Moderators: Classitar, pied_piper, Phineas
Research its history, it's quite its own entity. Start with Frank Battisti, Ithaca High School, 1950. An absolute new concept at the time, a radical departure from the notion of a band as, as one of my wind conductors once called it, "a boatload of winds and percussion". The symphonic band (large sections, multiple players on each part, lush sonority, etc.), the wind ensemble--one player per part, soloistic, and spare, and the orchestra, are ensembles with distinctly different characters and purposes. Apples, oranges, and pears. Not one is 'superior' to the others. In a lot of schools, though, I guess it's easy to mentally create such an heirarchy among them, because that's how the auditions often shake out. Oh, yeah: However, it is probably an arrangement, which is still great. I wish I could see it.....
I do coffee shop gigs with other musician friends around town whenever the need a flautist. I plan on joining the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble when my schedule clears up though. I used to play in a regular ensemble consisting of cello, viola, violin and me for many years, but we've disbanded due to life changes across the board. So it's been helpful for me! 
I found great reward in the difficulty of wind ensemble literature. Not that orchestra is easy, but it depends on the semester's repertoire. It's not hard to sit in orchestra for two months and play a grand total of, like, twelve minutes. Some of my favorite wind works have been Ives' Variations on America, also his Country Band March, Lincolnshire Posy and other Grainger, Hindemith Symphony for band , Symphonies of Wind Instruments (Stravinsky), Husa's Music for Prague, and works by Copland, Whitacre, Maslanka, and, we'll say "others", 'cause I'm sure I'm missing some. Many of these I was fortunate to become acquainted with through my high school's unbelievable (for its age) wind ensemble, though some I played in college. Also a nifty little piece called Gazebo Dances by John Corigliano, and the Candide and Elsa's Procession transcriptions. And, if a wind piece is really great, someone'll make a transciption for ORCHESTRA of it, LOL. Playabilty and prefered sound are more important to me than the material it is made out of.
