Last year, our band director Mr. Heide, created wind ensemble. The goal of this was to allow kids who were approaching advanced levels of music to explore greater a musicality and range. This also allows adequate time and prep for incoming freshman to learn more in band at their own pace.

To be in wind ensemble, you need to be a very independent counter and also be independent in musicianship. In normal concert band, the music is much more simple.

“Wind ensemble, generally speaking, it is easier to hear in tunation problems. So tuning, you can usually work out a lot faster. It’s a lot simpler, and therefore some of that stuff takes less time. The literature is usually a lot more challenging.” Mr. Heide said.

Wind ensemble is doing five pieces this year: A Childhood to Remember by Rossano Galante, Marche Des Parachutistes Belges by Pierre Leemans, The Wind Racers by Jeremy Bell, Northwest Suite by John O’Reilly, and Resting in the Peace of his Hands by John Gibson. Mr. Heide may add a few more pieces throughout the semester. Normally, he adds them around the annual February concert, but since the Heide’s are having their baby around this time, they cancelled it.

“We’ve chosen larger lit and longer lit, so that it kind of compensates, but if we need to add stuff, we’ll just add it later on,” Mr. Heide stated.

A couple of the pieces were chosen specifically. Mr. Heide tends to choose pieces that feature certain instruments, or fit the group while having a good mix of literature. This years theme for the ensemble is hope.

The one chosen most specifically was Resting in the Peace of his Hands, which is based off of a sculpture created by a German sculptor named Käthe Kollwitz. Her husband was a doctor who cared for the poor. Throughout her life, she saw a lot of death and destruction. She lost her son to World War I and her grandson to World War II.

“Most of her work reflects that. It’s all of the things that are terrible about humanity and that have happened that are bad. There’s this one piece that is the exact opposite. It’s just total utter peace and extreme beauty is what it looks like. For her to portray that, this guy was inspired to write the piece. Since we’re kind of exploring hope and peace as a theme this year throughout the pieces, we are playing this one to do that,” Mr. Heide said.

“I enjoy everything about wind ensemble. It is my favorite part of the day. My favorite part about it is that almost every person in it has a different part, meaning that everyone in there is as important as the person next to them,” Jewelia Taylor, a sophomore clarinet player, said.