Name: Centenary Wind Ensemble Concert 2025
Start: 2025-04-13T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2025-04-13T21:30:00-05:00
Location: 2911 Centenary Blvd, Shreveport, LA, United States, Louisiana 71104

Centenary Wind Ensemble, directed by Thomas Hundemer, presents its Spring 2025 concert on April 13th in Anderson Auditorium at the Hurley School of Music. The 7:30 PM concert is free and open to the public.
Among the music to be performed are Gustav Holst's "Hammersmith", Kenneth Alford's "Colonel Bogey March", Samuel Hazo's "Arabesque", and John Barnes Chances's "Incantation and Dance", all classic band favorites. The concert closes with the "Cuban Overture", George Gershwin's exciting take on 1930's Havana. Music by Sergei Prokofiev and Howard Hanson round out the program.
"Hammersmith" is a fond reminiscence of Holst's favorite part of London. His daughter Imogen wrote of Holst's love of this area along the Thames River:
"those who knew nothing of this forty-year-old affection for the Hammersmith district of London were puzzled at the title ... Its mood is the outcome of long years of familiarity with the changing crowds and the changing river: those Saturday night crowds, who were always good-natured even when they were being pushed off the pavement into the middle of the traffic ... As for the river, he had known it since he was a student ... In Hammersmith the river is the background to the crowd: it is a river that goes on its way unnoticed and unconcerned."
"Colonel Bogey" is one of the classic British marches, always a crowd pleaser. "Incantation and Dance" opens with the flute section singing the incantation, while the dance features explosive winds and brass while the percussion leads the dancing. "Arabesque" also features flute and percussion with florid and arabesque-like melodies in the band. "Cuban Overture", originally titled "Rumba", was composed in 1932 after long holiday in Havana. Caribbean and Cuban dance rhythms and percussion are on full display permeating the music with the excitement and drive of Latin music and soaring melodies. The main theme is based on a 1930's song, "Echale Piñeiro" and references several other Cuban folk songs including "La Paloma".