The Winds of Change: The Evolution of the Contemporary American Wind Band/Ensemble and its Conductor

by Frank L. Battisti (Composer)

Frank Battisti's The Winds of Change - The Evolution of the Contemporary American Wind Band/Ensemble and its Conductor includes information and discussion on the contributions of important wind band/ensemble personalities and organizations, and provides important information on hundreds of compositions for the medium.  Challenges facing the 21st century wind band/ensemble conductor including training and development are also discussed.

Genres: Music, History

414 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

Reviews

[Jordan Kinsey]

"Prepare [band conductors] more thoroughly for their tasks, placing greater emphasis upon the development of their musicianship and musical integrity as leaders of people. They must be conductors with fanatical devotion to [their] art, with unlimited capacities for work, for study, and with the all-too-absent critical faculty that is granted to the Toscaninis and the Koussevitzkys. They must grow by perpetual industry, by intelligent study, and persistent immersion in the problems and beauties of all the arts. Arturo Toscanini didn't just happen; he is the result of a lifetime of work, without which his genius for leadership in general and the conducting of music in particular might scarcely have achieved a modicum of its present greatness. . . . Those who aspire to conduct bands must know how black is the past and much of the present history of bands in America. The decades of perhaps inspired but incompetent leadership, the often vulgar and usually unmusical direction that has dogged the band since its inception, have left their brands. . . .The history of lasting music mediums is written indelibly in the literature that has been composed for them . . . . When college band conductors are musicians equal to their responsibilities, and when their bands are accordingly equal to their tasks, the world's best composers may yet provide the band with the literature it never has had, but can only be secured through the musical transformation that the band's influence alone can achieve."

[Jo Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful reference for any band conductor; however, I feel that Battisti includes far too many sample programs and lists in the middle of the book, and it begins to feel like filler, rather than content.