The Dallas Winds (also known as the Dallas Wind Symphony or DWS) is a professional

concert band A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...

based in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. The Dallas Winds was founded in 1985 by Kim Campbell and

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

music professor Howard Dunn. It was originally organized as a "reading band" to allow local professional freelance musicians (many of them music teachers and band directors) to play challenging wind ensemble music as they had in high school and college. The reading sessions led to performances, first at Southern Methodist University's Caruth Auditorium and then around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, with a formal concert season established at the

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center is a concert hall located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas ( USA). Ranked one of the world's greatest orchestra halls, it was designed by architect I.M. Pei and acoustician Russell Johnson's ...

in 1990. After the death of Howard Dunn in 1991, the DWS launched an extensive national search for a new artistic director.

Jerry Junkin Jerry Junkin is an American conductor of wind bands and educator. Junkin serves on the faculty of the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin where he holds the Vincent R. and Jane D. DiNino Chair for the Director of Bands. H ...

, Director of Bands at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, was named DWS Artistic Director and Conductor in 1993.

Frederick Fennell Frederick Fennell (July 2, 1914 – December 7, 2004) was an internationally recognized conductor and one of the primary figures in promoting the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and grea ...

served as Principal Guest Conductor from the mid-1990s until his death in 2004. The Dallas Winds has released numerous high-fidelity recordings since 1991 in partnership with Reference Recording. Four albums have been nominated for

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

s: ''Trittico'' (1994,

Producer of the Year, Classical The Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical is an honor presented to record producers for quality classical music productions at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors ...

), ''Holidays and Epiphanies'' (1998, Producer of the Year, Classical), ''Garden of Dreams'' (2007, Best Engineered Album, Classical), and ''John Williams at the Movies'' (2019, Best Engineered Album, Classical). Excerpts from DWS concerts are frequently heard on American Public Media's ''Performance Today'' show.

Recordings

* ''The Brass and the Band'' (1988) with the

Chicago Brass Quintet The Chicago Brass Quintet is a five-piece brass quintet from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1963 (sometimes credited as 1964), and still active. They have toured worldwide since 1980 and can be heard on recordings on the Crystal, Delos (now on Naxos ...

* ''Holst'' (1990) * ''Fiesta!'' (1990) * ''Fennell Favorites'' (1991) * ''Trittico'' (1992) * ''Testament'' (1992) with The

Turtle Creek Chorale The Turtle Creek Chorale (TCC) is an American men's chorus located in Dallas, Texas. With 38 recordings and two commercially produced, feature-length motion picture documentaries in public distribution, it is among the most recorded men's chor ...

* ''Pomp and Pipes'' (1993) * ''Beachcomber'' (1994) * ''Arnold for Band'' (1995) * ''Holidays and Epiphanies... the music of Ron Nelson'' (1998) * ''Marches I've Missed'' (1998) * ''Strictly Sousa'' (2001) * ''Garden of Dreams'' (2006) * ''Midwest Clinic'' (2006) * ''Crown Imperial'' (2007) * ''Lincolnshire Posy'' (2008) * ''Horns for the Holidays'' (2011) * ''Playing with Fire'' (2011) * ''Lassus Trombone'' (2012) * ''Redshift: Music for Trumpet and Winds'' (2014) * ''John Williams at the Movies'' (2018) * ''Asphalt Cocktail: The Music of John Mackey'' (2019)

References

External links

* * 1985 establishments in Texas American instrumental musical groups Musical groups established in 1985 Music of Dallas Concert bands Wind bands Texas classical music {{dallas-stub