Symphonic Band & Wind Ensemble
Dr. Eddie Airheart, conductor
Jeremy M. Strickland, conductor
February 21, 2023 – 7:30 pm
Rogers Palmer Performing Arts Center
Tyler Junior College
Encanto (1989)
PROGRAM NOTES
Robert W. Smith
Encanto (Spanish for “charm”) opens with a distinctive full brass fanfare and evolves into an infectious rhythmic statement. The opening fanfare reappears at the end of the piece and leads decisively to a powerful ending.
- Program Note from the composer
Tonight’s performance honors the memory of renowned composer and educator Robert W. Smith, who unexpectedly passed away in September 2023.
Halcyon Hearts (2020) Katajh Copley
Halycon (adj) - denoting a period in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.
The effect of love on humanity is abundant and we forget that from time to time. Regardless of race, gender, religion, or indifference, we are all united by a common thread: passion and love. Centered around the warmth that love brings, Halcyon Hearts takes us on an unexpected journey to find love. While this love may result to be romantic for some, to me it is about the moment someone finds their passion. Using colors, natural energy, and passion, I created a sound of ambition for the ensemble.
I would like to dedicate this piece to those who love all of mankind, no matter the negativity around you. Let love be love and always choose it. When you do, the halcyon days will come.
- Program Note from the composer
Irish Tune from County Derry (1918) Percy Grainger
Irish Tune from County Derry is based on earlier settings that date back as early as October 1902, with an essentially identical setting of this melody for wordless mixed chorus. Later versions for solo piano (1911) and string orchestra with two optional horns (1912) followed. The wind band setting is cataloged as British Folk Music Setting Nr. 20, and like all his settings of British folk music is “lovingly dedicated to the memory of Edvard Grieg.” The composer’s brief program note states, “This tune was collected by Miss J. Ross, of New Town, Limavady, Co Derry, Ireland and published in The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Dublin, 1855.”
- Program Note by R. Mark Rogers
Radetzky March (1848) Johann Strauss, Sr./transcribed for Wind Band by Max Villinger
Radetzky March is generally acclaimed as among the greatest of all pieces in the march vein. Strauss wrote it a year before his death in 1848. It was named for Johann Joseph Count Radetzky de Radetz, a venerable Austrian Field Marshall. The title page of the first edition bore the dedications “In honor of the greatest Field Marshall” and “Dedicated to the Imperial Royal Army.” It was commissioned to celebrate Radetzky’s victories, primarily the Battle of Custoza. The trio uses a popular Viennese folk tune of the time, Alter Tanz aus Wien or Tinerl-Lied, which was originally in 3/4 time. It is rumored that Strauss heard the returning soldiers singing the tune and decided to incorporate it into the work by converting it to 2/4 time. Radetzky March was commissioned by Field Marshall Lieutenant Peter Zanini, military advisor to the court, who organized a festival to celebrate the victories in Italy of the Austrian Army under the control of Field Marshall Radetzky.
After the first performance, conducted in Vienna by the composer on August 31, 1848, the piece became the unofficial Austrian anthem along with the Blue Danube waltz. When it was first played for Austrian officers, they spontaneously clapped and stomped their feet during the chorus. This tradition, with light rhythmic clapping
during the first iteration of the melody followed by thunderous clapping during the second, is kept alive today by audience members who know of the custom when the march is played. It has been a long-standing tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic to conclude every New Year’s Concert with the work.
- Program Note from University of North Texas University Band concert program, 4 October 2017
Revelry (2017)
William Pitts
Revelry was composed and dedicated to the directors and students of the Dobyns Bennett Band Program (Tenn.), Lafe Cook, director, along with the community of Kingsport in celebration of its past, present, and future.
Pitts provided the following: “When Lafe asked me to write a piece celebrating the centennial of Kingsport’s founding, I was excited to celebrate a community spirit that was so familiar to me. Revelry is a celebratory fanfare that uses a nine-note theme as its core. The theme is a cryptogram of sorts, spelling out ‘K-I-N-G-S-P-O-R-T” using a 19th-century French system, in which the musical notes we know (A-G) are the basis for spelling out words using melodic lines.”
- Program Note from the Fillmore Wind Band concert program, 22 December 2017
Steampunk Suite (2015/2017)
I. Charlie and the Mechanical Man Marching Band
II. The Strange Case of Dr. Curie and Madam Hyde
III. Bertie Wells attends Mr. Verne’s lecture on flying machines
IV. Barnum and Tesla’s Tandem Bicycle
Erika Svanoe
Steampunk refers to a subgenre of science fiction and sometimes fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. It places an emphasis on steam –or spring-propelled gadgets. The most common historical steampunk settings are often set in the Victorian era, but in an alternative history where technology employs steam power. It may, therefore, be described as neoVictorian. Steampunk features retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. (Wikipedia)
Steampunk Suite attempts to depict various scenes that take place in a fictional alternate history that features notable people alive in the Victorian era, including Charles Ives, Marie Curie, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, P.T. Barnum and Nikola Tesla. It borrows from popular music of the era, including the cakewalk, march, and waltz, and combines them with sounds of clockwork and imagined steam technology. It also borrows various musical elements from numerous composers of time, including Ives, Sousa, Satie, Karl King, Stravinsky, and Weill, with some Khachaturian and Danny Elfman thrown in for good measure. This piece has been transcribed for wind ensemble from the original chamber work Steampunk Scenes by the composer.
- Program Note by composer
Armenian Dances, Part 1 (1972) Alfred Reed
• Tzirani Tzar (The Apricot Tree)
• Gakavi Yerk (The Partridge’s Song)
• Hoy, Nazan Eem (Oh, My Nazan)
• Alagyaz (A Song to Mount Alagyaz)
• Gna, Gna! (Go, Go!)
The Armenian Dances, Parts I and II, constitute a four-movement Suite for Concert Band based on authentic Armenian folk songs collected from the works of Gomidas Vartabed (1869-1935), the founder of Armenian classical music.
Part I creates the overall first movement of this suite (the remaining three movements constituting Part II), is an extended symphonic rhapsody built upon these five continuous songs, which were first notated, purified, researched and later arranged by Gomidas for solo voice with piano accompaniment, or unaccompanied chorus. The Apricot Tree consists of three organically connected and highly expressive songs transcribed in 1904. The Partridge’s Song is an original song by Gomidas, and has a simple, delicate melody which might be thought of as depicting the tiny steps of the partridge. Oh, My Nazam is a lively and lovely lyrical song that depicts a young man singing the praises of his beloved. Alagyaz is a beloved Armenian folksong with a long-breathed melody as majestic as the mountain itself. Go, Go! is a humorous, light textured song whose repeated note pattern musically depicts the expression of laughter.
This much-beloved work was completed in 1972 and premiered in 1973 by the University of Illinois Symphonic Band, Dr. Harry Begian, conductor.
- Program Note from Dr. Violet Vagramian, Assistant Professor of Music at Florida International University
Popcopy (2007)
I. More Cowbell!
Scott McAllister
Popcopy is a work in three movements that is inspired by famous catchphrases. The first movement, More Cowbell, is based on the popular Saturday Night Live skit featuring Will Ferrell as a fictional cowbell player for the band Blue Öyster Cult. Ferrell’s character, Gene Frenkle, fervently tells the band that since there are no songs that feature a cowbell, he would be doing a disservice to himself and the band if he didn’t “play the hell out of this” cowbell. The producer then coins the famous phrase: “Guess what?! I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is… more cowbell!” In this movement, cowbell parts surround the band to emulate the struggle of balance between the band and the cowbells, but the cowbells also help in keeping the band together during complex rhythmic sections.
- Program Note from University of Texas, Arlington, Wind Symphony concert program, 2 April 2018
The Stars and Stripes Forever March (1896)
John Philip Sousa
Except for The Star-Spangled Banner, no musical composition has done more to arouse the patriotic spirit of America than this, John Philip Sousa’s most beloved composition. Symbolic of flag-waving in general, it has been used with considerable effectiveness to generate patriotic feeling ever since its introduction in Philadelphia on May 14, 1897, when the staid Public Ledger reported: “It is stirring enough to rouse the American eagle from his crag, and set him to shriek exultantly while he hurls his arrows at the aurora borealis.”
The composition was born of homesickness, as Sousa freely told interviewers, and some melodic lines were conceived while in Europe. In one such interview he stated:
In a kind of dreamy way I used to think over old days at Washington when I was leader of the Marine Band ... when we played at all public official functions, and I could see the stars and stripes flying from the flagstaff in the grounds of the White House just as plainly as if I were back there again. Then I began to think of all the countries I had visited, of the foreign people I had met, of the vast difference between America and American people and other countries and other peoples, and that flag of ours became glorified ... and to my imagination it seemed to be the biggest, grandest, flag in the world, and I could not
get back under it quick enough. It was in this impatient, fretful state of mind that the inspiration to compose The Stars and Stripes Forever came to me, and to my imagination it was a genuine inspiration, irresistible, complete, definite, and I could not rest until I had finished the composition. Then I experienced a wonderful sense of relief and relaxation. I was satisfied, delighted, with my work after it was done. The feeling of impatience passed away, and I was content to rest peacefully until the ship had docked and I was once more under the folds of the grand old flag of our country.
The interviewer then added this telling postlude: “Amen! to those sentiments,’ I said. And as I looked at John Philip Sousa there were tears in his eyes.” Sousa explained to the press that the three themes of the final trio were meant to typify the three sections of the United States. The broad melody, or main theme, represents the North. The South is represented by the famous piccolo obbligato, and the West by the bold countermelody of the trombones.
- Program Note from The Works of John Philip Sousa