THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Music presents
Polymorphia FSU New Music Ensemble
Liliya Ugay, Director | Emelia Ulrich, Graduate Assistant
First Ernst von Dohnányi
Composition Competition
With generous support from Dr. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Marie Krafft Distinguished Professor
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 7:30 p.m. | Dohnányi Recital 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
Aria for Flute and Piano, Op. 48, No. 1
Claire Park, flute; Xueyao Wang, piano
Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960)
Ernő (2025)
Kathryn Lang, narrator
Maya Johnson and Emelia Ulrich, violin; Jacob Grice, viola; Param Mehta, cello
Charlotte MacDonald clarinet; Daniel Farias, piano; Thomas Roggio, conductor
Jacob Jordan (b. 1999)
Resilire*
Ikiliikkuja*
Maya Johnson, violin; Param Mehta, cello
Kathryn Lang, flute; Charlotte MacDonald, clarinet
Xueyao Wang, piano; Nicholas Montoya, percussion; Manuel Torralba, conductor
<Inherited Juxtaposition>*
Connor Altagen, trombone; Margaret Anne Altagen, harp
Andrés Gallo (b. 1987)
Brian Junttila (b. 1997)
March Jeongmin Seok (b. 2001)
Thomas Roggio, violin; Param Mehta, cello
Kyle McDonald, trumpet; Logan Florence, guitar; Isabelle Scott, harp
Matthew Korloch, percussion; Manuel Torralba, conductor
INTERMISSION
Essential Exercises*
Fernando Garcia, piano
Theasamantha Figueras, mezzo-soprano; Maya Johnson, violin; Param Mehta, cello
Sergio Ramirez, flute; Jaxon Stewart, clarinet; Connor Altagen, trombone
Matthew Korloch, percussion; Thomas Roggio, conductor
Kyle McDonald (b. 2002)
Resonances of Dohnányi*
Param Mehta, cello; Charlotte McDonald, bass clarinet; Fernando Garcia, piano
Luis Bezerra (b. 1984)
In a Day*
Thomas Roggio, violin; Emelia Ulrich, viola; Param Mehta, cello
Esküszünk*
Intrada
Athalia Eugene, soprano; Theasamantha Figuearas, alto; Kyle McDonald, tenor
Emelia Ulrich (b. 2000)
Justin Gruber (b. 2002)
Param Mehta, cello; Sarah Ward, oboe; Hannah Faircloth, clarinet; Manuel Torralba, conductor
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)
Emelia Ulrich, violin; Param Mehta, cello
Kathryn Lang, flute; Jaxon Stewart, clarinet
Daniel Farias, piano; Liliya Ugay, conductor
* World premiere
Ernő (2025)
Erno is a short biographical scene for a combination of acoustic instruments and electronics meant to document select events during Dohnányi’s life. Throughout the work, one will hear quotes of many of his works and works that had inspired his career.
— Jacob Jordan
Resilire (2025)
Resilire (Latin): to rebound, to spring back, to recoil. The title reflects the etymology of resilience, a quality that defines Ernst von Dohnányi—according to historian James A. Grymes. The form of Resilire draws inspiration from Dohnányi’s Serenade in C Major, Op. 10. Most of Resilire’s harmonic and melodic material derives from the Hungarian major scale (1–♯2–3–♯4–5–6–♭7). Beyond cultural homage, the piece explores the physical act of rebounding through rhythmic diminutions, varied articulations, and polymetric writing that evoke the motion of a bouncing ball.
— Andres Gallo
Ikiliikkuja (2025)
Ikiliikkuja (2025) is the Finnish term for the somewhat mythological “perpetual motion machine,” a device that continues moving without requiring any additional energy to continue its motion. The piece is entirely at a quick tempo with the harp initially taking center stage with bisbigliando passages that grow and change. However, no “perpetual motion machine” is perfect; they always begin to slow without a nudge. The trombone takes over this role in the second part of the work, playing extended double-tongued repeated notes. Once more, the machine loses energy, but both instruments take charge to lead the piece to its finale, playing on motives throughout the work. This piece was commissioned for the 2025 Ernst von Dohnányi Composition Competition, and the idea for this piece was inspired by his Harp Concertino, Op. 45. The concertino begins with beautiful, flowing, and colorful lines that never seem to end, and features quick melodies that hocket the hands towards the end. It never seems to stop moving
— Brian Junttila
<Inherited Juxtaposition> (2025)
<Inherited Juxtaposition> (2025) is a tribute to three cultural heritages, tracing back to Korean traditional music, Dohnányi’s Hungarian legacy, and American folk music. The piece starts by setting the tone with Korean traditional music elements - fluctuating pitch, lax metrical emphasis in the melody, and percussive sounds on the guitar and harp to emulate Korean traditional percussion such as the janggu. Next is a section that incorporates Hungarian musical textures through guitar strums, double stops, open strings, sul ponticello, and embellishment notes in the violin melody reminiscent of Hungarian fiddle tunes. These two musical materials are juxtaposed and interwoven throughout the rest of the piece, while the American folk tune “On Top of Old Smokey”, quoted in Dohnányi’s American Rhapsody, gradually emerges through variations in fragments. Musical materials are also drawn from pentatonic scales, the Hungarian minor scale, and the blues scale to accompany each cultural theme. Overall, the piece is through-composed, with repetitions and variations of fragments from each of the three cultural themes. — March Seok
Essential Exercises (2025)
Essential Exercises (2025) is a suite of 7 short movements, each based on a motive taken from Dohnányi’s piano book, Essential Finger Exercises for Obtaining a Sure Technique. This piece imagines a whimsical scenario where Dohnányi is warming up in his office, while the rest of the sounds of the College of Music bend to lift up his sound. Out of technique comes art, creating beauty out of the mundane. This soundscape includes a vocalist warming up on solfege, a teacher’s lecture, typing at a keyboard, the quick scribbling of notes in class, and a drumline tenor warming up outside: all sounds that can be heard daily,sounds that make the College of Music home for countless students and faculty alike.
— Kyle McDonald
Text
“In music-school, piano tuition suffers mostly from far too much exercise material given for the purely technical development of the pupils.”
“The fault is, that the pupils are not taught to practice properly, and on the other hand, that far too many studies and exercises are given from which only little value can be gained, whilst not enough time is left for the study of repertory pieces.”
“Correct sense of style can however only be furthered by a sufficient knowledge of musical literature.”
“Everything else, even Czerny, is superfluous; it does not contain anything of essential importance which might not be acquired through finger exercises, or by conscientious practicing of appropriate passages of pieces.”
“A wide knowledge of musical literature can only be acquired by sightreading. When playing even the simplest of finger exercises, the full attention must be fixed on the finger-work, each note must be played consciously, in short: not to practice with the fingers, but through the fingers with the brain.”
– Ernst von Dohnányi; translated by Norah Drewett
Resonances of Dohnányi (2025)
Resonances of Dohnányi (2025) This piece explores Ernst von Dohnányi’s musical world through sound sample analysis, transforming fragments of his recordings and compositions into a contemporary landscape. I aimed to explore how sonic materials from his style can be transformed into a contemporary texture that honors his aesthetic while re-contextualizing it. The first movement, Origin, explores resonant chords and textures as a way of translating his early Romantic influences. The second, Utterance, explores speech and spoken-word materials to shape a reflective landscape. The last one, Echo, explores his late period through energetic, forward-moving phrases with resonant drive. laws of nature and cannot be reversed, thus the title of this work is an impossibility and the contents are only theoretical.
— Luis Bezerra
In a Day (2025)
In reading about Dohnányi, I was shocked by the vastly different periods of his life and what it must have been like to have that lifetime of memories in your brain as you are now living in Florida. As a native Floridian, I wanted to incorporate his time spent in Florida into a piece but couldn’t find a way to exclusively write about his Florida years after reading everything he experienced before immigrating here. But don’t we bring everything we have gone through with us everywhere we go? In this spirit, I composed a work that serves as a “day in the mind of…” Dohnányi during the final years of his life, incorporating themes from the works from his time in Florida, specifically his Second Symphony, as well as some from his more prominent early works that I could see getting “stuck in his head,” most notably his Variations on a Nursery Tune and Serenade in C Major, which is specifically honored through the instrumentation of this work, as it was the first composition of his that I ever heard performed.
— Emelia Ulrich
Esküszünk (2025)
Esküszünk (2025) for sextet turns its gaze inward, speaking in a language of doubt and fragility. At its core lies Sándor Petőfi’s Nemzeti dal (National Song), the 1848 poem that helped ignite the Hungarian Revolution with its ringing refrain, “Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább nem leszünk!” (“We swear that we shall no longer be slaves!”). Once a rallying cry of defiance and collective strength, the words here are stripped of their public bravado and refracted through a private, inward lens. What begins with searching intensity gradually unravels, as phrases falter and harmonies dissolve into shadows. The text itself echoes this inward turn, colored by a pessimism that resists resolution, its final words lingering like an unanswered thought. In its last moments, the music recedes into silence not with closure but with a question - an unresolved gesture that hangs in the air, leaving the listener suspended in uncertainty.
— Justin Gruber
Nemzeti dal
Talpra magyar, hí a haza!
Itt az idő, most vagy soha!
Rabok legyünk vagy szabadok?
Ez a kérdés, válasszatok! –
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!
Rabok voltunk mostanáig, Kárhozottak ősapáink, Kik szabadon éltek-haltak, Szolgaföldben nem nyughatnak.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!
The National Poem
On your feet, Magyar, the homeland calls!
The time is here, now or never!
Shall we be slaves or free?
This is the question, choose your answer! -
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
We were slaves up til now, Damned are our ancestors, Who lived and died free, Cannot rest in a slave land. By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
Sehonnai bitang ember, Ki most, ha kell, halni nem mer, Kinek drágább rongy élete, Mint a haza becsülete.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább Nem leszünk!
Fényesebb a láncnál a kard, Jobban ékesíti a kart, És mi mégis láncot hordtunk!
Ide veled, régi kardunk!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább Nem leszünk!
A magyar név megint szép lesz, Méltó régi nagy hiréhez; Mit rákentek a századok, Lemossuk a gyalázatot!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!
Hol sírjaink domborulnak, Unokáink leborulnak, És áldó imádság mellett Mondják el szent neveinket.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk, Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább Nem leszünk!
—Petőfi Sándor (1848)
Useless villain of a man, Who now, if need be, doesn’t dare to die, Who values his pathetic life greater
Than the honor of his homeland.
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
The sword shines brighter than the chain, Decorates better the arm, And we still wore chains!
Return now, our old sword!
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
The Magyar name will be great again, Worthy of its old, great honor; Which the centuries smeared on it, We will wash away the shame!
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
Where our grave mounds lie, Our grandchildren will kneel, And with blessing prayer, Recite our sainted names.
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow, We vow, that we won’t be slaves any longer!
—Translated by Kőrössy László