Pacific Composers, Fall Premiers Recital

FALL PREMIERES

Pacific Composers Featuring original works by Pacific student composers: Miranda Duarte, Skylar Warren, Kamron Qasimi, Logan Adams, Marcus Rudes, Bailey LaBrie, Don Parker, Lilac Robertson, Alayna Ontai, Ian Orejana, and Jordan Wier Andrew Conklin, composition program director

Tuesday, December 5, 2023 7:30 pm Recital Hall

37TH PERFORMANCE OF 2023–24 ACADEMIC YEAR

DECEMBER 5, 2023, 7:30 PM Writer’s Block Trio (2023)

A Missing Piece (2023)

Jasmine Valentine, flute Jasmin Lopez, horn Sofie Tai, piano

Skylar Warren, horn Apollo Parish-Mitchell, oboe Magdalene Myint, piano

Miranda Duarte ’26

Skylar Warren ’25

Kamron Qasimi ’27 Trek into the Wild (2023) Yukina Shimokawa, Kamron Qasimi, trumpets Skylar Warren, horn Bronson Burfield, trombone Jayden Laumeister, bass trombone Moode (2023) locrian phrinor dorxldian lyajor locrian

Logan Adams ’24

Jamie Lue, violin Logan Adams, bass

Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon (2023) Bobby Singh, flute Walker Austin, oboe Owen McCarthy, bassoon

Marcus Rudes ’27

Requiem for the Restless (2023) Hasina Torres, Bailey LaBrie, Nicholas Trobaugh, Daniel Hui, cellos

Bailey LaBrie ’25

Intermission

DECEMBER 5, 2023, 7:30 PM Pathways (2023)

Amethyst (2023)

Mateo Ruiz, saxophone Don Parker, horn Toby Keys, piano Reyna Machado, drums

Skylar Warren, horn Kylie Ward, trumpet Matthew Miramontes, trombone

Don Parker ’26

Skylar Warren ’25

Lilac Robertson ’24 Beautiful Voice (2023) Lilac Robertson, baritone and electronics

Aeris (2023)

Alayna Ontai ’26 Yukina Shimokawa, Kamron Qasimi, trumpets Skylar Warren, horn Bronson Burfield, trombone Jayden Laumeister, bass trombone

give me time and i’ll write something out (2023) Emma Young, Elizabeth Mendoza, violin Ealaph Tabbaa, viola Nicholas Trobaugh, cello

Ian Orejana ’26

Adventure in Alondra (2023) Noah Gonzalez, narrator Jayden Laumeister, oboe Kyle Chang, clarinet Tristan McMichael, alto saxophone Andrew Seaver, bass clarinet Jordan Wier, bassoon

Jordan Wier ’25

PROGRAM NOTES Duarte: Writer’s Block Trio Despite the daunting task for someone who is primarily a songwriter to write an instrumental trio, this is the first instrument-only piece of many.

Warren: A Missing Piece *This piece was written for my performance project this semester.

Each day, I have felt as if there is something missing, something I can do better, something that I should have done differently. This piece explores these feelings of being lost through odd phrases, broken harmony, and moments of contemplation.

Qasimi: Trek into the Wild Trek Into The Wild is a piece inspired by my love for the brass family of instruments. I have always been enthralled by all sorts of music that employs the usage of brass instruments. This includes British brass band music, jazz charts, solo repertoire, orchestral music, wind band music, and chamber music of course. When the opportunity presented itself to write for student chamber ensembles, such as the brass quintet, I was thrilled. As such, this piece is a declaration of my love and appreciation for the brass sound, which I hope manifests itself in an enjoyable manner.

Adams: Moode Moode is a collection of five short songs for violin and double bass. Each movement has an associated tonality starting with locrian, moving through fifths, and ending in locrian. The middle three movements combine modal centers.

Rudes: Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon I gave myself the challenge of writing a composition centered around the octatonic scale, a series of alternating half and whole steps. I was introduced to this scale in high school band where we performed Lamont Downs’s Two Railroad Marches, which influenced the prompt of this piece. In my composition lessons, I was assigned to write three one-minute pieces for solo saxophone where I utilized this scale in one of the movements. I decided I wanted to give the melodies an eerie accompaniment, blossoming into a piece featuring the flute, oboe, and bassoon. This Trio opens up with ominous chords followed by rapid upper woodwind runs and expressive melodies that unfold into beautiful octatonic chaos.

PROGRAM NOTES LaBrie: Requiem for the Restless The life of this piece began with a singular idea: an octave that just barely breaks down on itself chromatically. Throughout the composition, this motive transforms into various themes that in turn interact with and unravel each other. Each theme has its moment but is rarely alone and is always followed by the disruptive or sometimes redeeming presence of another.

Requiem for the Restless concludes with a coda that imitates the requiems of musical tradition. However, the initiating idea of the piece does not die with the music. Through this requiem, we mourn not the life of an idea, but what it once was. Nothing is stable and everything changes through time. One can remember fondly, with scorn, or with indifference while looking to the future.

Just like the music’s subject, the “meaning” of the piece is not static. It began as three meaningless notes and developed into a portrait of emotional complexity. As such, its significance should not be considered as inherent, flexible when held by each subject in the present moment and across time.

Parker: Pathways Pathways is a jazz fusion piece for horn, sax, and rhythm section. I decided on this title because the modes and tonal centers shift constantly throughout the form, and it leads to a feeling of instability. As someone who plays jazz guitar and bass, composes, plays French horn in orchestra and jazz, as well as classical natural horn, I feel as though I have many different pathways I could take with my future, and at the moment there is a feeling of instability. The piece alternates between Dorian and Phrygian modes in the A section, and it alternates between different tonal centers during the B section. I deliberately orchestrated Pathways to be for horn and saxophone since the horn is very under appreciated and fairly unknown in the jazz world, and there are relatively few jazz charts written for it. I hope someday to expand on this and write a collection of new “standards” for horn that includes original charts as well as some by Julius Watkins.

Warren: Amethyst Amethyst, though it does not follow a specifically detailed program, is the first in a series of brass pieces inspired by the colors and shine of gemstones.

This two-movement piece starts with a somber and colorful introduction before an exciting and powerful finale.

PROGRAM NOTES Robertson: Beautiful Voice I came up with this song over the summer of 2022. I imagine it as the theme song for a comic series that I would like to write by the same name. It is a love story, and the song is meant to be interpreted from the perspective of either character, although only one of them is actually a singer herself.

Ontai: Aeris Aeris is a short brass quintet written in multiple styles. Aeris translates from Latin to mean air. Air, like the piece, is in continuous motion and moves at different speeds. Aeris consists of two separate themes with variations.

Notice how the themes return in new ways as the work moves forward. The piece starts with a slow opening theme, carried by the horn, that pushes into a quicker section with a waltz feel. Following the introduction of the new theme, it moves into the first variation of the second theme. In this variation, and throughout the rest of the piece, there is an alternating rhythmic motion that moves between two and three that continues the movement before finally slowing down and concluding with a callback to the beginning of the piece.

Orejana: give me time and i’ll write something out Truly . . . there is not much to this one. I wanted to take another crack at a piece for string quartet after the knowledge I gained from my first try. I also am a sucker for minor iv chords in songs, so I thought I might as well try to incorporate it into one of my songs because it is going to happen eventually.

Besides that, this piece for me shows that despite the challenges faced this year, there is still hope that I will survive one way or another.

Wier: Adventure in Alondra Inspired by my love for Dungeons and Dragons, Adventure in Alondra is a piece that tells the story of five adventurers who received a call for help from the guildmaster of a small village. With each instrument representing a different character, the quintet and narrator work in tandem to set the story to music.

—Notes by the composers

TEX TS AND TRANSL ATIONS Robertson: Beautiful Voice What a beautiful voice I heard today That rode on the wind Oh how the melody carried me away And cut through to within my heart And so did I start To feel something new Something warm something fair And something true What a beautiful voice I heard Such a beautiful voice What a beautiful voice I heard today While I was out here alone It's what I thought that I wanted but say I think now I know there’s something That I want more Than simple solitude Something close, something dear And something true What a beautiful voice I heard Such a beautiful voice Cut away all of the noise Giving way for something Something I do not know Such a simple pleasure Such a lovely sound How does it make my feet leave the ground What do we sing with no-one around And I don’t know how How can I know what it is I desire But it starts with that voice The sound of that voice The truth in that voice What a beautiful voice I hear tonight As it echoes in my head Maybe if I go back there in a while Then I’ll hear it again

PACIFIC FACULT Y AND COACHES Composition Faculty: Andrew Conklin, program director Hendel Almetus Eric Wood

Faculty Coaches: Brittany Trotter, flute Kyle Bruckmann, oboe Patricia Shands, clarinet Ricardo Martinez, saxophone Nicolasa Kuster, bassoon Lenny Ott, trumpet Sadie Glass, horn Bruce Chrisp, low brass Brian Kendrick, percussion Sonia Leong, piano Natsuki Fukasawa, piano Ann Miller, violin Igor Veligan, viola Vicky Wang, cello Kathryn Schulmeister, bass Eric Dudley, voice

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