in Miami, Florida. He is also currently conductor of the Greater Miami Symphonic Band. Mr. Longfield has received several commissions and has over one hundred publications to his credit. His compositions and arrangements have been played and recorded by bands throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe, and Japan.
5th Annual
JULY 19-25, 2009 McDaniel Orchestra Camp including Piano Studies, Chamber Music, Orchestra, Musicianship, Composition, Rhythm Studies, Musician Counselors, Swimming, Dance and Yoga
Ages 12-20 Application Deadline: May 28, 2009 Located at
McDaniel College Westminster, MD Contact Lynn Fleming at 301-922-0398 or Lynn@lynnflemingstudios.com 28
Slavonic Dance, Op. 46, No. 4
Antonín Dvorák,
1841-1904
Given his place as one of the foremost composers of the nineteenth century, Antonín Dvorák was something of a late bloomer, but not for want of musical talent and promise. Dvorák’s father was a butcher and had expected his son to go into the family trade. Only after his uncle had agreed to finance the boy’s musical education was he able to follow his passion for music. Trained as a church organist, Dvorák’s first job was as a performer, playing principal viola in Prague’s new Provincial Theatre Orchestra. During this time, he practiced composition, producing songs, symphonies and entire operas although he achieved no recognition until he was in his thirties. After winning national prizes for several years in the 1870s, however, his work came to the attention of Johannes Brahms, who gave him his first real break. The older composer, whose reputation was at its height, promoted Dvorák to his own publisher, Simrock, who offered him his first commission, the Opus 46 set of Slavonic Dances. Dvorák was a devoted Czech nationalist. Like his older compatriot Bedrich Smetana, he freely incorporated folk elements into his music, utilizing characteristic peasant rhythms and melodic motives but never actually quoting entire folk melodies. The Slavonic Dances were first composed for piano duet and then immediately orchestrated by the composer. This dual approach proved to be a win/win arrangement for both publisher and composer. The dances could both be played in the concert hall, where they were recognized as the heir to Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, as well as purchased for home music making. They were so successful that Simrock commissioned another set (Op. 72) in 1880, which Dvorák finally got around to completing in 1885. The dances all follow the roughly similar form with two or more sections containing themes in contrasting moods and tempi. The first section—sometimes also fairly complex in structure —serves as a refrain for the dance as a whole. The dances comprise a wide range of Spring Concert 2009
moods all displaying the composer’s dazzling melodic gift. No.4 is a mixture of styles, including the Polish mazur and polka, as well as a Czech sousedská.
Theme from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial John T. Williams, b. 1932 Arr. James Ployhar
Composer, conductor and arranger John Williams is probably the most successful and bestknown film composer of all time, with such blockbuster scores as Star Wars, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List and dozens of others. E.T., released in 1982, is considered by many as Steven Spielberg’s best movie. It has been described as: “Both a classic movie for kids and a remarkable portrait of childhood, [it] is a sci-fi adventure that captures that strange moment in youth when the world is a place of mysterious possibilities (some wonderful, some awful), and the universe seems somehow separate from the one inhabited by grown-ups.” John Williams, with his ability to invoke mystery and drama in music, was a natural choice to composer the score, in which he conveyed the film’s child-like sense of innocence. The film’s final chase and farewell sequence is one of the few instance in film history in which the on-screen action was re-edited to conform to the composer’s musical interpretation (Sergey Prokofiev’s score to Alexander Nevsky is another one). The score garnered Williams his fourth Academy Award. What many people do not know is that in addition to his film scores, Williams has also composed extensively for the concert hall. His symphonies, the Violin Concerto, Flute Concerto, Bassoon Concerto and numerous chamber works, have been performed around the world, especially by the Boston Pops, which he conducted between 1980 and 1993. One of the most prolific writes in the field of music education, James D. Ployhar (1926-2007) was also a composer and film producer. He has over 800 credited music publications. Polyhar taught for over 19 years in public schools and participated in many clinics and workshops. His book Contemporary Band Course is widely used around the world. g
M a r y l a n d C l a ssi c Y outh O r c hestr a s
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