Gustavus Adolphus College

Gustavus Wind Orchestra Home Concert Saturday

The Gustavus Wind Orchestra, under the direction of Dr. Douglas Nimmo, will present its annual Home Concert in Christ Chapel on Saturday, April 5 beginning at 3:00 p.m. This pubic performance by the ensemble will feature St. Peter baritione Michael Jorgensen following the wind orchestra’s spring concert tour to Florida. Saturday’s concert in Christ Chapel is free and open to the public.

The Gustavus Wind Orchestra’s program includes and showcases the variety of compositions available for performance by wind ensembles. The program ranges from the light-hearted percussion feature, Dill Pickles by Charles O. Johnson to Morton Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and David Gillingham’s Be Thou My Vision. It includes the Dmitri Schostakovich Festive Overture and the J. P. Sousa march, Easter Morning on the White House Lawn, among others.

The tour program this spring concludes with the feature The Death Tree from composer David Holsinger’s three-movement The Easter Symphony. This powerful work, commissioned by Gustavus Adolphus College in 1995, portrays the journey of Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, his crucifixion and resurrection. Baritone Michael Jorgensen accompanied the ensemble on its spring tour and will join them on stage as vocalist for The Death Tree.

Douglas Nimmo has led the wind ensemble program at Gustavus since 1987. With the ensemble, he has toured and performed throughout the United States, Scandinavia and central Europe. He is a professor of music at Gustavus and teaches conducting as well as supervising the music education student teachers.

Saturday’s home concert by the Gustavus Wind Orchestra is free and open to the public. The performance begins at 3:00 p.m. in Christ Chapel.