THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
University Wind Orchestra
Rodney Dorsey, Conductor
Drew Hardy-Moore, Graduate Associate Conductor
Thursday, November 13, 2025
7:30 p.m. | Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
To Ensure An Enjoyable Concert Experience For All…
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting during performances. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Recording or broadcasting of the concert by any means, including the use of digital cameras, cell phones, or other devices is expressly forbidden. Please deactivate all portable electronic devices including watches, cell phones, pagers, hand-held gaming devices or other electronic equipment that may distract the audience or performers.
Recording Notice: This performance may be recorded. Please note that members of the audience may at times be included in this process. By attending this performance you consent to have your image or likeness appear in any live or recorded video or other transmission or reproduction made in conjunction to the performance.
Florida State University provides accommodations for persons with disabilities. Please notify the College of Music at (850) 644-3424 at least five working days prior to a musical event to request accommodation for disability or alternative program format.
PROGRAM
Circus Overture (2015)
William Bolcom (b. 1938)
tr. Bolcom, Paul Dooley (b. 1983)
... the leaves scatter like foam (2022) Karalyn Schubring (b. 1999)
Suite Française (1944)
Darius Milhaud
I. Normandie (1892–1974)
II. Bretagne
III. Ile de France
IV. Alsace-Lorraine
V. Provence
Drew Hardy-Moore, Graduate Associate Conductor
INTERMISSION
La Ville D’en-Haut (1987)
First Symphony for Band (2008)
Oliver Messiaen (1908–1992)
William Bolcom
I. Ô tempora ô mores (b. 1938)
II. Scherzo tenebroso
III. Andantino pastorale
IV. Marches funéraires et dansantes
Bolcom: Circus Overture
The concert opens with a burst of energy and an array of tonal colors in William Bolcom’s Circus Overture, one of two works by the composer featured on tonight’s program. Premiered in 2014 for Leonard Slatkin’s 70th birthday, the overture fulfills the request—made through Leonard Bernstein—for “a six-minute curtain-raiser-fast-type concert overture” The result is an exuberant showpiece that celebrates the sheer joy of live performance.
Bolcom’s writing teems with rhythmic vitality, quick turns of phrase, and harmonic playfulness. Though modern in every sense—its harmonies stretch beyond conventional tonality—the work’s melodic charm and buoyant rhythmic spirit make it instantly memorable. The composer described the piece as “not necessarily programmatic,” yet its title and kaleidoscopic shifts of texture invite the imagination on a whimsical journey. Like the circus itself, Circus Overture dazzles with melodic and harmonic variety—a concise, spirited celebration that sets the tone for the evening’s exploration of harmony, color, and expression.
Schubring: …the leaves scatter like foam…
…the leaves scatter like foam… takes its title from a line in Mark Strand’s book-length poem, Dark Harbor Schubring describes the text as a “flashlight’s beam” illuminating the meaning behind her music, associating the piece with images of delicacy, impermanence, and fleeting brilliance—“butterfly-like” gestures that shimmer and drift, contending with the beauty and fragility of passing time.
Schubring’s music often grows from improvisation and natural imagery, reflecting her dual life as composer and pianist. A graduate of the University of Michigan, she has received national recognition from the ASCAP Foundation, American Composers Forum, and NPR’s From the Top, and her works have been performed internationally by leading artists and ensembles. Currently based in Mesa, Arizona, she teaches composition at East Valley Yamaha Music School and performs as a pianist and founding member of the contemporary ensemble Front Porch.
Milhaud: Suite Française
Composed in 1944 while living in exile in the United States, Darius Milhaud’s Suite Française is both a tribute to his homeland and a gesture of gratitude to the country that offered him refuge during World War II. Commissioned by the Leeds Music Corporation for American school bands, Milhaud envisioned a work “fit for high school purposes.” In practice, however, the Suite Française demands a level of precision and musicianship far beyond its original intent.
Milhaud’s writing layers melodies atop one another, offsets rhythmic pulses, and frequently interrupts one melodic idea with another—all hallmarks of his distinct and challenging style. The result is a work of surprising intricacy and color, one that has become a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire and a lasting example of Milhaud’s unmistakable voice.
Across its five short movements, Milhaud invites listeners on a journey through five French provinces: Normandy, Brittany, Île-de-France, Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence. Each movement draws on folk melodies from its region, painting musical portraits that celebrate the resilience and spirit of the French people.
Milhaud’s imaginative use of color and layered melodies profoundly influenced a later generation of composers, among them William Bolcom, who would go on to study with Milhaud and carry forward his mentor’s devotion to clarity, wit, and expressive freedom in sound.
Messiaen: La Ville D’en-Haut
Olivier Messiaen’s La Ville d’en haut—“The City on High”—offers a glimpse into the composer’s vision of transcendence. Scored for winds and brass with notable solo sections featuring piano and percussion, the work contrasts luminous, densely voiced chords with delicate birdsong figures, which Messiaen described as “our little servants of immaterial joy.” The effect is both serene and radiant, as though light and sound merge into a single expression.
Messiaen’s lifelong devotion to faith and sound shaped every aspect of his artistry. Organist at Paris’s Église de la Trinité for more than sixty years, he merged his fascination with birdsong, inventive harmony, and rhythmic complexity into a language uniquely his own. His self-devised modes of limited transposition produced harmonies that shimmered with color, reflecting his belief that music could evoke the divine through sound itself. As a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, he influenced an extraordinary generation of composers—including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, and William Bolcom—who carried forward his vision of music as a living intersection of color, rhythm, and spirit.
Bolcom: First Symphony for Band
Commissioned by the Big Ten Band Directors Association and premiered by the University of Michigan Symphony Band, William Bolcom’s First Symphony for Band is his most expansive work for winds, expressing his lifelong fusion of American musical styles within a traditional symphonic frame. Originally intended as his ninth symphony, Bolcom instead chose to begin anew with the band—declaring himself “not ready for that final word yet.”
Structured in four movements, the symphony unfolds like a musical reel, switching quickly between melodic ideas that never fully abandon one another. Bolcom describes the opening movement, Ô tempora ô mores, as music of tragic urgency and protest, lamenting dark times. Scherzo tenebroso veers sharply into sarcastic wit—represented by an extended cornet solo which Bolcom likens to a clown spinning under a spotlight. The third movement, Andantino pastorale, sings with seemingly simple grace, though shadowed by a quiet unease beneath its lyrical surface. The final movement, Marches funéraires et dansantes, imagines a New Orleans funeral procession—starting with a solemn dirge and then transforming into a joyous dance-like march back from the graveyard.
Taken as a whole, the work navigates a collision of styles with the ease of switching TV channels—each idea distinct, yet all connected by the composer’s unmistakable voice. In that sense, the First Symphony for Band honors the symphonic tradition while capturing the restless, layered spirit of modern American life.
University Wind Orchestra Personnel
Rodney Dorsey, Conductor
Drew Hardy-Moore, Graduate Associate Conductor
Piccolo
Kathryn Lang
Flute
Nikkie Galindo*
Jordi Banitt
Shelby Werneth
Claire “Parky” Park
Kendall Smith
Oboe
Sarah Ward*
Andrew Swift* (+ English horn)
Jordan Miller
Rebecca Keith
Bassoon
Hannah Farmer
Dakota Jeter (+ Contra)
Elizabeth Novak
E-flat Clarinet
Steven Higbee
B-flat Clarinet
Jenna Eschner**
Daniel Kim**
Charlotte MacDonald
Xavier Williams
Jaxon Stewart
Zhu Zhiyao
Taylin Hamilton
Hali Alex
Dawson Huynh
Bass Clarinet
Harper Golden
Saxophone
Matthew James*
Micah Mazella
Zach Matthews
Ash Stewart
Lincoln McMullen
Trumpet/Cornet
Sharavan Duvvuri
Jeremiah Gonzalez
Avery Hoerman
Johniel Najera*
Wayne Pearcy
Joshua Puente
Noah Solomon
Horn
Allison Hoffman
Jaeson Lopez
Eric On*
Gio Pereira*
Kate Warren
Clare Ottesen
Trombone
Grant Keel
Aryn Nester
Sarah Castillo
Brent Creekmore, bass
Euphonium
Anthony Gonzalez*
Cayden Miller*
Tuba
Yoni Zegeye
Colin Teague
String Bass
Caleb Duden
Piano
Fernando Garcia
Harp
Noa Michaels
Percussion
Nick Bahr
Matthew Korloch
Cole Martin
Will McCoy
Mackenzie Selimi*
Timothy Thomas
Jessica Weinberg * Principal ** Co-Principal