"The Band Dances"
About our Artist-in-Residence
Stephen Peterson (Fort Collins, CO) Stephen Peterson has enjoyed a 43-year career teaching and conducting throughout the United States and around the world. Most recently, he served as Director of Bands at the University of Illinois, where he served from 2015 until his retirement in 2022. At Illinois, he conducted the Illinois Wind Symphony, led the graduate wind conducting program, taught courses in wind literature, and guided all aspects of one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most storied band programs.
Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Illinois, he served as director of bands at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York for 17 years. From 1988 to 1998, he served as Associate Director of Bands at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Peterson was also conductor of the renowned Northshore Concert Band. He held positions as Associate and Interim Director of Bands at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas and has several years of successful teaching experience in the public schools in Arizona.
Peterson maintains a busy schedule as a conductor and clinician and has appeared on four continents and in 45 states. In addition to many honor bands and clinics, since retiring, he has had residencies at the University of Michigan, The University of Colorado, The University of Massachusetts, Appalachian State University, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts Academy. He is a past president of the College Band Directors National Association and has been honored with membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, where he has served on the Board of Directors. He is also a member of Phi Mu Alpha, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Kappa Lambda, and an honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma and Kappa Kappa Psi.
Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Leonard Berstein
trans. Paul Lavender
About the piece
Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” was first performed by the New York Philharmonic on an all-Bernstein concert in 1961, four years after the opening of West Side Story on Broadway. The songs of the musical had immediately become popular standards, while at the same time the dance music had been sophisticated enough to find its way into the concert hall, similar to music of a ballet. Most composers for Broadway were songwriters who did not write their own dance music, but Bernstein, a fully trained composer who had already written two formal ballets, crafted these remarkable dances himself. This transcription was first performed by the United States Marine Band, "The President's Own," with Col. Michael J. Colburn conducting, as part of the Marine Band's fall tours in 2006 and 2007.
The suite encompasses Mambo, a competitive dance between the gangs; Cha-Cha, when Tony and Maria see one another for the first time; and the Finale, love music and a procession that recalls the ever-popular aria Somewhere, but now with a more tragic sentiment.
- Program Notes from www.windrep.org
About the composer
Leonard Bernstein (25 August 1918 in Lawrence, Mass. - 14 October 1990, New York, N.Y.) was an American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Bernstein was born to Russian immigrants and attended Boston Latin School, Harvard University, and the Curtis Institute of Music. His studied with composers Edward Burlingame Hill and Walter Piston as well as conducting with Fritz Reiner. In the summers of 1940 and 1941 he studied conducting at Tanglewood with Serge Koussevitzky along with Frederick Fennell, Lukas Foss, and Walter Hendl. He become assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943 and it was in this role he became famous by filling in last minute for Bruno Walter for a national broadcast on 14 November 1943.
His Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah" was premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony in January 1944 followed by Fancy Free and On the Town by the end of the year. These successes led to numerous opportunities overseas, including being the first American to conduct at La Scala. In 1951 he become the head of conducting at Tanglewood and seven years later became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic (1958-1969). In this position he promoted new music, developed a series of Young People's Concerts, and recorded the symphonies of Gustav Mahler but was limited in his time to compose.
Bernstein was able to compose more in the 1970s. His achievements included Kennedy Center Honor for Lifetime of Contributions to American Culture Through the Performing Arts, 11 Emmy Awards, election to the Academy of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
About the transcriber
Paul Lavender is an American composer, music businessman and arranger.
Lavender studied music theory and composition at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, where he obtained both his Bachelor of Music, 1973, and Master of Music degrees. At this institute he also taught music theory, sight singing and ear training. During this period, he also started his first arrangements for the Central Michigan University Marching Band, then led by Norman Dietz and Jack Saunders. In 1980 he became an arranger and collaborator at the music publishing house Jenson Publications, and in 1989 he joined the music publishing house Hal Leonard Corporation in the same position. He is currently [2021] vice president of instrumental publications.
In addition to numerous adaptations of classical music for wind orchestras, he also wrote his own compositions for this orchestral form, as well as chamber music and pedagogical works.
Folk Dances
Dmitri Shostakovich
ed. H. Robert Reynolds
About the piece
Shostakovich wrote the suite Op. 63, Native Leningrad, in 1942 as a tribute to the courage of the citizens of Leningrad. This suite was culled from the incidental music for a "concert play spectacle" entitled Native Country or Motherland. It was scored for tenor and bass soloists, choir and orchestra, and was premiered on November 7, 1942, at the Dzerzhinsky Central Club.
The suite has four movements: Overture – October 1917, Song of the Victorious October (Song of the River Neva), Youth Dance (Song of the Sailors), and Song of Leningrad. The Youth Dance is the movement transcribed as Folk Dances. It first received this name when transcribed for piano by Lev Solin. The name stuck when retranscribed for military band by M. Vakhutinsky. H. Robert Reynolds rescored Vakhutinsky's transcription, making it suitable for American wind bands.
While the melodies used in Youth Dance are reminiscent of folk tunes, Shostakovich's work is original. Considering the programmatic nature of the work, it is justifiable to assume Shostakovich wished to evoke an overt Russian sentiment in the same way that Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-flat and Gordon Jacob's An Original Suite sound and feel distinctly British.
- Program Note from State University of New York, Potsdam, Symphonic Band concert program, 13 April 2017
About the composer
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia – 9 August 1975, Moscow, Russia) was a Russian composer who lived under the Soviet regime.
Shostakovich had a complex and difficult relationship with the Soviet government, suffering two official denunciations of his music, in 1936 and 1948, and the periodic banning of his work. Shostakovich's response to official criticism and, more importantly, the question of whether he used music as a kind of abstract dissidence is a matter of dispute. It is clear that outwardly he conformed to government policies and positions, reading speeches and putting his name to articles expressing the government line. It is also generally agreed that he disliked the regime, a view confirmed by his family and his letters to Isaak Glikman.
Shostakovich prided himself on his orchestration, which is clear, economical, and well-projected. This aspect of Shostakovich's technique owes more to Gustav Mahler than Rimsky-Korsakov. His unique approach to tonality involved the use of modal scales and some astringent neo-classical harmonies à la Hindemith and Prokofiev. His music frequently includes sharp contrasts and elements of the grotesque.
His most popular works are his 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets. His works for piano include 2 piano sonatas, an early set of preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Other works include two operas, six concertos, and a substantial quantity of film music.
About the editor
Harrah Robert Reynolds (April 10, 1934 – January 30, 2026) was an American musician, conductor and academic. He was the principal conductor of the Wind Ensemble at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, where he held the H. Robert Reynolds Professorship in Wind Conducting. Reynold's appointment at the University of Southern California followed his retirement, after 26 years, from the School of Music of the University of Michigan where he served as the Henry F. Thurnau Professor of Music, director of university bands, and director of the division of instrumental studies. In addition to these responsibilities, he was also, for nearly 30 years, the conductor of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, which is made up primarily of members from the Detroit Symphony.
Reynolds conducted in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center (New York), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Powell Symphony Hall (St. Louis), Academy of Music (Philadelphia), and Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles). In Europe, he conducted the premiere of an opera for La Scala Opera (Milan, Italy), and concerts at the prestigious Maggio Musicale (Florence, Italy), the Tonhalle (Zurich, Switzerland), and at the Holland Festival in the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), as well as the 750th Anniversary of the City of Berlin. He has won the praise of numerous composers, including Aaron Copland, Karel Husa, Gyorgy Ligeti, Darius Milhaud, Gunther Schuller, and many others for his interpretive conducting of their compositions.
Reynolds was awarded an honorary doctorate from Duquesne University, and, in addition, held degrees in music education and performance from the University of Michigan, where he was the conducting student of Elizabeth Green. He began his career in the public schools of Michigan and California (Anaheim HS) before beginning his university conducting at California State University at Long Beach and the University of Wisconsin, prior to his tenure at the University of Michigan.
Reynolds spent his summers conducting the Young Artists Wind Ensemble at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. This program works closely with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center. The group includes young musicians from all across North America, and consistently performs the music at the highest difficulty to the highest quality. He shared this responsibility with David Martins, director of Wind Ensembles at Boston University.
Reynolds died on January 30, 2026, at the age of 91.
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