Bowling Green, Ky. - The Western Kentucky University Symphonic Band will present the second concert of its “We Serve Up Only the Best…” season on Dec. 2.

"Musical Caviar but nothing Fishy" will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Van Meter Auditorium. Tickets are $5 and will be sold at the door.

The 70-minute program opens with “Celebration Fanfare,” a composition from one of the world’s leading female composers Joan Tower. Other selections will include a “Blithe Bells” and “Shepherd’s Hey” by Percy Grainger and “Aegean Festival Overture” by the recently deceased composer Andreas Makris.

As a change of pace, the program features “Jug Blues and Fat Pickin’.” This piece represents the wind band as a giant harmonica and as an instrument being “picked.” How appropriate since this is the part of America from which so many great guitar, mandolin and banjo pickers have emerged.

A lovely descriptive work titled “Council Oak” pays homage to native Americans and was inspired by Moses Jumper Jr. who wrote a poem that chronicles the history of the Seminoles as told by the oak tree.

The final selection is one of the greatest masterworks for any musical genre of the last 50 years. “Music for Prague 1968” is a programmatic selection that portrays the brief freedom and the following invasion and occupation of Prague. In this work, one may hear the bells and birdcalls of the city at peace against a background of dissonance that implies the impending disaster. Several times in the course of the music, quotations of the ancient Czechoslovakian chorale “Ye Warriors of God and His Law” occurs. It had served as a symbol of resistance and hope for hundreds of years. For final statement of the chorale, Husa used only half of the music leaving the chorale to be completed when freedom would eventually be achieved. The dynamic level is as loud as possible with all winds in octaves. This creates the intended impression that perhaps the most defiant statement in music history has just been delivered.

The Symphonic Band will be led by Dr. John C. Carmichael, WKU’s internationally renowned wind conductor, and by Eric M. Smedley, associate director of bands and director of the Big Red Marching Band.

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact the Music Department at (270) 745-3751.