Halbert says, “My hope is to offer musical programs that connect with the community and with people who’ve had limited exposure to a live orchestra.” His innovative programming includes an exciting mix of classical, jazz, gospel, pop, and show music.
Works discussed: The season finale features Mozart’s Sinfonie Concertante K.364 (“Adagio”), Shostakovich’s Piano Concert No. 2 (“Andante”), Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, and Bernstein’s “Symphonic Dances” from West Side Story.
What’s this program about?
Enter the musical world of Sir Malcolm Arnold, a world of brisk expression and energy, evocative soundscape, precise instrumentation, and winsome melody. A world of richly colored, well crafted, deeply satisfying sound.
Many people discover Malcolm Arnold through his sets of appealing dances and through his film scores, especially Bridge on the River Kwai.
Weimar. 
This former East German city (that seems so pastoral and peaceful) is actually a bubbling caldron for the arts and culture! Designated in 1999 as UNESCO’s Cultural Capital of Europe, Weimar is a small but unbelievably beautiful and famous city where virtually every movement in German and European cultural history seems to have left its mark.
Weimar combines the cultures of the Reformation (Luther), European Baroque (Bach and Herder), Classicism (Goethe and Schiller), and Romanticism (Liszt) with modern movements in the arts (Bauhaus), politics (Weimar Republic), and military history (Napoleon, Hitler and World War II).
After discovering Weimar in 1998, I helped create SMU’s Summer in Weimar program and co-directed the program for many years. During that time, I developed a deep admiration for one of our German guides, Dieter Kunkel. I asked Dieter to help me explain what makes Weimar so special.
What’s this program about?
We think of West Side Story as Bernstein’s musical, but it needed director and choreographer Jerome Robbins, scriptwriter Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim to bring all of the elements together. West Side Story was a dividing line in each of the collaborators’ lives. It launched Sondheim’s career. Bernstein never again wrote anything like it.
“The chief problem,” Bernstein wrote, was “to tread the fine line between opera and Broadway, between realism and poetry, ballet and ‘just dancing,’ abstract and representational.” Featuring jazz and Latin forms, and songs too operatic for actors without trained voices, the collaborators agreed to preserve the “kid” quality by casting teens rather than seasoned professionals.
Works discussed: Bernstein, West Side Story
What’s this program about?
We forget how young the idea of a public concert is. Until around 1700, the idea of people assembling to play music not as part of a theatrical presentation or church service, but rather purely for listening, was almost unknown.
Concerts in the 19th Century included a lot of eating and drinking, gossip, and press reports on the personalities similar to today’s tabloids. Concerts were occasions for the hippest people to hear the newest, edgy music, filled with surprises and musical special effects.
Works discussed: Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio Espagnole; Sarasate, Zigeuenerweisen; Turrin, Fandango; Williams, Cowboys Overture; Brahms, Academic Festival Overture; Fauré, Elegie
Popcorn and high C’s? At the same time? Want to find out what really goes on backstage? Then let’s go to the movies – at theaters across America – to see Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, March 15 and 16, live via HD satellite transmission from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
If you think opera is silly and outdated, you’ll have to rethink when the gavel smashes to open Peter Grimes. It’s a searing story of a rugged fisherman pitted against his community. The HD feed from The Met includes backstage interviews where you’ll meet key people and watch how talent and technology come together to create an unforgettable show.
This romp through music history (and many other historical topics) combines 13 hours of DVD video with a 3-disc listening set from Naxos and a 236-page course book.
From the birth of opera to the Leipzig coffeehouses frequented by Bach and Schumann, from the Orthodox cathedrals of Moscow to Tin Pan Alley, from scientific discoveries to bloody revolutions, spooky dramas and shoe styles, Carol chronicles it all with her unique commentary.
