Review: A Hungarian Folk Tale | Dallas Winds | Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Dallas — Is your concept of a band left over from high school, half-time at football games or maybe the Rose Parade? If so, you have an amazing treat in store when you attend a concert presented by the Dallas Winds, a fully professional wind symphony that performs a season of nine concerts at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

The group’s season-opening concert on Tuesday was particularly impressive, with some challenging masterpieces played with solid technique and intonation combined with exceptional musicianship.

Wind bands frequently feature composers who mostly write for such ensembles and thus their names are not familiar to concertgoers, but it was the opposite on Tuesday. Except for a rollicking opening number by Ron Nelson, who is quite well known in the band world, all of the other composers on the program are universally celebrated: Percy Grainger, Zoltán Kodály and Richard Wagner.

Wind symphonies lack the extensive repertoire that a symphony orchestra, with its outsized string section, enjoys, although this is changing rapidly as composers discover the capabilities of a professional wind ensemble.

Full article here: http://www.theaterjones.com/ntx/reviews/20160918084235/2016-09-18/Dallas-Winds/A-Hungarian-Folk-Tale