West Point’s Academy Wind Quintet to perform
Tennessee native Julie Williams Ditzel returns to her home state for a series of special concerts with the West Point Band’s Academy Wind Quintet, including a performance at Tennessee Tech University on Thursday, Feb. 25.
The concert is 11 a.m. in Wattenbarger Auditorium in the Bryan Fine Arts Building. The event is free and open to the public. The program will include the music of Paquito D’Rivera, Mozart, Derek Bourgeois and others.
Ditzel is a 1990 graduate of Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. Upon graduation, she enlisted in the U.S. Army with the Special Bands program and became a member of the West Point Band in New York. She has served her military career at West Point as a flutist and achieved the rank of master sergeant.
She fronts the Academy Woodwind Quintet, which presents a varied and colorful program of virtuoso chamber music for winds. The ensemble is comprised of players from within the U.S. Military Academy Concert Band. In support of military requirements, the quintet entertains the U.S. Corps of Cadets, presidential receptions, United Nations functions, and provides recitals throughout the Hudson Valley region.
The tour to Tennessee is part of the West Point Educational Outreach Program and the U.S. Recruiting Command, which tours colleges and high schools to promote the Army Band program.
Ditzel is a native Nashvillian and graduate of Glencliff High School.
Other area concerts by the quintet include:
- Feb. 22, 8 p.m., Turner Recital Hall, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.
- Feb. 23, 7 p.m., Franklin First United Methodist Church (Historic Sanctuary), 143 Fifth Avenue S., Franklin.
- Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., Hinton Hall on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro.
Learn more about the Academy Wind Quintet here. For more information about the TTU concert, contact TTU’s Roger Martin at 931-372-6083.
