ABSTRACT
The Grainger Wind Symphony (GWS) was established in 1986 and named after one of Australia’s foremost twentieth century musicians and composers, Percy Grainger. The group was founded on the principle of providing a performance and community music outlet for music education teachers and graduates, and the advocacy and promotion of quality music performance in the Concert Band tradition. The core goals of the GWS are to perform wind ensemble music of the highest calibre, and quality advocacy and outreach. The GWS stages Conductor workshops, school workshops with secondary school musicians, and composition bursaries and prizes, providing inspiration to conductors, instrumentalists, and school directors towards performance standards and sharing a love of playing in a wind symphony. The GWS offers a Young Players scholarship open to final year high school instrumental music performance students, seeking to encourage and support young musicians to pursue wind band music performance beyond high school. The ensemble comprises professional, semi-professional teacher musicians, tertiary music students, and graduate school music students, drawing on repertoire of the highest standard available within Australia, and internationally. The ensemble offers a model of community music making that centres on musical excellence and fostering contemporary Australian repertoire. The group offers one way in which community music is enacted and their approaches challenge more popular understandings of the domain.
