Tomorrow: WWU Wind Symphony to feature Nicole Barnes in free concert

Western Washington University’s Wind Symphony will perform with saxophone virtuoso and faculty member Nicole Barnes at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 25 in the Performing Arts Center Concert Hall.

The performance is free and open to the public.

“I am very excited about this upcoming concert. The program is very different from anything we have ever done at WWU. It uses the Wind Band in two completely different ways,” said Christopher Bianco, conductor of the WWU Wind Symphony.

The first half of the evening program will feature works by composers Percy Grainger and Frank Ticheli. The set opens with a circus march by Henry Fillmore; works by Grainger and a jazz-inspired contemporary work will follow. The set finishes with the “Carnival of Venice,” a showpiece for Barnes, the guest artist.

The second half of the program will feature Karel Husa’s “Music for Prague 1968,” a four-movement tone poem that Husa, a Czechoslovakian composer, wrote after the Soviet invasion of Prague in the spring of 1968. “It is a powerful, defiant and hauntingly beautiful work that is challenging to the performers as well as the audience,” said Bianco.

Barnes is a recent graduate from the New England Conservatory, where she received her master’s degree in saxophone performance. In 2003 Barnes won first place in the 12th Annual Concerto Competition at the University of Washington.

Barnes has toured in the Netherlands with the Boston-based Thump Saxophone Quartet, and has performed with the University of Washington Saxophone Quartet in Japan. She has also traveled with groups such as the Boston Civic Orchestra, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and the 2006 Tanglewood Contemporary Orchestra.

For more information about this performance or the WWU Wind Symphony, please call (360) 650-3130 or visit http://www.wwu.edu/bands/windsymphony.shtml.