THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC OF YOUR FAVORITE SUMMER MOVIES PERFORMED LIVE & FREE!

Austin Wind Symphony celebrates three years with FREE concert

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Austin, TX – May 23, 2008 – It’s what you’ve been waiting for all year long… Now, after months of box-office boredom, summer movie season is finally here! And what better way to kick off the season than by listening to the music of your favorite blockbusters performed LIVE by the Austin Wind Symphony?

Come join AWS for “Adventures in Great Film Music” on Friday, June 6th at 8 p.m. You’ll be on the edge of your seat with the rousing action themes of Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean and you’ll marvel at the beauty and magic of the Chronicles of Narnia. Set a course for fun, as you journey to the deepest underwater depths aboard SeaQuest DSV, and blast off into the farthest reaches of space in command of the Battlestar Galactica!

In honor of the Austin Wind Symphony’s three year anniversary, the “Adventures” concert will be FREE of charge! In this age of pricier gas, and let’s face it, pricier everything, why not enjoy an evening of adventure on us?

Featuring selections from:

Amazing Stories
Indiana Jones
The Chronicles of Narnia
Pirates of the Caribbean
Stargate SG-1
Battle Beyond The Stars
Battlestar Galactica
SeaQuest DSV
Hercules
Star Wars: The Asteroid Field
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to wear a costume from their favorite adventure film!

Mark your calendars:
“Adventures in Great Film Music” with the Austin Wind Symphony
Friday, June 6th at 8 p.m.
Bethany Lutheran Church (south Austin)
FREE ADMISSION

For more information, press requests: call us at 512.944.8908, or visit us online at austinwindsymphony.org or myspace.com/theaustinwindsymphony.

** AWS is a non-profit 501c3 organization dedicated to providing education, entertainment and cultural enrichment while promoting and renewing public interest in the celebration of great scores from television, video games and motion pictures. **

AWS gets a record deal

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist

Well that’s half true. The Austin Wind Symphony recorded for Pigeon Impossible, a short animated film written and directed by AWS saxophone player Lucas Martell. Most of the symphony members haven’t done anything like this before so it was an interesting experience.

Practices for concerts are more like a progression, steadily improving pieces until the big night. But for this, we sight read and practiced for one night and then came back the next week to record, fixing and improving on the go. I like to think of it as a kind of musical sprinting.

But now we’re back into long distance performance, preparing for the Adventures in Great Film Music in June, just in time for the action-packed movie season. Check back for updates on our musical progression.

Just in Time for Spring Break… “The Music of Video Games” Comes to Austin!

AUSTIN WIND SYMPHONY PERFORMS VIDEO GAME MUSIC CONCERT FEATURING MUSIC FROM GOD OF WAR, HALO, SUPERMAN RETURNS AND KINGDOM HEARTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Austin, TX- February 7th, 2008- The Austin Wind Symphony, (http://www.austinwindsymphony.org) announced today that it will present “The Music of Video Games” featuring live symphonic performances of popular video game music scores. The concert will be performed at Bethany Lutheran Church in South Austin, on March 7^th, 2008 at 8PM.

Some of the orchestral arrangements scheduled to be performed during “The Music of Video Games” include: Final Fantasy, Medal of Honor, Halo, Kingdom Hearts, Bounty Hunter, Legend of Zelda, Civilization IV, Superman Returns, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Super Mario Bros., as well as Gerard Marino’s epic orchestral score for Sony Computer Entertainment’s God of War.

“It really wasn’t that long ago that video game music was completely synthesized,” said conductor Patrick Phillips.” The music written for games today is very real, quite complex, and rivals some of Hollywood’s most ambitious film scores.”

Following the success of their October, 2007 “Creature Features” concert, the ensemble has delightfully invited back Local Austin producer and actor Joseph Fotinos (perhaps best known for his ‘Midnight Shadow Show’ alter ego, “Professor Griffin”) as emcee for the event.

The epic one-time performance will also include sound effects and visuals from a plethora today’s favorite video games projected on 2 large screens within the venue. (http://www.blcms.org)

Tickets will go on sale this Tuesday, February 12^th, on The Austin Wind Symphony website (http://www.austinwindsymphony.org) as the event is expected to sell out… All remaining tickets will be sold at the door, the night of the concert.

Tickets: $8.00 per individual

For more information visit: http://www.austinwindsymphony.org

Austin Wind Symphony Press Contact:

Shelly Eager - 512.447.2649

Patrick Phillips - 512.944.8908

aws_publicity@austinwindsymphony.org

** AWS is a non-profit 501c3 organization dedicated to providing education, entertainment and cultural enrichment while promoting and renewing public interest in the celebration of great scores from motion pictures. **

Jams, Not Java for a Stress-free Week

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist

I’m up at 1:30 a.m. and too hyped up on coffee to sleep. (Ironically, it’s the Breakfast Blend.) I drank coffee at 11 p.m. because I have two papers and a test this week. I drank coffee so late because I procrastinated during the day because I went to class went to practice, made a much needed grocery trip and cleaned my room. I obviously don’t just procrastinate during the day.

I was doing alright, merging ahead full steam with my paper, reminding myself that other people in the symphony will have to get up and go to work tomorrow and I can’t complain about just having to form my opinion and write a few pages. I can’t complain that I don’t have to be at school until 10 a.m., though if I don’t go to sleep soon that will change. Then I plugged in the Ethernet cord. Sigh. Facebook. Sigh. Useless surfing.

I know many other members of the symphony are stressing about finals, work, the FIRST NIGHT CONCERT ON DEC. 31 or the dreaded approach of in-law visits for the holidays.

And in seemingly stressful times like this, I remind myself that,
Number 1: It’s not that bad, I have a lot to be thankful for and I need to suck it up.

And

Number 2: Music is always something that can cheer me up or calm me down.

Right now I have a million things running through my head thanks to Starbucks and one thing I’m thinking about is my second favorite quote, by Aldous Huxley. Music has so much power to transfer ideas from the performer to the listener. Music can transform speeding thoughts into a love melody, a melancholy tone or an upbeat rhythm.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

An Intellectually Challenged Society?

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist 

I want to dole out a big thank you to everyone who came to the Creature Features concert. I had a great time playing and was glad to see all the pirates, Frankensteins, skeletons, bees, wizards and even the Phantom of the Opera.

Now we are already in our fourth week of practice for the First Night concert on New Year’s Eve. Thanks to Branden for directing the symphony in the first couple weeks of practice; that can’t be an easy job during the sightreading stages.

“And now,” to quote Monty Python, “for something completely different.”

Before last week’s practice I watched a movie titled “Idiocracy” which was very funny but in a scary sort of way. The premise is that average Joe Bauer (Luke Wilson), who dawdles his time away in a military library, is chosen for his perfect mediocrity for a “Human Hibernation Project” along with a prostitute named Rita (Maya Rudolph.)

By a string of bad circumstances, the one-year experiment becomes 500, and the pair awake to a United States that has fallen into a deep state of stupidity. This seemingly far-fetched plot is explained by the fact that stupid people reproduce more (think of your favorite trashy relative), causing Average Joe to wake up as smartest person on Earth. Looks, strength, profanity and advertising have replaced intelligence, morals and other virtues.

After watching the film, I listened to classical music on the way to practice just to feel smarter. I wondered if that time would actually come when we would completely value commercialism and profanity over music, literacy, education and morals.

I also thought about how classical music is always associated with intellect, by myself and others. Film and television music is generally thought of as lower in some way, similar to popular music.

Why? The music doesn’t require any less talent to play and studio orchestras spend hours perfecting a piece for a film. Part of our challenge is that people know the music we’re playing. Five-year-olds in the audience will know if we don’t play Batman or Superman perfectly. They may know Beethoven’s Fifth and William Tell Overture, but mistakes aren’t as easily noticed.

Stay smart, appreciate all music whether it really is “intellectual” and check us out on New Year’s Eve.

Below are some photos from our “Creature Features” concert… Enjoy!

“Creature Features” Rehearsal Week 8

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist

Before I write anything else, there are some thank yous in order. I would like to give a big thank you to Arvis Green, our board secretary and piccolo player, who recently bought a nice recorder so we can record our songs and sync them with movie clips.

This leads to my second thank you on behalf of the symphony to Patrick Phillips, who works so diligently to put the visual aspect of our show together in addition to directing the symphony. To all of the board members, thank you for helping our symphony run smoothly, you guys do so much more than we even know.

So the big day is coming up, and I am excited. No, not Christmas. I mean our Creature Features concert! Maybe it’s not better than Christmas, but it’s definitely better than anything else you were going to do this Friday night. At practice this week, we played our music with their film clips and it is a shame we have to actually pay attention to the music. The lucky
audience will be able to experience the full effect of the sound and visuals.

I was able to sneak a peek at the clips at certain parts of our songs, and everything just fits so well. This can be explained by a combination of my awe of Patrick’s editing skills and my inner child who still gets chills every time Darth Vader appears. And yes, if you weren’t aware already, there is a tiny child living inside me.

I have one last interesting tidbit before I leave. Our lives are filled with music, but it is predominately music on the radio, whether you’re into bluegrass or rap. So much overproduced, packaged music travels in our ears every day, and we live in the live music capital of the world! So go listen to some live music, whether it’s classical, film scores (the best option), or a local band. It makes your insides feel happier, I promise.

Also, flute player Sarah Leland recommended this video to me. It’s the same genre as the Shining video last week. Enjoy!

For more information on The Austin Wind Symphony:
http://www.austinwindsymphony.org

“Creature Features” Rehearsal Week 7

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist

Last week during practice, the theme our director Patrick stressed the most was emotion. And you may be wondering why that would be more important than our sound. The music of films is the reason why the Austin Wind Symphony exists, but think about films themselves for a second.

When you walk out of a film about love or heroic deeds, you walk out feeling a certain way. The emotions of the actors greatly affect your own feelings and stepping from the dimly-lit, emotion filled theater back into the cold stark real world is always a bit of a downer.

So musicians playing film scores have to be just as concerned with emotion, especially when music affects the mood of the film so much. Psycho just wouldn’t have been the same if What a Wonderful World was playing in the shower, though I’m curious to find out how hilarious that would be.

Every player in the symphony is capable of hitting every note in their music (well hopefully they are) but if they don’t put their soul into it, their everything, none of the notes will matter. Music is what makes a film, and emotion is what makes the music.

Here’s something extra for this week: If you’ve seen The Shining it’s hilarious, and it shows how much music and some creative editing can make a difference.

For more information on The Austin Wind Symphony:
http://www.austinwindsymphony.org

“Creature Features” Rehearsal Week 6

by: Jenny Baxter - AWS Percussionist

In our sixth week of practice here at the Austin Wind Symphony for our
fall Creature Features concert, I am grateful. Why, you ask? I knew you were going to ask that. Because after a tough day at school trying to solve the problems of the world, and at work creating the problems of the world, it’s so relaxing to come to practice and relax to a nice session of music from Jaws.

In all seriousness, our job is difficult. Practicing notes, pitches and rhythms in Godzilla vs. King Kong until they will assuredly scare grandma out of her chair takes dedication. This is especially true for people who come in for two hours a week, which is already filled with a hectic schedule.

The amazing thing is that it never feels like work and anyone who loves music as much as we do will tell you that. Hearing all of our notes come together to make something we recognize and love, something that plays an essential role in films, is what makes all of the work we do feel like a walk in Jurassic Park.

The best part of the symphony right now is that new people are coming
every week. They are all very exciting and evidently very good at sight
reading, because the music sounds great and they’re jumping right in and
helping us sound even stronger!

For more information on The Austin Wind Symphony:
http://www.austinwindsymphony.org