Northwest Wind Symphony to Feature ‘Four Freedoms’ in Opening Concert

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When he sat down in March to begin crafting the 28th season of the Northwest Wind Symphony, Dr. Dan Schmidt couldn’t help but sense the turbulent undercurrent that seemed to touch every part of the United States.

“I was not politically motivated, but I just sat down and though that, you know, America has always been a melting pot,” Schmidt said. “We are a country based on immigrants and that’s our identity. I just wanted to open our season with something that kind of identifies what America is all about.”

The symphony will open its 2018-19 season on Oct. 20 with a program named for  the “Four Freedoms” painted by renowned artist Norman Rockwell in 1943. The paintings — Freedom from Fear, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom of Speech — are in reference to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address in which he named the four subjects as essential human rights.

General admission tickets cost $12 and will be available at the door as well as at Book ’n’ Brush in Chehalis. Season tickets run $30.

Schmidt conducts the group of musicians from Oregon and Washington that congregate in Centralia three times each year to perform in the Corbet Theatre at Centralia College. For Oct. 20, each painting will be represented by three songs, many of which will be familiar to even the most infrequent concert attendee.

The Star Spangled Banner will open the show, followed by Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein. Amazing Grace, America the Beautiful and Star Spangled Spectacular will also be featured during the program, which is set to conclude with Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa.



“It’s probably going to come across to the audience as a little more patriotic and probably a little more entertaining,” Schmidt said. “When I have put programs together in the past, it’s probably been more tilted towards the performers. That has been a stronger focus of mine in the past, but this year we just decided to focus on music the audience would recognize, which isn’t a bad thing at all.”

Two of the songs — America the Beautiful by Samuel Ward and Chester by William Schumann — were to be conducted by Dr. Carolyn Vian, who co-founded the NWS in 1991. She recently withdrew from the program for health reasons.

The other two symphony concerts scheduled for Jan. 19 and April 13 of next year will follow a similar track to the opener. Schmidt says the winter performance titled “Our Forefathers — English Landscapes” is meant to represent where the United States came from and that “Who We’ve Become” in the spring will reflect what the country in the present tense.

“America is made up of variations in ethnicity,” Schmidt said. “We’re just a big melting pot. The Four Freedoms seemed like the right mode in which to begin the season.”