A Community Band Tradition in Jacksonville, Florida
A Community Band Tradition in Jacksonville, Florida
Welcome to the 35th season of the First Coast Wind Symphony! Special events are planned for this milestone anniversary, including performances of a commissioned piece, member concerto soloists, trips to Lake City and to Prague and Budapest. Please join us this season for any or all of it!
The First Coast Wind Symphony has been the lifetime musical home for many of our musicians, some of whom are charter members or who have been members for over thirty years. Our membership is also made up of a wonderful group of young people with families, jobs, and mortgages just beginning their musical journeys. What the young and the young-at-heart hold in common is the commitment to providing outstanding musical performances of quality wind symphony music to the greater Jacksonville area!
Our season, made up of four concert series, runs from October to May (concert schedule can be found here). In the fall we continue our partnership with the FSCJ Symphonic Band in a season opener at the Wilson Center for the Arts and will feature at JU's Terry Concert Hall our own clarinetist Kevin Clasen-Leblanc as concerto soloist in a program of Czech and Hungarian heritage that highlight the Wind Symphony's tour to Central Europe in June of 2025.
It isn't the holidays without our annual partner concerts in December with the Don Thompson Chorale at Riverside Presbyterian Church and at the Redeemer Church in Ponte Vedra Beach.
In our Guest Conductor/Composer series and in partnership with the JU Wind Ensemble, Carol Brittin Chambers from San Antonio, will conduct her most noted works.
This year a road-trip to Lake City has us performing at the Florida Gateway College, featuring saxophone soloist John Thomas and the music of popular film composer John Williams.
Our final concerts of the year feature the winner of the 14th annual Concerto Competition for high school musicians, an event open to all Florida Students. Guest conductor and composer Rob Romeyn will also conduct a new commissioned work he wrote to celebrate the Wind Symphony's 35th anniversary season! And we close Season 35 with a special Mother's Day concert at St. John's Cathedral.
In June of 2025 we travel to Central Europe to perform with local bands in Prague and Budapest and will visit cultural and historical sites in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Musicians outside of First Coast Wind Symphony are invited to join us for this epic experience! Email us at ArtieClifton@FCWinds.org to request additional information.
I'll be looking for you in the audience!
Ann Carey Holt
Chair, Board of Directors