Wind Symphony

History

Pacific Crest Wind Symphony was originally founded by Daniel Cole-McCullough in March of 1988 as the Marylhurst Wind Ensemble and as part of Marylhurst College. In 1990 we discontinued our involvement with the college and Pacific Crest Wind Ensemble was born. In September 1994 Pacific Crest adopted a new home, moving to Warner Pacific College. In 1998, Robert Murray led PCWS, and the group changed its name to Pacific Crest Wind Symphony to reflect the group's growth and the increasing range and sophistication of its repertoire. Dr. Wiliam Tuttle joined PCWS as our conductor and music director in 1999 and served in that position until 2006. In 2002, we started rehearsing at Portland State University and began performing there in 2003.

Since its inception, PCWS has been both an artistic challenge and a labor of love. The ensemble and each of its members have set a standard of musical excellence and continual artistic growth, providing its loyal and ever-expanding audience with exciting musical performances. Strictly a volunteer organization, the members of PCWS follow the renaissance ideal of pursuing more than one interest, and doing each well. As such, members come from a variety of professions, ranging from zookeepers, software engineers, teachers, physicists, artists, architects, retirees and much more.

WHAT IS A WIND SYMPHONY?

A wind symphony is a large musical ensemble (typically 40 musicians) consisting of brass, woodwind, and percussion. The instruments include flute, oboe, English horn, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, string bass, and percussion (including timpani, cymbals, snare, mallet instruments and more). Pacific Crest Wind Symphony is modeled after the acclaimed Eastman Wind Ensemble, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Under this format, each part is assigned to a single instrument. No parts are doubled except for flute, clarinet and tuba. The result is a sophisticated, appealing sound quite different from that of ordinary concert bands.

REPERTOIRE

The flexibility of instrumentation allows the ensemble to perform a wide variety of music ranging from the work of Bach, Handel and Mozart to 20th century literature written by composers such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin. While our repertoire includes literature originally composed for other instruments that has been transcribed for band, as well as traditional band music such as John Philip Sousa marches, we emphasize compositions created especially for wind ensemble. Over the past several seasons, we have performed the works of many contemporary composers, at times featuring the composer as guest conductor or consultant.