Yale Concert Band: February 10, 2023, Woolsey Hall (New Haven, CT)

Yale Concert Band Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director

Winter Concert Friday, February 10, 2023, at 7:30 p.m., Woolsey Hall, Yale University

RICHARD STRAUSS KEVIN DAY

RYAN J. WILLIAMS

JEFF FULLER

Serenade in Eb major, Op. 7 (1881) Rocketship! (2017) Catherine Zhang SM ’24, guest conductor Shades of Red (2019) I. Origin Story II. Cadenza III. The Omnipresent Future Kate Warren YSM ’23, mellophone Afro-Cuban Suite* (2022) (world premiere)

~ intermission ~ NICOLE PIUNNO

Bright Shadow Fanfare (2021)

DAVID MASLANKA

On This Bright Morning (2013)

Kelly Watkins, guest conductor

CARLOS SIMON

AMEN! (2017)

*Commissioned with funds from the Robert Flanagan Yale Band Commissions Endowment Fund.

Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut.

We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.

Tonight’s Music Serenade in Eb major, Op. 7 (1881) RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949) Richard Strauss’s father, Franz, was the principal horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra and was recognized as Germany’s leading virtuoso of the instrument. His mother came from the prominent brewing family of Pschorr. Although he enjoyed a conventional education as a boy, Strauss still devoted most of his time and energy to music. When he left school in 1882, he had already composed more than 140 works. Through his father’s connections, Strauss met the leading musicians of the day, including the conductor Hans von Bulow, who commissioned Strauss’s Suite for 13 Winds in Bb, Op. 4, for the Meiningen Orchestra and invited Strauss to conduct the work’s first performance in Munich in November 1884.

Following this successful conducting debut, von Bulow offered Strauss the post of assistant conductor at Meiningen. Had the young Strauss not written his first wind serenade (Op. 7) three years earlier, the success of his Op. 4 (errantly listed before Op. 7 due to its publication date) would likely have been in question, and his career most certainly could have developed along a different path.

Composed in 1881, exactly 100 years after Mozart’s Serenade No. 11 in Eb, the Op. 7 Serenade was, in Strauss’s own words, “nothing more than the respectable work of a music student.” Strauss scored the work for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, along with four horns and contrabassoon (or tuba). Upon hearing a performance of the work in 1900, he would remark, “double woodwinds are impossible against four horns.”

The Serenade premiered in Dresden on November 27,1882, and has aptly been explained as representing the young Strauss’s filtering and distillation of the influences of Mozart and Mendelssohn into something remarkably original.

The contour of the melodies easily identifies the seventeen-year-old as the future composer of works filled with moments of the beautiful lyricism found in Der Rosenkavalier and, especially, his late opera Daphne with its rich wind scoring.

Strauss moves from calm waters one moment to surges of great intensity in the next, and his choice of orchestration throughout the Serenade embodies a depth rarely exhibited by a 17-year-old composer. One particularly notable choice can be found in the recapitulation, which begins with perhaps the most evocatively beautiful moment in the Serenade as the horns play the first theme with great warmth, an eight-bar phrase which surely must have put a smile on his father Franz’s face.”

(Notes by Robert Markow) Rocketship! (2017) KEVIN DAY (b. 1996) “Rocketship! is an energetic concert piece formed by two sections which express energy in different ways. The first is composed of short rhythmic patterns that start quietly before building to the end of each phrase. The second section introduces a marching snare drum solo accompanied by open fifths, known as power chords, in the winds. Brief motives accompany the sustained power chords, but quickly dissipate as a new motive begins. The different sections shrink as the composition develops until they are played one after the other at the very end.”

— Kevin Day Shades of Red (2019) RYAN J. WILLIAMS “This piece was originally written for and dedicated to my friend Selena Maytum of the U.S. Army Field Band. Selena and I share several common interests, including the marching arts, modern wind band, and contemporary music.

Many of these ideas were regular conversations between us while we both overlapped during our respective graduate

YALE CONCERT BAND school years. The title Shades of Red actually came out of previous sketches for material that ended up scrapped and replaced with what came to be in the end, but through conversations, the title still stuck.

“There’s no hard and fast ‘program’ for the music—just very loose associations.

“The first movement grew out of the warm, rich horn calls from the beginning of Jean Sibelius’s 5 th Symphony. With the work highlighting the mellophone, I felt it was only appropriate to begin the work with a statement of the mellophone’s lineage in the instrument storage room, and the typical path mellophone players take to get to that horn.

Thus, the beginning of the concerto begins with a simple horn call motive, shared between the soloist and the horn section.

“The third movement draws some inspiration from Philip Glass’s ‘Heroes’ Symphony. Both Selena and I have a love for minimalism and post-minimalism, and after a warm afternoon listening to the Glass Symphony with the windows down, I decided to take a crack at the movement by building it on a post-minimal foundation. The movement really unfolded quickly and took its current shape as a Rondo.

“Throughout the work, there’s a quasi-serial treatment of a cell that might be described as (0257)—or simply, Bb-C-Eb-F. This cell becomes the basis for both melodic, harmonic, and formal material.”

—Ryan Williams Williams was recently selected as a semi-finalist in the Band/ Wind Ensemble division of The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts for 2023, for Shades of Red (and two other compositions, To Thee/From Thee and Spirals).

Afro-Cuban Suite (2022) (world premiere) JEFF FULLER (b. 1945) “I’m extremely grateful to the Yale Concert Band, under the direction of Prof. Thomas Duffy, for commissioning and performing the world premiere of Afro-Cuban Suite, my homage to the great music, musicians, and culture of Cuba. It has been my unique honor to have performed and studied this music since the mid-1970s, through my career as jazz bassist, composer, and arranger.

“During the years I lived in New York City, I was fortunate to have gigged and toured with some of the masters of the vibrant Latin jazz scene. With a folkloric group led by songwriter Mike Glick, I toured Europe alongside Cuban groups, and then went directly to Cuba in 1978. Music permeates the atmosphere in Cuba, essential to daily life. My ears absorbed the sounds of authentic rumba, guaguancó, guajira, mambo. I was treated to iconic live performances by groups like Los Van Van, Rumbavana and Irakere, and many smaller groups and informal street performers.

“At a late-night session in Havana, I jammed with saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and pianist Chucho Valdes, the leaders of Irakere. Shortly thereafter, Paquito dropped by a club I was playing in NYC and said, ‘I remember you! Come join my band!’ Within days I was thrust into the NY Latin jazz scene, playing with the some of the greatest performers.

“While touring Europe I met Raúl Gutiérrez, a Chilean saxophonist living in Munich. His band, Grupo Irazú, was a very jazzy salsa band, and Raúl needed original charts for his band’s recordings, so I got to work composing and arranging for his band. Ultimately, Irazú put out at least six albums with my compositions on them. Guest soloists included Arturo Sandoval and Tata Güines.

“In 1992, I received a CT Commission on the Arts grant to orchestrate my Latin jazz compositions for jazz big band. The resulting work was performed at Quinnipiac University by the resident Sonny Costanzo Big Band with guest soloist, Paquito D’Rivera. Since then, I have continued to compose and arrange Latin jazz for big band, including Salsa En Mi Alma, recorded by the Bill Warfield Big Band, and Dale Pa’lante, commissioned by the Yale Jazz Ensemble in 2019.

“Cuban music is typified by 1) a sophisticated rhythmic system based on the concept of clave, 2) a vocal style rooted in both African folklore and, ironically, Italian opera, and 3) its close relationship with American jazz. Cuban music and jazz are two branches of the same musical tree, and those two branches merge in my Afro-Cuban Suite.

“A word about clave. The clave pattern is a two-bar phrase: a 3-bar is followed by a 2-bar (3/2) or the inverse 2/3. In Cuban music, all parts are played ‘in clave,’ which means that each instrument’s rhythmic phrasing should be recognizable as conforming to established patterns of length, accentuation, and syncopation. When the music is ‘in clave,’ all players follow this convention: the percussionists, the melodic lead vocals or instruments, and the accompanying harmony and bass. Far from being restrictive, new and ever more clever ways of satisfying this principle are being devised all the time.

“The opening section of Afro-Cuban Suite, ‘Pa’los Santos,’ is set in the 6/8 rhythm of a bembé—a dance or religious ceremony of the Yoruba people of West Africa, a primary sub-ethnic group of Cuba. Typically played on batá drums along with a steady bell pattern, the resulting rhythmic polyphony is a core sound of Cuban music. “‘Pa’los Santos’ morphs its 3/2 clave to a 3/2 rumba clave—now in upbeat 4/4—of the second section, ‘Caliente.’

‘Caliente’ was originally composed for an 8-piece jazz combo in 2013, commissioned by West Coast-based 3-2 Music.

“The third section, ‘Cambios,’ begins in 2/3 clave. From the 1992 CT Commission series, ‘Cambios’ expresses a range of abrupt, chromatic chord changes before settling into a final section in Phrygian mode. The opening themes return over this ostinato.

“The fourth section is a slow bolero written for Grupo Irazú. ‘Siempre Estaré,’ the original recording, has a lovely vocal and lyrics by the group’s singer, Guillermo Marchena. The Cuban bolero — much loved both on the island and world-wide — is used for expressing feelings of a romantic or longing nature.

The fifth section, ‘Mambo,’ starts with one of the most characteristic of Cuban piano styles, the montuno. A montuno is a repeated harmonic pattern of 1- 2- or more chords, played as an ostinato under layered instrumental or vocal phrases.

‘Mambo’ builds to a solo for timbales as a transition to the sixth and final section of the Suite, ‘Carnaval.’ This is a son montuno, utilizing the familiar I-IV-V-IV major chord progression typical of a guajra. The ‘coro’ is a bright 3-bar ‘call’ from trumpets and woodwinds, while the low brass and others contribute to the ‘response’ again in a multi-layered contrapuntal way. A brief orchestral break — a montuno split into low, middle, and high parts—prepares the way for a last triumphant section with a conga solo and final punctuation mark!

“Afro-Cuban Suite represents the culmination of many, many years of joyous listening to, studying, and performance of Cuban music. I wish to thank the musicians, teachers and mentors who have directly or indirectly showed me the Cuban way, how to speak the musical language and, of course, how to stay ‘in clave!’

“It is with much respect that I dedicate this work to Professor Robert Farris Thompson, Ph.D. (1932–2021).

He lived a long and fruitful life, passionately dedicated to the understanding of ‘Afro-Atlantic’ culture — to use a term he coined. He was a popular professor of African Art History at Yale, where his classes would sometimes feature musical performances by well-known African, Cuban, and Puerto Rican musicians. His spirited enthusiasm for the music was contagious, and he could frequently be heard on campus humming, singing, or reciting Afro-Cuban rhythms. ¡Mambo en paz, Prof. Bob!” — Jeff Fuller Bright Shadow Fanfare (2021) NICOLE PIUNNO (b. 1985) “The intense contrast in Bright Shadow Fanfare refers to two possible meanings. It could mean bringing our darkness into the light in order to integrate it with our true self. It could also mean revealing our positive traits and gifts that we may not allow ourselves to show or give to others.”

— Nicole Piunno

YALE CONCERT BAND On This Bright Morning (2013) DAVID MASLANKA (1943–2017) “There are times of stability in life, and times of significant transition. Transitions can be upsetting, often provoked or accompanied by physical or emotional troubles. They are times of uncertainty and unknowing, but also the times of greatest creative change. On This Bright Morning acknowledges the struggle, and the feelings of pain and loss in times of transition, but embodies the pure joy of realizing the bigger life. On this bright morning, life is new, life is possible.”

—David Maslanka AMEN! (2017) CARLOS SIMON (b. 1986) “AMEN! was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphony Band and is a homage to my family’s four-generational affiliation with the Pentecostal church. My intent is to re-create the musical experience of an African American Pentecostal church service that I enjoyed being a part of while growing up in this denomination. Pentecostal denominations, such as Church of God in Christ (C.O.G.I.C.), Pentecostal Assemblies of God, Apostolic, Holiness Church, among many others, are known for their exuberant outward expressions of worship. The worship services in these churches will often have joyous dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing. The music in these worship services is a vital vehicle in fostering a genuine spiritual experience for the congregation.

“The three movements in AMEN! are performed without break to depict how the different parts of a worship services flows into the next. In the first movement, I’ve imagined the sound of an exuberant choir and congregation singing harmoniously together in a call-and-response fashion. The soulful second movement quotes a gospel song, I’ll Take Jesus For Mine, that I frequently heard in many services. The title, AMEN!, refers to the plagal cadence or ‘Amen’ cadence (IV-I), which is the focal point of the climax in the final movement. Along with heavily syncopated rhythms and interjecting contrapuntal lines, this cadence modulates up by half step until we reach a frenzied state, emulating a spiritually heightened state of worship.”

—Carlos Simon

Photo: Harold Shapiro

Tonight’s Guest Artists Kate Warren is a freelance hornist based in New Haven, CT. She has previously toured with the Dallas Brass and held positions with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Sinfonia Gulf Coast.

As an educator, Kate is passionate about creating resources for music students and works extensively within social media to promote music and music education through her Instagram page @katewarrenmusic. She has recently published her first book, The Kate Warren French Horn Routine, and worked with Conn & Selmer and SmartMusic to develop and record a comprehensive beginner French horn curriculum. Kate is also an in-demand lecturer and researcher, regularly presenting and speaking on gender and equity in brass playing.

Kate also has extensive pageantry arts experience: currently she teaches brass at the Blue Stars Drum & Bugle Corps and the Connecticut Hurricanes Drum & Bugle Corps, as well as visual at the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps. She has previously worked with the University of New Haven Marching Chargers, taught visual for the Arizona Academy Drum & Bugle Corps, Carolina Crown, and Ancient City Percussion, as well as worked with numerous high school programs. Kate marched four summers of DCI playing mellophone, two with Carolina Crown (2017, 2018) and two with the Boston Crusaders (2015, 2016). Outside of music, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, and reading non-fiction.

Kate earned a Master of Music degree in horn performance from the New School, studying with Erik Ralske, a Bachelor of Music degree in horn performance from Florida State University, and is currently completing a Master of Musical Arts degree in horn performance at the Yale School of Music.

Kelly Watkins (she/they) has forged a diverse path in the arts as a performer, educator, conductor, and administrator. From the stage to the behind-the-scenes action, Kelly is equally at home facilitating success at all levels. In 2022, they joined the staff of the critically acclaimed chamber ensemble Sō Percussion as Director of Operations.

A twenty-year career with the United States Coast Guard Band led Kelly to performing engagements across the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, including musical support for heads of state and many U.S. Presidents. Additionally, they developed, organized, and facilitated concert tours for the Coast Guard Band which included more than 75 performances across 20 states, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan.

From 2013-2016 Kelly served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Symphonic Band in New York City and in 2017 was appointed to the faculty of Eastern Connecticut State University as director of the Eastern Concert Band and instructor of applied conducting. Further engagements from the podium include leading honor bands and collegiate ensembles around the country.

Kelly graduated with a Master of Music degree in Trumpet Performance from Illinois State University and a Bachelor of Music degree in Trumpet Performance from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. They are a past President of the International Women’s Brass Conference, currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Athena Brass Band and as the Connecticut State Chair in the Eastern Division of the College Band Directors National Association.

Catherine Zhang is a first semester senior from Folsom, California, majoring in Physics and Geosciences. She plays clarinet for the Davenport Pops Orchestra and the Yale Precision Marching Band, where she also recently served as the Drum Major for the 2022 season. Outside of school and music, you can find her sketching ideas for a webcomic. She is extremely honored and excited to be conducting Rocketship! by Kevin Day for the Yale Concert Band!

YALE CONCERT BAND

The Music Director Thomas C. Duffy is Professor (Adjunct) of Music, Director of University Bands, and

Clinical Professor of Nursing at Yale University, where he has worked since 1982. He is known as a composer, a conductor, a teacher, an administrator, and a leader. His interests and research range from non-tonal analysis to jazz, from wind band history to creativity and the brain. Under his direction, the Yale Bands have performed at conferences of the College Band Directors National Association and New England College Band Association; for club audiences at New York City’s Village Vanguard, Birdland, Dizzy’s Club, and Iridium; Ronnie Scott’s (London); the Belmont (Bermuda); as part of the inaugural ceremonies for President George H.W. Bush; and concertized in twenty-one countries in the course of eighteen international tours.

Duffy produced a two-year lecture/performance series, Music and the Brain, with the Yale School of Medicine; and, with the Yale School of Nursing, developed a musical intervention to train nursing students to better hear and identify body sounds with the stethoscope. He combined his interests in music and science to create a genre of music for the bilateral conductor – in which a “splitbrained conductor” must conduct a different meter in each hand, sharing downbeats. His compositions have introduced a generation of school musicians to aleaPhoto: Harold Shapiro tory, the integration of spoken/sung words and “body rhythms” with instrumental performance, and the pairing of music with political, social, historical and scientific themes. He has been awarded the Yale Tercentennial Medal for Composition, the Elm/Ivy Award, the Yale School of Music Cultural Leadership Citation and certificates of appreciation by the United States Attorney’s Office for his Yale 4/Peace: Rap for Justice concerts – music programs designed for social impact by using the power of music to deliver a message of peace and justice to impressionable middle and high school students.

Duffy has served as associate, deputy and acting dean of the Yale School of Music. He has served as a member of the Fulbright National Selection Committee, the Tanglewood II Symposium planning committee, the Grammy Foundation Music Educators Award Screening Committee, and completed the MLE program at the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education. He has served as: president of the Connecticut Composers Inc., the New England College Band Directors Association and the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA); editor of the CBDNA Journal, publicity chair for the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles; and chair of the Connecticut Music Educators Association’s Professional Affairs and Government Relations committees. He is a member of American Bandmasters Association, American Composers Alliance, the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Connecticut Composers Incorporated, the Social Science Club, and BMI. Duffy has conducted ensembles all over the world, including the National Association for Music Education’s National Honor Band in the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. (More extensive data is available at www.duffymusic.com, including a high resolution downloadable photo.)

Upcoming Yale Bands Performances • Tuesday, February 21, 2023 – 5:15–6:00 p.m. Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. “Pre-Commute Concert.” Attend a short concert to end your workday on the right “note” before heading home. Woolsey Hall. Free/no tickets required.

• Wednesday, March 1, 2023 – 7:30 p.m. Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Charts by Charles Mingus, Slide Hampton, and George Coleman. Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free/no tickets required.

• Monday, April 3, 2023 – 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band at Dizzy’s Club, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. With special guest George Coleman, saxophone. 10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY. $ Tickets: https://2023.jazz.org/the-yale-jazz-ensemble.

• Friday, April 14, 2023 – 7:30 p.m. Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. The Seer by Erik Santos, feat. guest artist Albert Lee, tenor; Riffs by Jeff Tyzik, Makana Medeiros YSM ’23, drums; Halo Music (M. O’Donnell). Woolsey Hall. Free/no tickets required.

• Tuesday, April 18, 2023 – 5:15–6:00 p.m. Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. “Pre-Commute Concert.” Attend a short concert to end your workday on the right “note” before heading home. Woolsey Hall. Free/no tickets required.

• Sunday, May 21, 2023 – 7:00–7:45 p.m. Yale Concert Band Twilight Concert, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. A pre-Commencement preview of ceremonial and Yale music. Outside on the Old Campus Main Stage (block bounded by Elm, College, Chapel, and High Streets). Free/no tickets required (chairs provided).

Spring 2023 Audience Policy: Open to asymptomatic patrons with an up-to-date vaccination status. Patron should carry vaccination documentation and be prepared to show it if asked. Yale-approved masks (N95 or other ASTM rated) are required for all audience members.

YALE CONCERT BAND 2022-2023 THOMAS C. DUFFY, Music Director

STEPHANIE HUBBARD, Operations and Production Manager Piccolo Salena Huang YSEAS ’26 Flutes Rosa Kleinman BF ’23* principal Emily He DC ’24 Allie Gruber PC ’26 Seb Seager SM ’23* Elijah Bakaleynik DC ’24 Peter Nelson JE ’26 Mei Hao YSEAS ’28

Bassoons Sharif Hassen ES ’26* principal Pax Ryan BK ’25* Keith Buckholz BF ’26 Soprano Saxophone Alina Martel TC ’23 Alto Saxophones Alina Martel TC ’23 principal Dennis Lee DC ’24 Felix Gong SM ’26

Oboes Miranda Margulis-Ohnuma BR ’23* principal Bb Tenor Saxophones Ana Rodrigues BR ’25* Aaron Yu MC ’25 Zara Ashford SY ’25* principal Sophia Graham DC ’26 Esteban Figueroa MC ’25 English Horn Ana Rodrigues BR ’25

Eb Baritone Saxophone Michael Chen GH 23

Eb Clarinet Margalit Patry-Martin GH ’24

Cornets/Trumpets Aidan Garcia MC ’26 Izzy Lopez MY ’23 Risha Chakraborty SY ’25 Josh Bialkin YSM ’23 Shania Cordoba YSM ’23

Bb Clarinets Jalen Li PC ’23, Keith L. Wilson Principal Clarinet Chair *† Ben Swinchoski BF ’25 Margalit Patry-Martin GH ’24 Michael Ying BK ’24* Joshua Rothbaum TD ’23 Avery Maples PC ’26 Daniel Denney ES ’24 Jessica Liu GH ’25 Alexandra Schoettler SM ’26 Peilin Lu PC ’26 Meiling Laurence BF ’26 Bb Bass Clarinet Lloyd Van’t Hoff YSM ’23

French Horns (rotating) Rory Bricca ES ’26* Zane Glick ES ’26* Miriam Huerta BF ’23* Michelle Ross GH ’26*

Euphonium John Liu TD ’25 Addison Maye-saxon YSM ’23 Tubas Bridget Conley YSM ’23 Julia Chen YSE ’24 Piano Serina Wang SY ’26 String Bass Chelsea Strayer YSM ’24* Percussion Madeline Chun SM ’26 Kyle Thomas Ramos MY ’26 Bohan Shakes TD ’26 Nikolai Stephens-Zumbaum BF ’26 Max Su SY ’25 Bryce Morales BR ’23 ¶ Music Librarian Michael Chen GH ’23 * playing on Serenade in Eb

† Friends of Keith L. Wilson (Director of

Yale Bands from 1946-1973) honored him by endowing the principal clarinet chair in the Yale Concert Band in his name. If you would like information about naming a Yale Concert Band chair, please contact the Yale Bands Office. ¶

playing on Afro-Cuban Suite only

Trombones Theo Haaks BR ’24 principal Addison Maye-saxon YSM ’23 Cody Uman MC ’25 Declan Wilcox YSM ’23

YALE CONCERT BAND OFFICERS President: Ana Rodrigues | General Managers: Zara Ashford, Rory Bricca Publicity Chair: Ben Swinchoski | Social Chairs: Daniel Denney, Emily He