Two conductors, two debuts in weekend concerts

Director of Wind Ensembles Cynthia Johnston Turner, left, makes her debut with the Cornell University Wind Ensemble on Oct. 15, and Chris Younghoon Kim takes the helm with the Cornell Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 17. Robert Barker/University Photography

Newly appointed Director of Wind Ensembles Cynthia Johnston Turner makes her debut with the Cornell University Wind Ensemble on Friday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m. in Ford Hall auditorium at Ithaca College. The concert is free and open to the public. The Wind Ensemble will be performing Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," as well as works by Ives, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Gillingham, and Tower. Also appearing will be the Symphonic Band, under the direction of James Patrick Miller, playing works by DeMeij, Whitacre, Holst, Himes and Press.

Active as a guest conductor, festival adjudicator and clinician, Turner holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Queen's University in Ontario, and the University of Victoria in British Columbia. While pursuing her D.M.A. at Eastman, she taught undergraduate conducting, served as doctoral assistant conductor in Eastman Wind Ensembles program and, for the last three years, served as resident conductor of the University of Rochester Wind Symphony. Prior to that she was director of music at Parkside High School, Dundas, Canada for 12 years. There, wind and jazz bands under her leadership consistently won provincial and national awards for performance excellence. In 1997 Turner received the National Leadership in Education Award from the Reader's Digest Foundation of Canada. Published in the journals of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) and the Canadian Music Educators Association, she recently presented her research exploring the future of wind band concerts at the WASBE International Conference in Sweden.

The Wind Ensemble's program includes two fanfares, Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman," a piece the composer intended as both a "quasi-tribute" to Copland, and homage to "women who take risks and are adventurous." Also included on the program are Dimitri Shostakovich's Prelude No. 14 for piano, transcribed for wind ensemble, Charles Ives' "Country Band March," and David Gillingham's "Heroes, Lost and Fallen," a meditation on the violence of the Vietnam War.

The Symphonic Band will perform the Gandalf movement from Johan DeMeij's Symphony No.1, which evokes the personalities and adventures of the characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings. They will also be performing one of the staples of the wind-band repertoire, Gustav Holst's First Military Suite in E-flat, and an arrangement of the American folk song Amazing Grace.

Cornell Symphony Orchestra

Kim serves concurrently as conductor of the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, Artistic Director and conductor of Brave New Works, and Director of Orchestras at Cornell where he is an assistant professor of music. He has appeared with the Toledo Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, National Symphony of Ireland and Prince George Symphony in British Columbia, among others, and has led concerts in Boston and New York with the Firebird Ensemble. Recently he participated in the St. Magnus Festival, working with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Nash Ensemble, and this past summer he conducted at Kinhaven Summer Music Camp. Upcoming concerts with ensembles both based in Boston include a December series of performances with the new music group Firebird Ensemble and a Merkin Hall concert with the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra in May 2005. Kim received his B.M. in music education and oboe performance from Northwestern University and a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the Regents Fellowship.