2024 Upcoming Concerts​ 

CONCERT:  Friday, April 11—7pm
St Johns on the Lake
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
 
CONCERT:  Saturday, April 12, 2025—7:30pm
First United Methodist Church
Waukesha, Wisconsin

​CRITICAL REVIEWS of WWO:

“top quality” -- The American Record Guide

[Harper is] “a stickler for detail, a motivator, and a first-rate musician who brings nuance and insight to a piece of music.”  
                                                    --The American Record Guide

"A very well performed and produced recording . . . by the outstanding Wisconsin Wind Orchestra."
                                                                --Walking Frog Records

"The fine playing attests to the quality of these musicians and their conductor."
                            --Journal of the World Association for Symphonic                                                                                 Bands and Ensembles
​

Click here for repertoire list

WWO Conductor and Founder, Lawrence Dale Harper

The WWO at the Teatro Della Concordia in Montecastello di Vibio in Umbria, Italy

The WWO

Conductor an​d Music Director, LAWRENCE DALE HARPER, established the Wisconsin Wind Orchestra (USA) in 1995 as one of the few professional wind ensembles in the world. They regularly perform concerts at venues throughout Wisconsin, have made numerous CD recordings acclaimed by the American Record Guide and the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and have appeared in concerts and radio broadcasts at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and the Conservatorio F. Morlacchi in Perugia, Italy. In their Europe concert tour of 2017 they were featured artists at the Segni Barocchi Festival of Foligno, Italy and appeared in concert in front of a sold out audience at the Teatro della Concordia in Montecastello di Vibio. In 2015 and 2017 they were also artists-in-residence at the International Music Project's International Conducting Symposium of Umbria, Italy. 

The WWO selects performance repertoire based on the belief that chamber music for winds has historic and contemporary artistic significance.   The repertoire determines the specific instrumentation of the group, ranging from harmoniemusik for eight winds up to thirteen players or more (sometimes including piano, selected strings, or percussion), but the most common make-up of the WWO is a double woodwind quintet plus string bass.

We are committed to expanding the repertoire for winds through commissions, and have given the premiere performance of several works by prominent American and European composers.  Among others, the WWO has premiered Seven Pieces of Wood by Swedish composer, Anders Astrand, Three Movements for Winds by Keith Carpenter, Divertimento for Piano and Double Wind Quintet by Hugo Hartig, and Olde New York by Rick Kirby.

We also love to take our audiences on adventures in programming to explore the intersections between the various art forms that can enliven our experience in the concert hall. We have worked with professional actors (e.g., Stravinsky L’Histoire du Soldat and Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night’s Dream), dancers (e.g., Milhaud's Little Symphony), painters, partner ensembles (e.g., Global Percussion Network, Sweden), and a wide array of regional and international soloists.

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