Composer Festival

The San Diego Winds is dedicated to promoting the performance of high quality Wind Band literature. As such the San Diego Winds wanted to create a festival where students were able to not only perform high quality music but do work on that music with the composers themselves and world class conductors. It is from this foundation the composer festival was born.

From there it was decided that in order to celebrate a diverse body of literature the composer festival would alternate annually between living and deceased composers. During the years featuring a living composer's music, the composer themselves would be brought into San Diego to work with the students. In the years featuring the music of deceased composers, an expert conductor who specializes in their music is brought in to work with the students. This format has resulted in major opportunities for the music students of San Diego who have now had the opportunity to work with several amazing composers and conductors.