Newport’s Greatest Hits! A Musical History Tour

The fifty-member Rhode Island Wind Ensemble makes its triumphant return to the Newport Winter Festival for a free concert at 7:00 PM on Sunday, February 16th, at the Newport Marriott Hotel. Titled “Newport’s Greatest Hits!”, this concert will benefit Historic Music of Newport, a local non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the musical heritage of the city by telling the story of Newport through the eyes of the musicians and their music. All donations received at the concert will go directly to support their work. According to chairman and founder Dr. Mark Stickney, “The collaboration between Historic Music of Newport and the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble just makes sense on many levels – I was thrilled to hear from their conductor that they had selected HMN as the beneficiary of their annual concert at the Marriott. In fact, the ensemble has performed in summer concerts at Touro Park that we sponsor, so it’s great to cement our relationship with this outstanding musical ensemble even further.” About the musical theme of the concert (Newport’s Greatest Hits!), Rhode Island Wind Ensemble conductor Dr. Robert Franzblau offers the following: “When Mark and I put our heads together about the music for this concert, I knew we’d have to present an enormous variety of musical styles and periods. Thankfully, Mark is tireless in his work to bring Newport history alive through its music. He’s uncovered and edited dozens of tunes that were composed, published, and/or performed here in Newport, much of it band music, and we are honored to send it into the island’s air once more. We’ll balance out those ‘old’ pieces with contemporary folk song settings, a couple classical ‘hits,’ and a special performance by the Block Island Sound Brass Quintet, a top-level group we’re thrilled to work with again.” About RIWE Founded in 1969, the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble (www.riwe.org) is a modern wind band of fifty skilled volunteer musicians of all ages and from all walks of life, who believe that live music helps build community. The ensemble performs a wide variety of music at a high level: transcriptions from light orchestral and operatic repertoire; traditional, ethnic, and contemporary band repertoire; and jazz, Broadway musicals, and movie scores. The ensemble has considerable experience playing in concert halls and at outdoor venues, with monthly concerts scheduled throughout Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. They have collaborated with choral, instrumental, community and school groups, including Mount Pleasant High School (Providence), East Providence High School, Blackstone-Millville High School, Scituate High School, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble. Their concerts often feature instrumental and vocal soloists drawn from our group and from the professional community. In response to changing needs, RIWE has recently expanded its scope beyond concert presentation to include public-school-based community service initiatives, including a long-term partnership with the Music Pathways Program at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence and the Band Instrument Renewal Drive, which pays for the cleaning and repair of donated used band instruments which are then redistributed to public school music programs where families cannot afford to purchase or rent an instrument.

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