Timberline Winds
Conductor, Dr. Martin Behnke
Medford, Oregon, USA
1st Place Community Band
TIMBERLINE WINDS
Timberline Winds is one of five or so adult community concert bands in the Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon, most of which I have conducted on either a regular or part-time basis since my retirement as Director of Bands from Willamette University in 2005. Each of the bands serves its own function, but all share players used in Timberline Winds. The Southern Oregon Concert Band is a fifty piece group that has a history going back over a hundred years to the Shriners Band of the early nineteenth century, and still performs a four-concert season in the Valley. The Rogue Valley Symphonic Band, with similar size, was organized in the late 1980’s and has also presented a four-concert series in the Valley each year since its founding. The Ashland City Band is a seventy piece community band that performs an eight-concert series in the Summer to audiences of 500 – 1,000 in the Ashland City Park band shell. Timberline Winds is the newcomer, a hybrid in its first year, providing an outlet for some of the most experienced players in the Valley. This year the band has prepared and recorded two programs of my music that will form the basis for a website that is underway, and for a documentary being prepared on community bands in Southern Oregon that will also feature me as a composer/conductor involved in the band-active “State of Jefferson.” The plan for the band is to go forward preparing music for future performances and recordings.
Following several years of teaching music in the California public schools and in colleges and universities in four other states, Martin Behnke came to Willamette University in 1979 as Director of University Bands, later serving as Chairman of the Department of Music as well. In addition to his teaching background and 12 years as a professional trombonist, Dr. Behnke has maintained involvement throughout his career as a jazz pianist and composer. In 1985 he received an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship to study composition with Pulitzer Prize winning composer Norman Dello Joio, and in 1999, an Oregon Council for the Humanities Research Grant to present the life and music of Duke Ellington for the Smithsonian traveling exhibit "Beyond Category."
He has performed with Ray Brown, Herbie Mann, Benny Golson, Bill Watrous, Clairdee, and Ken Peplowsky, among others. He is an elected member of the Northwest Bandmasters Association. Dr. Behnke has received numerous commissions for his instrumental and choral compositions, and his music has been published by Alfred Music, University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press, and his own Timberline Music Company. Following his retirement from Willamette University in 2005, Dr. Behnke relocated to Southern Oregon, where for seven more years he directed the jazz ensembles and taught applied jazz piano and improvisation at Southern Oregon University. He continues a full schedule as a composer, adjudicator, guest conductor, and jazz pianist.
TIMBERLINE WINDS
Spring, 2017
PICCOLO
Jennifer Behnke
FLUTES
1 – Alena Houghton
1 - Luna Bitzer
2 – Kyra Hegdahl
2 - Elora Ormand
2 – Adrian Eck
OBOE
Lorin Groshong
Erin Finney
BASSOON
Pierre Plax
Catherine Sleppy
Eb CLARINET
Marilyn Anderson
Bb CLARINET
1 – Marla Kasdorf
1 - Chelsea Villanueva
2 - Don Bieghler
2 - Daleta Perone
3 - Ed Wight
3 – Grace
3 - Alex
BASS CLARINET
Doug MacDonnell
ALTO SAX
1 - David Sommers
2 –Brittany Brockbank
TENOR SAX
Chris Pearson
Kate Poet
BARI SAX
Jarod Bile
TRUMPETS
1 - Randy Scherer
2 - Bruce Dresser
2 - Eric Osberg
3 - Carol O'Neal
3 – John Ferreira
HORNS
1 - Mike Wraight
2 - Shirley Donnelly
3 - Abraham Murillo
4 -Tyler Vistaunet -
TROMBONES
1 - Dave Hoxie
2 - Ken Loftus
BASS TROMBONE
Charlie Ter Bush
EUPHONIUM
Jerry Ostemeir
TUBA
Mike Knox
Kathy Graves
PERCUSSION
David Hegdahl
Beckie Pinnock
Jesse Figurate
Strand Hill