From the Music Director:

As we enter our thirty-ninth season of bringing music to Connecticut, we are inspired by a year that will be etched in history, the celebration of the United States of America's 250th Anniversary. The reasons for elation are many, but for us, it is also the development of the symphonic wind ensemble, where it has a tremendous foothold in American life. Europe has its brass bands, but the expansion in the United States with the addition of reeds is unmistakable. Early wind band music was still grounded in the brass band idea, but the development of American ideas went much further. We see this in composers like Mark Hindsley, who gave serious thought in translating famous orchestral works known to the average concert goer. Then forward-thinking original compositions came to light by the likes of Alfred Reed, James Curnow, Robert Jager which then led to today's band writing of Rossano Galante, Satoshi Yagasawa and Philip Sparke.

There is so much to celebrate with our history and freedoms. We present to you a season unlike any we have done. You can look to our season as one giant program, with us linking each program to our patriotic end. We start in November with the "Melting Pot" a program of music marking just a few of the many immigrant nations that have made up these United States, with a final work of their journey for freedom in a new land. March finds us performing the music of "American Composers and their creation of a music that is as adventurous as those that founded our nation. Finally, in May we pull out all the stops in a concert that is embodied in the "American Dream" and as patriotic as you can get!

We hope you can join us on these travels, it will be a year that none will forget. We hope you and those you know will join us along the way!

Connecticut Symphonic Winds