BOISE STATE SYMPHONIC WINDS AND ALL-CAMPUS CONCERT BAND

"Our Better Angels"

Boise State University — Department of Music
Symphonic Winds and All-Campus Concert Band

Sunday, November 16, 2025 · 7:30 p.m.

Under the baton of Dr. Myron Peterson and Dr. Joe Tornello, along with featured guest conductor John Blakley, and featuring soprano soloist Christina Mancheni, Our Better Angels explores the full range of human feeling through the wind band — from quiet reflection to transcendent beauty.

This program reveals how the essence of "song" transcends form and function. Influenced by hymn song, folk song, mythical song, jazz, hip-hop, and a few layers of chaos, this program invites listeners to consider the forces that guide us through joy, celebration, calm, noise, uncertainty, loss, and ultimately hope.

At the thematic center of this program are Angels in the Architecture, in which the composer portrays an angel of light representing the “universal human ideals of peace, hope, and love;” and My Lyre Within the Sky—which draws from Edgar Allen Poe’s angel Israfel, “whose heartstrings are a lute” and where we find our boldest song just beyond our mortal reach.

Whether it’s an angel from above, or an angel from within, we are reminded that even amidst the chaos of daily life, we still search for our better angels—and sometimes, we find them in song.

Composers on the program: William Schuman · Gustav Holst · James M. David · Frank Ticheli · Ralph Hultgren · Claude T. Smith · Katahj Copley · John Philip Sousa