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Planet Earth program ends for PSWE

A season-long tribute to our planet will come to a conclusion on Saturday night when the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble (PSWE) presents Biosphere.
PSWE

A season-long tribute to our planet will come to a conclusion on Saturday night when the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble (PSWE) presents Biosphere.

The 54-member ensemble, under the baton of David Branter, started its trajectory at the Evergreen Cultural Centre — where it calls home — last November with a concert called Atmosphere.

It had two more shows, Hydrosphere in December and Geosphere in February, before wrapping up this month.

For its June 9 program, PSWE heeds a call from composer David Maslanka, who wrote Mother Earth “to be aware to the needs of our beloved planet, and to respond to it as a living entity.”

The fanfare piece, which was commissioned by the South Dearborn High School in Aurora, Indiana, will be followed by Gaian Visions by Frank Ticheli, a work that focuses on the Earth goddess of ancient Greece.

Saxophonist Mia Gazley, a UBC grad who won this year’s PSWE Youth Soloist Competition, steps up with Roger Boutry’s Divertimento for Alto Sax and Wind Ensemble while Branter showcases his original tune, Essay On Origins, which portrays a musical landscape of the Book of Genesis.

Mia

Finally, the concert ends with the 25-minute piece Apotheosis of this Earth, a 1970 work by Karel Husa who was motivated to pen a composition that speaks of the everyday struggles on the Earth: from war and hunger to forest fires and environmental plights.

The Czechoslovakian, who died in 2016, split his work in three movements: Apotheosis, Tragedy of Destruction and Postscript.

• For tickets to Biosphere on June 9 at 8 p.m., call the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam) at 604-927-6555 or visit evergreenculturalcentre.ca.

jcleugh@tricitynews.com