11.25.24 Crane Wind Ensemble

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Evening Concert Series 2024 – 2025 Season

Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall Monday, November 25th at 7:30 PM

The Crane Wind Ensemble

Brian K. Doyle, conductor

Kevin, M. Geraldi, guest conductor

The Kaleidoscope of Modernism

Petals of Fire (2017)

ZHOU Tian (b.1981)

Perseids (2015) Alexandra Gardner (b.1967)

The Passing Bell (1974) Warren Benson (1924-2005)

Intermission

Schism (2010/2015) David Biedenbender (b.1984))

Homages (2002)

Con moto

Scherzo

Andante sostenuto

Michael Djupstrom (b.1980)

Emblems (1964) Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Kevin M. Geraldi, guest conductor

PROGRAM NOTES

Petals of Fire ZHOU Tian

Born into a musical family in 1981 in Hangzhou, China, Dr. Zhou moved to the United States when he was 19. Trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and the University of Southern California, he studied with some of America’s finest composers, such as Jennifer Higdon, Christopher Rouse, and Stephen Hartke. He is associate professor of composition at Michigan State University College of Music.

Zhou's Concerto for Orchestra commissioned and recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony and Music Director Louis Langrée was nominated for a 2017/18 GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Transcend, his new work commissioned by 13 American orchestras commemorating the 150th anniversary of the TranscontinentalRailroad’s completion, has been performed across the U.S. and featured in the PBS documentary “The Work of Art.” His Sinfonia for wind ensemble won the 2022 Sousa-ABAOstwald Contest.

Zhou seeks inspiration from different cultures and strives to mix them seamlessly into a musically satisfying combination for performers and audience alike. His music described as “absolutely beautiful…utterly satisfying” (Fanfare), “stunning” (the Cincinnati Enquirer), and “a prime example of 21st-century global multiculturalism” has been performed by leading orchestras and wind ensembles in the United States and abroad, such as the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, “The President’s Own” US Marine Band, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Chanticleer, Jaap Van Zweden, Yuja Wang, and the Shanghai Symphony, where he recently served as the Artist-in-Residence. His wind ensemble music has been commissioned by major universities and is among his most performed works.

Petals of Fire is a fierce and colorful rhapsody inspired by American artist Cy Twombly’s 1989 painting of the same title. Part of the work was adapted from a movement of my Concerto for Orchestra. I’ve always been interested in learning how artists mix different styles and techniques to create a unique, new look. Inspired by Twombly’s attempt to combine text and color to express himself visually (literally, words are part of his painting, much like what Chinese painters did during the Song dynasty), I, as a composer, wanted to create a fusion of musical styles, harmony, and timbre, using a large wind ensemble. In a way, everyone in the ensemble is a “petal”: together, the fire glows, disappears, and dances.

Petals of Fire was commissioned by Michigan State University Wind Symphony and Director of Bands Kevin Sedatole on the occasion of the ensemble’s performance at the 2017 CBDNA National Convention.

Program Note by Zhou Tian

Perseids

Alexandra Gardner

Ms. Gardner holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Vassar College. Active as a digital media specialist and writer, she has worked extensively in the fields of public radio and journalism. She has been an audio engineer at National Public Radio and Soundprint Media Center, and most recently was associate editor at NewMusicBox, a program of New Music USA.

Ms. Gardner’s compositions have been featured at festivals and venues internationally, including performances at the Aspen Music Festival, Warsaw Autumn Festival, MATA, Beijing Modern Festival, Centro de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Look & Listen, Conservatory of Amsterdam, Symphony Space, Merkin Hall, The Library of Congress, Festival Cervantino, and The Kennedy Center. Her music has been commissioned and performed by acclaimed ensembles and musicians such as SOLI Chamber Ensemble, cellist Joshua Roman, Percussions de Barcelona, violinist Jennifer Choi, NOW Ensemble, Chicago Composers Orchestra, and The Seattle Chamber Players.

The music of composerAlexandra Gardner draws inspiration from sources such as mythology, contemporary poetry, and her training as a percussionist. Composing for varied instrumentations and often mixing acoustic instruments with electronics, Alexandra is building new audiences for contemporary music through an expressive sound and flair for the imaginative and unexpected.

Ms. Gardner’s music has received honors and awards from organizations such as Meet the Composer, ASCAP, American Music Center, and the Smithsonian Institution. She has conducted residencies at theAtlantic Center fortheArts, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and The MacDowell Colony. She was awarded the 2002-03 Vassar College W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts, and from 2002-2004 served as a visiting composer at the Institut Universitari de l’Audiovisual in Barcelona, Spain.

The Perseids are a meteor shower visible in the Northern Hemisphere during the months of July and August. Each year at that time, the earth passes through a cloud of debris left from the Comet Swift-Tuttle, creating a prolific display of natural fireworks as the rubble enters the earth’s atmosphere and burns through the sky. For the past several years, a group of friends and I have taken a summertime trip to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina, where we spend hours every night watching this natural display of fireworks

from a crow’s nest deck. Far from city lights, it is possible to see deeply into the night sky, which is punctuated by “shooting stars” from every direction.

I am fascinated by the idea of the sky as time machine that most of what we are seeing is infinitely old, because the light from those stars has been traveling for eons. By the time it reaches our eyes, the star may have transformed completely, or it might not exist at all. Perhaps this is why the fleeting sight of a meteor feels like a special event: it is science of the present moment.

The music of Perseids draws upon experiences of those nighttime sky-watching sessions the glowing band of the Milky Way, pulsing satellites moving quickly across the sky, constellations and layers of clouds, and ofcourse, plentyof shooting stars. Beginning with slow, overlapping layers of sound underneath a melody that works its way through the wind instruments, the music gradually coalesces into a vigorous, celebratory verse-chorus song structure.

Program note by Alexandra Gardner

The Passing Bell

Warren Benson

Although Warren Benson composed over 150 works for various media, he is perhaps best remembered for his music for wind ensemble and percussion, and for his song cycles. His music has been played and recorded worldwide by the Kronos Quartet, New York Choral Society, International Horn Society and The President’s Own United States Marine Band. Benson’s teaching career spanned over50years andculminated with honors includingthe Kilbourn Professorship forDistinguishedTeaching, and appointment as University Mentor and Professor Emeritus at the Eastman School of Music.

Benson grew up in Detroit, attending the famous Cass Tech High School. Benson played timpani in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Ormandy, Reiner, Goosens, and Bernstein while still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He later received Fulbright Teaching Fellowships, a John Simon Guggenheim Composer Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts composer commissions and the Diploma de Honor from the Republic of Argentina. He also held residencies at the McDowell Colony. He was elected to the National Band Association Academy of Excellence and the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame and was a founding member of the WorldAssociation for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE)

From 1950-1952, Benson was awarded two successive Fulbright grants to teach atAnatolia College in Salonika, Greece. Benson was Professor of Percussion and Composition for fourteen years at Ithaca College. From 1967-93, he was Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music. He also served as Distinguished Meadows Visiting Professor at Southern Methodist University from 1986-88.

Benson was largely self-taught in composition, found great inspiration in jazz and poetry, and was highly influenced by nature, languages, literature, and travel. His archive is located at the Eastman School of Music and his bio-bibliography byAlan D. Wagner is published by Edwin Mellen Press.

The Passing Bell was commissioned in 1973 byWeston Noble and the Luther College Bandin memoryof their concertmaster, Dennis Rathjen, a Norwegian student who died after a brief illness. Warren Benson conducted the premiere by the Luther College Band.

The Passing Bell is a dramatic and ethereal composition for the contemporary concert band. Using sophisticated harmonies and extended ranges that bring upper woodwinds, horns, and trombones into their upper tessituras, work begins with a solo clarinet sounding concert C, a symbol prevailing throughout the piece. Benson’s compositional material centers around two hymns, Jesus, Meine Zuversicht (Praxix Pietatis Melica, 1653) and Merthyr Tydvil (Irish: We Move in Faith) (Joseph Parry, 1870). The first in C major, is a hymn of hope from the Burial Service in the Lutheran Hymnal; the second in G minor, is a triumphant Welsh hymn of faith.

The composer's use of space, time, and rhythm for dramatic effect is singularly impressive. This is a major wind band piece that deserves to take its place among the very finest compositions of our time."

Program note excerpted from WindRep.org

Schism is about divisions. I wrote Schism in 2010 in the midst of the turbulent national mid-term elections, a time that, in the context of more recent political turmoil, actually seems quite tame. I was overwhelmingly frustrated by the sophomoric mud-slinging and ridiculous lies being told by many politicians and the variously allied media, but I was also somewhat amused by what was nothing short of a nationwide "goat rodeo" [slang term for a chaotic situation, often one that involves several people, each with a different agenda/vision/perception of what’s going on; a situation that is very difficult, despite energy and efforts, in which to instill any sense or order].

Much of the musical material is transcribed almost note for note from an improvisation I played on the piano and recorded in the early stages of sketching the piece. I remember being interested in combining the pointillism ofAnton Webern’s music with a bluesy rock groove, so much of the piece is based on a single, simple, eighth-note-based, divided melodic line that jumps around the piano

Schism

in very large leaps. I think of the musical affect as similar to the compound melodies in J.S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites, where a single melodic line isperceptually transformed through largeleaps into multiple voices, though in the end Iused the ensemble to actually hold out the notes the piano could not to add color, character, and attitude to the independent voices. I also wanted to play with the notion of groove by dividing it in unusual and unexpected ways, almost like running a few of the licks and grooves through a meat grinder.

Schism was originally written for the chamber orchestraAlarmWill Sound.This version for winds and percussion was commissioned by a consortium of ensembles led by Robert Carnochan and the University of Texas at Austin Wind Symphony as well as Michael Haithcock, University of Michigan; Chris Knighten, University of Arkansas; and Steven D. Davis, University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory of Music.

Program note by David Biedenbender

Homages

Michael Djupstrom

Homages was written for Frank Battisti and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Wind Ensemble, and was premiered by that group on August 3, 2002, in Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood, MA. The work was commissioned as part of a fellowship to attend the Tanglewood Music Center that summer. I was excited to have an opportunity to write a piece for winds, after having played in bands for years - from elementary school through college - I felt that the concert band was a medium I understood and one to which I could contribute something. Due to the time constraints of the project, I did not decide on any kind of program before the composition of the piece, nor, in the beginning, even a general plan for the work; rather, I just began to write. What came out may have owed more to tradition than other recent projects - I did not set out to expand my technical vocabulary, explore any particular compositional device or idea - but it is in no way less my own work.Writing this piece helped me to realize that I am deeply connected to the compositional tradition, and deeply indebted to it. In the end, I was not surprised to discover that certain characteristics of my piece resembled the work of other long-dead composers. These three movements do not aim to pay homage in the usual sense; they are not tributes to anyone in particular. In naming the work, I simply wanted to acknowledge my debt to my compositional predecessors, and in doing so, seek my place in the lineage.

In 2002, Homages was awarded the Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize from Ithaca College and the first Frederick Fennell Prize fromASCAP and the College Band DirectorsAssociation.

Program note by Michael Djupstrom

Kevin M. Geraldi, guest conductor

Kevin M. Geraldi began his appointment as Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Conducting at the University of Illinois in the fall of 2022. His responsibilities include conducting the internationally renowned Illinois Wind Symphony, guiding the graduate program in wind conducting, and providing administrative leadership for the university’s comprehensive and historic band program. Previously, Dr. Geraldi served as Director of Instrumental Ensembles and Professor of Conducting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he joined the faculty in 2005.At UNCG, he conducted the Wind Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, and Casella Sinfonietta, led the graduate program in instrumental conducting, taught undergraduate conducting, and guided the instrumental ensemble program. He has held additional faculty positions at Lander University in Greenwood, SC, and in the public schools of Westchester, IL.

Ensembles under Dr. Geraldi’s guidance have presented acclaimed performances in significant venues in the United States and Europe, at national and state conventions, and through recordings on the Equilibrium, Centaur Records, and JustinTime labels. He maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator with high school bands, orchestras, and honor ensembles, including appearances with the Greensboro Symphony, Xinghai Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (China), the Union Musicale de Roquetas de Mar (Spain), and numerous university ensembles. Dr. Geraldi is a leader in commissioning and premiering new works for band and chamber ensemble and has earned praise for his collaborations with numerous significant composers and soloists.

Dr. Geraldi is a co-author of The Elements of Expressive Conducting, a textbook for undergraduate conducting courses that is widely used around the United States. A dedicated proponent of music education, his articles for music educators on concert programming and effective rehearsal strategies have been published byThe Instrumentalist and the Music Educators Journal, and he has contributed numerous conductor’s guides for theTeaching MusicThrough Performance in Band series. He is a frequent presenter at international, national, and state conferences. His articles in The Journal of Band Research and the WASBE Journal address topics that reflect his interest in the history and performance practice of chamber music for winds, brass, and strings.

Anative of Elmhurst, IL, Dr. Geraldi holds the Doctor of MusicalArts and Master of Music degrees in conducting from theUniversity of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Haithcock and H. Robert Reynolds, and the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, where he studied conducting with Steven Eggleston. Additionally, he studied with teachers including Gustav Meier and Kenneth Kiesler and participated in conducting workshops with Pierre Boulez, Frederick Fennell, andPaulVermel.

Dr. Geraldi is a recipient of the Conductors Guild’s Thelma A. Robinson Award and the Outstanding Teaching Award in the UNCG School of Music. He is a National Arts Associate of Sigma Alpha Iota and a member of the American Bandmasters Association, the CollegeBandDirectorsNationalAssociation,theNationalBandAssociation,theNationalAssociationforMusicEducation,PiKappa Lambda, and Phi MuAlpha Sinfonia.

Emblems

Aaron Copland

In May, 1963, I received a letter from Keith Wilson, President of the College Band Directors National Association, asking me to accept a commission from that organization to compose a work for band. He wrote: “The purpose of this commission is to enrich the band repertory with music that is representative of the composer’s best work, and not written with all sorts of technical or practical limitations.” That was the origin of Emblems

I began work on the piece in the summer of 1964 and completed it in November of that year. It was first played at the CBDNA National Convention in Tempe, Arizona, on December 18, 1964, by the Trojan Band of the University of Southern California, conducted by William Schaeffer.

Keeping Mr. Wilson’s injunction in mind, I wanted to write a work that was challenging to young players without overstraining their technical abilities. The work is tripartite in form: slow – fast – slow, with a return of the first par varied. Embedded in the quiet, slow music the listener may hear a brief quotation of a well known tune, “Amazing Grace,” published by William Walker in The Southern Harmony in 1835. Curiously enough, the accompanying harmonies had been conceived first, without reference to any tune. It was only a chance perusal of a recent anthology of old “Music in America” that made me realize a connection existed between my harmonies and the old hymn tune.

An emblem stands for something – it is a symbol. I called the work EMBLEMS because it seemed to me to suggest musical states of being: noble or aspiration feelings, playful or spirited feelings. The exact nature of these emblematic sounds must be determined by each listener themselves.

Program note by Aaron Copland

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