Dear Friends and Family,
Welcome to the Davenport Pops Orchestra’s third concert of the 2024-2025 school year, and our 20th anniversary concert! As Co-Presidents, we thank you for coming and hope you enjoy the concert.
Founded in 2005, DPops brings together Yale students from different majors, backgrounds, and residential colleges who are passionate about the performance of quality orchestral music. As Yale’s premier pops orchestra, our repertoire includes pop songs, film scores, Broadway hits, popular classical works, hip-hop, and more. We hope to bring a nontraditional interpretation of orchestral music into the community with our performances so enthusiastic music lovers and casual music enjoyers alike will be entertained!
Come fly away with us as we play songs from Wicked and Kiki’s Delivery Service! We’ll also be playing songs by Laufey, selections from the soundtrack of Undertale, songs from Les Misérables, and “Africa” by Toto (featuring DPops’s very first conductor)! For more information about the orchestra, please visit www.dpops.com, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @davenportpops. Videos of the concert will be available on our YouTube channel shortly after the performance.
We’re so grateful that you can join us. On behalf of the Davenport Pops Orchestra, we welcome you to our concert! We hope you enjoy the music!
With D’Love,
Genevieve Kim TD ’26, genevieve kim@yale edu Kira Tang TC ’27, kira.tang@yale.edu
The Davenport Pops Orchestra Co-Presidents
Special Thanks To Davenport College
Berkeley College
Bryanna Kim
Head Anjelica Gonzalez; Dean Ryan André Brasseaux
Shaffrona Phillip-Christie
Dean Kate Krier; Daisy Abreu; Aubrey Ellis
Kerry Cripe
Yale U.O.C.
Yale Chaplain's Office
Jaime Nachtigall
Yale U.P.
Brian Robinson
Catherine Kwon
Alumni Donors
Yeeee Chair
Kate Feinerman for 2nd to Last Viola
The Catto Chair
Georgia Smitts for First Piano
Queen of the Brass Section Chair
Anusha Manglik for the Person who likes Corgis the Most
The Never Too Late Chair
Sayda Martinez-Alvarado for a new member in the Junior class
CS 323 Chair
Jim Zhou for the longest serving CS 323 ULA
The DPops Savior’s Chair
Ryan Lim for the Head Video Editor
The Chari Chair
Helen Zhou for Keerthana Chari
DPops Board of Directors:
Presidents: Genevieve Kim TD ‘26 & Kira Tang TC ‘27
Conductor: Mitchell Dubin BF ‘25
Assistant Conductor: Jeremy Ng TC ‘26
Head Arrangers: Liam Barthelmy SM ‘25 & June Yoo BR ‘25
Assistant Arranger: John Owen Weber ES ‘26
Director of Development: Eric Gan DC ‘25 & Lilia Potter-Schwartz MY ‘26
Treasurer: Lily Hyde TC ‘27
Publicity Chairs: Amy Metrick SM ‘27 & Chris Shia SY ‘27
Orchestra Manager: Samson Wong MC ’27
Minis Manager: Eric Gan DC ‘25
Librarians: Sivan Almogy DC ’26, Angélique Wheeler PC ‘26 & Sophia Zhou DC ‘26
Social Committee Chairs: Iris Liebman BR ‘27 & Helen Zhou PC ‘25
Website Manager: Keerthana Chari BK ’25
Davenport Liaison: Mason Abrell DC ‘26
AV Team Directors: Jeremy Ng TC ‘26 & Roxanne Shaviro BK ‘26
New Member Liaisons: Patrick Cannon GH ‘28, Morgan Go BR ‘28, Sophie Heitfield BR ‘28, Julia Landres JE ‘28, Abril Linares Mendoza JE ‘28, Ro Malik MY ‘27, Marie McKinney DC ‘28, Tzideny Romero DC ‘28, David Wang GH ‘28 & Eric Xiong DC ‘28
Help support DPops!
Donate online by visiting dpops.com and clicking “Support Us”
The DAVENPORT POPS ORCHESTRA
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Wicked
Music by Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz's hit musical Wicked took Broadway by storm in 2003. Subtitled "The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz,"Wicked follows the story of Glinda and Elphaba, who would become known as the Wicked Witch of the West, before Dorothy dropped into their magical land. The musical has played for over 4,000 performances on Broadway, and over the past ten years there have been countless touring productions around the world. In addition to winning three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards, and a Grammy, Wicked has succeeded in winning the affection of countless fans with its vibrant score that includes some of the most popular (pun intended) songs from the Stephen Schwartz catalog (which includes iconic musicals such as Pippin and Godspell and multiple Disney film collaborations with composer Alan Menken). In this arrangement, you'll hear all your favorite tunes, including "Popular," "What Is This Feeling", "Dancing Through Life," "For Good," "and "Defying Gravity."
In fall 2024, the Wicked movie (starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande) became the top-grossing film adaptation of a musical of all time.
Undertale
Music by Toby Fox
Released in 2015, Undertale is a role playing game (RPG) which subverts and comments on the conventions of the genre in many powerful ways, with a heaping dose of humor to boot The game places your character, a human child, into an underground land full of so-called “monsters”, but immediately encourages you not to fight them, to resolve conflicts peacefully and even befriend them. Depending on your choices on this matter, the game has several wildly diverging endings, ranging from the “true pacifist route”, which requires never harming a monster during the entire game, in addition to befriending a number of important characters, to the “genocide route”, in which the player must methodically kill every single monster in the entire game in a tedious slog filled with reminders of your terrible choices, culminating in a final boss battle against sans, the character who appears in all other routes to be mainly comic relief. In addition to these obvious comments on what the classic video game dichotomy of humans vs. monsters really means, the game also plays with other normally-unquestioned features of video games, such as saving and reloading your progress
Program notes by Tim Laciano
The game attained incredible success and a large dedicated fanbase in part because of its outstanding soundtrack, written by the same man who coded almost the entire game, Toby Fox Featuring upbeat boss themes, lush melodies, and unifying character motifs, all written in a signature electronic style, it boasts an incredible variety of beautiful music from which it was difficult even to choose 20 minutes for this arrangement. It has been my dream for many years to bring this music to life with an orchestra and I am immensely grateful and excited for the opportunity to play it for you all today The arrangement is divided into three movements, each centered around a couple of core motifs
The first movement, centered around the characters Toriel, Asgore, and their deceased son Asriel, begins with what could be considered the main theme of the game with the simple and placid Once Upon A Time. We quickly move on to Heartache, a fast but tragic theme depicting your first major confrontation of the game against Toriel, who does not want you to leave the safety of the game ’ s first area After this, we jump ahead to near the end of the game, with the title track Undertale, as we near the palace of Asgore, Toriel’s estranged husband, and reflect on what we have been through as we hear the main theme again in broader orchestration over the constant guitar ostinato that represents Asriel. ASGORE comes next, another boss theme which uses similar motifs to Heartache on a grander scale. And finally, the theme(s) for the final boss of the true pacifist route, Asriel himself: Hopes and Dreams and SAVE the World bring this movement to its soaring conclusion A final iteration of the main theme in the violins finishes it off, coming full circle
The second movement focuses on the motifs that unify many of the exploration themes of the game. We begin with Waterfall, a tranquil and mysterious theme for the watery caves in the middle of the game This theme slowly transforms through Another Medium, the faster music that plays in Hotland, into CORE, the upbeat and driving theme which plays in the shifting mechanical fortress near the end of the game, still using many of the same motifs from prior This transitions directly into the boss theme for this zone, Death by Glamour, in which you fight the robot TV star Mettaton on stage.
The third and final movement takes from some of the more comedic moments and characters of the game Ghost Fight kicks it off with the jazzy theme for the strange fight against the depressed musician ghost Napstablook We are then interrupted by sans The period is part of the name of the song, as is the lowercase It’s the theme for sans the funny skeleton. I kinda don’t know how to explain this if you don’t know who sans is, he became a massive meme even outside of the game. This part is a brass section solo. Moving on, we get Bonetrousle, which is the fight theme for sans ’ incompetent brother, Papyrus, who wants to capture you but is fundamentally incapable of doing so After this is Spider Dance, a minor boss fight theme from later in the game against Muffet the spider baker, using the same motifs as ghost fight And at last, the moment you ’ ve all been waiting for, Megalovania. By far the most well-known song in the game, this plays only during the
genocide route during the final battle against sans While it is a fundamentally tragic moment in the game, the music keeps some levity due to sans ’ character, and despite the song ’ s meme status, it is actually just a banger
I hope you all enjoy this journey through some of the highlights of the Undertale soundtrack. It is truly difficult to explain all of the incredible and seemingly contradictory pieces of this game in such a short format If you haven’t played Undertale, go play it It will make you laugh, make you think, and maybe even make you cry And all the while, you will be listening to Toby Fox’s incredible music
Program Notes by Liam Barthelmy
“Let You Break My Heart Again” and “Lovesick”
Music by Laufey
Laufey is an Icelandic singer-songwriter whose music blends jazz, classical, and pop Trained as a classical cellist and jazz vocalist from childhood, she rose to fame in the early 2020s through her performances on TikTok, going on to win a GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her sophomore record, Bewitched (2023), and becoming Spotify’s most-streamed jazz artist in 2022
In this arrangement, we weave together two of our favorite songs from her discography (along with a tiny Undertale surprise), as voted on by the orchestra and arranged by three of our members “Let You Break My Heart Again,” originally recorded by Laufey with the Philharmonia Orchestra, features sweeping string textures and introspective harmonies in a melancholic meditation on heartbreak. On the other hand, “Lovesick” combines a pulsing, anthemic energy with yearning harmonies, evoking feelings of intense longing and passion Together, the two songs form a journey through the highs and lows of romance, as told by today’s biggest voice in jazz
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Music by Joe Hisaishi
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a 1989 Japanese animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli. It tells the story of Kiki, a young witch who leaves her magical town in the countryside to start a life of her own in the city Despite a promising start to her flying delivery business, she finds that she is unable to connect with the urban
Program notes by June Yoo
youth, who view her as old-fashioned and unrefined As loneliness sets in, Kiki becomes depressed and falls into a magical slump
Joe Hisaishi’s score for the film marks his fourth collaboration with Miyazaki in a partnership that continues to this day The main theme, “A Town With an Ocean View,” is one of the most iconic works in his entire oeuvre. This arrangement combines this theme with two other selections from the soundtrack “A Very Busy Kiki” and “Osono’s Request ”
This is the third consecutive year that we ’ ve brought Joe Hisaishi’s music to our largest venue, Woolsey Hall Year after year, the 74-year-old Japanese composer ’ s scores for Studio Ghibli have been requested by the orchestra more than any other piece of music We hope you can hear this enthusiasm as we bring Kiki’s magic back to the concert hall.
Program notes by June Yoo
Les Misérables
Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
“The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!”
Les Misérables, published in 1862 and the product of over a decade of Victor Hugo’s labor, was first known as an iconic book which rendered French politics and literature forever changed. Since then, this tragedy has seen itself retold in a range of mediums; the original musical written in French by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg in 1978 was at first nothing but an almost-unknown work of art, shown on stages which lacked the tradition of musical theater to support it It wasn’t until 1985 that the English translation by Herbert Kretzmer that many know today first opened in London; this is the version which found immense support from international audiences, and was brought to Broadway in 1987 This beloved musical adds volumes of charm, hope, and passion to Hugo’s story depicting the misérables of France.
The plot of the musical adaptation stays true to the overarching plot of Hugo’s novel; prisoner number 24601, known as Jean Valjean, is granted his freedom at the start of the story, but spends his life running from the police inspector Javert, who is determined to return him to prison Post-imprisonment, Valjean has committed his life to caring for Cosette, the only child of an impoverished villager named Fantine, to whom Jean became indebted in the years following his release. Much of the show takes place during the June Rebellion of 1832 (the Paris Uprising), a revolt which lasted two days, instigated by riots at the funeral procession of anti-monarchist Jean Lamarque, and which was fueled by tensions between
France’s suffering peasants (les misérables) and the monarchy The plot is concluded by the marriage of Cosette and her lover Marius, and the death of Jean Valjean In the revitalized musical, stories of despair, love, and tragedy are inextricably intertwined, merging into the intricate tale of “ a people who will not be slaves again.”
Our arrangement of Schönberg’s enchanting music, titled 24601, faithfully follows the musical’s plot, with its two movements being equated to each of the show’s two acts. Movement I: Fantine, Jean, Cosette includes the show’s Overture, Work Song, At the End of the Day, I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House, Do You Hear the People Sing?, and One Day More, depicting the emotions of the principal cast of the show: the despair of the French peasants and prisoners, Fantine’s regrets and her hopes for a better life for Cosette, the sleazy Monsieur and Madame Thénardier, and the unbending will of the French people, longing for change. Movement I describes the eclectic nature of Les Misérables and the tensions which precede the building of the Paris barricades.
Movement II: Marius, Javert, Éponine depicts the tragedy which befalls much of the characters in the show, illustrating the fallout which follows the squandering of the rebels in Paris This movement contains the songs Drink with Me, Javert’s Suicide, and Epilogue Here we find near-hopeless rebels savoring their final shreds of optimism for the future, a fallen anti-hero unable to comprehend the pure-heartedness of the man who he thought could be no more than a common criminal, and the hope passed on to Cosette and Marius by the martyrs of the story, reprising the enduring theme of Do You Hear the People Sing? To conclude the arrangement, Movement II portrays the endurance of the spirit of the oppressed, and the hope that lives on in the face of nearly insurmountable hardship.
Africa
Toto’s Africa (1982) is a timeless rock anthem known for its lush harmonies, soaring melody, and evocative lyrics In our unique orchestral setting, arranged for DPops by alum Calvin Jahnke ‘20, sweeping strings, bold brass, and dynamic percussion enhance its grandeur and cinematic feel Though inspired more by imagination than firsthand experience, its imagery of distant lands has captivated listeners for decades With its infectious chorus and rich instrumentation, Africa remains a cultural staple, frequently covered and celebrated worldwide. We invite you to get up and groove, and enjoy this staple of the DPops repertoire first performed by the orchestra in 2007, with subsequent performances in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2018
Program notes by John O. Weber
Music by Toto
Mitchell Dubin Conductor
