About the Event

Michael Votta, Jr., music director

The UMD Wind Orchestra opens the 2026-2027 season with an array of works from the wind band repertoire.

Based on an anti-war satire by Czech novelist and journalist Jaroslav Hašek, Robert Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik is an imaginative work written for just 16 instruments. Written shortly after World War I, the story is a commentary on war, authority and a citizen’s place in a fight from which they cannot benefit. Throughout the suite, Kurka fuses Czech folk and dance music with American folk, jazz and marches to tell Schweik’s story, from the onset of the war to his unbridled, unbreakable optimism.

In Fifteen: Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol, Michael Daugherty transposes the pop art icon’s work into his own musical “pictures at an exhibition.” Each movement represents a different piece by Warhol, including his “Portrait of Ludwig Van Beethoven” and “The Last Supper.” Drawing on the painter’s provocative hybrid realism and abstraction expressed through bright colors and repetition, Daugherty creates a stunning symphonic tapestry that captures the essence of each artwork.

Program

Robert Kurka: Suite from The Good Soldier Schweik
Michael Daugherty: Fifteen: Symphonic Fantasy on the Art of Andy Warhol

About the UMD Wind Orchestra

Led by Michael Votta, Jr., UMWO is a leader among collegiate ensembles in premiering new works for winds. This season’s engaging performances will feature faculty soloists and world premieres of new works and masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries.