Huntley Dent has a second Fanfare rave review for the University of Texas Wind Ensemble and Jerry Junkin’s Migration recording in the Not To Be Missed Section:
“This is an eye-opening release… There is no air of elitism around this collection, thankfully. The splendid sound of a large wind orchestra (the UT Wind Ensemble, at 65 strong, ranks as an orchestra to me) doesn’t immediately connote a piece as sophisticated as Corigliano’s brilliant Clarinet Concerto, but old images deserve to be shattered.… Stephen Montague[‘s]… Intrada 1631 carves out its own niche as a solemn processional for brass choir and field drums—like “Fêtes,” the second of Debussy’s three Nocturnes, the music begins at a distance, passes us at stunning full strength, and then fades away.… past turmoil underscores Jennifer Jolley’s The Eyes of the World are Upon You—its reference to the familiar song about Texas is twofold… There is immense skill and dramatic flair in Schoenberg’s Symphony No. 2, “Migration,” which gives the album its name.… These are tried-and-true themes woven into the fabric of America (Schoenberg’s ancestors immigrated from Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania); they are all the more relevant—and hotly contentious—today. Appropriately for the panoply he lays out, Schoenberg’s idiom is colorful and imbued with cinematic sweep (he incorporates no specifically ethnic music the way Krenek and Hovhaness do). Each movement etches a different mood, but on the whole this is uplifting music meant to celebrate migration, not to depict its fears and travails. Schoenberg’s adaption to writing for a wind ensemble comes in his use of choirs and sections to create a mass effect; there are few solos. As a result, the “Migration” Symphony has a strong community feeling, hinting a one America in spirit, not our current splintering and division.… The merging of two musical cultures feels completely satisfying in this album, which leads to a strong recommendation.”
—Huntley Dent, Fanfare