presents the Composition Studio Recital
Students of Clifton Callender, Eren Gümrükçüoğlu, and Liliya Ugay Monday, February 9, 2025 7:30 p.m.
Dohnányi Recital Hall
PROGRAM
Merry Humming Tune (2021)
Jacob Grice (b. 1998)
Jacob Grice, viola
Elizabeth Grice, piano
Remember (2025) Andrés Gallo (b. 1987)
Brandon Mecklenburg, baritone
Emma Anderson, piano
It Was a Lover and His Lass (2025)
Mariah Moran, soprano
Daniel Farias, piano
Daniel Farias (b. 2004)
Marbles on Glass (2026)
Random Goethe I. (b. 2005)
Alex Barton, piano
Quintet of Passing Time (2026)
Adam Lyn, Emma Willadsen, trumpet; Eliana Gold, horn
Valiere Cobb, trombone; Xavier Gauthier, tuba
Chase Viachec (b. 2003)
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.
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.
Levels (2026) March Jeongmin Seok
1. Pitch (b. 2001)
2. Non-percussive Timbre Darcie Ogando
3. Rhythm/Percussive Timbre (b. 2001)
4. Instrument Sergio Ramirez Guerrero
5. Reconciliation (b. 2002)
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Grice: Merry Humming Tune
The Merry Humming Tune might be the most modern, dissonant, and most ambitious composition I have ever written. Although it is an older work of mine, I always have fun performing it and I hope you will have fun listening to it!
– Jacob Grice, composer
Gallo: Remember
Remember is inspired by the formal design of Christina Rossetti’s sonnet Remember and by the passacaglia from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, “When I am laid in earth.” The piece unfolds as a circular dialogue between piano and voice. The piano traces a repeating harmonic cycle, while the vocal line extends beyond it, creating overlapping loops that suggest a spiral of memory. Although the harmony returns, the piano’s rhythm is never literally repeated: each cycle introduces a gesture of dissipation, a texture that gradually fades.
– Andrés Gallo, composer
Remember Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.
Farias: It Was a Lover and His Lass
It Was a Lover and His Lass was composed for the 2026 Tally SongSLAM competition in Tallahassee, Florida. Several composers throughout history have set their own music to William Shakespeare’s songs, and this song from As You Like It is a fairly popular one. I fell in love with Gerald Finzi’s version from his Shakespeare song cycle Let Us Garlands Bring and felt inspired to try my hand at the text. The piece explores a variety of styles, including English folk song, Gershwin-esque jazz idioms, minimalism, and Western hoe-down.
–
Daniel Farias, composer
It Was a Lover and His Lass It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green cornfield did pass, In springtime, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, Those pretty country folks would lie, In springtime, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring.
This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In springtime, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring.
And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, For love is crownèd with the prime In springtime, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.
Goethe: Marbles on Glass
Marbles on Glass is a compositional study in repetition revolving around a Bm11 ostinato set in a three-against-four polymeter. The piece is inspired by the piano works of composer John Adams and calls back to a time in my youth when I was fascinated by marbles. The glass imagery represents the fragility of such memories, and the music reflects the spiraling motion of marbles down a funnel through its use of acceleration and melodic contour.
– Random Goethe, composer
Viachec: Quintet of Passing Time
The Quintet of Passing Time is an exploration of sound with contemporary brass. The first movement starts with a lively, but mysterious rhythmic motif that is explored and passed around the ensemble. The second movement is a slow exploration of modal harmonies with an overarching theme.
– Chase Viachec,
composer
Seok, Ogando, Guerrero: Levels
Levels explores the idea of breaking the constraints found in a traditional score. The piece was inspired one day in a practice room, when the three of us started singing and improvising, thinking about what we could come up with from absolutely no knowledge of material or planning. Sounds were coming out of our instruments, and there was a point where we held instruments that we never played before. From this experiment, we came up with several questions: How do you create musical material out of simple gestures? How much planning do you need for a composition? How much as performers are we constrained by a score? etc. We focused on the last part of those questions, recalling the liberating feeling throughout the experiment as we continued; starting from several seconds to eventually full minutes of material that has never been planned but sounds we recognized as music. We hope this piece offers you a moment to free yourself, as it did for us.
– March Jeongmin Seok, Darcie Ogando, Sergio Ramirez Guerrero, composers