The University of Rhode Island’s Fine Arts Center once again swelled with music on Saturday when both old and new students took to the stage for the annual Alumni Wind Ensemble performance.
Conducted by URI Director of Bands Brian Cardany, this event has been going on for over a decade in an effort to keep connections between the current music department and its former graduates. This year, for the first time, a select few current students joined in on the performance as well.
Cardany has been working at URI since 2002, and he is now the director of bands for the music department. Outside of the school, he is a conductor for the American Band as well as the Ocean State Pops Orchestra.
The Alumni Wind Ensemble’s performance has changed a lot over the years, previously being held multiple times a year with a couple days of practice beforehand, Cardany said. Now, however, it is only annual, with the group gathering in the morning to learn the music throughout the day for their performance that night.
“It’s pretty impressive, I think, what they did,” Cardany said. “It’s hard to get fully comfortable with some of this complicated music in that amount of time, but we also found that more people show up if you keep it to a one day [event].”
Being able to bring back as many graduates as possible is the main goal, Cardany said. This year, there were 45 alumni who came to perform, along with six current URI students.
“I think it helps enrich our community here, even for the current students,” Cardany said. “I’ve really liked having some of the current students involved because they can kind of see that a lot of people still feel strongly about this place.”
The ensemble performed four pieces that night, all ranging in style and purpose. They began with Henry Fillmore’s “Americans We,” a lively and upbeat march. After that they transitioned to a more varied speed found in Morton Gould’s “Ballad for Band,” which Cardany described on stage before the piece as “jazzy” and “spiritual.”
The second half of the performance began with Michael Gandolfi’s “Vientos y Tangos,” a piece that Cardany said he really wanted to do and which he thought would challenge the performers. Finally, the night concluded with “A Bernstein Tribute,” with music by Leonard Bernstein, adapted by Clare Grundman. This piece was chosen by Cardany as some fun for the musicians and because of its relevance with the release of “Maestro” this past September.
One alumna in the ensemble on Sunday was Allison Lacasse from New Bedford, Massachusetes, who graduated from URI in 2007 as a music education and music performance major. She received her master’s degree in music education from the American Band College in Ashland, Oregon in 2018 and now works at Bellmont High School in Massachusetts.
Lacasse has stayed close in her connections within URI’s music department since her graduation and helped to create the yearly Alumni Wind Ensemble program. She described how important she feels events like this are to keep a community bond within musicians.
“It’s a really lonely thing to be a musician and not be out playing with other musicians,” Lacasse said. “So, the idea that we can come back at least once a year and play our instruments together, make music together, make new friendships [and] reconnect with old friends, that’s really what it’s all about.”
Along with teaching, Lacasse now plays the flute professionally with the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, and also acts as a substitute for various Boston community music groups. She is also a member of the Commonwealth Wind Symphony, a new group composed of various music teachers and band directors.
Lacasse still looks fondly on her time spent in the music department at URI and tries to stay as active with the community as possible. She recalled her first day attending class in the program, feeling apprehensive at the state of the music building’s exterior.
“The comment that was made to me on that day was ‘don’t worry about the outside of the building, inside it’s the people that matter,’” Lacasse said. “It’s just such a wonderful family and community and it’s been 17 years since I’ve been a student at URI and that feeling has not gone away.”