Salem Symphonic Winds presents Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood

Salem Symphonic Winds will present the U.S. premiere of James Patterson’s arrangement of Little Red Riding Hood, with the text by Roald Dahl at 3 pm on Sunday, January 12th in Rose Auditorium at South Salem High School. Jeff Witt will narrate the work that is full of humor to match the slightly off-center version of this beloved fairy tale in which the wolf eats the human (grandma) and maybe more. The concert will also feature Patrice DeRoest in the U.S. premiere of Angels in Allchin Garden by Satoshi Yagisawa. John Skelton will conduct the program.

This concert is for all ages and includes a wonderful arrangement of music from the Japanese anime film Spirited Away written by Joe Hisaishi and Yumi Kumra. Julie Giroux’s new work, To the Bells of Berlin Cathedral, is a touching work inspired by a child's inspirational meetings with the author Franz Kafka in a park in Berlin. The program will also include the Overture on Hebrew Themes by Sergei Prokofiev, written in 1919 when Prokofiev was visiting the United States. It was commissioned by the Zimro Ensemble, a group of Russian-Jewish musicians who had recently arrived in America.

This program is the second of four concerts celebrating the 50th season of Salem Symphonic Winds.

Jeff has been performing musical theatre around the valley for more than 25 years. Some of his favorite roles at Pentacle Theatre are Gomez in The Addams Family, Igor in Young Frankenstein, Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden, Angel in Rent, Nicely Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls, and Horton the Elephant in Seussical the Musical. At Pentacle, he has also directed Brigadoon, co-directed City of Angels, and was the vocal director for Urinetown and Jesus Christ Superstar. He was most recently seen in The Verona Studios' production of Marry Me a Little. He spends his free time with his partner, cooking and working in the garden.

Patrice DeRoest has been a clarinetist for 49 years. She majored in Music Education at Oregon State University, studied clarinet under Dr. David Eiseman and Dr. Michael Curtis, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1988. She taught in Oregon public schools as a classroom music teacher and band director for ten years. She left the teaching field in 1998 to raise a family. She has played clarinet with Salem Symphonic Winds (formerly Salem Concert Band) since 1995. She has also performed with the Ventus Woodwind Quintet since 2020. She was a music librarian for SSW for about 15 years and is currently on their board as secretary. Her pastimes include knitting, word puzzles, and decorating for the seasons. Her husband, David, is the orchestra director at Judson Middle School.

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