Longtime faculty member and clarinet virtuoso Joaquín Valdepeñas conducts top wind students. The program opens with Richard Strauss’s lyrical and melodious Serenade, composed when he was only 17. British composer William Alwyn was also an accomplished conductor and flutist, who showcased his instrument in a 1980 concerto inspired by memories of his youth. In Alwyn’s words, the work “came (to me) like recollections of joy once experienced. I just wanted to write a piece of musical beauty." The program concludes with the Swiss Romantic composer Raff’s sunny and technically brilliant Sinfonietta. Raff was the first composer to use the term to describe a work in several movements similar to a symphony, but shorter and lighter in content. Hear top students in a delightful program of rarities for wind ensemble!