Ron Nelson's celebration of the Colorado landscape, Aspen Jubilee, Holst's First Suite in E-flat for Military Band, plus works by up-and-coming Michigan composers Andrew David Perkins and Paul Dooley are on the program for Sunday at 3 pm in Miller Auditorium, when the newly-named University Wind Symphony (formerly “Symphonic Band”) performs its first concert of the season.  Dr. Scott Boerma, director of bands at Western, tells Cara Lieurance about the newly formed ensemble as they preview the music.

Garnet Lewis says she was ready for retirement after a career as an educator and university administrator. But she says the 2016 election made her decide to get reengaged in the political process.

Ronald Hawkins says he decided to join the Libertarian Party after watching the state of politics deteriorate like Michigan’s roads. Now he’s running for state House.

State Representative Jon Hoadley says there’s a lot of work to do if he wins re-election to the state House. The Democrat says what happens next year will depend on which party has control of the state House.

Flutist Melissa Ngan, a member of the Chicago-based Fifth House Ensemble, tells Cara Lieurance about the innovative directions this modern chamber group has taken to give audiences visceral experiences with live music. Fifth House Ensemble will perform a program called "Degenerate Art" at the Connecting Chords Music Festival on Sunday at 7:30 pm, in the Dalton Theater of the Light Fine Arts Center at Kalamazoo College.

Delving into music that was censored, banned, and propagandized as “degenerate,” Fifth House Ensemble will shed new light on works by artists facing oppression under three different oppressive regimes: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the dark days of McCarthyism right here in the United States where individuals, ideas, and art were deemed un-American. Ngan discusses works of Schulhoff and Messiaen, Shostakovich, and Harold Arlen.

The Battle Creek Symphony will open its 120th season on Saturday, Oct 6 with From Russia to Ravel, featuring soloist Christopher O'Riley, who is known to millions as the long-time host, from 1999-2018, of NPR's From The Top. O'Riley and music director Anne Harrigan share their thoughts on the program, which includes Ravel's Piano Concerto in G and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.