Yale Concert Band
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director
“The Pursuit of Happiness”
Friday, November 15, 2024, at 7:30 pm, Woolsey Hall, Yale University
KEVIN DAY
CHARLES IVES
arr. James B. Sinclair
JIM COLONNA
Stride (2023)* Country Band March (1903)
The Pursuit of Happiness: A Symphony for Wind Ensemble (2024)* [world premiere]
I. The Seeker
II. When I looked at the sky, the stars sparkled with love
III. Simply, Play
IV. Be Here, Now
~ intermission ~
Symphony No. 4 (1993)
*commissioned with funds from the Robert Flanagan Yale Band Commissioning Endowment
Yale University acknowledges that Indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquin-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.
DAVID MASLANKA
About Tonight’s Music
Stride (2023)
KEVIN DAY (b. 1996)
The composer writes of his piece:
“Commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association, Stride is derived from the definition meaning to walk in a decisive way to cross and overcome obstacles that may come within our paths. Stride is also a reference to the marching band tradition and highlights my experience growing up as a Texas band kid marching on the field. This is an energetic work that features brass and drum grooves that could be felt within duple and triple, while contrasting to a beautiful lyrical section that showcases the woodwind section.”
Country Band March (1903)
CHARLES IVES - Yale Class of 1898 (1874-1954) [arr. James B. Sinclair]
The Country Band March was composed in 1903 and arranged for full band in 1973 by James Sinclair of Yale University. The piece displays some of Ives’ most distinguishing characteristics, particularly the use of quotations of tunes that were popular in his childhood. Unlike other composers who make use of similar material, Ives sought deliberately to capture the inaccuracies of rhythm and intonation that he usually heard in amateur performances. The results can be wildly humorous and raucous, and affectionately nostalgic, often at the same time. Country Band March later became part of larger works by Ives: the Symphony No. 4 and the “Putnam’s Camp” movement of Three Places in New England. (Program note by Richard Franko Goldman)
The Pursuit of Happiness: A Symphony for Wind Ensemble (2024)
JIM COLONNA (b. 1970)
Jim Colonna (b. 1970) is the Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at Messiah University, where he teaches graduate wind conducting and conducts the wind ensemble. His ensembles have performed at All State conferences in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including the 2018 National Association for Music Education All East Conference. He has held positions at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Utah Valley University, where he lead the UVU Wind Symphony to a performance at The West/ Northwest College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) conference in 2012. Jim’s compositions have been performed all over the world, including Italy, Belgium, Finland, and Japan, as well as conferences with the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, CBDNA, the New Jersey Music Educators Association, the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, and the Midwest Clinic.
Colonna earned his Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in Conducting from Michigan
Photo: ©Sara Bill Photography
State University in 2007 and his Master of Music Degree in Conducting from the University of North Texas in 2000. Jim’s conducting teachers include Eugene Corporon, Kevin Sedatole, John T. Madden, and Jack Stamp.
Dr. Colonna studied composition with Charles Ruggerio (MSU), Cindy McTee (UNT), and Jack Stamp (IUP). The composer writes of his piece:
“In a time when the world seems upside-down with war, famine, climate change, and political divisiveness, I decided it was time to create music that celebrates optimism. Just when the world was coming out of a pandemic, war ravaged our earth, mass shootings returned to pre-pandemic times, and terrorism and racism (both towards different cultures but also within and towards different religious viewpoints) became prominent headlines in our fast-moving world.
“I composed a work of joy, of present, of now. This music celebrates the gratitude I have for the wonderful life I have been given. I hope conductors, ensembles, and audiences find the joy in these sounds as well.
“Each movement is drawn on the talks and writings of philosopher Alan Watts. The tonal language of the work comes from my love of consonant and dissonant clusters. Here, it is a major seventh, a major second, a tritone, and a minor second. Each movement is based on these intervals.
“In 2023, I discovered the recordings of Don Ellis. I have been listening to each album over and over. I prefer the live concerts and marvel at three things: the amazing rhythmic ability of the musicians; the progressive harmonic language, intentional or not; and the joy the band and Don perform with each night.
“In the same summer I discovered Don Ellis, my wife Chrissy shared The Happiness Lab, a podcast led by Dr. Laurie Santos (right), who is a professor at Yale University. Each week, I listen to Dr. Santos and her guests reveal secrets to happiness that many of us have forgotten. I always come away with a new perspective. If Laurie ever hears The Pursuit of Happiness, thank you.
“I. The Seeker (‘Those who search for happiness do not find it because they do not understand that the object of the search is the seeker’): My obsession with Ellis, David Byrne, and Dee Snider greatly influenced the form of this movement. From ripping motivic figures, minimalistic texture, and heavy metal, my happiness is sought out and revealed.
“II. When I looked to the sky, the stars sparkled with love (‘Don’t hurry for anything, and don’t worry about the future. Don’t worry about what progress you’re making. Just be entirely content to be aware of what is’): I lost both of my parents recently. My mother taught me to always look up at night. We shared a love for the night sky, and to this day, I lie in my backyard looking at the infinity of the universe.
“My father’s last words to me were, ‘I’m proud of you.’ I can hear them still echoing in my heart. He always encouraged me to keep looking up in my career but, more importantly, my family. The motive is explored in its wider intervals to create a sense of space and love.
“III: Simply, Play (‘Don’t make a distinction between work and play. Regard everything that you’re doing as play, and don’t regard for one minute that you have to be serious about it’): I love to ride my bike. I probably love riding my bike more than any other activity I do. It’s so honest. When there is a hill, you have a choice, face it, suffer, and one will find joy on the descent. What a nice metaphor throughout time, but for me, it’s actionable, it’s real, and here and now. I train to race, but also like to just go ‘play bikes.’ The smaller intervals are explored in this movement.
“IV: Be Here, Now (‘There is no greater freedom than the freedom to be what you are now’): It is here that the motive is bought to exuberance. Clean, crisp, clever fun. The full combination of intervals is set this time as a celebratory dance of joy. Music from the first movement returns in the short codetta to bring everything back to one. From one to one. The eternal now.”
Symphony No. 4 (1993)
DAVID MASLANKA
(1943-2017)
The composer writes of his piece:
“The sources that give rise to a piece of music are many and deep. It is possible to describe the technical aspects of a work – its construction principles, its orchestration – but nearly impossible to write of its soul nature except through hints and suggestions.
“The roots of Symphony No. 4 are many. The central driving force is the spontaneous rise of the impulse to shout for the joy of life. I feel it is the powerful voice of the Earth that comes to me from my adopted western Montana, and the high plains and mountains of central Idaho. My personal experience of the voice is one of being helpless and torn open by the power of the thing that wants to be expressed – the welling-up shout that cannot be denied. I am set aquiver and am forced to shout and sing. The response in the voice of the Earth is the answering shout of thanksgiving, and the shout of praise.
“Out of this, the hymn tune Old Hundred, several other hymn tunes (the Bach chorales Only Trust in God to Guide You and Christ Who Makes Us Holy), and original melodies which are hymn-like in nature, form the backbone of Symphony No. 4.”
“To explain the presence of these hymns, at least in part, and to hint at the life of the Symphony, I must say something about my long-time fascination with Abraham Lincoln. From Carl Sandburg’s monumental Abraham Lincoln, I offer two quotes. The first is a description of Lincoln in death by his close friend David R. Locke:
“‘I saw him, or what was mortal of him, in his coffin. The face had an expression of absolute content, or relief, at throwing off a burden such as few men have been called on to bear – a burden which few men could have borne. I have seen the same expression on his living face only a few times, when after a great calamity he had come to great victory. It was the look of a worn man suddenly relieved. Wilkes Booth did Abraham Lincoln the greatest service man could possible do for him – he gave him peace.’
“The second, referring to the passage through the country from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois of the coffin bearing Lincoln’s body:
“‘To the rotunda of Ohio’s capitol, on a mound of green moss dotted with white flowers, rested the coffin on April 28, while 8,000 persons passed by each hour from 9:30 in the morning till four in the afternoon. In the changing red-gold of a rolling prairie sunset, to the slow exultation of brasses rendering Old Hundred, and the muffled boom of minute guns, the coffin was carried out of the rotunda and taken to the funeral train.’
“For me, Lincoln’s life and death are as critical today as they were more than a century ago. He remains a model for this age. Lincoln maintained in his person the tremendous struggle of opposites raging in the country in his time. He was inwardly open to the boiling chaos, out of which he forged the framework of a new unifying idea. It wore him down and killed him, as it wore and killed the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Civil War, as it has continued to wear and kill by the millions up to the present day. Confirmed in the world by Lincoln was the unshakable idea of the unity of the human race, and by extension the unity of all life, and by further extension, the unity of all life with all matter, with all energy, and with the silent and seemingly empty and unfathomable mystery of our origins.
“Out of chaos and the fierce joining of opposite comes new life and hope. From this impulse I used Old Hundred, known as the Doxology – a hymn of praise to God; Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow; Gloria in excelsis Deo – the mid-sixteenth century setting of Psalm 100. Psalm 100 reads in part:
1Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
4Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
“I have used Christian Symbols because they are my cultural heritage, but I have tried to move through them to a depth of universal humanness, to an awareness that is not defined by religious label. My impulse through this music is to speak to the fundamental human issues of transformation and re-birth in this chaotic time.”
Photo: Sue Rissberger Photography
Upcoming Yale Bands Performances
• Friday, December 6 – 7:30 p.m. Yale School of Music Ellington Series: New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band with the Yale Concert Band (Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director). The New York Afro Bop Alliance Big Band will perform its famed Pan American Nutcracker Suite, a jazz/Afro-Caribbean reconceptualization of Tchaikovsky’s timeless masterpiece, alternating movements with the Yale Concert Band performing the traditional classical arrangement. Woolsey Hall. $ Tickets: music.yale.edu/events (or scan QR code at right).
• Friday, February 14 – 7:30 p.m. Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. First Suite in Eb (G. Holst), Deciduous (Viet Cuong). Free/no tickets required.
• Wednesday, March 5 – 7:30 p.m. Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Program TBA. Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free/no tickets required.
• Friday, March 7 – Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band at Scullers Jazz Club, Boston. Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. With the Harvard Jazz Band, Yosvany Terry, Director of Jazz Ensembles. Info/$Tickets TBA. scullersjazz.com/upcoming-events/
• Friday, April 12 – 7:30 p.m. Yale Concert Band, Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. The Thomas C. Duffy Annual Spring Concert. Feat. Dust (Jennifer Jolley), Seraph Brass, guest artists. Woolsey Hall. Free/no tickets required.
• Monday, April 15 – Yale Jazz Ensemble Big Band at Dizzy’s Club, New York. Wayne Escoffery, Music Director. Info/$ Tickets TBA. jazz.org/dizzys
• Sunday, May 18 – 7:00 p.m. Yale Concert Band Annual Twilight Concert. Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Celebratory music and Yale songs on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. Outside on the Old Campus (chairs provided). Free/no tickets required.
Photo: Harold Shapiro
NUTCRACKER TICKETS
About 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 nineteen 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 “split-brained conductor” must conduct a different meter in each hand, sharing downbeats. His compositions have introduced a generation of school musicians to aleatory, 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.)
Photo: Harold Shapiro
Photo: Harold Shapiro
Piccolo
YALE CONCERT BAND 2024-2025
THOMAS C. DUFFY, Music Director
STEPHANIE HUBBARD, Operations and Productions Manager
President: Ana Rodrigues | General Managers: Cody Uman, Julien Yang
Social Chairs: Zoe Frost, Lizzie Seward | Publicity Chair: Sophia Graham | Music Librarian: Madeline Chun
Salena Huang YSEAS ’26 Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Flutes
Tiffany Jiang MED ’27*
Zoe Frost MY ’27 Undeclared
Noah Tin-yu Brazer MED ’27
Alliese Bonner BK ’27 Music
Allie Gruber PC ’26 English
Julien Yang TC’27 Undeclared
Noah Watson TD ’28 Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Allan An BR ’28 Music/Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Peter Nelson JE ’26 Biomedical Engineering
Renee Wu MY ’28 Chemical Engineering
Mei Hao YSEAS ’28 Mechanical Engineering
Winni Lin BR ’28 Biomedical Engineering
Alto Flute
Zoe Frost MY ’27 Undeclared
Oboes
Ana Rodrigues BR ’25* History of Art/Urban Studies
Sophia Graham DC ’26 Economics
Estelle Balsirow JE ’26 Linguistics
Cameron Gray-Lee DC ’27 Undeclared
Eb Clarinet
Nickolas Hamblin YSM ’25
Bb Clarinets
Ben Swinchoski BF ’25 Keith L. Wilson Principal Clarinet Chair† Neuroscience
Amelia Shaw TC ’28 Undeclared
Sammy Feingold PM ’28 Neuroscience
Joshua Chen SY ’27 Undeclared
Jessica Liu GH ’25 Applied Mathematics/Chemistry
Joey Berger DC ’28 English/Environmental Studies
Amalee Bowen GSAS ’28 Egyptology
Sofia Sato DC ’28 Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Trevor Strano MC ’28 Earth and Planetary Sciences
Cameron Nye BR ’27 Political Science
Bass Clarinet
Ari Blehert JE ’28 Applied Physics/Music
Contrabass Clarinet
Nikki Pet YSM ’29
Bassoons
Kennedy Plains YSM ’25
Freddy Laux TD ’27 Political Science
Laressa Winters YSM ’26
Contrabassoon
Darius Farhoumand YSM ’25
Alto Saxophones
Lizzie Seward DC ’27* Physics and Philosophy
Richard Wong DC ’28 Undeclared
Alina Martel TC ’23/MED ’28
Tenor Saxophones
Esteban Figueroa MC ’25* Electrical Engineering
Aaron Yu MC ’25 Computer Science/Applied Mathematics
Baritone Saxophone
Hanson Qin ES ’28 Computer Science and Economics
Cornets/Trumpets (rotating)
Jared Wyetzner PC ’27* Physics
Greta Garrison BF ’28 Undeclared
Graydon Nolen DC ’28 Undeclared
Kyle Chen SY ’27 Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Aidan Garcia MC’26, Economics
Isaiah Harvey TD’28 Ethics, Politics, and Economics
French Horns (rotating)
Micah Draper PM ’28 Global Affairs
Julia Landres JE ’28 Physics
Katie Howard GSAS ’25 Personalized Medicine and Applied Engineering
Zakariya Bouzid GH ’28 Undeclared
Shell Ross GH ’26 Classics
Alexander Bello ES ’28 Undeclared
Andrés Luengo TC ’27 Physics
Trombones
Cody Uman MC ’25* Mathematics
Max Watzky BF ’27 Physics/Applied Mathematics
Beatrice Beale Tate PC ’28 Undeclared
Nathan Lange SY ’27 Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
Euphonium
John Liu TD ’25 Statistics and Data Science
Tubas
Benson Wang BK ’27* Economics
Karim Najjar MC ’27 History
Gregory Wolf TD ’26 Psychology
Hari Manchi TC ’28 Undeclared
String Bass
Chelsea Strayer YSM ’25
Piano
Aaron Yu MC ’25 Computer Science/Applied Mathematics‡
Juan Pedro García Oliva YSM ’25§
Sean Chang BF ’27 Mathematics¶
Organ
Samuel Ostrove TC ’25 Computing and Linguistics¶
Harp
Sebastian Gobbels YSM ’26¶
Percussion (rotating)
Max Su SY ’25* Mathematics and Computer Science
Madeline Chun SM ’26 Economics/Humanities
Jacob Leshnower GH ’27 Statistics and Data Science/Music
Nikolai Stephens-Zumbaum BF ’26 Mechanical Engineering
Tally Vaneman GH ’27 Astrophysics
Zahra Virani SY ’26 Urban Studies/History of Art
Mirabel Solomon BF ’28 Undeclared
* principal
† 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.
‡ performing on Stride only
§ performing on The Pursuit of Happiness only
¶ performing on Symphony No. 4 only
