This Friday, Sept. 10, the Meadows Wind Ensemble will kick off the 2010-11 season performing swanky and swinging jazz works in “Switch Hitting with the MWE!”  

Expect an exhilarating performance of George Gershwin’s classic “Rhapsody in Blue” with internationally renowned pianist William Ransom.  Also,   Jonathan  Jones, clarinetist and Meadows alumnus, and Dr. Sam Holland, pianist and director of the Division of Music, will join the Meadows Wind Ensemble on Bernstein’s “Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.”

Two composers with ties to the Meadows School of the Arts will also be providing hard-driving and jazzy compositions for the performance. Meadows composer and music professor, Simon Sargon, portrays the developments of jazz through American history in his work “Rap Sessions.”

The other composer with relations to SMU is Frank Ticheli, a Meadows alumnus and prominent composer of band and orchestral works. Several of his compositions for band have become standards for band compositions with a 2006 NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition award for his Symphony No. 2.  The Meadows Wind Ensemble will be performing Ticheli’s “Blue Shades.” For this work, clarinetist Jonathan Jones will again take the front stage and perform alongside the Meadows Wind Ensemble.

The Meadows Wind Ensemble, led by Jack Delaney, has won acclaim from leading contemporary composers for thoughtful and brilliant performances of their works.  Enjoy the ensemble’s first concert of the season at 8 p.m. this Friday in Caruth Auditorium. Tickets are $7 for SMU students and faculty.

Other Meadows events this upcoming weekend:

– Theater: 10 minute play festival

Fri.- Sun. Owens Arts Center B450

 -Meadows Museum:

El Greco’s “Pentecost” arrives.