Marimba Soloist Highlights Winter Concert

For its March 5 Winter Concert, the Concord Band is pleased to welcome Wei-Chen Lin, an internationally renowned marimba soloist, to play in a concert entitled Music From the Woods. Lin will perform two pieces with the band on his five-octave rosewood marimba: Concerto for Marimba and Wind Ensemble by Yiu-Kwong Chung and Serenade for a Picket Fence by Norman Leyden. For the remainder of the program, Concord Band Music Director James O’Dell has selected an international array of compositions related to "woods."

Born in 1982 in Tainan City, Taiwan, Wei-Chen Lin received his Bachelor of Music degree from Taipei National University of Arts, with Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Boston University. Currently Dr. Lin is pursuing the Artist Diploma degree as a marimba major at The Boston Conservatory under the guidance of world-class marimbist Nancy Zeltsman. Dr. Lin has performed marimba and percussion solo recitals and concerto performances with bands, orchestras, and chamber ensembles in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, Russia, Australia, Italy, Thailand, and the United States. He also teaches marimba, timpani, and percussion private lessons in Boston.

Dr Wei-Chen Lin
marimba

The marimba had its roots in Africa and Guatemala and is an important part of the culture in both areas. The modern marimba, with its rosewood bars and metal resonators, originated with Sebastian Hurtado in Guatemala in the 1890s and was first manufactured in the U.S. in the 1920s by John Deagan.

Chung’s Concerto for Marimba and Wind Ensemble presents the solo marimba in three contrasting movements which traverse the entire range of the instrument and demonstrate Dr. Lin’s virtuosic, agile, and at times athletic four-mallet technique. The late Norman Leyden, a band director, composer and arranger for Glenn Miller and numerous movies and television shows, composed Serenade for a Picket Fence in 1956 as a mallet instrument showpiece.

Music From the Woods

The Concord Band’s 57th Season Continues
on Saturday, March 5th

Join the Concord Band as it celebrates its 57th year of music-making, continuing a season-long exploration of some of the great works for symphonic concert band. The Band’s Winter Concert, Music from the Woods, will be presented at the Performing Arts Center at 51 Walden Street in Concord, MA, on Saturday, March 5, 2016, at 8:00 PM. Admission is free; contributions will be appreciated.

The concert presents a wide and diverse offering of musical works and styles, from English and Korean folk songs to waltz and burlesque dance and Broadway. Soloist Dr. Wei-Chen Lin will perform on the five-octave rosewood marimba.

The Redwoods, by Rossano Galante, is inspired by the majesty of the redwood and is a sweeping and lush depiction of the awesome beauty of these huge trees.

The waltz, Tales from the Vienna Woods, by Johann Strauss, Jr., pays tribute to the folk music and dance of those living in the forested highlands known as the Vienna Woods, and features the zither, a musical instrument of Austria and local regions.