The First Coast Wind Symphony is an all-volunteer community music organization located in Jacksonville, Florida. The title "First Coast" refers to Northeast Florida, where early French and Spanish explorers settled, and home to St. Augustine, America's oldest city. The group is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is a member of the Association of Concert Bands, a national organization of community bands.
The organization was founded in 1990 by conductors Artie Clifton, faculty member at Jacksonville University, and Dr. Dale Blackwell, faculty member at Florida State College at Jacksonville. The mission of the First Coast Wind Symphony is to serve as a cultural resource by providing outstanding performances of quality wind music in the greater Jacksonville, Florida area.
This will forever be one of the best pieces I've ever learned how to conduct! Rossano Galante is such a brilliant composer, and it's great to see him conducting his piece!! Fantastic job!! :)
0:39 I’m thankful for Dr. Paul Weikle, conductor, that chooses challenging music. I’m thankful to my teacher Joseph Haygood who taught me to play all the high notes.
Played this song few years ago and we're going to be playing it again this year. I fell in love with this piece even before I knew the meaning. One of the few pieces our band director told us the meaning behind and I loved it even more after hearing the meaning. Such a wonderful tribute to all those innocent kids. This will always be one of my favorite pieces we've ever done.
The hospital nursery band is playing this tonight. I'm the super-concertmaster (born yesterday btw) and we're so excited to be playing this at double the tempo!
Very well done performance. This sounds like the same arrangement as played by Fennell and the Cleveland Symphonic Winds. I would love to get the sheet music for my local band. Any suggestions?
I remember picking Ticheli up from the airport for this concert. We ended up talking about the Parkland High School shooting that had just occurred 1 week earlier and having this piece on the concert. It just made this performance all the more meaningful.
This piece is really fun to play but also a pain in the arse cuz it goes from 3/4 to 2/4 to 6/8 to 1/4. One of the hardest pieces i’ve played as a 13 year old
It's always instructive to watch a composer like Ticheli conduct his own work. He, of course, knows every fiber and nuance of the piece, and therefore needs no score to read. He will just go wherever the moment takes him, and will take the ensemble with him. Beautiful work and beautiful performance, Frank.
My college band director actually was a senior in the same district as Columbine high school when the school shooting took place. He said whenever they went to that school for band stuff you could feel what happened there.
Okay, I realized what’s wrong. The clarinet and picc were both playing fine on their own but they weren’t in tune with eachother. The picc had some weird phrasing so I guess my brain picked that out.
I have a goal this year to conduct this whole thing on my channel. Each year is a new adventure, and this whole piece describes that in a musical way. :)
