Spring semester and January Interim are busy times for members of the Gustavus music community. The Gustavus Wind Orchestra (GWO), the nation’s oldest collegiate music ensemble west of the Mississippi River, began their 10 day Winter Concert Tour at high schools and churches throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin on Feb. 1. The ensemble started their tour in Long Lake, Minnesota and will officially end with GWO’s annual Home Concert in the Jussi Bjorling Recital Hall on Saturday, Feb. 14 at 1:30 p.m.

This tour is GWO’s 137th season, but first under the leadership of conductor Dr. James Patrick Miller. Succeeding long-time conductor Douglas Nimmo, Miller has returned to Gustavus after serving as the Director of Wind Studies at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) for the past five years. He first joined the GAC music faculty in 2008 as an interim conductor of the Gustavus and Vasa Wind Orchestras.

Miller released an album, “Fantastique: Premieres for Trumpet and Wind Ensemble,” on Sept. 1, 2014. This album was released on the MSR Classics label featuring trumpet virtuoso Eric Berlin and the UMass Wind Ensemble. It has received international recognition for its recording of Stephen Paulus’ Concerto for Two Trumpets and Band and was also nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

“All of the performances here are extremely engaged and persuasive,” critic Henry Fogel said about Miller’s album in FANFARE Magazine. “But more impressive is the energy, imagination, and commitment of each of the performances. These are all performances that convey conviction and belief in the music.”

The members of the ensemble presented residencies with junior and senior high school ensembles while on their tour. These residencies included clinics, sectionals, side-by-side rehearsals, and one-on-one support for the younger musicians. Some of the evening concerts also included short performances by the hosting bands, followed by the Gustavus Wind Orchestra. On the last night of the tour, February 7, the Orchestra presented a joint concert with the Encore Wind Ensemble, a semi-professional wind ensemble from the Metro area.

Sophomore Music Education Major Nikki Skifton plays flute in GWO. This is Skifton’s first year with the Wind Orchestra and her first experience on tour.

“My favorite thing about the tour was a mixture of the great music that we played, the people in the ensemble I was able to share the experience with, and especially the people in the audiences we shared it with,” Skifton said.

During its history, GWO has toured annually throughout the United States and Canada and travels internationally every four years. These tours have reached thousands of communities and hundreds of thousands of people world-wide, bringing the Orchestra’s music and service to all corners of the globe.

The tradition of touring began in 1881, when the GWO still travelled in horse-drawn wagons. One of the most significant tours was in March 1941, when the Orchestra performed with composer, soloist, and conductor Percy Aldrigde Grainger. Grainger enjoyed working with the Orchestra so much that that he returned to campus on three other occasions during the 1940s. In 2017, the Orchestra will go on a multi-week international tour to Sweden and Norway.

-Kim Krulish