The University Wind Symphony opened the year with an electric-themed premier performance Thursday, Sept. 28.

Wind Symphony is one of the five main bands at Bowling Green. According to the University website it is “the most advanced level performing ensemble in the band area.”

“The Wind Symphony is a pre-professional preparatory experience for performers,” director Ken Thompson, who holds a doctorate in conducting, said.

Placement in the Wind Symphony is determined by an audition that all music majors must go through at the beginning of the year. The ensemble is composed of 52 performers and is a mix of undergraduate and graduate students. The band puts on at least two concerts per semester and performs at other festivals and conferences.

The pieces in the concert Thursday night were mostly electronic-themed, either through genre or instrument usage. The band opened the show with “Point Blank” by Paul Dooley.

“So ‘Point Blank’ is supposed to be a wind band version of drum and bass (music), which is the style of, the genre of, electronica music,” Thompson said. This piece was energetic and exciting, in the vein of other electronica-inspired songs. According to the band’s Twitter page, the song uses different percussion techniques to create the electronics-style sounds.

Next up was “Ohm” by Steve Mackey. This song opened with deep lightsaber-like sounds that eventually exploded into an adventurous and fun theme.

“The beginning of ‘Ohm’ reminds me a bit of the sound of a surge of an electric hum as you plug in a cable to an electric guitar,” composer Steve Mackey said.  “Alternately, it reminds me of the sound of a lightsaber.” The song was written in five parts, each of which had a distinct mood and pace.

Finally, the ensemble played Paul Hindemith’s “Symphony in B-Flat.”

“The Hindemith Symphony is sort of a classic, one of the core pieces in our repertoire, but we did it because it’s going to help us play the next piece that we will be playing,” Thompson said.

The piece was broken down into three movements, each as exciting and different as the last. The first movement was more driving, with a constant momentum throughout, while the second movement used cornet and alto sax instruments to create a jazz-inspired sound that is, according to the Twitter page, “plainly evocative of a 1920s cabaret in Berlin.” The third and final movement combined the features of the first two for a piece that was nothing less than enthralling.

“Watching all the older students really inspires me to be better,” said Abby Shifley, freshman.

The ensemble’s next performance will be Thursday, Oct. 19.