‘Manifestos’: The Frost Wind Ensemble channels Futurists’ spirit

By Coral Gables Gazette staff

The Frost Wind Ensemble will perform Manifestos on Sunday, November 2 at 4 p.m. at the University of Miami’s Gusman Concert Hall, a program inspired by the revolutionary ideas of early 20th-century Italian Futurism. Conducted by Michael Hancock, with Alyssa Mena on flute and Kevin Joseph as graduate conducting assistant, the concert translates one of modern art’s most incendiary manifestos into sound—an exploration of speed, motion, and the audacious energy of change.

From canvas to concert hall

In 1910, a group of young Italian painters issued Il Manifesto dei Pittori Futuristi—The Manifesto of the Futurist Painters—a defiant call for art that would abandon nostalgia and embrace the modern world. They sought to capture the hum of machinery, the rush of urban life, and the dizzying rhythm of progress.

More than a century later, the Frost Wind Ensemble’s Manifestos channels that same rebellious charge. The program brings together works that reflect the Futurists’ central ambition: to make art move. Through bold tonal colors and complex rhythmic structures, the concert aims to reimagine how motion and technology can be expressed in music.

A program of daring and discovery

Under Hancock’s direction, the Frost Wind Ensemble has become known for its adventurous programming—pairing canonical repertoire with contemporary innovation. Manifestos continues that tradition, presenting a sequence of works that respond to Futurism’s ethos of dynamism and invention.

The ensemble’s instrumentation and precision make it uniquely suited to express the raw energy of that aesthetic. Expect moments of explosive brass, restless percussion, and kaleidoscopic textures that push wind music to the edge of abstraction.

Hancock said the concert is designed to “reveal how ideas born in the avant-garde of 1910 still vibrate through the sound world of today.” The performance will highlight the Frost School’s distinctive blend of scholarship and performance, offering both students and audiences an experience that bridges history and experimentation.

The spirit of the Avant-Garde

Futurism’s manifesto famously declared, “We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers.” While its rhetoric was extreme, its artistic legacy endured—transforming painting, music, literature, and design across Europe.

The Frost Wind Ensemble reframes that legacy through a modern lens: emphasizing the movement’s artistic daring rather than its politics, and finding in its boldness a mirror for contemporary creativity. Each work on the program embodies what the Futurists called “the beauty of speed.”

That beauty is not limited to velocity—it’s about the courage to break form. As Hancock’s ensemble interprets those ideas in music, the result is a living dialogue between past and present, tradition and revolution.

A meditation on creativity

In revisiting the Futurists’ call for artistic reinvention, Manifestos becomes more than a concert—it’s a meditation on creativity itself. Each piece performed reaffirms that innovation is not bound by time; the energy that once electrified Europe’s art world now finds new resonance in Coral Gables.

For listeners, the program offers both exhilaration and reflection: a reminder that to be modern is not to discard the past, but to reshape it into something daringly alive.

Event details

Manifestos | Frost Wind Ensemble
Sunday, November 2 | 4:00 p.m.
UM Gusman Concert Hall | 1314 Miller Drive, Coral Gables
Tickets: $10–$20
Presented by the Frost School of Music
Featuring: Michael Hancock, conductor; Alyssa Mena, flute; Kevin Joseph, graduate conducting assistant

Author: Coral Gables Gazette News Staff

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