PA 65th Annual Intercollegiate Band at California University of PA

California University of Pennsylvania will be hosting the 65th Annual Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band Festival on March 9-11, 2012.   The guest conductor will be Frank B. Wickes, Carruth Alumni Professor Emeritus.  The hosts of the event are Dr. Charles Sharer and Prof. Max Gonano.

Frank B. Wickes (Carruth Alumni Professor Emeritus) served as director of bands at Louisiana State University from 1980 to 2010. Wickes held the rank of full professor in the College of Music and Dramatic Arts. He received degrees from the University of Delaware and the University of Michigan.

In 1999 Wickes was honored at LSU with an endowed Alumni Professorship, and in 2000 he received special recognition from the Chancellor for 20 years of distinguished dedication to LSU and his profession. In April 1994 he was featured in the cover story of Instrumentalist magazine.

Additional honors include the Kappa Kappa Psi Distinguished Service to Music Medal in 1996, the Phi Beta Mu National Bandmaster of the Year in 1998, the presidency of the National Band Association (1988-1990), the Southern Division presidency of CBDNA (1988-1990), and presidency of the American Bandmasters Association (1997-1998).

In 2008 Wickes received the National Band Association’s highest honor, the AWAPA (Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts) Award for excellence and exceptional service to the band profession. In November 2009 he was elected to the Louisiana Music Educators Hall of Fame, and in February 2010 he was inducted into the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors. In December 2010 he received the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Medal of Honor.

Prior to his college teaching career, Wickes taught for 14 years in the public schools of Delaware and Virginia. His Fort Hunt High School Band of Fairfax County, Va. (1967-1973) was honored by the John Philip Sousa Foundation with the Sudler Order of Merit as one of the nation’s most outstanding high school programs for the decades 1960-1980. From 1973-1980 he served as Director of Bands at the University of Florida, and in 1976 he was named Teacher of the Year in The College of Fine Arts.

At LSU Wickes conducted the Wind Ensemble and taught courses in graduate wind conducting and wind literature. He also served as director of the Tiger Marching Band. In 1997 the Tiger Band was unanimously named the outstanding marching band of the SEC in a poll taken of the SEC Directors by the Northwest Arkansas Times newspaper of Fayetteville, Ark.; and in 2002 the LSU Tiger Band received the Sudler Trophy for a distinguished history of marching and performance excellence. In 2008 the Tiger Band won the “Battle of the Bands,” a college marching band contest sponsored by ESPN, Lucasfilm and Paramount Pictures. In the fall of 2009 the Tiger Band was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Wickes is in constant demand as a clinician, having served in that capacity throughout the United States, as well as in England, South America, Mexico, and Canada. He has conducted over 40 All-State bands and has appeared several times at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Mich. The LSU Wind Ensemble has received many accolades from directors nationwide for its artistic performances. Consequently, Wickes received the praise of many notable composers and conductors, such as Morton Gould, Vincent Persichetti, Karel Husa, David Maslanka, Libby Larsen, Donald Grantham and Frederick Fennell.

Concert Information:

The concert is at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 11 in Steele Auditorium.   This concert is free to the public and all are welcome to attend.

PA 64th Annual Intercollegiate Band at Juniata College

Juniata College will be hosting the 64th Annual Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band Festival on March 4-6, 2011.   The guest conductor will be Dr. Mark Scatterday, music director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble.

Mark Davis Scatterday is Professor of Conducting and Chair of the Conducting and Ensembles Department at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. As only the fourth conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Scatterday joined a prestigious line of conductors in the past fifty-plus years of the famed ensemble – Donald Hunsberger, Clyde Roller, and Frederick Fennell. In 2004, he led the EWE in their return tour to Japan, as well as to Taiwan and Macao. In 2005, Scatterday led the Eastman Wind Ensemble in a highly acclaimed performance at Carnegie Hall and also conducted a concert in Japan as part of the opening ceremonies of a new concert hall in Karuizawa, joined by members of the Tokyo Philharmonic. Recently, the EWE and Scatterday recorded a new CD with the Canadian Brass entitled Manhattan Music featuring music of Bernstein, Bramwell Tovey, Rayburn Wright and Jeff Tyzik — released in 2008 on Opening Day Records with ArchivMusic, nominated for a 2009 Canadian Grammy, the “JUNO”. In December 2009, Scatterday and Hunsberger performed together with the EWE in the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor and at the prestigious Midwest Clinic in Chicago to an audience of over 4,000. Also, in the fall of 2010, Dr. Scatterday conducted a celebrated performance of music by Schwantner, Stravinsky, Dvorak and Husa with the New World Symphony in Miami, Fl.

Having received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting at the Eastman School of Music in 1989, Professor Scatterday has directed wind ensembles and orchestras throughout North America and Asia. Dr. Scatterday also conducts the Eastman Wind Orchestra, teaches undergraduate conducting classes and supervises doctoral conducting students. Previous to his appointment at Eastman, Dr Scatterday was Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Music at Cornell University. While at Cornell, he was one of the principal conductors of the professional new music group Ensemble X, which performed in Carnegie Hall in 2003, and was also the conductor and music director of the Cayuga Chamber Winds, a professional chamber winds ensemble in Ithaca, New York.

Dr. Scatterday has studied conducting with Donald Hunsberger, David Effron, Sidney Hodkinson, Carl St.Clair, H. Robert Reynolds, and Richard Jackoboice, and trombone with H. Dennis Smith, Edwin Anderson, Milt Stevens, David Langlitz, Hal Janks, and Edward Zadronzny. His previous teaching experiences also includes music directorships in Wooster and Medina, Ohio following a master’s degree in trombone performance at the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in performance and music education from the University of Akron.

Professor Scatterday maintains an active guest conducting schedule as well as researching and writing articles involving score analysis, performance practices, and conducting. His articles on Venetian Renaissance wind music and the wind and percussion music of Karel Husa have been published in editions of Wind Works, College Band Director’s National Association Journal, and Band Director’s Guide. He is also one of the lead clinicians in the Frederick Fennell Conducting Masterclasses held annually by the Conductor’s Guild. An advocate of contemporary music, especially the music of Husa and Roberto Sierra, Scatterday has commissioned and premiered over 25 works including Sierra’s Diferencias (1997), Fanfarria (2000) and Octeto (2003) and transcribed his Fandangos (2004) and Symphonia No. 3 (2009). He conducted the premiere recording of Roberto Sierra’s Cancionero Sefardi with members of the Milwaukee Symphony on Fleur De Son Classics (2001), Judith Weir’s Concerto for Piano and Musicians Wrestling Everywhere with Ensemble X on Albany Records (2005), Danzante with James Thompson and the Eastman Wind Ensemble on Summit Records (2006) and Barcelonazo with the Eastman Musica Nova on Bridge Records (2008) – nominated for a 2008 Latin Grammy.