Yale Concert Band Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director
“Church Windows” Friday, February 19, 2016, at 7:30 pm
Woolsey Hall, Yale University
PETER MENNIN Canzona (1951) VIET CUONG Ziggurat (2009) FRANK TICHELI Symphony No. 2 for Concert Band (2004) I. Shooting Stars II. Dreams Under a New Moon III. Apollo Unleashed ~ INTERMISSION ~
FRANZ BIEBL Ave Maria (1964) arr. Robert Cameron JAMES SYLER Hymn for Emanuel (2015) MORTEN LAURIDSEN O Magnum Mysterium (1994) trans. H. Robert Reynolds Eugene Kim BK 16, guest conductor OTTORINO RESPIGHI Vetrate di Chiesa (Church Windows) (1926) trans. José Schyns I. La Fugo in Egitto (The Flight Into Egypt) II. San Michele Arcangelo (Saint Michael the
Archangel)
III. Il Mattutino di Santa Chiara (The Matins of St. Clare) IV. San Gregorio Magno (St. Gregory the Great)
About Tonight’s Music Canzona (1951) PETER MENNIN Mennin composed his Canzona in 1951 as part of the continuing series of commissions from Edwin Franko Goldman in cooperation with the League of Composers; it was premiered by the Goldman Band. The concept of the canzona as set forth here is not that of lyrical song implied by the name, but rather that of the early Baroque canzona so brilliantly exploited by Gabrieli (1555-1612) at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice to display contrasting wind and string sonorities together with rhythmic-polyphonic virtuosity. Using the reeds and brasses of the band in alternative tonal blocks, Mennin has created a stunning essay of the same type in the 20th-century manner. Ziggurat (2009) VIET CUONG Viet Cuong’s (b. 1990) Ziggurat was premiered in the spring of 2010 by Harlan Parker and the Peabody Wind Ensemble and then presented throughout South Africa and Swaziland by the Yale Concert Band in 2011. A ziggurat is a “square pyramid” of monumental proportions. While this piece is not programmatic, there are general connections to the mass and prominence of a ziggurat and the towering chords of the brass, woodwinds, and percussion. Symphony No. 2 for Concert Band (2004) FRANK TICHELI The titles of Frank Ticheli’s second symphony’s three movements all refer to different types of light: shooting stars, the moon, and the sun. Within the first movement, bright clusters of notes create brilliant flashes of color, as suggested by the movement’s title, “Shooting Stars.” Fleeting events of many kinds are cut and pasted at unexpected moments, keeping the ear on its toes. The movement burns quickly and ends explosively, scarcely leaving a trail. The second movement, “Dreams Under a New Moon,” depicts a series of dream sequences ranging in emotion from dark to peaceful. A sense of hope begins to assert itself as rising lines are passed from one instrument to another. Modulation after modulation occurs as the music lifts and searches for resolution. Near the end, the main theme returns in counterpoint with the chant, building to a majestic climax, then falling to a peaceful coda. The finale, “Apollo Unleashed,” is perhaps the most wide-ranging movement of the symphony. “On the one hand,” writes Ticheli, “the image of Apollo, the powerful ancient god of the sun, inspired not only the movement’s title but also its blazing energy. Bright sonorities, fast tempos, and galloping rhythms combine to give a sense of urgency that one often expects from a symphonic finale. On the other hand, its boisterous nature is also tempered and enriched by another, more sublime force, Bach’s Chorale BWV 433 (Wer Gott vertraut, hat wohl gebaut). This chorale – a favorite of the dedicatee, former Director of Bands at Florida State University James E. Croft, and one he himself arranged for chorus and band – serves as a kind of spiritual anchor, giving a soul to the gregarious foreground events.”
YALE CONCERT BAND Ave Maria (1964) FRANZ BIEBL (arr. Robert Cameron) Ave Maria is Franz Biebl’s best known work. It was published in Dortmund, Germany in 1964 and introduced in the United States in 1970 by the Cornell University Glee Club, which met Biebl during a recording session in Frankfurt on its tour of Germany. The piece quickly gained popularity after being adopted into the repertoire of Chanticleer, the only full-time classical vocal ensemble in the United States. The piece was originally composed for seven-part men’s choir; however, Robert Cameron’s arrangement is based on a mixed choir, which fits more closely with the registration of a wind ensemble. Layered woodwinds and brass create the effect of overlapping men’s and women’s voices, and the arrangement also requires the band members to sing, thus staying true to the piece’s original vocal format. O Magnum Mysterium (1994) MORTEN LAURIDSEN (trans. H. Robert Reynolds) O Magnum Mysterium is an old chant from the Matins of Christmas. “For centuries,” writes Lauridsen, “composers have been inspired by the beautiful O Magnum Mysterium text depicting the birth of the newborn King among the lowly animals and shepherds. This affirmation of God’s grace to the meek and the adoration of the Blessed Virgin are celebrated in my setting through a quiet song of profound inner joy.”
Hymn for Emanuel (2015) JAMES SYLER Music has the unique ability to console the living and honor the dead. Hymn for Emanuel was composed in memory of the nine victims of the June 17, 2015 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. All nine were killed by multiple gunshots fired inside the church. May we honor and remember their lives, families, and community. This piece was commissioned by the Coastal Carolina University Symphonic Band, Conway, South Carolina, Dr. Richard L. Johnson, conductor. All proceeds from the sale of this work will be donated to Emanuel AME Church.
At the end of the piece, the conductor will lead the audience in reciting the names of the nine victims: Pastor Clementa Pinckney, 41 Reverend Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49 Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45 Susie Jackson, 87 Tywanza Sanders, 26 Myra Thompson, 59 Ethel Lee Lance, 70 Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54 Reverend Daniel Simmons, 74
YALE CONCERT BAND Vetrade di Chiesa (Church Windows) (1926) OTTORINO RESPIGHI In 1919, Ottorino Respighi married one of his former composition students, Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo, who had made a special study of Gregorian Chant. Within a few weeks of their marriage, she had introduced him to the world of plainsong, thus providing him for the rest of his life with a constant source of musical inspiration. The first of Respighi’s works to bear these ecclesiastical influences was entitled Three Piano Preludes on Gregorian Melodies. The Piano Preludes were published in 1922, and three years later Respighi decided to orchestrate them, adding another piece so as to make a fourmovement symphonic suite. When looking for a name for the work, Respighi turned to his friend and professor of literature Claudio Guastella, who helped Respighi think of a concept for the music. The resulting piece, Vetrate di Chiesa (Church Windows), illustrate four Biblical or religious scenes which might have appeared on actual stained-glass windows. The slow and stately first movement, with its constantly forward-moving accompaniment, suggested to Guastella “the passing of a chariot beneath a brilliant, starry sky.” What better, he said, than to call it “The Flight into Egypt?” In contrast, he felt the tumultuous music of the second movement suggested “a clash of weapons – a battle in the skies,” and so the title “Saint Michael the Archangel” was given, taken this time from the Revelation of St. John the Divine: “And a great battle was made in the Heavens: Michael and his Angels fought with the dragon, and fought the dragon and his angels. But these did not prevail, and there was no more place for them in Heaven.” In a shortened reprise of the second subject, Satan’s banishment from Heaven is spectacularly realized by a triplefortissimo crash on the largest available tam-tam. The third “Church Window,” “mystical, pure, and convent-like,” is named after the episode recounted in the thirty-fourth chapter of The Little Flowers of St. Francis, which tells how the ailing and disconsolate St. Clare, founder of the Franciscan Order of Nuns, was “miraculously borned by the angels from her sick-bed to the Church of St. Francis, in order to be present at the entire Holy Service of the Matins.” For the final piece, Respighi wrote a massive fantasia on the Gloria from the Mass of the Angels. After a solemn introduction depicting the tolling of bells, the Gregorian chorale is first intoned on distant muted horns. The music rises to a great climax, whereupon the main theme is suddenly reintroduced in an imposing organ solo. After a brief reference to some of the opening material, the brass take up the Gloria motif and bring the whole work to a conclusion of the utmost splendor. Such grandeur and solemnity, Guastella proclaimed, should depict St. Gregory, the great sixth-century reformer of Roman Catholic Church Music. Upcoming Yale Bands Performances • Sunday, April 3, 2016: Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert, with the Reunion Jazz Ensemble. 2:00 pm, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. Free. • Friday, April 15, 2016: Yale Concert Band: Spring Concert. Feat. Dances from Crete (A. Gorb), Out of the Depths (A. Hailstork). 7:30 pm, Woolsey Hall. Free. • Sunday, May 22, 2016: Yale Concert Band: Twilight Concert. Celebratory music on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. 7:00 pm, outside on the Old Campus.Free.
About the Music Director Thomas C. Duffy (b. 1955) is Professor (Adjunct) of Music and Director of University Bands at Yale University, where he has worked since 1982. He has established himself 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 NYC’s Village Vanguard and Iridium, Ronnie Scotts’s (London), and the Belmont (Bermuda); performed as part of the inaugural ceremonies for President George H.W. Bush; and concertized in nineteen countries in the course of sixteen 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. From 1996 to 2006, he 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, and 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. For nine years, he represented music education in Yale’s Teacher Preparation Program. 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 and most recently was selected to conduct the 2011 NAFME National Honor Band in the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
YALE CONCERT BAND 2015-2016 THOMAS C. DUFFY, Music Director STEPHANIE T. HUBBARD, Business Manager
Piccolo Rona Ji MC 18 Flute Neyén Romano BK 18 Principal Beatrice Brown BK 19 Catherine Lacy BR 18 Monica Barbosa DC 19 Hayley Kolding SY 17 Seungjung Sohn ES 19 Oboe Mason Ji MC 16 Principal Jake Houston CC 19 English Horn Jake Houston CC 19 Eb Clarinet Alex Brod BK 19 Clarinet Eugene Kim BK 16 Keith L. Wilson Principal Clarinet Chair* Christopher Zhou PC 19 Alexander Ringlein BR 18 Jacob Neis SY 17 Anson Wang DC 17 Anelisa Fergus DC 19 Daniel Hwang TC 16 Ellie Handler ES 18 Betsy Li SY 18 Bass Clarinet Libby Dimenstein MC 17
Bassoon Lily Sands TD 18 Principal Francisco Joubert Bernard YSM 17
Euphonium Sarah Siegel TC 19 Tuba John Leibensperger YSM 16 Principal Stevie Roets PC 17
Alto Saxophone Antonio Medina SM 19 Principal Vincent Oneppo YSM 73
String Bass Levi Jones YSM 16
Baritone Saxophone Sara Harris SY 19
Harp Haley Rhodeside YSM 15
Cornet/Trumpet Eli Baum JE 19 Christoph Funke ES 19 Noah Montgomery CC 19 William Thompson GSAS 21 Jacob Zavatone-Veth SM 19 Holt Sakai BR 18 Adé Ben-Salahuddin PC 18
Piano/Celeste Charles Romano SM 19 Percussion Rebecca Leibowitz TC 18 Principal Melina Delgado TD 19 Colum O’Connor BR 18 Jonathan Roig ES 18 Charles Romano SM 19
E-Flat Piccolo Trumpet Andrew Stadler YSM 17 † French Horn John McNamara CC 17 Principal Nishwant Swami SM 17 Derek Boyer BR 18 Sida Tang SY 19 Brandon Wanke MC 17 Trombone Luke Benz SM 19 Matthew Kegley PC 19 Eliud Garcia YSM 17
Music Librarian Jacob Neis SY 17 * Friends of Keith 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. Offstage trumpet - Respighi’s Vetrate di Chiesa only †
YALE CONCERT BAND OFFICERS President: Catherine Lacy Personnel Manager: Rona Ji General Managers: Melina Delgado, Christopher Zhou Publicity Chair: Beatrice Brown Social Chairs: Hayley Kolding, Antonio Medina
Yale University Bands P.O. Box 209048, New Haven, CT 06520–9048 ph: (203) 432–4111; fax: (203) 432–7213 stephanie.hubbard@yale.edu; www.yale.edu/yaleband