Southern Oregon Band Ready For Busy Season

22 August 2007

Conductor, Yair Strauss, advises that the Band would like to reinforce its clarinet, oboe, bassoon, horn, trombone, euphonium, sax, alto and bass clarinet, and percussion sections. Musicians playing other band instruments are also encouraged to apply. Interested musicians are asked to contact Yair Strauss at 488-0318 or via email. Auditions are not required, but new applicants should be proficient and will enter the band on a trial basis.

The band plans to perform five different concerts in Medford and Ashland this year. Among the musical highlights of the upcoming season will be transcriptions and original classical works, including: Holst’s Planets Suite, Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Kabalevsky’s Sonatina and Colas Breugnon Overture, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sea Songs; original band music, including: Doyle’s Henry V, Camarata’s A Trumpeter"s Prayer, Robert Sheldon"s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Robert Russell Bennett"s Symphonic Songs for Band, and John Zdechilik’s Barcarole for Flutes; and miscellaneous pieces, including: Sousa marches, Leroy Anderson"s Syncopated Clock, Ferde Grofe’s Mississippi Suite, Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls, Richard Rogers"s Slaughter on 10^th Avenue.

The Southern Oregon Concert Band is a community band that has been in existence since early in the last century with 75 musicians from Grants Pass, Medford, Ashland, Jacksonville and other area locales. Yair Strauss, formerly conductor of the Rogue Valley Symphony, is in his third year of conducting the band.