Wind Symphony "Traveler" Program

UTAH VALLE Y UNIVERSIT Y

WIND SYMPHONY “TRAVELER” UVU WIND SYMPHONY Dr. Christopher Ramos, Director

WOODS CROSS HIGH SCHOOL WIND ENSEMBLE Mr. Todd Campbell, Director

October 1, 2025 7:00 p.m.

Concert Hall

CONDUCTOR’S STATEMENT I wrote this before the awful events on our campus on September 10. The students overwhelmingly wished to move ahead with this concert, especially considering our original theme. Following is that meditation. If at any point tonight you feel you need to step away from the concert and take a break, please feel free to do so.

Our music tonight is our gift to you and each other to band together and make a joyful noise even as we grieve.

There are seasons in life when we find ourselves standing at an edge—the twilight where light and darkness mingle—trying to decide whether to plant our feet or to step. These in‑between places have their own atmospheres: the air tastes a bit like memory and a bit like morning, and the heart feels both very young and very old. Tonight’s music inhabits those liminal thresholds and asks how we move through them together. Our poster bears the image of The Fool, the archetypal traveler of the tarot, smiling into the sun at the very lip of a cliff, a small dog nipping at his heels, a white rose in his hand—a figure of zero, of beginnings, of radiant unknowing. The Fool’s rose signals innocence, the loyal dog both companionship and warning, and the brink itself the necessary risk of any real journey. Our Fool also wears a Schellenkappe—a cap with bells—whose sound announces the truth‑telling jester, the playful one allowed to speak plainly in serious rooms.

David Maslanka’s Traveler opens not as a farewell but as a stride. He framed the piece around Bach’s chorale, “Nicht so traurig, nicht so sehr” (“Not so sad, not so much”), and wrote of feeling not an ending, but a gathering of what has been and a projection into what might yet be. Midway, the energy settles into a stillness—battles mostly fought, the soul pausing before its next step. Maslanka’s own program note holds a line I carry with me: “In our hearts, our minds, our souls / we travel from life to life to life.” That is liminality put to song. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear an actual shimmer of bells in this middle section—a small, literal Schellenkappe glinting at the music’s edge.

Shuying Li’s In This Breath lives at a quieter threshold—the place where one inhalation meets the next, and where grief is transfigured into continuity. In her note, Li recalls Thích Nhất Hạnh’s image of the cloud that does not die but becomes rain and river: the insight that life is continuation, not disappearance.

The piece was written in the wake of her partner’s passing, and you can feel how the music holds sorrow and gratitude in the same hand—how it invites us to be present enough that our breath becomes a practice of remembrance. In this frame, the Fool’s “beginner’s mind” is not naïveté but courage: the willingness to meet each moment as new.

Lindsay Bronnenkant’s Tarot is a three‑movement suite—The Fool, The King of Cups, The Tower—that walks right into our theme and lights it from different angles.

In The Fool, the music leaps with intentional comedy and a bit of “beginner’s luck,” sometimes skating perilously close to chaos (those whole‑tone gusts feel like the ground tilting), yet landing, somehow, on its feet. The King of Cups turns toward empathy and water’s depth—head and heart carefully balanced. And then The Tower arrives like a necessary storm: façades crumble, structures fail, and a harsher kind of illumination flashes. Bronnenkant traces a lineage back to Holst’s The Planets and his raga‑inflected pitch worlds, reimagining those colors for a different kind of divination. The result is a journey through innocence, compassion, and rupture—the Fool’s path writ large.

If there is a single image that threads these works together for me, it is the little bell cap—the permission to wonder aloud. The Schellenkappe reminds me that play and seriousness are not opposites; they are companions that help us cross thresholds with both humility and joy. Tonight, may you hear the bells at the cliff’s lip, feel the grass under your boot‑soles, and find yourself encouraged to step— together—with awe.

Scan to read full Conductor’s Statement.

PROGRAM Woods Cross High School Wind Ensemble (30 minutes) Mr. Todd Campbell, Conductor

Celebration Fanfare (2023)

Pinkzebra

Second Suite in F, Op. 28, No. 2 (1911/1922) I. March II. Song without Words, “I’ll love my love” III. Song of the Blacksmith IV. Fantasia on the “Dargason”

Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Intermission (15 minutes)

UVU Wind Symphony (60 minutes) Dr. Christopher Ramos, Conductor

Traveler (2003)

David Maslanka (1943-2017)

In This Breath (2025)

Shuying Li (b. 1989) Consortium Premiere

Tarot (2021/22) I. The Fool II. The King of Cups III. The Tower

Lindsay Bronnenkant (b. 1988)

Utah Premiere

UVU Wind Symphony Dr. Christopher Ramos, Conductor Flute Jessica Allen Cami Bartholemew Jenifer Swanson* Ashley Toomey

Saxophone Gideon Baker, Tenor Addie Hogan, Alto Ruth Payne, Bari Logan Stanford, Alto*

Tuba Sam Hikida Alex Jensen Jarom Lewis* Giovanni Ochoa

Oboe Luca de la Florin Emily Adams

Trumpet Arye Arteaga Brandon Ard Katherine Goehring Connor Perkins Hugo Thompson* Jordon Toomey

Percussion Jordan Bushman Carter Cox Liesel Coxson James Hatch* Geovanni Thomas Alex Stone Nick Walker

Bassoon Eric Christensen* Joshua Magnusson Clarinet Adrian Blanco Hannah Brown Kaydence Butler John Gates Conner Hodson Julia McHenry Jeffrey Rawlings* Alec Russell Robyn Ward Kathleen Williams

Horn Steven Dulger* Cora Jackson Sean Knowlton Andrew Williams Trombone Michael Ferrier* Steven Gravley Jay Henrie, Bass Mackay Hill William Whitehead Euphonium Abdallah Elhaddi Gabriel Nelson

* denotes section principal

String Bass AJ Peery Piano Anna Peterson Harp Travis Lunt Ensemble Manager Tess Petersen

Woods Cross High School Wind Ensemble Mr. Todd Campbell, Director Piccolo Leah Keyes Flute Maggie Bradford Charlie Bradshaw Isabelle Clark Ethan Deguenon Usiel Martinez Macie Green Ellie Hogan Leah Keyes Bridget Moulton Ainsley Reese Olivia Wheeler Oboe Andrew Kambalov Bassoon Lyric Utrilla Clarinet Bella Badauka Danny Bennion Jill Evans Kenia Fitz Emma Lavender Jack Manning Yey Mendez Marli Salter Alison Van Lent

Bass Clarinet Rachel Allen Aida Steed Alto Saxophone Sophia Garaycochea Tim Johnson Izzie Thomas Tenor Saxophone Santiago Mancilla Noah Telford Baritone Saxophone Amelia McChesney Trumpet Max Chi-Tovar Darryl Dempsey Max Holdstock Carter Jacobs Daniel Messina Simon Miller David Perez Makay Richards Evan Taylor French Horn Jesse Hall Sophie Pollard Carson Strong Ben Whitehead

Trombone Tyson Adams Will Campbell Oliver De Vries Rachel Gibson Benson Hamblin Malaki Olsen Halle Tucker Euphonium Alex Arteaga Taylor Jensen Brayden Larsen Gianna Lavanway Tuba Davis Boyle Hunter Love Joe Ruganis Percussion Henry Campbell Lilly Evans Nathan Gridley McKenna Howes Makini Ita’Aehau Charlie Jensen Taiden Palmer