Minnesota Public Radio, 91.1 FM, is scheduled to highlight the NDSU Wind Symphony, featuring saxophone soloist Matthew Patnode, associate professor of saxophone and jazz studies, performing Piet Swerts’ "Dance of Uzume" on Thursday, June 20, around 3:15 p.m.
Under the direction of Warren Olfert, director of bands, the piece premiered during the Inaugural Gala Concert at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts on March 12 and was performed again at Festival Concert Hall on March 24. The performance also will be featured online at classicalmpr.org.
“Dance of Uzume” was written in 2005 at the request of Japan’s premier saxophonist, Nobuya Sugawa. The work is a concertino based on a Japanese myth of the goddess of joy, Uzume, luring the sun goddess Amaterasu out of a cave where she has hidden. A variety of moods and styles are featured through the work, with lyrical interludes, a march-like central section and some Gershwin-like jazz characteristics.
NDSU School of Music ensembles have been regularly featured this spring on Minnesota Public Radio.
NDSU’s Department of Music became the School of Music in September 2012, signifying its far-reaching mission encompassing a broad-based curriculum that includes professional doctoral programs in performance and conducting.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation’s top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.
