Join us for a conversation about Christmas and holiday traditions in communities of the African Diaspora.

This Creative Dialogue is held in conjunction with the presentation of “Christmas Gift!”, an original Nolan Williams, Jr./NEWorks production featuring new and traditional yuletide music and dramatic readings.

This family- and community-oriented event draws its inspiration from the first compilation of African American Christmas themed literature, Christmas Gif': An Anthology of Christmas Poems, Songs, and Stories, which was published in 1963.

An ever-evolving group of musical individualists, Windscape is an “unquintet” whose innovative programs and presentations take listeners on a musical and historical world tour.

They will perform Bach/Kay Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor; Ginastera/Kay Danzas argentinas; and Dvořák/Jolley Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 51.

The UMD School of Music graduate wind quintet SIREN will join Windscape in performing Émile Bernard’s Divertissement for Double Wind Quintet.

In the first of two concerts celebrating American composer Joseph Schwantner’s 70th birthday, UMWO performs the composer’s recent work for wind orchestra, Recoil.

The fourth and final work from a series of pieces Schwantner composed over 29 years, Recoil exploits the vast tone colors of an expanded percussion section and amplified piano.

The program is rounded out with bold, contemporary fanfares that borrow elements of Renaissance and Medieval music.

If Bach were alive, what music would he put on his iPod? UMWO suggests works by Pergolesi, Kirchner, Britten and Dahl.

Conductor Michael Votta says, “Much like Bach’s compositions, the music on this program tends to take a simple idea and elaborate it.”

The playful theme of Kirchner’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, Ten Winds and Percussion builds through exchanges between solo violin and cello, transforming across two movements.

Composer Vincent Persichetti wrote that, outside the pop field, “Band music is virtually the only kind of music in America today... which can be introduced, accepted, put to immediate and wide use, and become a staple of the literature in a short time.”

In this concert, the UMD Wind performs these repertoire essentials.