USC Wind Ensemble Concert

Premiere performance of “Red hot sun turning over: on Southern myths, monuments, and histories,” an 80-minute, monumental new composition for wind ensemble, mezzo-soprano, wind quintet, electronics and archival film by UofSC faculty composer David Kirkland Garner that uses a critical sense to explore the current debates around Confederate monuments in the South. The piece assembles many elements from American and Southern history including archival recordings from the Library of Congress, archival film from UofSC’s Moving Image Research Collection, Civil War-era band music, music composed with statistical data on Confederate monuments, and a diverse range of quotations and references including Anton Bruckner, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Stephen Foster, Ralph Stanley and more. The piece features UofSC faculty mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway and conductor Scott Weiss in his final concert as director of the wind ensemble.