Composer David Maslanka was our guest at the University of Louisville from Thursday, February 20 – Sunday, February 23. On Friday, he served as clinician for some of our local high schools in a special master class setting. Ballard High School, Eastern High School, Male High School and the Youth Performing Arts School all shared different works by David Maslanka in an interactive composer/performer environment on the Comstock Concert Hall stage. In addition, Maslanka listened in on and coached rehearsals with the UofL Wind Symphony and the Chamber winds Louisville and Louisville Concert Band.
The visit culminated with a breath-taking concert at Comstock Concert Hall on Sunday, the 23rd, at 7:30 pm. The concert featured performances by musicians from Chamber Winds Louisville, the Louisville Concert Band and the University of Louisville Wind Symphony. The Maslanka works performed were Give Us This Day, the tour de force Symphony No. 4, and the world premiere of Remember Me for solo cello and nineteen players. Faculty artist, Paul York, was featured as soloist.
David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did masters and doctoral study in composition at Michigan State University where his principal teacher was H. Owen Reed. Maslanka’s music for winds has become especially well known. Among his 40-plus works for wind ensemble and band are Symphonies 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9, 12 concertos, a Mass, and many concert pieces. His wind chamber music includes four wind quintets, two saxophone quartets, and many works for solo instrument and piano. In addition, he has written a variety of orchestral and choral pieces. David Maslanka’s compositions are published by Carl Fischer, Inc., David Maslanka Publications, Kjos Music Company, Marimba Productions, Inc., the North American Saxophone Alliance, OU Percussion Press, and TrevCo Music, and have been recorded on Albany, Reference Recordings, BIS (Sweden), Naxos, Cambria, CRI, Mark, Novisse, AUR, Cafua (Japan), Brain Music (Japan), Barking Dog, and Klavier labels. He has served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, and since 1990 has been a freelance composer. He now lives in Missoula, Montana. David Maslanka is a member of ASCAP.
More photos from the concert are posted on our Flickr page: Flickr.com/MarchingCards