CCM Wind Symphony and Youth Wind Ensemble present concert of music inspired by dreams

The CCM Wind Symphony and CCM Youth Wind Ensemble (CYWE) present "Dreamscape," a concert of works inspired by dreams, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 4 , in CCM’s Corbett Auditorium. Conducted by Kevin Michael Holzman, CCM's Director of Wind studies, along with graduate student conductors Brendan Boyle, Detrich Morrison-Jones and Pearce Nitta, the concert centers around the music of contemporary composers. Tickets are available now through the CCM Box Office.

The program opens with CYWE performing Rolf Rudin's The Dream of Oenghus, Eric Whitacre's Sleep and selections from Tielman Susato's The Danserye arranged by Patrick Dunnigan.

Ukranian-Australian composer Catherine Likhuta’s Vivid Dreams Concerto for Low Horn and Wind Ensemble is the cornerstone of the program. The piece was written in 2020 for CCM Professor of Horn Denise Tryon, who appears as the guest soloist for the Nov. 4 concert. Praised by Gramophone for her "sonorous fluidity and dexterity" on the instrument, Tryon served as the fourth horn for the Philadelphia Orchestra from 2009-2017, and has recorded three solo albums. Tryon won the American Prize in Instrumental Performance for her recent recording of Vivid Dreams. The piece has three movements: "Cradle in the Forest," "Octopus" and "Urban Secrets." The concerto highlights “the horn’s unique storytelling abilities to musically depict three stories," says Likhuta.

According to Holzman, David Maslanka’s A Child’s Garden of Dreams was a natural choice to compliment Likhuta's composition. "It's always important to me to design programs with works that relate in some way," he says. That way, "audiences can enjoy a program with a through-line that inspires deeper thought."

Maslanka is one of the most celebrated composers for wind ensemble in recent memory, and A Child’s Garden of Dreams represents his first large-scale work in the genre. The material is inspired by the writings of psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Specifically, Maslanka bases the work on a case described in Jung’s book Man and His Symbols, in which a young girl kept a dream journal that contained, according to Jung, "the weirdest series of dreams I had ever seen ... though childlike, they were uncanny, and contained images whose origin was wholly incomprehensible to the father." Maslanka structures the movements in A Child’s Garden of Dreams around different entries in the journal. "Each movement depicts these dreams using the full forces of the wind ensemble," says Holzman.

Also featured is I Wander the World in a Dream of My Own Making by Grammy-nominated American composer Christopher Theofanidis and Anthony Barfield’s Here We Rest. In addition to the concert performance, the CCM Wind Symphony will record Vivid Dreams for commercial release.

This concert also represents an interdisciplinary collaboration between CCM and UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP). Students and faculty of DAAP have created visual art pieces that compliment and respond to the sound world of Maslanka’s music. Led by DAAP Instructor Edward-Victor Sanchez, the collaboration began in July of 2022.

7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4

Corbett Auditorium, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Tickets are $19.50; student and group discounts available. Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office, over the telephone at 513-556-4183 or online.

Learn about additional ticket options for current CCM students.

CCM is located on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. For detailed driving directions, visit ccm.uc.edu/directions.

Parking is available in UC's CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. 

CCM OnStage patrons can add pre-paid parking to their checkout carts when purchasing tickets. Pre-paid parking is date/performance specific. CCM Garage parking rates for a performance or special event is usually available for $10-15. Learn more about parking at UC's CCM Garage.

For additional information on parking at UC, please visit uc.edu/about/parking.

A preeminent institution for the performing and media arts, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is the largest single source of performing arts presentations in the state of Ohio. All event dates and programs are subject to change. For a complete calendar of events, visit ccm.uc.edu/onstage.  

Featured image at the top: Students perform in the CCM Wind Symphony on the Corbett Auditorium stage. Photo/UC Creative + Brand