Students to perform in festival

The third annual Causeway Youth Band Festival culminates in a massive concert on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m. Student band musicians from more than 50 schools in the region, including the area’s two largest universities, will perform together in the final concert of the week-long festival at the Mondavi Center.

The concert program will feature many works by Samuel Hazo, the featured conductor for the festival. An internationally recognized composer, he has written for university and public school ensembles, television, radio, and the stage.

His music is included in the series “Teaching Music Through Performance in Band,” and he has taught music teacher at every educational grade level from kindergarten through college, including as a tenured as a high school and university director.

He was twice named “Teacher of Distinction” by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Teachers’ Excellence Foundation. Hazo’s own compositions will be featured at this Causeway Youth Band Festival, and he will conduct key rehearsals and performances of each age level.

Two specially composed “Festival” bands (one seventh to ninth grade and one 10th to 12th grade) and both college bands from UC Davis and Sacramento State University will participate and perform.

The last piece on the program will bring together all of the groups in a performance of Hazo’s “Novo Lenio” with nearly 350 student musicians.

Also on the program are Hazo’s works “Siorai September,” “In Flight,” “Arabesque,” and others. Other compositions by Gustav Holst, Percy Grainger, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Sheldon, and David Bobrowitz will also be performed.

The festival is organized by the  two university band directors: Dr. Robert Halseth of CSU Sacramento, conductor of the CSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and Pete Nowlen, who conducts the University Concert Band at UC Davis.

Tickets are available through the Mondavi Center’s ticket office at mondaviarts.org or by phone at 530-754-2787. Tickets for students and children are $6, and $12 for adults.