Music concerts set next week

Illinois Valley Community College’s fall music season opens next week with two free concerts by the Jazz Ensemble and Wind Ensemble.

The Jazz Ensemble performs in concert on Tuesday, September 30, and the Wind Ensemble performs on Thursday, October 2. Both performances begin at 7 p.m. in the Dr. Mary Margaret Weeg Cultural Centre.

The jazz concert features selections by Quincy Jones and Sammy Nestico; the Sherman Brothers; Matty Malneck and Robert Maxwell; Jobim, Gimbel, and Moraes; Jimmie Hodges; Heyman and Young, and Allie Wrubel.

Jazz selections include “Hard Sock Dance,” featuring soloists Ben Gibson on piano and John Fragoulis on guitar; “Shangri-La,” featuring Diane Nelson on tenor sax; “The Girl from Ipanema,” featuring Gibson on piano, Alton Beck on trombone and Laurie Smudzinski on trumpet; “Someday (You’ll Want Me to Want You),” featuring vocalist Fred Davis and Nelson on tenor sax; “When I Fall in Love,” featuring Doreen Vieitez on alto sax; "The Lady in Red,” featuring Beck on trombone, and “I Wanna Be Like You,” featuring Dave Vieitez on trumpet, Beck on trombone and Doreen Vieitez on alto sax.

The Wind Ensemble concert will feature selections from the musical “Les Misérables” and music by Leonard Bernstein, Edwin Franko Goldman, William Walton, Leroy Anderson, and Robert Smith.

One piece, “The Red Covered Bridge” by Robert Sheldon, will have special appeal for local audiences; it was commissioned in 2014 by the Princeton (Illinois) Community Band to honor the historic landmark north of that city.

Other Wind Ensemble selections include a medley from “The Chimes of Liberty, “Crown Imperial,” “March of the Two Left Feet,” “Overture to ‘Candide,’” and “Sensei’s Ride on the Cherry Blossom Express.”

In December, all three IVCC ensembles will stage free holiday concerts: the Choir on Monday, Dec. 1, the Jazz Ensemble on Tuesday, Dec. 2, and the Wind Ensemble on Thursday, Dec. 4. All performances begin at 7 and all take place in the Cultural Centre.

All the groups comprise community members and students. The choir is led by Jenilyn Roether, the jazz ensemble by Brandon Czubachowski, and the Wind Ensemble by Phil Whaley -- all are music educators in the Illinois Valley.