The UMBC Wind Ensemble, directed by Brian Kaufman, presents a concert and conversation, moderated by Tom Hall, host of WYPR’s Midday, on navigating the current polarization in America. Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and UMBC Professor Linda Dusman’s Solstice will serve as catalysts for an interactive discussion with performers, audience members, and to-be-announced guest panelists.

Tom Hall joined the WYPR staff as the Host of Choral Arts Classics in 2003. After ten years as the culture editor and then host of Maryland Morning, in September, 2016, he became the host of Midday, the highly rated news and public policy program that features interviews with elected officials, community leaders, and thought provoking authors, artists, researchers, journalists, and scholars from around the world. For many years, he was music director of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, and was named music director emeritus in 2017. He has been a guest co-host of Maryland Public Television’s Art Works, and in 2007, he was named “Best New Broadcast Journalist” by the Maryland Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2009, the Baltimore City Paper named him “Best Local Radio Personality.” In 2016 and again in 2017, he was recognized as “Best Talk Show Host” in the Baltimore Magazine Reader’s Poll.

Hall is invited frequently to speak to professional and community organizations, including the Oregon Bach Festival, the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, the College Endowment Association, the Baltimore Broadcaster’s Coalition, The Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute, the Johns Hopkins Community Conversations Series, and the Creative Alliance. He has moderated panels and given presentations at the Baltimore City Lit Festival, the Baltimore Book Festival, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, the University of Maryland, the Enoch Pratt Library, and MICA. He has also moderated Mayoral Debates, panels at Light City in Baltimore, and at the Stevenson University Speakers Series. He appears each year as the moderator of the Rosenberg-Blaustein Distinguished Artist Recital Series at Goucher College. His publications include articles in the Baltimore Sun, Style Magazine, and Baltimore Magazine, as well as many scholarly music journals, and he is the co-author of The Bach Passions in Our Time: Contending with the Legacy of Antisemitism, published on-line by the Institute for Islamic Christian and Jewish Studies. Tom was appointed the Music Director Emeritus of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society in 2017.

The UMBC Wind Ensemble has celebrated performances with internationally celebrated guest artists including Glee pianist and music director Brad Ellis, Emmy-nominated composer and genre-bending violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, The American Brass Quintet, Canadian Brass veteran Joe Burgstaller, international tuba artist Øystein Baadsvik, Cleveland Orchestra trombonist Shachar Israel, Marine Band co-principal oboe Trevor Mowry, former Marine Band clarinetist Randall Riffle, and UMBC Professor of Violin Airi Yoshioka. The ensemble seeks to regularly perform music by living composers; the group is currently recording its first album, which includes music the ensemble has premiered by Brad Ellis, Daniel Bernard Roumain, UMBC composition faculty Anna Rubin and Janice Macaulay, and 2016 American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award finalist and UMBC alumnus Samuel Winnie.

Complete program information will be announced.

Admission is free.