Directed by Emily Threinen, the University Wind Ensemble is a select ensemble composed of 60 of the University’s finest graduate and undergraduate wind and percussion musicians:

Flute & Piccolo: Alexandra Brouillard, Benjamin Kim, Kirsten Rotvold
Oboe & English Horn: Maya Chilcote, Kalina Lee
Clarinet: Ching-Wen Chen, Esme Mergendah, Isaac Quaas, Madeline Swenson
Bass Clarinet: Yutian Lei
Bassoon: Shih-Han Chang, Joseph Schachtner
Contrabassoon: Owen Schigiel
Soprano Saxophone: Charles Gannon
Alto Saxophone: Zijian Zhang
Tenor Saxophone: Alexis Aguilar
Baritone Saxophone: Emily Brewer
Horn: Alexander Berglund, Aidan Firchow, Alyssa Inglett
Trumpet: Trevor Crawford, Courtney Edwards, Wentao Xiao
Trombone & Bass Trombone: Kyler Gonzalez, Carson King-Fournier, Michael Stow
Euphonium: Christopher Michalski
Tuba: Wesley DeCasere
Piano & Celesta: Jihyang Son
String Bass: Rahn Yanes
Percussion: Christian Anderson, Aarush Bothra, Joe Condon, Wesley Froehle, Quinn Ingram

An internationally acclaimed performer and educator based out of Minneapolis, Preston Duncan has been hailed as “displaying his saxophone mastery” (The Indianapolis Star) with “virtuosic brilliance” (the Muncie Star/Press) as a “terrific talent”(Marvin Hamlisch).

He has appeared as a soloist throughout the United States, Latin America, and Europe. He has performed on over 65 occasions as a soloist with large ensembles including The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, La Grande Orchestre des Alpes de la Mer of Nice, the Bowling Green State University Philharmonic, the University of Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, and many others. He has performed internationally in such prestigious venues as the Salle Verdi (Milan), the American Embassy (Paris), The Royal Conservatory (Brussels), Circle Theater (Indianapolis), Roberto’s Winds (New York City), UNAM Hall (Mexico City), the National University (Taipei), the Teatro Solis (Montevideo), the National Conservatory (Zagreb), the National Conservatory (San Jose), and Disneyland (Los Angeles).

As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Indianapolis Pops, The Minnesota Pops, The Indianapolis Symphony and such acclaimed artists as Rosemary Clooney, Azmira-Woodward-Page, Marvin Hamlisch, and Jeremy Denk. He will perform this November with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is currently a member of the Klonos Trio, a saxophone piano trio that commissions and performs new works for saxophone trio. They recently released an album entitled “The Music of Marco Lombardi”

Duncan was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Paris, France. He has won numerous awards and prizes including 1st prize in the MTNA National Woodwind Competition. He was the featured performer and educator at the 1st Annual Taiwanese National Saxophone Festival, the 12th Annual Encuentro Universitario Internacional de Saxofón in Mexico City, and Saxfest Costa Rica. This winter he will perform solo recitals in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay, and Minnesota!

Duncan currently teaches saxophone at the University of Minnesota. During the summer he teaches on the faculty at Calizzano Creative Saxophone Festival in Italy and is the director of the Twin Cities Saxophone Camp at the University of Minnesota. He has also taught at the Ticino Music Festival and served as the director of the saxophone camp at Shell Lake Arts Center in Wisconsin.

He is an enthusiastic advocate of new music. He has commissioned and premiered works by Kelly-Marie Murphy Bernard Rands, Marco Lombardi, Kenneth Fuchs, Felipe Perez Santiago, Joan Tower, Marco Lombardi, Luca Faldini, and many others. Duncan performs exclusively on the Buffet Senzo saxophone and Légère reeds.

Principal Tuba Steven Campbell, a native of Texas, assumed his current post in 2005, after having performed with the Minnesota Orchestra on its 2004 European tour and in numerous subscription concerts. He performed two solos with the Orchestra during the 2010-11 season: Torbjörn Lundquist’s Landscape for Tuba and String Orchestra at subscription concerts and George Kleinsinger’s Tubby the Tuba at education and family concerts. In a May 2023 subscription concert, he performed Wynton Marsalis’ Tuba Concerto. A frequent presence in the Orchestra's chamber music series, Campbell has performed on Victor Ewald’s Brass Quintet No. 3, James Stephenson's Pillars, and Paquito D'Rivera's Four Pieces for Brass Quintet, among others.

Inspired by his parents, who are both musicians, Campbell became interested in music at an early age; his first teacher was his father, also a tuba player. Campbell went on to study at the University of Houston with David Kirk of the Houston Symphony, then completed a bachelor of music degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston, studying with former Boston Symphony musician Chester Schmitz.

While in Boston, Campbell performed regularly with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops Orchestras and was a member of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and the Vermont Symphony. In 1997 Campbell joined the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in La Coruña, Spain, where he played for two years. Upon his return to the United States, Campbell was a fellow with the New World Symphony before joining the New Mexico Symphony, where he served as principal tuba for four years. During his tenure in New Mexico, Campbell also performed with the Seattle and Colorado Symphonies and the Seattle Opera. In 2004-05, the season before he joined the Minnesota Orchestra, Campbell was principal tuba of the Milwaukee Symphony. He has also performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Seattle Symphony and Opera.

Campbell has participated in many music festivals, including the Colorado Music Festival, Tanglewood, National Repertory Orchestra, Spoleto USA, and Moab Music Festival, and has performed chamber music with such ensembles as Proteus 7 and the Empire Brass Quintet. In 2014 he premiered James Stephenson’s Vast and Curious trio for French Horn, Tuba, and Piano, an international micro-commission funded by numerous individual donors, performing with horn player Gail Williams at the International Tuba Conference in Bloomington, Indiana.

Campbell is also an educator. He is on the faculty of the University of Minnesota and has given master classes and lectures in the U.S. and abroad. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Michelle, and their sons, Rowen and Leo.

Emily Threinen is an Associate Professor of Music and serves as Director of Bands at the University of Minnesota School of Music in the Twin Cities. In this position, she conducts the acclaimed University Wind Ensemble, guides the graduate wind band conducting program, assists in undergraduate conducting, and provides administrative leadership for all aspects of the University of Minnesota-TC Band Program.

Prior to her position here, Threinen served as Director of Bands and Artistic Director of Winds and Brass at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Director of Bands at Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia; Director of the Duke University Wind Symphony in Durham, North Carolina; Director of the Concordia University Wind Ensemble in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Conductor of the Dodworth Saxhorn Band in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Director of Bands and Instrumental Music at Harding High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she received the Outstanding Teacher Award.

Threinen consistently works with composers, arrangers, and performing artists of varied disciplines. Residencies and projects with composers are integral to her creative work. Threinen has been published in multiple volumes of the GIA Teaching Music Through Performance in Band book series, where she has been recognized as a strong scholarly contributor. She is active, across the nation and abroad (appearances in Australia, Spain, Brazil, and Canada), as a guest conductor, clinician, and conference presenter.

A strong advocate for music education, Threinen is a proud Yamaha Master Educator and has served on the Executive Council of the Institute for Composer Diversity. In 2019, Threinen conducted the NAfME All-National Concert Band at the National Conference in Orlando, Florida. Additionally, she is an active member of these organizations: American Bandmasters Association (ABA), World Association for Symphonic Band and Ensembles (WASBE), College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), Big Ten Band Directors Association, National Band Association (NBA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and Pi Kappa Lambda and Kappa Kappa Psi as an honorary member.

Threinen is a native of Minnesota and is a proud alumna of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Class of 1999: Bachelor of Music Degrees in Clarinet Performance and K-12 Music Education.

Stacy Garrop’s music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. The sharing of stories is a defining element of our humanity; we strive to share with others the experiences and concepts that we find compelling. She shares stories by taking audiences on sonic journeys – some simple and beautiful, while others are complicated and dark – depending on the needs and dramatic shape of the story.

Garrop (b. 1969) is a full-time freelance composer living in the Chicago area. Her catalog covers a wide range, with works for orchestra, opera, oratorio, wind ensemble, choir, art song, various-sized chamber ensembles, and works for solo instruments.

Recent commissions include Forging Steel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Goddess Triptych for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Spectacle of Light for the Music of the Baroque Orchestra, Berko's Journey for the Omaha Symphony, Song of Orpheus for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, The Battle for the Ballot for the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, In a House Besieged for The Crossing on texts by Lydia Davis, and Alpenglow, a double concerto for saxophone, tuba, and wind ensemble commissioned by a consortium of 18 organizations. Notable past commissions include My Dearest Ruth for soprano and piano with text by Martin Ginsburg, the husband of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Glorious Mahalia for the Kronos Quartet, Give Me Hunger for Chanticleer, Rites for the Afterlife for the Akropolis and Calefax Reed Quintets, Slipstream for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Musicians Chamber Music Series, and Terra Nostra (oratorio), commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Society and Piedmont East Bay Children’s Chorus. Her current commissions include upcoming projects with the U.S. Navy Band, Fauré Centennial Festival, and Chicago Opera Theater for a new opera with librettist Jerre Dye that will premiere in a future season.

Garrop has received numerous awards and grants including an Arts and Letters Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Music Foundation Grant, Barlow Prize, and three Barlow Endowment commissions, along with prizes from competitions sponsored by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Omaha Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Boston Choral Ensemble, Utah Arts Festival, and Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Earlier in her career, she participated in reading session programs sponsored by the American Composers Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra (the Composers Institute). Recent performances of her orchestral works were given by the Baltimore, Chicago, Fort Collins, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Reading, Richmond, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, of her wind ensemble works by the U.S. Marine Band and U.S. Navy Band; and of her chamber works by the Avalon String Quartet, Boston Trio, Capitol Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble Échappé, h2 Saxophone Quartet, Kronos Quartet and the Lincoln Trio.

Theodore Presser Company and ECS Publishing carry her works. Garrop is a Cedille Records artist with pieces currently on twelve CDs; her works are also commercially available on more than a dozen additional labels.

In 2022-2023, she served as the featured composer of the Bowling Green State University New Music Festival, Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, and the University of Texas at San Antonio New Music Festival, with additional guest residencies at Michigan State University, Florida State University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She also served as a mentor composer for the Cabrillo Conductors/Composers Workshop, LunART Festival Composers Hub, and the Toulmin Foundation. Garrop is an ongoing mentor for Chicago a cappella’s HerVoice Emerging Women Choral Composers Competition.

She was the first Emerging Opera Composer of Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Program (2018-2020), during which she composed The Transformation of Jane Doe and What Magic Reveals with librettist Jerre Dye. She also held a 3-year composer-in-residence position with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra (2016-2019), funded by New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. She previously served as composer-in-residence with the Albany Symphony (2009/2010) and Skaneateles Festival (2011), as well as on the faculty of the Fresh Inc Festival (2012-2017).

Dr. Garrop earned degrees in music composition at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (B.M.), University of Chicago (M.A.), and Indiana University-Bloomington (D.M.). She taught composition and orchestration full-time at Roosevelt University from 2000 to 2016 before leaving to launch her freelance career.

An alpenglow is an optical phenomenon that is visible on high-altitude mountains where the earth’s atmosphere scatters the sun’s light and blankets the mountains in rich hues of peach, pink, red, and purple. This phenomenon is the inspiration behind Stacy Garrop's double concerto.