It’s been quite a feat for the Coquitlam-based Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble to land a place at the 2015 World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) festival.
But given its reception in Singapore at WASBE a decade ago, PSWE president Robert Neville said the lengthy application process — and the organization to get their 45-member band on board — has been worth it.
The move to enter into the San Jose, Cali., conference started rolling last year when PSWE music director David Branter filled out the forms and submitted an “audition tape” of a live performance; he chose a show held at the Evergreen Cultural Centre, its home base.
Then, “we waited all summer,” Neville said.
Finally, when the band got word it was accepted to the prestigious event, PSWE formed a committee to see who was able to go and how they could travel south together — a bit of a challenge given the number of people and instruments involved, Neville said.
In the end, it was agreed that, because of their hectic schedules, each musician would find their own way down “so we have this spread sheet that shows some are getting by car, others by plane and some even by train. It’s a real mish mash.”
The band will meet on July 12 (the first day of the gathering for the international wind band community) to start rehearsing for their July 16 show at 1:30 p.m. at the California Theatre, a 1,100-seat auditorium that opened in 1927 as a vaudeville and film house, and was recently restored after a five-year closure.
There, PSWE is listed as Concert No. 10 out of 17, and will showcase a mix of Canadian and American works: Samuel Barber’s Commando March; The Banks of Newfoundland by Howard Cable; Frank Ticheli’s Concerto for Clarinet and Wind Ensemble (with soloist Michelle Anderson on clarinet); Pavanne by Morton Gould; Connections by Branter; and Fred Stride’s Seaquam: A Journey to the Sky.
Neville said PSWE will be rehearsing from now until about a week-and-half before arriving in San Jose.
And on Saturday, it’ll give a sneak peak in an Evergreen show called Hands Across the Border. The June 13 concert will include the pieces by Barber, Ticheli, Gould and Cable plus Suite of Old American Dances (Richard Rodney Bennett) and Prestidigitation (Robert Buckley), of which alto saxophonist Julia Nolan will play a solo number.
• Tickets to Hands Across the Border on June 13 at 8 p.m. are $20/$15/$12, with 10% for groups of eight or more. Call the Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way) at 604-927-6555 or visit evergreenculturalcentre.ca. The show is a co-presentation with Evergreen.
