PROGRAM NOTES
KimberlyArcher
Dr. Kimberly Archer attended Florida State University, Syracuse University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Her composition teachers include Charles Carter, Andrew Waggoner, Donald Grantham, David Gillingham, and David Maslanka. She has held positions at Bowling Green State University and Western Carolina University before her current position as assistant professor of composition at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, were she teaches composition, music theory, analysis, counterpoint, and twentieth-century music.
A specialist in music for winds and percussion, Dr. Archer has had her music featured at conventions such as the 2016 CBDNA North Central Regional Convention, the 2010 National Band Association Convention - Wisconsin Chapter, the 2009 Nebraska State Bandmasters Association Convention, the 2007 Oklahoma Music Educators Association Convention, the 2006 CBDNA Southwest Regional Convention, the 2003 Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, and the 2002 CBDNA Southern Regional Convention. Commissions for her works have come from organizations such as The United States Air Force Band of Mid-America, Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma, The International Center for New Music at Central Michigan University, the International Women’s Brass Conference, and the Iowa All-State Band, as well as by consortia of university and high school ensembles from throughout the United States.
Fanfare Politeia is an homage to the origins of our democracy, and to the ancient sources that Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams drew from in their conceiving and writing our Constitution. "Politeia" is a Greek word derived from "polis" (city). Aristotle used the term to represent concepts such as citizens' rights and constitutional government, while Plato's examination of justice – a book which we now call The Republic, in English – was entitled Politeia in the original Greek.
Commissioned by The President's Own United States Marine Band for the 59th Presidential Inauguration, Fanfare Politeia celebrates our traditions of a free and fair election, and of a peaceful transfer of power.
Program Note by Kimberly Archer
Jason Fettig, guest conductor
Jason K. Fettig is an internationally recognized conductor ofwind band andorchestra and a highly sought-after educator and clinician. Performances under his baton have occurred in forty-nine U.S. states as well as Japan, the Czech Republic, Austria and The Netherlands, and live concerts have been regularly heard on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today,” and on national television broadcasts from the White House, on “TheToday Show,”the“DavidLetterman Show”onPBS,NBCand CBS.Hehas worked with an incredibly wide array of artists from across the entire musical spectrum, from internationally renowned classical artists such as pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, violinist Joshua Bell, and the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, Broadway luminaries Norm Lewis, Jessica Vosk, and Lea Salonga, to pop superstars including Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks and Lady Gaga.
Fettig served as the 28th Director of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band and Chamber Orchestra, where he was the musicadvisertotheWhiteHouseandregularlyconducted theMarineBandandMarineChamberOrchestraattheExecutiveMansion. He led the musical program for the Inaugurations of President Donald Trump and President Joseph Biden and the State Funeral of George H.W. Bush. He also served as music director of Washington, D.C.’s historic Gridiron Club, a position held by every Marine Band Director since John Philip Sousa.
Fettig has conducted featured performances at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, the international conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, the Texas Bandmasters Association, and the national conventions of the American Bandmasters Association and the Music Educators National Conference. He has led concerts at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and Boston Symphony Hall, and has twice partnered with the National Symphony Orchestra and their Music Director Gianandrea Noseda for special joint performances at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has also collaborated on numerous occasions with legendary composer and conductor John Williams, most recently sharing conducting with Maestro Williams of a gala concert of music at the Kennedy Center in July, 2023. In May 2019, Fettig and the Marine Band, in partnership with the All-Star Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz, won an Emmy at the 62nd Annual New York Emmy Awards for a program entitled “New England Spirit.” Fettig also represented the Marine Corpsat the White House when military bands were awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Trump in 2019.
Throughout his career, Fettig has been deeply committed to music education. He began an interactive Young People’s Concert series in 2006 and authored, hosted, and conducted this popular annual event until 2015. He has launched innovative new digital programs
for world-wide audiences, including a video series entitled the Digital Rehearsal Hall, which provides viewers a behind-the-scenes view into the working rehearsal process of professional musicians. Fettig has served as a clinician or guest conductor at more than three dozen universities and colleges. He frequently teaches at conducting symposia both in the U.S. and internationally, and he has appeared as conductor for numerous national Honor and All-State festivals around the country, leading both bands and orchestras. He has presented at the Midwest Clinic on multiple occasions and has served as adjudicator for major competitions, including the Thailand International Wind Symphony Competition and at the World Music Contest in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.
In addition to his many live performances, Fettig has conducted or served as lead producer for over 20 publicly-released albums of both traditional and contemporary band and orchestra repertoire. In 2014, Fettig launched an ambitious project to re-record all of the marches of John Philip Sousa and provide free performance and educational materials online to schools and ensembles worldwide. His steadfast focus on preserving and celebrating historic band repertoire and performance practice is complemented by a fervent advocacy for contemporary American music. He has commissioned and/or conducted the world premieres of more than forty works, including substantial new pieces by James Stephenson, Jacob Bancks, Jennifer Higdon, David Rakowski, Stacy Garrop, Narong Prangcharoen, Peter Boyer, Zhou Tian, Jessica Meyer, Michael Gilbertson, Dominick DiOrio, Donald Grantham, and Jonathan Leshnoff.
Fettig holds two bachelor’s degrees from theUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst in bothclarinet performanceand music education, and a master’s degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2014, he was elected as a member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. He serves on the board of directors for several national organizations and is the current President-Elect of The National Band Association.
From the Depths We Rise
Dedicated to you, the listener, for your unique perseverance.
Danny Mitchell
The impetus for this piece came when my dear friend and profound musician Scott Teeple asked me to compose alyrical work that reflected thehardship we experienced duringthepandemicof2020andbeyond.AsIwrote,someheavyquestionsconsumed me. How can we process this chapter in the story of humankind? How can we heal the grieving families, how can we comfort the sick, how can we be present for the isolated? How can we honor the bravest among us who continue to show up and do their essential work? And how do I, a musician, contribute meaningfully to a world that needs doctors, nurses, educators, scientists, big thinkers, and boundary pushers? I found myself mournful for the lives lost, exhausted for the first responders and healthcare workers, and broken over the division in our country. And yet I was full of awe at the redemption stories, the unconventional heroes, and the miracle minds of the scientists and professionals who wasted no time guiding us out of the trench we found ourselves in. What a complicated mixture of dark and light. So much deep sadness and yet so much to be hopeful for.
From the Depths We Rise was composed to place an artistic form around this profound emotional chaos we’ve all experienced, and to pay homage to the amazing resilience of the human spirit. The main theme softly and sweetly cries out, melancholy at first, then reaches upward, longing for connection. It sits atop a harmony riddled with dissonance and shifting tonalities, a musical mirror reflecting the “new” that is anything but normal. Anchored deep in the key of E-flat Major a warm, homey, humble yet brave key the roots are never compromised. Like an elder tree emerging from a long and battering winter, it greens again, standing this season a little taller than last. As the piece develops, its fortitude begins to show. And just as our souls have been armed with surprising strength, this music grows in ensemble, dynamic, and range until it has overcome its highest peak. Then, in a final moment of reflection, the main harmonic structure is repeated, but with the melody absent. Meant to be a musical “moment of silence” for those no longer with us, it doubles as a deep breath reset to prepare us to continue forward, whatever may lie ahead.
Program Note by Danny Mitchell
Over the Moon Frank Ticheli
Hath No Fury
Much as in the epic tales of Jules Verne's from the Earth to the Moon and George Méliès' iconic 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, I sought to take the listener on a brief musical voyage Over the Moon. At the start, the listener rides down a steep slide to the surface of the moon. At once a tango-like dance, glittery and light as silk, swims through the air. Instrumental solos appear and disappear like the characters of a story. Suddenly the dance takes a on forbidding quality – plunger-muted growls appear as the work propels itself forward. Perhaps this is the dark side of the moon. Lines intermingle, the work lifts itself: Over the Moon, in joyful exuberance.
At the halfway mark, there is a brief respite, as if looking forward toward the peaceful blue planet: a hymn to life, to the Earth, the Moon, and towards the boundless energy of the Universe. A lone clarinet connects us to the return of the dance, reaching ever higher and brighter. A triumphant climax is suddenly quashed by a steep slide, back down to life on Earth.
Program Note by Frank
Ticheli
Clare Howard
Clare Howard completed her composition degree in the spring of 2023 at the University of Saint Thomas, studying under Dr. Joshua Bauder and Michael Zocchi. Her works have been performed by diverse ensembles, including the Symphonic Wind Band, Jazz Ensemble, and Festival Orchestra, with an international premiere by Dr. Matthew George’s Symphonic Wind Ensemble in Greece marking a key milestone in her career. Now studying under David Biedenbender at Michigan State University, Howard looks forward to continuing to grow inher craft for the rest of her life.
Howard uses a narrative-driven approach to her music, blending innovative orchestration with organic motivic development. Her compositions invite listeners to explore new aural landscapes, creating worlds where music becomes a shared language bridging the gap between composer and audience.
Program Note by Clare Howard
The Time Traveler
Patrick Harlin
While other musical works may evoke imagery of specific places, The Time Traveler explores time. It asks the listener, "when do you wish to go, historically?" This celebration of the wind ensemble sends a singular musical theme to some of the bestknown eras in the development of concert music and band repertoire, as well as a few time periods that just seem like fun to visit. The theme takes on the stylistic guises and tropes of each era it visits, rather than trying to recreate that era. Every musical idea in The Time Traveler relates to the opening theme in some way.
Lost in Time Time plays this trick where the older you get, the faster it goes. So goes this movement, continually speeding up until we land somewhere back in time.
1808: Time Spy What might it be like to attend a concert when hearing music live was nearly the only way to experience it?
1957: Hello Sputnik The space race heats up, music takes notice.
1969: Fever Dream This fever dream takes advantage of the even bigger big band forces than those of the 50s-70s. This movement starts in an elevator, returns to the elevator and ends in that elevator. This music takes inspiration from some of the Quincy Jones Big Band Bossa Nova music of that era.
1781: UnPartita Next destination, Mozart an unwelcome guest crashes the party, and one of most beloved works ever written for wind ensemble.
1101: Reflection of the Living Light The theme is presented symmetrically, reflected from a center point. The polymath composer and naturalist Hildegard of Bingen claimed for her entire life to have visions of the living light. In a letter, she writes: "The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun ... And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues and certain human actions take form for me and gleam."
1996: Nonstop News As the world becomes more connected, author Neil Postman observes that we are quite literally amusing ourselves to death. The nonstop news cycle has little to do with our lives or our communities but centers on a larger narrative, one that becomes increasingly difficult to tune out.
2037: Lightspeed If you travel fast enough, time slows down.
Present Moment. We return to the present moment. All concerts are a form of time travel, and tonight's concert is no different. Except, you are the only people to hear this piece performed during tonight's show.
Program Note by Patrick Harlin
