Don’t miss top-notch AMFS wind players in a short but challenging octet by Varèse and a sublimely beautiful masterpiece by Mozart!

The title Octandre refers both to the eight-member ensemble and to the flower with eight stamens. The work also happens to be eight minutes long. This is Varèse’s only multi-movement work, with each movement beginning with a solo instrument, and octaves figuring prominently in the harmonic development.

Mozart’s sublime Serenade for 13 Winds known as the “Gran Partita” is one of the composer’s most beloved works in any genre and undoubtedly one of the greatest masterpieces ever written for wind ensemble. In Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, the character Salieri gives a vivid and emotional description of the Adagio movement, saying “On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse—bassoons and basset horns—like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly—high above it—an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God.”

Summer 2026 Wind Orchestra Recitals Dates:
- Thursday, July 16
- Thursday, July 30 (at 7:30 PM)
- Thursday, August 13