Southern Harmony: Music for Wind Band

Under the direction of Professor
Russel Mikkelson, The Ohio State
University Wind Symphony is a
nationally recognized ensemble
devoted to the preparation and
performance of the finest traditional
and contemporary music for band.
On this disc from Naxos's popular
Wind Band Classics series, they
present a wide-ranging program
with global connections, from the
overture to Russian composer
Kabalevsky's opera about a Breton
master carpenter, Colas Breugnon,
to Aaron Copland's El salón México
which takes us 'south of the border'.
Contemporary American composers
are represented by Donald Grantham,
whose Southern Harmony draws on
an 1835 collection of American songs,
Morten Lauridsen's sublimely still
O Magnum Mysterium, and John
Stevens's colorfully-scored Symphony.