PROGRAM NOTES
Bravado Gala Flagello
Gala Flagello earned her Bachelor of Music in Composition from The Hartt School, and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the University of Michigan, where she was awarded the Dorothy Greenwald Graduate Fellowship. She has honed her craft as a Composition Fellow at prestigious institutions such as Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, and the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Flagello’s works are self-published, with select works published by Just a Theory Press. When not composing, you can find her cooking up a new recipe, tending to her plethora of spider plants, or reading a good book.
Bravado was written for the Tanglewood Music Festival 2023 orchestral readings and explores the many connotations of the word “bravado,” a descendant of the old Italian adjective bravo, meaning “wild” or “courageous.” A person with bravado can be seen as bold or reckless, daring or arrogant, confident or overbearing. The orchestra musically embodies this range of traits through the transformation of the piece’s primary melody.
Huge thanks to Lt. Col. Jason Fettig and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band for commissioning this band version of Bravado.
Program Note by Gala Flagello
Concerto for Trumpet AlexanderArutiunian
Alexander Arutunian often incorporated melodic material reminiscent of the ashughner (Armenian poet musicians and minstrels). Amid the vibrant, rhythmic, and downright catchy themes of his trumpet concerto, Arutunian intersperses long, melodic, nearimprovisatory sections hearkening back to the ashughner. Aykaz Messlayan was the first performer of the concerto, but it was the Russian virtuoso Timofei Dokschitzer whose recordings and international performances of the work cemented it as a staple for trumpeters around the world.
Arutiunian conceived the main theme for this concerto in 1943. Like most of his themes, it first came to him while he was asleep. He was encouraged to complete the work by a longtime friend, Zolak Vartasarian, who was principal trumpet in the Yerevan Opera Orchestra. Unfortunately, Vartasarian died in the war that same year, and the concerto was not completed until 1950 and premiered byTimofei Dokshizer inMoscow.The movements are Andante, Allegro energico, Meno mosso, and Allegro, all played without pause Along virtuoso cadenza brings the concerto to an abrupt but stylish close.
Program note from WindRep.Org
Luke Spence Trumpet Soloist
Dr. Luke Spence enjoys a multi-faceted career as a performer, educator, and recording artist. He joined the faculty at SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music as Visiting Assistant Professor of Trumpet in the Fall of 2022 and was promoted to Lecturer of Trumpet beginning Fall 2024. In addition to his duties teaching and performing at Crane, Spence serves as second trumpet of the South Florida Symphony and is a member of the chamber group Anima Brass. He is proud to be an artist for both S.E. Shires Co. and Denis Wick Products.
Praised by Fanfare Magazine for his "great artistry", labeled "exquisite" by the International Trumpet Guild Journal, and hailed as "a true expert in phrasing" by the National Association of CollegeWind & Percussion Instructors Journal, Spence is known for his impact on the genre of vocal transcriptions. His debut solo album 20th Century Art Songs is recognized for its unique approach and emphasis on repertoire seldom explored by instrumentalists. In 2023, the album was honored as a finalist for The American Prize. As a freelance orchestral musician, Spence has performed with numerous ensembles including the National Philharmonic, Washington Chamber Orchestra, Fairfax Symphony, Lancaster Symphony, Reading Symphony, Mid Atlantic Symphony, and the Orchestra of Northern New York. Spence can be heard with Anima Brass on the album All Life Long featuring the music of celebrated postminimalist composer Kali Malone. Upon its release, All Life Long was named Pitchfork's "Best New Album", The Guardian's "Album of the Week", and rose to the #4 spot on Billboard's Classical Crossover chart. Critics have called Anima's contributions "enthralling" and said the album will "pull on the listener's heartstrings" and leave them in "a state of transcendental bliss".
Prior to his appointment at Crane, Spence served as Lecturer of Trumpet at Frostburg State University, Instructor of Trumpet at Frederick Community College and Director of the Young Artists of America Trumpet Academy. He has also judged and chaired competitions at the International Women's Brass Conference and the International Trumpet Guild Conference. A firm believer that music has the power to be an agent of social change, Spence serves as Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the International Trumpet Guild. Spence is also a founding Board of Directors member of the International Pride Orchestra (IPO), a non-profit charity orchestra that brings together LGBTQIA+ musicians from around the world to present concerts, celebrate community, and raise funds for LGBTQIA+ causes. Spence founded IPO's Artist Recital Series in 2023 which began with his solo recital "'Wouldn't That Be Queer?' Reframing the Traditional Narrative". The program was presented in seven US cities and will be performed at the 2024 International Women's Brass Conference in Mito, Japan.
Spence earned his DMA and MM at the University of Maryland where he studied with Chris Gekker and holds a BM with a minor in musicology from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with Roy Poper and was the recipient of the 2014 James StampAward.
Danzón No. 2
Arturo Márquez
Márquez received his first inspiration for Danzón No. 2 while traveling to Malinalco in 1993 with painterAndrés Fonseca and dancer Irene Martinez, who both loved to dance. The pair later brought Márquez to dance halls in Veracruz and the popular Salón Colonia in Mexico City. LikeAaron Copland, who traveled to the dance halls of Mexico City and produced El Salón Mexico (1932), Márquez found himself entranced and inspired by the music. But unlike Copland, who was a visitor from the outside finding his way into the music, Márquez was a native who discovered the music from the inside out, connecting with the musical traditions of his parents and grandparents. Of this experience, Márquez writes:
"I was fascinated and I started to understand that the apparent lightness of the danzón is only like a visiting card for a type of music full of sensuality and qualitative seriousness, a genre which old Mexican people continue to dance with a touch of nostalgia and a jubilant escape towards their own emotional world; we can fortunately still see this in the embrace between music and dance that occursintheStateofVeracruzandinthedanceparlorsofMexicoCity.The Danzón No. 2 is atributetotheenvironmentthatnourishes the genre. It endeavors to get as close as possible to the dance, to its nostalgic melodies, to its wild rhythms, and although it violates its intimacy, its form and its harmonic language, it is a very personal way of paying my respects and expressing my emotions towards truly popular music."
Danzón No. 2 was commissioned by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in 1994, and Márquez dedicated the piece to his daughter, Lily.
From the note by Barbara Heninger – Redwood Symphony
Hill Song No. 2
Percy Aldridge Grainger
Grainger’s experiments with wind instruments loaned from the Boosey Company led to Hill Song No. 2, his second large work for winds. Grainger dedicated Hill Song No. 2 to his friend Henry Balfour Gardiner, a fellow composer and colleague from his school days in Frankfurt. Grainger’s penchant for scoring in complete families of instruments began with this composition – a characteristic incorporated in nearly all his subsequent instrumental works. After a preview performance in London in 1911, Grainger revised the work, though the premiere did not occur until the 1929 Festival of British Music in Royal Hall, Harrogate. On this occasion Grainger produced a new score for 2 flutes (with one piccolo), oboe, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoon, 2 trumpets, horn, trombone, cymbal, 2 harmoniums (or 1 harmonium and 1 piano) and organ. For the American premiere in 1940, Grainger revised it again, followed by subsequent revisions in 1942 and 1946.
Following the American premiere, Grainger noted, “Hill Song No.2, perhaps the pleasantest compositional surprise of my life.” The first Hill Song was only the beginning of a set of pieces Grainger was planning, for on the frontispiece of the autograph score he states; “N.B. This is merely an exploration of musically-hilly ways, a gathering of types for future Hill Songs, a Catalogue.” Unfortunately, Hill Song No. 2 was the last work in this set.
In a letter to Frederick Fennell he wrote, “I have always been in love with the wildness, the freshness & the heroic qualities of hill countries, hill peoples & hill music . . . Wishing also to write a bagpipe-like Hill Song that consisted only of fast and energetic elements I wrote my 2nd Hill Song in the period 1901-1907. This work consisted partly of energetic musical material culled from Hill Song No.1 and partly of new material composed in 1907. This time the scoring, for 24 solo wind instruments, was mainly for a mixture of double-reeds (oboes etc.) & single-reeds (clarinets, saxophones, etc.). This is probably the first time in known music that such a large body of solo winds was brought together in chamber music . . . Hearing my Hill Songs in 1907 my beloved friend Frederick Delius – as keen a lover of the hills as I – was led to write, around 1912, his master-work The Song Of The High Hills. There was, however, one basic difference in the conception of Delius’s and my hill-musics. His Song Of The High Hills (according to statements made by him to me) sought to express the feelings and impressions of a man wandering thru the hills. In writing my
Hill Songs, on the other hand, I was not concerned with man’s impressions of nature, but strove, as it were, to let the hills themselves express themselves in music.”
Grainger’s program note reads, “My Hill Songs arose out of a longing for the wildness, freshness, and purity of hill-countries, hillfolk and hill-musics (Scotland, the Himalayas, the bagpipes etc.). Technically they seek to weave the bagpipe tone-type into many voices’textures.”
Sinfonietta
Ingolf Dahl
The form of the Sinfonietta is akin to an arc or the span of a large bridge: the sections of the first movement correspond, in reverse order and even some details, to the sections of the last. For example, the fanfares by the back-stage trumpets at the opening of the work balance the closing fanfares; the thematic material that ends the first movement opens the last, although in altered form. The middle movement itself is shaped like an arch; it begins with an unaccompanied line in the clarinets and ends with a corresponding solo in the alto clarinet. The center of the middle movement – which is the center of the whole work (a gavotte-like section, and the lightest music of the whole Sinfonietta) – is the “keystone” of the arch. The tonal idiom of the work grows out of the acoustical properties of the symphonic band: a wealth of overtones.Thus I feel that bands call for music with more open and consonant intervals than would a string ensemble or piano. The Sinfonietta is tonal, and centered around A-flat major. At the same time, however, its corner movements are based upon a series of six tones (A-flat, E-flat, C, G, D,A) that, through various manipulations, provide most of this work’s harmonic and melodic ingredients and patterns. The six tones were chosen to permit all kinds of triadic formations. Furthermore, their inversion at the interval of the major sixth yields a second six-tone set comprising the remaining six tones of a complete twelve-tone row.
The six-tone set is introduced tone by tone in the opening back-stage trumpets, and as it reappears in its original form and in transpositions, it constitutes the entire tonal content of this fanfare. Throughout the two corner movements, the set appears in various guises, from the blunt unison statement opening the last movement to the almost unrecognizable metamorphoses elsewhere. It also provides melodic as well as harmonic frameworks. Thus, in the first movement, it serves as a focal point in the march tune opening the principal rondo section; it also motivates the succession of tonalities in the cadenza-like modulatory episode for the clarinet section, which goes from A-flat via E-flat and C major, and so forth, to A major, i.e., to the farthest key removed from the initial Aflat. When the cadenza reaches theA, the rondo section returns.
The First Movement – “Introduction and Rondo” – proceeds by simple alternation between march-like refrains and rhythmically looser episodes. A culmination is reached at the point where the entire clarinet section, punctuated by brass and percussion, breaks into the brilliant cadenza mentioned above. The movement closes in a full tutti and with a drum pattern which traditionally would stand at the beginning of a march, but which here ends it.
The Second Movement – “Notturno Pastorale” – proceeds by simple alternations and superimpositions of several musical forms in a single movement. These forms are: a fugue, a waltz and a gavotte. The fugue subject first hides in a lyrical saxophone solo. It is derived from the tetrachord E-flat, F, G-flat & A-flat, but through octave displacements and rhythmic shifts, etc., each of its appearances is slightly different from all others, as if refracted by different lenses at each entry. Superimposed upon the fugue is the waltz which alternately receeds into the distance and returns to the foreground. By contrast, the middle section – Gavotte – is of a much simpler fabric: a lightly accompanied oboe tune.
The Third Movement – “Dance Variations” – begins with the most straightforward presentation of the six-tone set. Thereupon the set, serving as the basso ostinato of this passacaglia-like movement undergoes countless set-derived transformations. The term “variations” here refers to the ostinato. Appearing above these bass variations we hear a multitude of different little tunes in shifting colors. And this all proceeds along a key-scheme that goes through most of the circle of fifths, beginning over several times on the key level ofA-flat.The lyrical middle section provides contrast.Toward the end, after a rhythmic tutti, the instruments – in commedia dell’arte fashion, bow out one by one.
Program Note by Ingolf Dahl
