Dallas Wind Symphony

Dallas Wind Symphony
Background information
Also known as	DWS
Origin	Dallas, Texas, USA
Genres	Classical
Occupations	Concert band
Years active	1985-present
Website	www.dws.org
Members
Artistic Director Jerry F. Junkin Executive Director/Founder Kim J. Campbell

The Dallas Wind Symphony (DWS) is a professional concert band based in Dallas, Texas (USA).

The DWS was founded in 1985 by Kim Campbell and Southern Methodist University music professor Howard Dunn. It was originally organized as a "reading band" to allow local professional freelance musicians (many of them music teachers and band directors) to play challenging wind ensemble music as they had in high school and college. The reading sessions led to performances, first at SMU's Caruth Auditorium and then around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, with a formal concert season established at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1990.

After the death of Howard Dunn in 1991, the DWS launched an extensive national search for a new artistic director. Jerry F. Junkin, Director of Bands at the University of Texas at Austin, was named DWS Artistic Director and Conductor in 1993. Frederick Fennell served as Principal Guest Conductor from the mid-1990s until his death in 2004.

The DWS has released fourteen high-fidelity recordings since 1991 in partnership with Reference Recordings, eleven of which were produced using the patented HDCD encoding process. Two recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards — Trittico (1993, Producer of the Year, Classical) and Garden of Dreams (2007, Best Engineered Album, Classical).^[1]

Excerpts from DWS concerts are frequently heard on American Public Media's Performance Today show.

Along with the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, the Dallas Wind Symphony is regarded as one of the world's leading wind orchestras.

References

1. ^ "2007 Grammy Award nominees". Grammy.com. http://grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/50th_Show/list.aspx#29. Retrieved 2007-12-11. 

External links

• Dallas Wind Symphony