Brilliantly performed and interpreted!! I listened to this piece performed by the USF Symphonic Band last week and it was interpreted very mechanically, which takes away from this piece dramatically! Years ago a band director at a music camp I attended told me how he met Mr. Zdechlik and had a conversation about how much more there was to this piece than what was written on the page. Mr. Zdechlik had him conduct it the way he interpreted it, which was very much the way you performed it. As the story was told to me Mr. Zdechlik confirmed that he did enjoy the performance and while he never changed the arrangement even he took some performance liberties in later years. (Again this was told to me second hand - I was not there, but have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this.) I have had the pleasure of performing this piece first in my senior high all county band concert in 1983 under the direction of my camp conductor who was guest conducting, I performed it in college, at my last year of music camp before I aged out as a counselor it was our last piece, I have conducted it with an all county band, a community band in Y very much like this one, and with my high school band just before retirement. It is perhaps my favorite piece of all, and one that I performed every four years as a high school band director so that everyone would have the chance to perform it once. As I listened to this, I would have sworn if it was just a recording without video that I was conducting!! Maestro Pongras we apparently see eye to eye on this piece which just reinforces to me that I am in good company! Bravo to you and all of these exceptional musicians!
David, thank you so much for your commentary. Our Assistant Director, Ryan worked very hard on the interpretation and I'm sure he'll be very happy to hear your comments. I invite you to listen to the other works from this concert and would appreciate any commentary. Thank you, Chuck Neidhardt - Director
David, Thank you for the kind words. The musicians enjoyed working on this and really sounded great. Please make sure to check out our other performances! Kindly, Ryan Pongras
The brass sounds so good
Brilliantly performed and interpreted!! I listened to this piece performed by the USF Symphonic Band last week and it was interpreted very mechanically, which takes away from this piece dramatically! Years ago a band director at a music camp I attended told me how he met Mr. Zdechlik and had a conversation about how much more there was to this piece than what was written on the page. Mr. Zdechlik had him conduct it the way he interpreted it, which was very much the way you performed it. As the story was told to me Mr. Zdechlik confirmed that he did enjoy the performance and while he never changed the arrangement even he took some performance liberties in later years. (Again this was told to me second hand - I was not there, but have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this.) I have had the pleasure of performing this piece first in my senior high all county band concert in 1983 under the direction of my camp conductor who was guest conducting, I performed it in college, at my last year of music camp before I aged out as a counselor it was our last piece, I have conducted it with an all county band, a community band in Y very much like this one, and with my high school band just before retirement. It is perhaps my favorite piece of all, and one that I performed every four years as a high school band director so that everyone would have the chance to perform it once. As I listened to this, I would have sworn if it was just a recording without video that I was conducting!! Maestro Pongras we apparently see eye to eye on this piece which just reinforces to me that I am in good company! Bravo to you and all of these exceptional musicians!
David, thank you so much for your commentary. Our Assistant Director, Ryan worked very hard on the interpretation and I'm sure he'll be very happy to hear your comments. I invite you to listen to the other works from this concert and would appreciate any commentary. Thank you, Chuck Neidhardt - Director
David, Thank you for the kind words. The musicians enjoyed working on this and really sounded great. Please make sure to check out our other performances! Kindly, Ryan Pongras