Featured Conductor: George Lepsch

We are excited to feature George Lepsch as a conductor on our upcoming Fall Concert on Sunday, October 19th! He will be leading the band on Marche Hongroise (also known as Hungarian March or Rákóczy March) (1846) by French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz. This version for symphonic band was arranged by Leonard Smith.

George Lepsch is a graduate of Duquesne University, where he earned a Master of Music in Euphonium Performance following a Bachelor of Science in Music Education. George served as a music educator for 25 years, the majority of which were spent as Director of Bands at McKeesport Area High School and Serra Catholic High School. After completing a Master of Education degree from California University of PA, he spent 13 years as a member of the Counseling Department at McKeesport Area High School. Beyond a career in education, George has been involved in numerous community musical organizations, both choral and instrumental. He served as Assistant Musical Director for the Pittsburgh Youth Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 through 2015. Currently, George is a member of the WHSB euphonium section and serves as Assistant Conductor for the Penn Trafford Community Band.

George has this to say about the piece:

Marche Hongroise, for me, is among the most exciting pieces within symphonic band repertoire. Thinking back to my days as a student at Duquesne University, I developed an interest in the works of Hector Berlioz. His orchestral scoring impressed me as bold, perhaps even brash when compared with his contemporaries. Perhaps Leonard Smith, a famed cornet soloist of the mid-20th century and founder of the Detroit Concert Band, shared a similar view. His brilliant adaptation of the march is such that it sounds as though it could have been originally composed for symphonic band as opposed to orchestra. In either instrumentation, the piece takes the shape of one long crescendo following the opening fanfare until the midway point, then once again gaining in intensity until its conclusion. The march, incidentally is based upon a Hungarian folk tune that found its way to the Hungarian army. (The tune is generally attributed to Ferencz Rákóczy II and is often referred to as the Rákóczy March.) Berlioz noted in his memoirs that the premier performance of the march in 1846 stirred its audience in Budapest to such a degree that he gave up any hope of making the orchestra audible in the final moments of the piece.