The members of Grand Symphonic Winds are your family, friends, neighbors, teachers, and co-workers.
We live and work in many cities, towns, and rural areas of Minnesota.
- About ¼ of us live in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, with the rest of us located in almost every community surrounding the Twin Cities. Wisconsin also contributes to our membership.
- About ¼ of us work in Minneapolis or Saint Paul. Several members work in Bloomington, Eagan, Golden Valley, Shakopee, and Savage/Prior Lake, plus many other surrounding communities. And, yes, Wisconsin.
We are amateur and professional musicians who share a love for the repertoire and the challenge of playing in a high-level musical group.
- About half of us are academically-trained musicians and music educators.
- Working in music: 25% of the members work(ed) as band/orchestra directors; another 15% are music teachers and choral directors.
- Other work: We are lawyers, physicians, IT experts, engineers, accountants, financial analysts, sports professionals, retail workers and account managers, HR, consultants, academics, a pastry and baking chef, and more.
- Other academic training: over 90% of us have bachelor’s degrees, almost half have master’s, ¼ with PhDs/MDs/JDs. In addition to music, we are university-educated in accounting, art history, biology, business management, chemistry, computer science, economics, English, German, history, math, mechanical engineering, physics, political science, psychology, and social work. ⅔ of us attended universities/colleges in Minnesota.
We aim to provide our audiences with excellent and enjoyable performances of symphonic wind literature, from traditional to newly created.
- Composers included on recent concerts: Felix Mendelssohn, Percy Grainger, Ralph Vaughn Williams, John Philip Sousa, Gustav Holst, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, Yosuke Fukuda, Frank Ticheli, Martin Ellerby, Alfred Reed, Luis Alarcon, Victoriano Rincon, Robert Bennett, Michael Markowski, David Maslanka, Nigel Clarke, Kit Turnbull, Guy Woolfenden, and many others.