About Us
The Indiana Wind Symphony, Indiana's premiere adult concert band, prepares to embark on our 2010-2011 concert season. The excitement level is high in anticipation of our move to a wonderful new state-of-the-art concert facility, the Palladium in downtown Carmel, in February. The IWS has as its mission the presentation of artistic performances of significant music for band and wind ensemble to the Central Indiana community. The ensemble is made up of around 70 members, and includes professional musicians, music educators, and serious avocational musicians. The IWS has presented the premiere performances of Czech composer Jiri Laburda's Symphony #2, David Sartor's Veni Emmanuel, Daniel Gall's chamber work Melancholy and two works of Hoosier composer Dr. David Mruzek, The Boy Scout Centennial and Variations on a Welsh Folksong. The group has also presented several American premieres of significant works, including Save the Sea Symphony, Concerto for Four Saxophones and Band, and Concerto for Symphonic Band of Hungarian composer Frigyes Hidas, Werner Bruggemann's Piano Concerto Rike, Nocturne by Thomas Doss and Hardy Mertens' Sinfonisches variaziones.
In 1998, the IWS recorded original manuscripts from the John Philip Sousa archives. These works, featuring soprano soloist Ann Conrad, were received with high acclaim at the International Conference of the Society for the Preservation and Investigation of Band Music (IGEB) in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. This began an important facet of the Indiana Wind Symphony - the study of band history and performance practice of band and wind ensemble music of all styles and time periods, with a particular emphasis on the band history of Indiana. The IWS was featured in a major festival commemorating the 150th anniversary of Sousa's birth in 2004, and in 2003 the ensemble participated in the Circus Historical Society's National Conference, accompanying scholars Dr. Clifford Watkins and IWS Music Director Dr. Charles Conrad in recreations of historic circus bands. In 2006 the IWS was chosen to be the featured ensemble in a national seminar on the history of the march at the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville, KY. In 2008 the ensemble recorded original band works written in 1909 for the Abraham Lincoln centennial, and these recording were used to accompany a paper on that subject by Charles Conrad at the Luxemburg IGEB International Conference.
The Indiana Wind Symphony, in its 12th full concert season in 2010-2011, looks forward to offering you more great music this year! Highlights will include more of our acclaimed video presentations, inspiring soloists, interesting and groundbreaking new works, and a move to a wonderful new concert home at the Palladium.
About the Music Director
IWS Music Director Charles P. Conrad is a lifelong Indianapolis resident, having graduated from Arlington
High School and attended the Indiana University School of Music, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Trumpet, studying with legendary
trumpet professor William Adam. He earned a Master’s degree in Conducting from Butler University and a Doctorate in Conducting from
Ball State University, where his dissertation about Hoosier composer and conductor Fred Jewell was named Distinguished Dissertation
by the BSU Alumni Association. Dr. Conrad has conducted ensembles in many states, Scotland, England, Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Italy,
Poland, Holland, France, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. He has presented papers at music history and performance conferences in
the United States, Germany, Slovakia, Italy and Austria. In July 2008 he presented a paper at the International Conference of the
musicological society IGEB in Luxembourg. He is the Choir Director of John Knox Presbyterian Church. He maintains a large private
trumpet teaching studio and serves as a faculty artist and adjudicator for the National Trumpet Competition. He is an author, having
co-written Circus Songs: An Annotated Anthology as well as numerous articles for scholarly and historical journals. He is writing
a history of American Circus Music that will be published in 2010 by Scarecrow Press and has written several articles for
the upcoming edition of Groves Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians - American Edition. He is married to Carmel High School Choral
Director and soprano Ann Conrad in spite of the fact that he collects antique band instruments and photographs of bands. They
are the proud parents of Gracie, a one year old terrier mix which they suspect is part spider monkey.
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