VGCC to host Community Band Festival
Vance-Granville Community College will bring together its own community band with others from around the region for the third annual North Carolina Community Band Festival on Saturday, March 31 at the Civic Center on the college’s Main Campus in Henderson.
Members of the Greensboro Concert Band, Durham Community Concert Band and the Vance-Granville Community Band will attend clinics by professional musicians during the day. Among the sessions will be a woodwind clinic by Jimmy Gilmore, who served as the Principal Clarinet for the North Carolina Symphony for over 40 years, and a brass clinic by noted trumpeter Dennis de Jong. The bands will perform a concert for the public starting at 7:00 p.m. in the Civic Center. Admission to the concert is $5, but free for children, age 11 and under. As in past festivals, the program will conclude with members of all the ensembles playing as one mass band, this time under the direction of special guest Verena Moesenbichler-Bryant (who will also conduct a clinic during the day).
Moesenbichler-Bryant (pictured above) serves as Director of the Duke University Wind Symphony and Visiting Assistant Professor of the Practice of Music at Duke. She also conducts the Duke Medicine Orchestra and the North Carolina Saxophone Ensemble. Moesenbichler-Bryant grew up in Eberschwang, Austria. She began piano lessons at the age of 6, continuing later with church organ, flute, and bassoon. Her conducting debut at age 16 was followed by a three-year fundamental conducting course taught by Johann Mosenbichler. Moesenbichler-Bryant then studied conducting for symphony orchestra with Ingo Ingensand at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, Upper Austria, and received her bachelor’s degree, with distinction, in 2005. She completed her Master of Music in 2007 with Kevin Sedatole at Michigan State University. Moesenbichler-Bryant graduated in May 2009 with her DMA in Wind Ensemble Conducting from The University of Texas at Austin. Professional engagements have included three years as the conductor of the Hofkirchen community band, conducting the youth band of Eberschwang, and she currently serves as Executive Director of the World Youth Wind Orchestra Project, the international youth orchestra of the annual Mid-Europe festival in Schladming, Austria. Moesenbichler-Bryant serves frequently as a guest conductor and clinician across the United States as well as in her native Austria.
Under the direction of VGCC music instructor Michael Stephenson, the Vance-Granville Community Band is a combination of students and interested citizens. Band members hail from all four counties of the college service area (Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin) and beyond. For more information about the festival, call Michael Stephenson at (252) 738-3346.
