Concert Band, Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, IU Big Red Basketball Band
8:00 PM, Musical Arts Center – Livestream link
Concert Band, Dr. Jason H. Nam, conductor
Flight Amid an Autumn Wind by Nick Penrod
About this piece, the composer writes: Flight Amid an Autumn Wind was written between 2019 and 2020 as part of the band collaboration project in the composition department. Initially it was scheduled to be played during the 2020-2021 academic year but was delayed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic suspending in-person activities until now.
The piece is comprised of three distinct sections: the first is characterized by a quick, steady, motor-like pulse with legato melodies over the top; the second is characterized by distinct cross-rhythms with more straight-forward interjecting phrases, and the third section is a return to the first but with inverted instrumentation between woodwinds and brass.
This is the premiere of Flight Amid an Autumn Wind.
Folk Dances by Dmitri Shostakovich
Folk Dances was originally the third movement of a suite for orchestra entitled Native Leningrad, Op. 63, first published in 1942 and reissued in 1970 as Suite, My Native Country. This suite was assimilated from the incidental music to a theatrical production of the same opus entitled Motherland. Shostakovich collected several native Russian dance tunes and carefully tied them together into this single composition. In the theatrical production, this set was called Youth Dance or Dance of the Sailors – a name, though not specifically noted, that held over to the orchestral suite. Vakhutinskii arranged this suite for Russian band instrumentation (a greater percentage of brass parts than American instrumentation) in 1952. When the work became available in the United States in 1979, Reynolds scored this version for American bands. Its diatonic technical lines are similar to the principal themes of the composer’s Festive Overture.
Folk Dances was last performed at Indiana University in 2015. Program note is taken from that concert.
Symphonic Band, Dr. Eric M. Smedley, conductor
Rocky Point Holiday by Ron Nelson
Rocky Point Holiday was a commission from Frank Bencriscutto and the University of Minnesota band for a tour of Russia. It was composed between 1968 and 1969. Bencriscutto had heard Nelson’s orchestral work Savannah River Holiday and decided he wanted something virtuosic to take with him on the Russian tour. When asked about the limitations of the band, Bencriscutto told him there were none. “I’m going to write a tremendously difficult piece,” Nelson warned him. “That’s fine,” replied Bencriscutto, and thus Rocky Point Holiday was born. Nelson says, “This was a pivotal moment in my notion of wind ensemble scoring, in which I focused on orchestrating in an extremely transparent way.”
The bulk of the work on the composition occurred while Nelson was on vacation at a Rhode Island seaside resort. Rocky Point is an amusement park over a hundred years old, located in Warwick Neck, RI. It was closed down in the mid-1990s due to a lack of funds.
– Program note by Nikk Pilato
Rocky Point Holiday was last performed at Indiana University in 2018.
Crossing Parallels by Kathryn Salfelder
About this piece, the composer writes: Another program note? These “composer-to-audience” soliloquies have provoked recent discussion in the new music scene at Yale, in composition seminars, at concerts, in conversations with my colleagues, and even online at NewMusicBox.org. Content, length, aesthetic, personal appeal to a broad audience, and the use of technical musical jargon have all been topics of debate. Does one provide a textual road map to the sound? Impart programmatic, intervallic, and textural details? Speak of one’s inspiration? The only consensus lies in this: the composer should share factors he or she believes important to understanding the structure and meaning of his or her new work.
Yet how does one impart structure and meaning to such a provocative phrase as Crossing Parallels? These seemingly contradictory words are almost irreconcilable. I propose two solutions: the intervals within Crossing Parallels are dictated by both Renaissance and Baroque gestures as well as serial and hexachord rows. There are echoes of John Dowland’s Lacrymae “Flow my Tears”(c. 1600), glimpses of 18th century fugal techniques, and fragments of 20th and 21st century notions of set theory and harmony. Though spanning four centuries, these varied practices often result in similar or identical melodies and pitch material. The second solution is described in the notes below:
two divergent planes naively self-sufficient a succession of variations vying for supremacy interrupt, overlap, mimic an intrinsic struggle until the discovery the very last moment it is inevitable they are too deeply intertwined
Crossing Parallels was last performed at Indiana University in 2017.
Conductor Tess Jones is pursuing the Doctor of Music degree in Wind Conducting and serves as an Associate Instructor at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. A native of Abilene, TX, Tess received a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of North Texas and a Master of Music in Wind Conducting from Texas State University. She served as the Director of Bands at Craig Middle School in Abilene, TX, Assistant Director of Bands at Waltrip High School in Houston, TX, and Director of Bands at Levi Fry Intermediate School in Texas City, TX. In addition to her studies, Tess works as a staff member for the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy in the summers. Tess is an alumnus of Mu Phi Epsilon and Kappa Kappa Psi, and holds membership with the Texas Music Educators Association, the College Band Directors National Association, and the National Flute Association.
Cosmopolitan America by Helen May Butler, arr. Lamb
Helen May Butler, a native of New Hampshire, was musically inclined at an early age and became proficient on both the cornet and the violin. She studied violin with Bernard Listerman, concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her first conducting experience came in 1891 with the Talma Ladies Orchestra. This small orchestra was reorganized as the U.S. Talma Ladies Military Band, and soon the name was changed to Helen May Butler’s Ladies Military Band. Butler’s band made several lengthy transcontinental tours between 1900 to 1912, distinguishing itself as the first professional band made up entirely of women. The group performed at a tireless pace, putting on a concert a day for thirteen months in 1903-1904. The band often championed the works of American composers. Butler was referred to as the “female Sousa,” and Sousa was indeed among her personal friends. Once at a Sousa Band concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sousa called her out of the audience to guest-conduct his band. Butler composed very little, but her Cosmopolitan America March became the official Republican party campaign march during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential campaign of 1904.
After touring, she performed as a cornet soloist. She settled in the Cincinnati area circa1912 and lived the remainder of her life in Covington, Kentucky. Her activities were not restricted to music; she had an interest in public service and ran (unsuccessfully) for the United States Senate in 1936. In 1995, she was inducted into the Women Band Directors Hall of Fame. Butler’s band uniforms, photographs, programs, sheet music, and other memorabilia are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
– Program note from windrep.org
This is the first performance of Cosmopolitan America at Indiana University.
Wind Ensemble, Dr. Rodney Dorsey, conductor
There Are Giants Among Us by Timothy Mahr
Where would we be without the people in our lives who nurtured and challenged us, who taught us to be vivid dreamers and hard workers? Most successes in our lives were enabled by the loving support and interactive learning we had with respected leaders – in all aspects of our lives.
There Are Giants Among Us is dedicated to David C. Woodley for his 29 years of loyal service to the students of Indiana University. A music educator with a storied career, he has shaped the band world with his musical artistry, pedagogical expertise, and effective arrangements. I’ve known Dave since the early 1980s when we worked together in the band program at the University of Iowa—he was the drum major of The Hawkeye Marching Band while I was on the graduate staff, and we were both trombonists. I have clear and fond memories of the intensely wild, yet focused time we shared creating our shows – conceiving them, writing the arrangements, and working out the drills. Dave was driven and imaginative, and it’s been gratifying to watch a friend’s career unfold so successfully. To many, he became a giant.
This music tries to capture the perceived immensity of these influential people within our lives, as well as the sense of energy experienced in their presence. It’s about the awe. Look up to these giants. See how big they are!
– Program note by Timothy Mahr
This is the premiere of There Are Giants Among Us.
Since the splash of his Fantasia in G 35 years ago, Timothy Mahr’s compositions have been performed worldwide, recorded, and broadcast. The first recipient of a commission from the American Bandmasters Association Commissioning Project, Mahr has composed works for the Music Educators National Conference, the United States Air Force Band, the American School Band Directors Association, and the Kappa Kappa Psi/Tau Beta Sigma National Intercollegiate Band. He received the 1991 ABA/Ostwald Award for his work The Soaring Hawk. A professor of music at St. Olaf College, Dr. Timothy Mahr conducts the St. Olaf Band, and has taught courses in composition, music education, and conducting.
– www.timothymahr.com
The Cowboys by John Williams, arr. Curnow
John Williams’ dramatic film scores have stirred millions worldwide, and Jim Curnow has adapted this famous score into an exciting Western overture. It is full of brilliant effects, rhythmic drive and lyrical themes that are the hallmarks of a John Williams work. In the 1972 motion picture The Cowboys, a Montana cattleman, played by John Wayne, recruits ten school aged boys to serve as ranch hands. The story follows their 400-mile journey to get the livestock to market and the dangers they faced while being chased by cattle rustlers.
– Program note by publisher and Warner Bros. Pictures
The Cowboys was last performed at Indiana University in 1989.
Lieutenant Luis Espinosa, conductor, is a native of Caguas, Puerto Rico. Having enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 2002, he served as a clarinet and saxophone instrumentalist with the Navy Band Great Lakes, the Naval Forces Europe Band, the U.S. Fleet Forces Band, and as instructor for the Navy and Marine Corps music programs at the Naval School of Music. Following 13 years of distinguished enlisted service, he was commissioned as a Limited Duty Officer in December 2015. As a Naval Officer he has served as the Assistant Fleet Bandmaster for the U.S. Pacific Fleet Band and most recently as the Fleet Bandmaster for the U.S. 7th Fleet Band, based in Yokosuka, Japan. His military decorations include the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (two awards), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (five awards), and several campaign and unit commendations. He holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Arts in Music Education from Liberty University and is a graduate of the Naval School of Music Unit Leader Course.
Colonial Song by Percy Grainger/ed. R.M. Rogers
George Percy Grainger (8 July 1882, Brighton, Victoria, Australia – 20 February 1961, White Plains, N.Y.) was an Australian-born composer, pianist and champion of the saxophone and the concert band, who worked under the stage name of Percy Aldridge Grainger. Grainger was an innovative musician who anticipated many forms of twentieth century music well before they became established by other composers. As early as 1899 he was working with “beatless music,” using metric successions (including such sequences as 2/4, 2½/4, 3/4, 2½/4).
In a letter to Frederick Fennell, Grainger explains that his Colonial Song was “an attempt to write a melody as typical of the Australian countryside as Stephen Foster’s exquisite songs are typical of rural America.” The main tune of the work, which is presented by solo saxophone shortly into the piece, makes appearances in two other Grainger compositions (Australian Up-Country Tune and Gumsuckers March) but it makes its biggest splash here, as it grows from a wistful tune into a fully romanticized tumbling of low reeds and brasses before returning to the material and texture that began the work.
– Program note from windrep.org
Colonial Song was last performed in 2019 at Indiana University.
Conductor Tim Loman is pursuing the Doctor of Music degree in Wind Conducting and serves as an Associate Instructor in the Department of Bands at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He received a Bachelor of Music from James Madison University and a Master of Music degree in Wind Conducting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He served as the Director of Bands at Magna Vista High School in Ridgeway, VA where he conducted and taught the Concert Band, Jazz Band, Marching Band, and music electives.
Storm Warning by Roshanne Etezady
About this piece, the composer writes: Storm Warning is a concerto grosso for reed quintet and winds, in three continuous movements. The piece began to take shape in the spring of 2019, when a surprisingly early-season system of severe weather set off the tornado sirens in my neighborhood. After our brief stint sheltering in place in the basement (everything was fine, incidentally), my daughter, then 8, went on high alert for the rest of the season; every time the sky got dark, she’d start to get nervous. It sometimes helped alleviate her anxiety a little to watch television documentaries about weather – knowledge is power! – but she’d still be uneasy. My household’s subsequent heightened alertness to meteorological phenomena informed the basis for this piece.
The first movement, “Sirens,” evokes the disorientation and alarm experienced during a tornado warning. The second movement, “Small Hours,” imagines a child falling asleep in her bed on a stormy night, trying to calm herself down in spite of the winds blowing outside her window. Finally, “Stormchaser” takes its name from the people who deliberately run towards, not away from, severe weather; musical lines and fragments “chase” each other throughout the texture of the soloists and ensemble.
Storm Warning is dedicated to the Akropolis Reed Quintet and Professor Michael Haithcock and the University of Michigan Symphony Band, whose individual and collective commitments to new music are inspiring, and very much appreciated.
This is the Indiana University premiere of Storm Warning.
Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite by Karl King, arr. Bainum
Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite March, the most famous of all circus marches, is consistently voted among the most popular and often performed works in the vast march cannon.
Composing the march in 1913 while he was baritone (euphonium) player in the Barnum and Bailey Circus Band, Karl L. King set about creating the “National Anthem” of the circus for Barnum’s music director, Ned Brill. Brill’s love of “brassy” music must have surely inspired King to produce this tour de force for band. It should be noted that Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers circuses were two independent organizations in 1913. Karl L. King became music director of “The Barnum” from 1917-1918 prior to its merger in 1919 to become the greatest circus in history, The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. After his many years in the circus business, Karl L. King settled in Fort Dodge, Iowa, to become director of the Fort Dodge Municipal Band and operate his publishing company, K. L. King Music House. King ranks with John Philip Sousa and Henry Fillmore as one of the world’s most beloved composers of band music.
– Program note by Loras John Schissel
Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite was last performed at Indiana University in 2014.
IU Big Red Basketball Band
Eric M. Smedley, Director
Tiffany J. Galus, Associate Director
Mark your calendars for the IU SUMMER BAND CONCERTS!
- June 29 and July 6 (Wednesdays)
- Musical Arts Center Lawn (rain location: in MAC)
- 7:00 p.m.
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