Julie Giroux Julie GirouxAward-winning composer Julie Giroux will speak at Temple College April 13 and conduct an April 14 concert performed by the Temple College Symphonic Band.

On Friday, April 13, Giroux will present a free lecture titled “Challenges in the Modern Music Industry” at 12:30 p.m. in the Jackson-Graeter Backstage Theatre. This lecture is part of the Baylor Scott & White Humanities Series at Temple College. The Backstage Theatre is in the Mary Alice Marshall Performing Arts Center.

On Saturday, April 14, the Temple College Symphonic Band will present “An Evening With Julie Giroux” at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Mary Alice Marshall Performing Arts Center. Admission to this concert will be $5 for adults and free for students.

“Julie has been very successful in a male-dominated field and has earned many awards that previously had gone only to men,” said Brent Colwell, director of bands at Temple College. “We are very excited for her to share her experiences and music with our students and community.”

Giroux started playing piano when she was 3 years old and began composing at age 8. She composed her first published work for concert band when she was 13.   

Giroux began composing commercially in 1984. She was hired by Oscar-winning composer Bill Conti as an orchestrator, and her first project with Conti was the mini-series “North and South.” Since then, Giroux has collaborated with dozens of film composers, producers and celebrities including Samuel Goldwyn, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Céline Dion, Paula Abdul, Michael Jackson, Paul Newman, Harry Connick Jr., and many others. Projects she has worked on have been nominated for Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Golden Globe awards. She has won individual Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction. When she won her first Emmy Award, she was the first woman and the youngest person to ever win that award. 

 Giroux has also published a large category of classical works, with emphasis on original compositions for wind band. She recently completed her fifth symphony, “Sun, Rain, and Wind,” which will premiere in June 2018. Her music has been performed at major music festivals around the world.

Giroux is a recipient of the Distinguished Service to Music Medal and was the first female composer inducted into the American Bandmasters Association.

At the April 14 concert, the Temple College Symphonic Band will perform Giroux’s piece titled “Just Flyin’,”which was composed for the Tara Winds and premiered at the 2016 Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. Other pieces featured on the concert include “Hymn for the Innocent,” “Dragon Sky,” “Autumn Rose” and “Shine.”

“‘Shine’ is a particularly interesting composition,” Colwell said. “The score describes it as a ‘work which musically tells a tale starting in the dark times of prohibition and ending in a flurry of back-roads-running, cop-evading bootlegging moonshiners. Exciting and picturesque, the score is brought to life with dramatic musical descriptions as well as unique instrumentations.’”

The concert will close with “Italian Rhapsody,” which features a collection of Italian folk songs and operatic excerpts.

For more information on these and other upcoming fine arts events at Temple College, visit www.templejc.edu or call the Fine Arts Division office at 254-298-8555.