Yale Concert Band

Yale Concert Band

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director

Blue Ink: Music of Yale Composers Friday, December 2, 2011, at 7:30 pm

Woolsey Hall, Yale University

Felix Mendelssohn arr. Felix Greissle Anderson alden NATHAN prillaman irving fine arr. R. Mark Rogers John Philip Sousa

Overture for Band Winter Concerto for Electric Violin [premiere] Jourdan Urbach, electric violin Transcontinental [premiere] Blue Towers The National Game March

~ INtermission ~

thomas c. duffy

alfred reed

Three Places in New Haven

I. Castle in the Sky (Rollo Reads a Book)

II. The Long Wharf (Rollo Sails Away)

III. City Band March (Rollo Gets A Job) Ian Rosenbaum, marimba with the Yale Band Percussion Ensemble Russian Christmas Music

About Tonight’s Music Overture for Band (1824) FELIX MENDELSSOHN (arr. Felix Greissle) Felix Mendelssohn composed Overture in C Major for wind band in the summer of 1824 during his stay at the fashionable seaside resort of Doberan on the shores of the Baltic. The bathing establishment there boasted of a very acceptable wind band, so acceptable that the young composer prompted to write a composition for the group to perform at one of its concerts.

Mendelssohn’s precocity (he was only fifteen years old at the time) is even more amazing when one considers the maturity of the work. Already the style is elegant, the imagination fanciful, the form lucid, and the orchestration refined and balanced.

The creative glow of the music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” composed two years later, is clearly foreshadowed in this spontaneous score.

Winter Concerto for Electric Violin (2011) ANDERSON ALDEN “Halfway through last year, I decided I needed to write a piece about winter. Growing up in Los Angeles, seasons came and went without fanfare. Snowy, frosty winters were an exotic, elusive concept. Each winter I traveled east for vacation, hoping, often in vain, to catch just a glimpse of true winter.

“As a sophomore at Yale last year, I experienced the most severe winter I had ever seen.

Trudging out into two feet of freshly fallen snow, snow drifts as tall as me, snow that completely buried cars and made parking meters disappear, I felt like an explorer traversing the arctic. Instead of melting, a crust of ice formed on top of the snow. The world was glazed, sealed, preserved.

Trees sparkled. This was the winter I had fantasized about. So I expressed my excitement the way I know best: I wrote music.

“Around that time I was playing keyboards in the Amplified Chamber Ensemble with Jourdan Urbach, tonight’s soloist. I was inspired by how Jourdan’s electric violin behaved differently from an acoustic violin. It has an extended lower range (with 6 strings) and frets like an electric guitar. It sounds at times more aggressive than its acoustic counterpart, and at times sweeter and more pure.

This high, mellow timbre blended quite well with the flute in our ensemble, so I started imagining other ways the electric violin could be paired with wind instruments. In the middle of Winter Concerto for Electric Violin, you’ll hear sounds of ice cracking and shattering, snow crunching, and taps on glass bottles that I have recorded, edited and programmed into a keyboard.”

– Anderson Alden Transcontinental (2011) NATHAN PRILLAMAN “Over the past few years, I’ve found myself living a life in transit. It seems that every few weeks, I find myself traveling to a different place, shifting between studying in New Haven, visiting my home in Maryland, and performing in New York and other cities. Those places, and the sounds I heard as I traveled via train between those places, launched the idea for this piece.

“I was inspired by the propulsive rhythm of Amtrak’s trains, by the sound of wind rushing past the cabin, and most importantly, by the sometimes gradual, sometimes sudden changes in environment one witnesses through the window as the train rumbles on. One moment, you see suburbs, the next, a city, and the next, mountains. These real-world, sensory experiences are inexorably tied to my emotional experience of travel, and as such, I worked to weave them into the musical dialect of this piece.

YALE CONCERT BAND “For me, the imagery and emotions associated with Transcontinental begin in New Haven, and follow my journey home to Maryland, but please feel free to fill in the blanks with your journey of choice.”

– Nathan Prillaman Blue Towers (1959) IRVING FINE (arr. R. Mark Rogers) “During his twelve years on the Brandeis University faculty, Irving Fine played many roles: educator, mentor, administrator, and composer of a three-minute marching song, ‘The Blue and the White.’ The orchestra version’s title references the Brandeis school colors and a campus architectural landmark, Usen Castle, known for its three original towers. Blue Towers is dedicated to Brandeis University and its president, Abram Sachar.”

– Jennifer L. DeLapp The National Game March (1925) JOHN PHILIP SOUSA John Philip Sousa wrote The National Game March to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of baseball’s National League. It features many of the dynamic fireworks fans have come to expect of the March King, as well as the crack of a bat launching a ball into the bleachers.

Three Places in New Haven (2000) THOMAS C. DUFFY Charles Ives spent four years on the Yale campus in New Haven from 1894-1898. Many of the places he frequented are still intact. Each movement of Three Places in New Haven addresses one particular place in New Haven. Each is frequented or visited by Rollo, Ives’ fictional character of lowest-common denominator aesthetic sophistication and taste.

I. Castle in the Sky (Rollo Reads a Book) Yale’s library was built by stone masons and is set in a gothic style. The workers took left over materials and, instead of constructing ventilation boxes on the roof in the traditional square-box fashion, covered the air vents with a miniature medieval castle, complete with flying buttresses and cobbled walls. From some distance, one can see this castle, perched curiously on the top of a ten-story building. It floats above Yale’s Cross Campus green-space, where students go to sit on the grass after studying.

One hears the opening bustle of students scurrying to class. The motives are made of Charles Ives’ name through the ancient technique of soggeto cavato (carved subject). C = c, H = b, A = a, R = re = d, L = la = a, E = e, S = Eb, and I = ti = b. Thus, the Ives motive is c, b, a, d, a, e, eb, b. The scurrying fades to reveal the quiet contemplative sounds of students at work (Yale’s alma mater, Bright College Years [Die Wacht Am Rhein]). Students run for the library before it closes and one hears the clock tower sounding the warning for doors to close. Once inside, students set to work and the solo marimba presents a four-part hymn.

But Rollo has a very short attention span. As the monotony of reading begins to affect him, he daydreams. First the sounds of student life outside begin to invade his consciousness. In fact, he wonders why he studies at all – what’s the use? (The metaphysical question is presented by the trumpet – in the style of a question that ‘may never be answered.’) Eventually, he fantasizes that a military maneuver is taking place in the castle in the sky. One hears the sounds of percussion marching troops here and there. The solo marimba attempts to “question” Rollo’s daydream, and things end with neither an answer to the question nor a firm sense of whether the dream is real or the reality a dream.

II. The Long Wharf (Rollo Sails Away) The Long Wharf extended far out into the shallow New Haven harbor, and had for many many years been the place where ships loaded and unloaded their produce and other goods. This was the harbor into which the British sailed during the Revolutionary War (and a few patriots fired a cannon at the British ships. Their aim was so poor that the British reported that they conquered New Haven unchallenged!).

The harbor also is the home of Savin Rock, for years New Haven’s miniature version of Coney Island. Now the New Haven Green is far inland from the harbor’s water, but before a century of land fill, the church in which Ives played the organ was very close to the shore itself. Close enough for the sounds of the church’s bells to be heard on the water.

Rollo opts to spend Sunday morning not in church, but sailing on the harbor. The sun comes up on the peaceful waters of the harbor and Rollo floats about in a state of blissful detachment. Rollo dozes on the boat, here and there one (and perhaps he) hears the sounds of the church service – the hymn that wafts out over the harbor contains a message – it is Wachet Auf (Sleepers Wake!).

III. City Band March (Rollo Gets A Job) City Band March is homage paid to Charles Ives’ Country Band March. This march follows the form of its country cousin, including a da capo exposition, and a “coda” in which things become complicated.

The city of New Haven was home to Eli Whitney, the innovator who brought the concept of mass production to life. During Ives’ time in New Haven, industry boomed and citizens enjoyed a fine mass transportation system, founded on a network of trains and trolley cars.

This music present the sounds of a city at work, busily producing “things;” some of metal, some needing to be stamped out, and some requiring much repetitive attention.

Rollo works in a factory, and dreams throughout the workday of the pleasant train ride home to the country. He himself is a “mass product:” he dresses like everyone else, he rides the train in like everyone else, he repeats the same task all day like everyone else, and at day’s end, he joins the long trudging line of automatons as the “masses” move in synchronicity, coming and going to their assigned jobs (here their robot-like cadence, two quarternotes, two eighth-notes, and one quarter note!).

Does the piece end with Rollo boarding a train that increasingly speeds him home, or is it his imagination – the acceleration representing his increasing desperation to be out of the factory and on his own? You decide.

Russian Christmas Music (1944) ALFRED REED An ancient Russian Christmas Carol, Carol of the Little Russian Children, together with much original material and elements derived from the liturgical musical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, form the basis of this musical impression of old Russia during the jubilant Christmas season. The inspiration from both carols and the music of the Eastern Orthodox Chuch (which permits only vocal music during its services) give the piece a beautiful, lyrical quality.

Although written as a single movement, four sections can be discerned in Russian Christmas Music: Children’s Carol, Antiphonal Chant, Village Song, and the closing Cathedral Chorus (which is heralded by church bells). Together they create a powerful and moving work.

YALE CONCERT BAND

About Tonight’s Student Composers Nathan Prillaman ’13 is a twenty-year-old composer, performer, and producer of classical, pop, jazz, and electronic music from Potomac, Maryland.

Currently a junior at Yale University, he is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Music with composition studies under Kathryn Alexander and Michael Klingbeil. He has also studied at the Brevard Music Center with Kevin Puts and Robert Aldridge, and at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute with Martin Amlin. Recently, Nathan has worked with a variety of ensembles, from Yale’s own SiC INC to Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble. Nathan’s music has been featured at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region V Conference, at Yale College New Music Events, and at various other concerts on the East Coast.

In addition to his composing activities, Nathan is active as a performer and producer of multiple genres of music, and is the marketing director of the Aegis Collective, a New York-based non-profit dedicated towards creating artistic collaborations between young artists from all media and genres. Nathan is currently in the process of producing A Streetcar Named Funk’s debut EP, due out late 2011. For more information, or for recordings of Nathan’s work, head to www.nathanprillaman.com.

Anderson F. Alden ’13, a twenty-year-old composer from Santa Monica, California, is currently a junior at Yale University. In the fall of 2007 Anderson was selected to be a Composer Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a newly established program for student composers, under the direction of Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky. In 2008 and again in 2009, Anderson was thrilled to hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra perform his music. As part of the 5th annual Grand Avenue Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2008, Christian McBride and the Sonus Quartet performed a composition of Anderson’s for double bass and string quartet. In summer 2011, Anderson enjoyed attending the NYU/ASCAP Buddy Baker Film-Scoring Workshop and also the Bowdoin International Music Festival where he studied with Robert Beaser.

Anderson is the recipient of three ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and Honorable Mentions, and among others, five first-place state composition awards in California. This is currently Anderson’s fourth year as a member of the prestigious MTAC Young Composers Guild, where he won a five-year membership (2007-2012) with yearly performances of his compositions. Anderson’s composition teachers include Kathryn Alexander, Michael Kingbeil, A.J. McCaffrey, and Peter Gilbert. Anderson’s formal music studies began in piano performance and keyboard theory at age seven, with Deborah H. How. Anderson has garnered recognition and prizes in numerous piano performance competitions and has had the honor of performing two world premieres, one composed by Gabriella Lena Frank and the other by Chen Yi.

About Tonight’s Guest Artists Still only 24 years of age, American percussionist Ian Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. As a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra Ian performed with many of the world’s most noted conductors, including Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev and Zubin Mehta. Tours with this extraordinary orchestra comprised of musicians from around the world took him to the major concert halls of France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.

The following season, he successfully entered the realm of solo marimba performance, making his Kennedy Center debut in Washington D.C., and later that year garnered a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition.

However, it is in the sphere of chamber music performance that Ian has achieved his greatest success. He frequently performs with the acclaimed So Percussion group and has appeared at the Norfolk, Yellow Barn and Chamber Music Northwest Festivals. At the conclusion of Yellow Barn, artistic director Seth Knopp said of Ian, “Ian Rosenbaum’s music-making is informed by a wonderful intelligence, interpretive insight and prodigious control.

But above all, it is his openness of approach that makes him an unusually sensitive artist and collaborator.”

Ian is a member of Le Train Bleu, Novus NY and the Wanmu percussion trio. He recently joined the faculties of the Peabody Institute’s preparatory program and Yale College where he founded an undergraduate percussion ensemble. Ian is a member of Chamber Music Society Two.

Ian received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute of Music in 2008. He graduated from the Yale School of Music in 2010 with a Master of Music degree, and again in 2011 with an Artist Diploma in Percussion Performance.

Jourdan Urbach ’13 has been compared by NY critics to a “Modern day Paganini…superlative in every way…exhibiting both impeccable technique and exquisite artistry.” NY Concert Review adds, “Urbach is a violinist that dares to challenge himself and thrives.” Urbach has headlined four sold out performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden and The Meadowlands. He has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN-Lou Dobbs, CBS Sunday Morning Program with Charles Osgood, and From the Top. WQXR’s esteemed Young Artist Showcase called Urbach “the one to watch for the future…a brilliant performer.”

Urbach performs in his original musical style that fuses the classical, jazz, blues theatrical and contemporary genres. His concert career has included musical collaborations with multi-Platinum country music star Clay Walker, Grammy winner Mark Wood, and Emmy-nominated composer Chris Caswell – with two world premieres written for him

by Caswell. Urbach was presented as classical music’s “Rising Star” at The Ventura Music Festival, under the direction of Maestro Nuvi Mehta; in Memphis as the prestigious “2009 Artist Ascending Winner” (following in the footsteps of such past winners as: Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham). Urbach is featured on comedian Steve Martin’s Grammy-winning bluegrass album, The Crow; and composed the film score for several short films including: “Elah and the Moon,” by director Vera Mulyani, screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, 2009 and The Cannes Film Festival 2010; and dozens of productions for Dramat, Yale Rep and Yale School of Drama. Urbach was named Goodwill Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence to the UN Council of Arts for Peace; and the 2010 recipient of the World of Children Nobel Prize for Global Child Advocacy.

YALE CONCERT BAND

About the Music Director Thomas C. Duffy (b. 1955), composer and conductor, is Professor (adjunct) of Music and Director of Bands at Yale University. He served as Acting Dean of the School of Music in 2005-2006, having served as Associate Dean since 1996 and Deputy ­­Dean since 1999. He has served as a member of the Fulbright National Selection Committee and was a member of the historic Tanglewood II Symposium (2007). He attended the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education in 2005.

He has served as president of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) and the New England College Band Association (NECBA), 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, and has represented music education in Yale’s Teacher Preparation Program. He is member of American Bandmasters Association, American Composers Alliance, Connecticut Composers Inc., the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, and BMI. An active composer with a D.M.A. in composition from Cornell University, where he was a student of Karel Husa and Steven Stucky, he has accepted commissions from the American Composers Forum, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Field Band, and numerous bands, choruses and orchestras. He joined the Yale faculty in 1982.

In 2009 he received an award from the United States Attorney’s Office for his innovative program with the Yale Concert Band (Yale 4Peace Rap for Justice) which, through the integration of classical and rap music, addressed gangs, crime and violence in Connecticut’s cities.

Upcoming Yale Bands Performances • Sunday, December 4: Yale Jazz Ensemble at the GPSCY. Two cabaret-style shows – 4:00pm and 8:00pm – at Yale’s GPSCY Bar (204 York St., New Haven). Featuring the music of Rosamonde Safier and New Haven in the 1920s-30s, and music by Count Basie, Earle Hagen, and Duke Ellington. Free.

• Friday, February 10, 2012: Yale Concert Band: The Silver Screen. Music from Halo (M. O’Donnell); From the Language of Shadows (H. Hodge); Parliament in Flight (C. Dafnis), with a specially commissioned animation; and Star Wars Trilogy (J. Williams.). 7:30pm, Woolsey Hall. Free.

• Wednesday, February 29, 2012: Yale Jazz Ensemble: Music of Yale Composers. Program TBA. 7:30pm, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free.

• Friday, March 30, 2012: Yale Concert Band Spring Concert. Harvest (J. Mackey), featuring Scott Hartman, trombone; Serenade for Winds (R. Strauss). 7:30pm, Woolsey Hall. Free.

• Sunday, April 15: Yale Jazz Ensemble: Fifth Annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert. With the Reunion Jazz Ensemble. Program TBA. 2:00pm, Levinson Auditorium, Yale Law School (127 Wall Street, New Haven). Free.

• Sunday, May 20: Yale Concert Band: Annual Twilight Concert. Ceremonial music on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. 7:00 PM, outside on the Old Campus. Free.

YALE CONCERT BAND 2011-2012 THOMAS C. DUFFY, Music Director STEPHANIE T. HUBBARD, Business Manager

Piccolo Joohee Son SY 15 Flute Leah Latterner CC 14 Principal Hannah Perfecto SY 12 Monica Ague SM 14 Kerri Lu PC 14 Hayden Hashimoto CC 12 Shira Calamaro GSAS 14 Oboe Rachel Perfecto SY 15 Kaitlin Taylor YSM 12 English Horn Kaitlin Taylor YSM 12 Clarinet Anthony Hsu ES 12 Principal Kate Carter SM 12 Molly Haig DC 14 Acshi Haggenmiller MC 15 Nathan Prillaman JE 13 James Mandilk SY 13 Carrie Cao MC 15 Liz Jones BR 15 Melinda Becker TC 15 Rachel Yen SM 14 Bass Clarinet Jared Bard BK 12

Bassoon Nick Baskin ES 14 Principal Bilal Siddaqui MD 15 Ellie Killiam DC 15 Contrbassoon Ellie Killiam DC 15 Alto Saxophone Alex Pappas SM 15 Principal Alyssa Hasbrouck MC 14 Tenor Saxophone William Gearty BR 14 Baritone Saxophone Kelsey Sakimoto ES 12 Trumpet Jean Laurenz YSM 13 Principal Logan Gregoire-Wright CC 15 Michael Lam SY 14 Connor Moseley BK 14 Sagar Setru BR 13 Joshua Stein TD 13 French Horn Daniel Rigberg BK 15 Katherine McDaniel JE 14 Austin Long CC 15 David Bruns-Smith BR 15

Trombone Melvin Loong SY 14 Hope Wilson SY 15 Emily Massey JE 14 Euphonium Tim Gladding SY 13 Tuba James Volz SY 15 Landres Bryant YSM 13 String Bass John Greenawalt SY 12 Percussion Samuel Anklesaria ES 15 Erin Maher SM 14 Anne Schweikert BK 15 Chase Young CC 13 Daniel Whitcombe JE 12 Harp Lara Zipperer MC 14 Piano David Molina TD 15 Synthesizer Nathan Prillaman JE 13 Music Librarian Nick Baskin ES 14

Yale Band Percussion Ensemble

Ian Rosenbaum, Director Chris Chow JE 13, Christian Schmidt MC 14, Daniel Whitcombe JE 12, Chase Young CC 13

For further information please contact: Yale University Bands, P.O. Box 209048, New Haven, CT 06520–9048 ph: (203) 432–4111; stephanie.hubbard@yale.edu; www.yale.edu/yaleband