Ear Candy: Symphony Orchestra with Wind Ensemble & Julia Wolfe
Saturday, February 21 @ 7:30 pm
Armstrong Concert Hall
Emanuele Andrizzi, Artistic Director & Conductor
Ear Candy New Music Festival
Symphony Orchestra with Wind Ensemble & Julia Wolfe
Presented as part of Shenandoah Conservatory’s Ear Candy New Music Festival, the Symphony Orchestra and special guests present a program that bridges impressionist beauty with contemporary innovation.
The Wind Ensemble (Timothy J. Robblee, conductor) opens the concert with the bold imagination and sonic brilliance of 2025/26 distinguished composer-in-residence and Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe. Zigzag, newly commissioned by a consortium that included Shenandoah Conservatory, is a high-energy, rhythmically charged work pulsing with drive and daring.
The program concludes with Wolfe’s electrifying Flower Power, a genre-defying piece infused with rhythmic vitality and countercultural spirit, featuring the Symphony Orchestra and special guest faculty soloists.
Part of a weekend celebrating the visionary voices shaping today’s musical landscape — while honoring the masters who paved the way — this performance promises to surprise, challenge and inspire.
Meet the Guest Composer
Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them.
In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. She received the 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music and was named Musical America’s 2019 Composer of the Year. Wolfe is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can, and she is Artistic Director of NYU Steinhardt Music Composition.
Her music is published by Red Poppy Music and G. Ricordi & Co., New York (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by the Universal Music Publishing Group.
Digital Program
Shenandoah Conservatory uses digital programs for all performances. In addition to their engaging and accessible design, digital programs are cost effective, environmentally friendly and enable us to create and update our programs more efficiently, which means we can focus our resources on the performances you love! View our digital programs by clicking the button above, scanning the QR code in our venue or texting PROGRAM to (540) 307-2336 at the performance. [Note: Digital programs are best viewed on your mobile or tablet device.]
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