Ouachita Stories

The Ouachita Baptist University Wind Ensemble, featuring 40 student musicians, will perform Thursday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Jones Performing Arts Center on Ouachita’s campus.

Jim Lloyd, adjunct professor of music at Ouachita and the director of Arkadelphia High School’s band, will direct the Wind Ensemble in the absence of Dr. Craig Hamilton, OBU director of bands, who is on sabbatical.

“Dr. Hamilton and I have very similar philosophies in music and music education,” Lloyd said. “Maybe it’s because he was my teacher.” Lloyd was Hamilton’s first instrumental music major at Ouachita. In the past, Hamilton has asked Lloyd to take his place teaching private trumpet lessons, but this will be Lloyd’s first time to direct a Ouachita ensemble group. “I felt very honored that he would ask me to take over his premier group,” Lloyd noted.

Rehearsals started in late August for the Wind Ensemble as they began practicing Lloyd’s handpicked selections. “I wanted to give the students a rewarding experience,” Lloyd said, “with classic band literature and modern works, as well.”

The selections featured in the Wind Ensemble’s performance will include a children’s march titled “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Percy Aldridge Grainger and edited by Mark Rodgers, “Were You There” by John P. Lynch, “Missouri Shindig” and “Heart of the Morn” by H. Owen Reed, “English Folk Song Suite” by R. Vaughan Williams, “Serenade Op. 22” by Derek Bourgeois and “Baron Cimetiere’s Mambo” by Donald Grantham. “Heart of the Morn” will include Tori Clark, a freshman choral music education major from Bonnerdale, Ark., as the featured soloist.

For more information, contact the OBU School of Fine Arts at (807) 254-5129.

By Rachel Gregory