Thanks for dropping by the El Centro, Ca Wilson Junior High School Band page! My name is Mitch Sturman and I am a band teacher for the El Centro Elementary School District in El Centro, Ca. For those of you who are not familiar with their California geography, El Centro, is located smack in the middle of The Yuha (not Yuma) Desert. The Yuha Desert is a section of the Sonoran Desert located in the Imperial Valley of California; south of Interstate 8, west of El Centro, CA, and north of the international border. Unique aspects of the Yuha Desert include the Oyster Shell Beds, De Anza Historical Monument, Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area, and the Yuha Geoglyph.
The Yuha Desert is designated an Area of Critical Environmental Concern by the Bureau of Land Management and is managed as a limited use area for biologic and archeologic resource conservation. The primary species of concern is the Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard. Off Highway Vehicles(OHV) are limited to signed routes to protect both the Flat-Tail Horned Lizard habitat and the archeologic resources including, lithic reduction sites, and historic use of the region.
As you can well imagine, the summers here are hot! Right now, outside the window of my comfortably air conditioned room, it is 112 degrees fahrenheit (about 44 degrees celsius)-an average July day! However, all the major desert cities of the southwest share pretty much the same summer weather-including Phoenix and Palm Springs. The winters are another story -warm days and cool nights-perfect weather.
In my former life I was a professional musician, spending ten years in the far east with the Hongkong Philharmonic and the Singapore Symphony. I have performed with such groups as the French National Orchestra, Mainz Chamber Orchestra, Royal Ballet and Metropolitan Opera Touring Ensembles, and have worked with such conductors and soloists as Eugene Ormandy, Zubin Metha, Istvan Kertesz, Claudio Abbado, Ricardo Muti, Max Rudolph, Rudolph Serkin, Mstislav Rostropovich and Itzhak Perlman.
This is my eighth year in El Centro, and we have established a fairly good band program. Wilson Junior High School (grades 7 & 8, 900 students, over 80 percent are of Mexican-American ethnicity) Band has an average yearly enrollment of approximately 100 members, the "pull out" program in the six elementary feeder schools combined numbers approximately 175 students. There are only a handfull of students in the entire program who receive private lessons. The overwhelming majority of band students rent or have purchased their own instruments, as there is tremendous community support here in El Centro for our instrumental music programs. The orchestra program, under the direction of Mr. Joseph Kaye (who took over from the legendary Carolyn Sechrist) is also outstanding! When times are tough budget wise, this support has proved to be the most important factor in keeping the programs alive and viable.
The Wilson Junior High School Band has received superior ratings in the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association (SCSBOA)adjudicated competitions three out of the past six years. The marching band scored top honors in our local parade. In May of 2007 we performed the world premiere of John Edmondson's lovely "Serenade for Solo Clarinet and Band", (the featured work on our "Tribute to John Edmondson Concert"), commissioned by the Wilson Band in memory of Anthony Gigliotti, who was my teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music. This beautiful work is available purchase from Queenwood-Kjos publishers, which by the way was founded by composers John Edmondson and Anne McGinty. The solo part is not too difficult and beautifully written. The small photo which I have posted, shows Mr. Edmondson, students and myself in Chatsworth, Ca. My students and I were invited by Mr. Edmondson to visit his recording studio and "listen in" on the mixing of his latest promotional cd. At that time we presented him with a "Plaque of Appreciation", a small token of the students thanks for writing his "Serenade" for our band.
This year we gave the world premiere of Anne McGinty's very beautiful "Ballade for Solo Flute and Band". Along with the "Ballade" we premiered works by local composers-George Scott's "Chestnut Hill Overture", Brooke Kofford's "Wilson Waltz", and the work "Song of Spring" by a very talented 16 year old composer from Colorado Springs, Co, Alyssa J. Robb, with former 8th grader Katie Quijada as soloist. You can hear all of these works on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/wilsonjrhighband
In May 2009, we will be premiering a new work dedicated to the memory of Vincent Persichetti, by Elliot Del Borgo, who was himself a student of Persichetti. Elliot A. del Borgo (born on October 27, 1938 in Port Chester, New York) is an American composer for winds and strings. He is also in demand as a guest conductor. Though Del Borgo's primary instrument is trumpet, his love of percussion is apparent in his works, which typically focus around intricate percussion parts and an immense variety of instruments and complex rhythms. His style of writing has a rhythmic, sometimes atonal quality.His works include "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"—an orchestral piece based on a villanelle of the same name by Dylan Thomas— and "Rituale" that is reminiscent of the Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky. He also has written countless multiple percussion ensemble and solo pieces for percussion, such as "Mosaics For Percussion" (a four part ensemble piece), and composed the music for the Closing Ceremonies of the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Another notable piece is his 11 minute "Parable". He has also published about 600 pieces for junior high and high school bands and orchestras, including "Prelude and Dance", "Dorian Rhapsody", "Ancient Moon", "Fantasia for Strings", "Wexford Circle", and several others.Del Borgo holds degrees from the State University of New York, Temple University and the Philadelphia Conservatory, where he studied with Vincent Persichetti. An award-winning member of ASCAP, former Professor of Music at the Crane School of Music, and composer of music for 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, much of Del Borgo's work is available from several leading publishers.Mr. Del Borgo will be present for the premiere. We will also be performing for the first time a new work for solo baritone sax and band by 17 year old Colorado Springs composer Alyssa J. Robb, and works by Imperial Valley composers Brooke Kofford and George Scott, and a new work by a 16 year old composer from Oxnard, CA, Omar Sanchez.
The following two videos are our world premiere performances of John Edmondson's "Serenade for Solo Clarinet and Band", of May, 2007, and Anne McGinty's "Ballade for Solo Flute and Band", from our "Concert of Premiers" of May, 2008.
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