Product Description

This expansion on Battisti's The Twentieth Century American Wind Band/Ensemble includes discussions on the contribution of important wind band/ensemble personalities and organizations, and provides important information on hundreds of compositions for this medium. Challenges facing the 21st century wind band/ensemble conductor including training and development are also discussed.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275309 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 412 pages

Customer Reviews

Review for The Winds of Change
This book is a must for any band director or conductor who is a scholar and would like to know where our craft came from. It brings up details about composers and their significant contributions to our genre. The challenges wind literature faced in its early stages were significant and this book will walk you through who was a significant part of that process and who refused to be a part of that process.

The Winds of Change will also state significant pieces of literature that The Goldman Band, The Sousa Band, and many others were performing while the genre was still in its infancy. This is a must for any conductor that wishes to move beyond waving the stick.

Very Good - However...
We used this book as text for a graduate course in wind band literature. I found the book very interesting and informative, however as a retired Air Force musician, I felt that Battisti did a huge disservice to the professional military bands with only brief mentions here and there. The book focuses a great deal on the university and secondary school bands, with some mention about overseas, professional and military bands. Although Battisti is a huge name in the wind band field, it was exhausting reading about all the things he did, which made the book seem quite self-serving and repetitive. I think the book could have benefitted from a good editor. A major point that Battisti tries to put forward is promoting the idea of professional wind bands, yet doesn't recognize the numerous military bands that travel throughout the U.S. commissioning and playing wind band literature. Perhaps a second edition will hopefully correct this.

Great resource for Band Directors
This book is a concise resource for band directors looking to further their knowledge of the wind band and its history.