FSU’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance Presents Wind Ensemble Concert, “Dancing with the Wind”

Nov 5, 2025 8:00 AM

Frostburg State University’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance will present the Wind Ensemble Concert in “Dancing with the Wind,” on Thursday, Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. This vibrant program showcases works by Alfred Reed, Viet Cuong, David Clay Mettens and Arturo Márquez.

Alfred Reed has long been known for his wonderfully colorful composing and arranging of traditional sacred and secular music, as well as his ability to take folk music and reimagine the rhythmic and harmonic language of the original to create a more colorful tapestry of sound. This will be on full display as the wind ensemble performs his settings of “Greensleeves” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, and his “Armenian Dances” (Part 1).

The music of David Clay Mettens is wonderfully sensitive and complex, and his “Kinetic Dances”, for two scrap metal birds, is no exception. This work is inspired by an art installation by Chinese artist Xu Bing that hung in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. As the composer describes, “I was particularly struck by the contrast between the regularity and heaviness of the church’s pillars and the floating birds. Despite their immense combined weight of twelve tons, the two birds managed to ‘fly.’”

Rounding out the concert program will be Viet Cuong’s “John and Jim”, which is inspired by the story of John Arthur and Jim Obergefell that paved the way for equal marriage rights for all, and “Danzón No. 2” by Grammy Award-winning composer Arturo Márquez. “Danzón No. 2” is both sensual and energetic, bringing the dance traditions of Veracruz and Mexico City to this wonderful composition.

Purchase tickets online at tickets.frostburg.edu; at the University Box Office, Lane University Center 203 (Mon–Fri, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.), 301-687-3137; or at the door. Pricing: adults $11 cash/$11.73 credit card; seniors, military, FSU employees: $6 cash/$6.53 credit card; and free for students and children.

For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music, Theatre and Dance at 301-687-4109 or via email at music@frostburg.edu.