Flow on the river of candy canes with the UCalgary Wind Ensemble & Symphonic Band
By Abbas Hussain, October 29 2025—
The School of Creative and Performing Arts was formed in 2013, following a merger between the Drama, Dance and Music departments at the University of Calgary. On the 9th of October, the department head, Gareth Jones hosted and directed both the Wind Ensemble and the Symphonic Band together for an evening of celebrated music by the likes of Robert Sheldon, Michael Torke and Robert Buckley.
The Symphonic Bad was amazing and they played a set of different songs, including “Metroplex” by Robert Sheldon; “Wind, Sand and Stars” by Kevin Lau, “I am” by Andrew Boysen and “When Angles Weep” by David Shaffer. These were all beautifully played by the 50+ students who made up the Symphonic Band, led by Jones. It was played quite beautifully, helped by the performance being held in the Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall, which is itself quite a spectacular venue for any performance and certainly enhanced the experience for the audience. The hall which can host up to 383 people,was packed with friends and family creating a sold out performance.
After the intermission, the Wind Ensemble was put on. The songs performed consisted of “Free Running” by Robert Buckley, “The Kiss” by Michael Torke, “Children of Gaia” by Sheldon and “Invictus” by Phillip Sparke. The students and the conductor did a splendid job bringing these pieces to life which were done by revered artists. The audience certainly seemed to enjoy the music for sure. My favourites included “The Kiss,” “Children of Gaia” and “Invictus.”
The Kiss was a departure from the traditional concert bands. While the music can often sound quite dramatic, yet scary, this was certainly very cheerful. As the name suggests, “The Kiss” is made up of six romantic melodies which come together to tell quite a story. It sounded like the motions of love in life, and as the melody went on, we got closer and closer to that beautiful ending with a salient kiss.
Invictus also pushes bounds when it comes to concert bands and while it’s not quite as romantic as “The Kiss,” it was certainly bright like it. While this story doesn’t focus on the notion of love, as you listen to it, you hear quite a story. This story feels very uplifting, showing us that the journey of life doesn’t have to be dreadful and scary, and instead can be quite beautiful. This certainly resonated with me in what is an increasingly doom-and-gloom world, we as humanity seem to be losing touch with our fellow people.
Finally, we have Children of Gaia. Gaia is a primordial deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon, and she has several children, who hold great significance to the Ancient Greeks. This work represents three of these children: the fearsome Typhon, the water goddess Tethys and the menacing Enceladus. What this piece does is represent the personalities of all three of them, with the beginning being dramatic, matching Typhon’s personality, then the music having a flowing characteristic representative of Tethys and finally Enceladus’ personality represented by a shift to scary.
The School of Creative and Performing Arts is putting on a lot more events that can be found on their website here.