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Music Dean to join Yale Concert Band in season opener

Robert Blocker, a renowned pianist as well as the dean of the School of Music, will join the Yale Concert Band for its first performance of the 1998-99 season on Friday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. in Woolsey Hall, corner of College and Grove streets.

Blocker will join the band for a performance of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" during the concert, which is free and open to the public.

Written in about a week and premiered by Gershwin himself, "Rhapsody in Blue" is a single-movement concerto that has been described as a kind of "symphonic jazz" due to its blend of jazz and classical styles. Today, the work is one of Gershwin's most widely recognized and popular pieces.

Before coming to Yale, Blocker was dean of the School of the Arts and Architecture at the University of California at Los Angeles. As a performer, he has been praised for his "remarkable pianism" which "embraces a range of artistry." The concert with Blocker is the first of many Yale Concert Band performances this year that will feature members of the School of Music faculty.

On Oct. 23, the Yale Concert Band will also present a work titled "Pilgrim's Progress," a commisioned piece by the group's musical director, Thomas C. Duffy, associate dean of the School of Music. In its four sections, "Pilgrims' Progress" traces the history of a community of Narragansett Indians, from its beginnings in what is now Rhode Island, through its encounter with Baptist settlers and the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, and ending with the community's final "resting place" under a water reservoir.