The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Wind Ensemble will perform a concert featuring pieces created as part of the Composing in the Wilderness project at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in Kimball Recital Hall.
The concert is free and open to the public. It is the last of three concerts nationally, featuring six new pieces created through the project, which took place at Lake Clark National Park in Alaska in summer 2023. The program is led by adventurer-composer Stephen Lias and offered by the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, in collaboration with Alaska Geographic and the U.S. National Park Service.
The six composers, including Trevor Frost, a Glenn Korff School of Music alumnus, were selected through a rigorous national application process. They were then transported by bush planes into the remote and stunning wilderness of the national park. They camped, hiked and paddled while drawing inspiration from the wildlife, geology, scenery and dangers of their surroundings, then spent three days in a secluded retreat to begin composing their pieces.
“Our adventure in Alaska was full of surprises. Everyone got out of their comfort zone and pushed themselves to their physical and mental limits,” Lias said. “In doing so, we became close friends and got deeply in touch with our wild surroundings. It is a great mystery how inspiration becomes music; but the greater the inspiration, the more we hope the resulting music will resonate with authenticity. I’m so excited to bring these new works to concert halls around the country.”
Carolyn Barber, Ron and Carol Cope Professor of Music, director of bands and conductor of the Wind Ensemble, said the group can relate to the adventure.
“The UNL Wind Ensemble feels as if it has been performing ‘in the wilderness’ for the last three years as Kimball Recital Hall has been renovated,” Barber said. “After years of makeshift performance venues in increasingly rustic environs — the result of the decommissioning of the old Westbrook Music Building in anticipation of moving into our new digs — we are excited to welcome our audience home with a combination of innovative sounds and beautiful natural imagery.”
