The Los Alamos Community Winds rehearses for its performance ‘Beethoven 250+’,  at 7 p.m. March 11 at Crossroads Bible Church. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com

Pianist Julian Chen who will perform the solo in Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’ looks over  music for the March 11 perfrmance at. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com

By BONNIE J. GORDON Los Alamos Daily Post bjgordon@ladailypost.com

The Los Alamos Community Winds will present an all-Beethoven program “Beethoven 250+”, at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 11 at Crossroads Bible Church. All Winds concerts are free. The suggested donation is $10.

“We had planned a concert in honor of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, but COVID got in the way,” Musical and Artistic Director Ted Vives said. “We still wanted to do a Beethoven concert, so we added a plus to the name and went forward.”

The 40-minute Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 “Emperor” (1809) will be the highlight of the program, comprising the second half. Vives arranged the piece for concert band.

“It was quite an undertaking,” Vives said. “Fortunately, Beethoven transfers well to concert band. He uses winds and brass a fair amount. Before Beethoven, composers wrote mostly for strings. He was the first to use trombones. The piano part is identical to Beethoven’s score.”

Vives has composed and arranged many pieces for concert band. His arrangements “create a niche for concert band that wouldn’t exist otherwise,” he said. His arrangements have been played around the world, from South Korea to Europe. His arrangements allow concert bands to perform music usually done by orchestras, which are less common outside major cities.

“I’m a small part of spreading this music across the planet,” he said.

The Winds are lucky to have Julian Chen as our piano soloist, Vives said, adding that “Julian can handle the difficult music.”

Chen is another of the many fine musician-scientists in Los Alamos. He is a Staff Scientist in the Bioscience Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His specialties include X-ray and neutron crystallography, with a focus on enzymes, RNA, and on ultra-high resolution studies. In addition to music, Chen’s interests outside of the Lab include architecture and art history, especially the works of Louis Sullivan, connecting microscopic and macroscopic architecture, music performance, and travel.

A musician since childhood, Chen grew up in Oregon and moved to Los Alamos full time in 2013. He joined the Winds in 2015 and has performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s L’Union, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, and now “Emperor” with the concert band.

“It’s great to play with the Winds because I get to play regularly in an ensemble,” he said. “It’s a great group. I’ve never played this piece with an ensemble before. It’s a challenging piece, technically and musically. I’m classically trained, so this is right up my alley.”

The structure of “Emperor” is unlike anything that had been composed before, Chen said. The concerto starts with a piano credenza, which is usually found at the end of the first movement, he explained.

“The rehearsal schedule for the concert is quite an investment of time,” Chen said. “My plate is pretty full.”

The first half of the all-Beethoven program includes the marches Polonaise für Militärmusik (1810) and Zapfenstreich March (1810, trio 1822.); the Overture from “The Creatures of Prometheus” Op. 43, a ballet composed in 1801; and Overture “Egmont” Op. 84 (1810) a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Vives said he is already looking forward to the next concert, May 13, which will include his arrangement of Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland.

Musical and Artistic Director Ted Vives conducts the winds during a recent rehearsal. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com

The brass section plays during rehearsal. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com

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