By BONNIE J. GORDON
Los Alamos Daily Post
bjgordon@ladailypost.com

The Los Alamos Community Winds will open the 2017-2018 Season with its Fall Concert at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21 at White Rock Baptist Church (80 N.M. 4). All Community Winds concerts are free, with a suggested donation of $10.

“This concert includes a variety of music that allows individual solo moments,” Winds Artistic Director Ted Vives said.

The concert will celebrate the centenary of influential American composer Leonard Bernstein with a performance of Overture to Candide (1956).

“It’s a fun, fast exciting piece,” Vives said.

Candide was Leonard Bernstein’s third Broadway musical, following On the Town and Wonderful Town. It opened in New York in 1956, but, unlike its predecessors, was not a commercial success. Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Voltaire’s 18th-century satire on blind optimism, the story concerns a young man, Candide, who has been led by his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, to believe that everything is for the best “in this best of all possible worlds.”

Also on the program is David Gilligham’s 2002 piece, Council Oak. On the Seminole Hollywood Reservation in Florida, on the corner of U.S. 441 and Stirling Road, stands the “Council Oak” tree. During the long history of the struggle of the Seminole tribe in Florida, this oak tree was of special significance.

Council Oak’s thematic material is taken from four songs of the Seminoles as officially recorded by Francis Dunsmore. Council Oak features a newly composed theme, which the composer calls the “Song of the Council Oak” and which is indicative of Seminole and Native American melodic/rhythmic style.

In addition, the Winds will perform Yorkton (2009) by Victor Lopez, The Charlatan (1898) by John Philip Sousa, Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899) by Maurice Ravel, Themes from Silverado (1985) by Bruce Broughton, Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral from Lohengrin (1850) by Richard Wagner, Sokol Fanfare from Sinfonietta (1926) by Leoš Janáček, and Three Dances from Gayane (1942) by Aram Khachaturian.

This concert is presented as part of Daniel Pear World Music Days. Saturday, the Winds will join thousands of music lovers on every continent, ringing the world with a musical affirmation of the oneness of humankind.

This is the 15th annual Daniel Pearl World Music Days – a global network of concerts that uses the universal language of music to diminish hatred, respect differences, and reach out in global friendship.

Daniel Pearl, a journalist and musician, kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan, was a classically-trained violinist as well as a fiddler and mandolin player who joined musical groups wherever he traveled. World Music Days commemorates his Oct. 10 birthday and carries on his mission of connecting diverse people through words and music.

Upcoming Los Alamos Community Winds concerts include:

• Christmas with the Winds – Saturday, Dec.  9
•  Mid-Winter Concert – JoyRide! Saturday, Feb. 24
•  Season Finale – With Special Guest Piano Soloist, Tomasz Robak Saturday, April 14

These concerts are at 7 p.m. at Crossroads Bible Church. Mark your calendars!