Yale Concert Band
Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director
Winter Concert
Friday, February 15, at 7:30 pm
Woolsey Hall, Yale University
arthur sullivan arr. Charles Mackerras/ W.J. Duthoit
Suite from the Ballet Pineapple Poll (1951) I. Opening Number II. Jasper’s Dance III. Poll’s Dance IV. Finale
igor stravinsky Suite from the Ballet The Firebird (1919) I. Introduction trans. Randy Earles, II. L’oiseau de feu et sa danse ed. Frederick Fennell III. Variation de l’oiseau de feu IV. Ronde des Princesses V. Danse infernale du roi Kastchei VI. Berceuse VII. Finale ~ INtermission ~
scott switzer
Breaking Out: Concerto for Bassoon Quartet and Wind Ensemble (2012) [world premiere] featuring The Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet Overly dark and grave – Moderately fast and sarcastic I. II. Slow III. Spritely and sarcastic
GOTYE arr. Pentatonix trans. Kara LaMoure
Somebody That I Used To Know (2011) solo performance by The Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet
michael daugherty Lost Vegas (2011) I. Viva II. Mirage III. Fever
About Tonight’s Music Suite from the Ballet Pineapple Poll (1951) Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) Arr. Charles Mackerras/W.J. Duthoit The ballet Pineapple Poll is a spoof of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The plot is based upon “The Bumboat Woman’s Story” of Gilbert’s Bab Ballads, which was later developed by Gilbert into H.M.S. Pinafore. The story evolves around Pineapple Poll and her colleagues who are all madly in love with the captain of the good ship H.M.S. Hot Cross Bun. In order to gain admittance to the ship they disguise themselves in sailors’ clothes, a fact which is kept secret from the audience until near the end of the ballet. According to Charles Mackerras, the British conductor who arranged this ballet, “The score is a patchwork quilt of tunes from most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Every bar of Pineapple Poll, even the short bridge passages, is taken from some opera or other.” Pineapple Poll was first performed in March 1959 by the Sadler Wells Theater Ballet.
Suite from the Ballet The Firebird (1919) Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) trans. Randy Earles, ed. Frederick Fennell Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird was his first success as a professional composer. Based on an old Slavic folk tale, The Firebird tells the story of young prince Ivan Tsarevich’s quest to free his love, Tsarevna, from the wicked tyrant Kastchei the Deathless. In order to defeat Kastchei, Ivan must call upon the power of the mystical Firebird, who has given Ivan one of her magical feathers in exchange for her freedom. Throughout the piece, Stravinsky melds the brilliant orchestration and nationalistic style of his famous teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with the shimmering harmonic palate of French impressionism. Commissioned in 1910 by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes and choregraphed by the legendary Mikhail Fokine, The Firebird was a huge success. It made Stravinsky an international superstar, and he was able to successfully reuse the music in orchestral suites for the concert stage three times. This transcription draws from the 1919 version, which is still the most frequently performed. Despite (or perhaps because of) the immense popularity of the work, Stravinsky was embarrassed by it later in his career. He considered it anachronistic and naïve, and at one point claimed that the only things he found remotely interesting in it anymore were some aspects of the orchestration. Stravinsky’s own opinion notwithstanding, the melodic and harmonic genius at the heart of the music makes The Firebird one of the most beautiful and powerful pieces in any repertoire – whether ballet, orchestra, or concert band.
YALE CONCERT BAND Breaking Out: Concerto for Bassoon Quartet and Wind Ensemble (2012) Scott Switzer (b. 1986) “I have worked closely with Brittany, Kara, Lauren, and Yuki for over 6 years and have admired their work and growth as the Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet. While at Eastman together, they performed in some of my earliest compositions and encouraged my development as a bassoonist/composer. In the fall of 2011, the BWBQ approached me to write them a concerto for bassoon quartet and wind ensemble. I thank Thomas C. Duffy of the Yale Concert Band and Mark Scatterday of the Eastman Wind Ensemble for commissioning this work. Breaking Out is essentially a characteristic work about both the bassoon and the Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet. Many see the bassoon as strictly a classical instrument. It is seen as being either the jester of the orchestra or too stodgy to be performed in more contemporary styles of music. The Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet plays up these qualities of the bassoon as well as demonstrates that the bassoon is capable of playing music of other styles. Though the work is inspired by the following ideas, it is not explicitly programmatic. The first movement explores the conflict between the bassoon and its relationship with serious classical music. The work begins with a French overture, serious in tone; the quartet acts in kind. For the rest of the classicalsonata-inspired movement, the quartet rebels against the ensemble, at times more successfully than others. The second movement is a romance. As the movement progresses, the romantic passion slowly moves from internal to external. Once it reaches its peak, it abruptly returns as it was in the beginning, almost nostalgically. The final movement is a collage of many conflicting musical ideas: a baroque fugue, an upbeat jazz grove, a South American breakout, the return of the French overture, a funeral dirge, and a rock beat.” – Scott Switzer Scott Switzer (b. 1986), bassoonist and composer, is a graduate of the Master of Musical Arts Program at the Yale School of Music. He began composing at the Eastman School of Music, where he completed his undergraduate study, though is mostly self-taught. He has written for bassoonists throughout the country, and his works have been heard on the radio and television. Scott has worked closely with the Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet for years. He produced and performed on their first album, Breaking In. Scott performs bassoon and contrabassoon with orchestras around Connecticut and New York. He is currently a member of the contemporary music group Le Train Bleu, located in New York City.
Breaking Out was commissioned by the Yale Concert Band and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. The Band’s portion of the commission was provided, in part, by the Robert Flanagan Yale Band Commissioning Endowment. Robert Flanagan (’63) was a member of the Yale Bands, and is now Konosuke Matsushita Professor of International Labor Economics and Policy Analysis, Emeritus, at Stanford University. His generosity made it possible to commission this fine music. Lost Vegas (2011) Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) “Lost Vegas was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphony Band, Michael Haithcock, conductor, and the University of Miami Wind Ensemble, Gary Green, conductor. Lost Vegas is my musical homage to bygone days in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. I recall the enormous neon signs punctuating the ‘Strip,’ promoting casinos and hotels ruled by the underworld, and the massive marquees trumpeting performances by pop music legends such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis. Performed without pause, Lost Vegas is divided into three movements. The first movement, Viva, is inspired by the seminal book Learning from Las Vegas (1968–72), by modernist architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who likened the symbolism of the Vegas ‘Strip’to the Piazza Navona in Rome. The music in Viva unfolds as catchy musical riffs are layered and phased in various polytonal guises and orchestrations. Mirage, the second movement, was inspired by my recent drive through the forbidding desert of Death Valley. Located 88 miles west of Las Vegas, Death Valley is one the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. A serpentine oboe solo, later doubled by trumpets with harmon mutes, is surrounded by steamy brass chords and twisting countermelodies played by winds and percussion keyboards. Accompanied by an ominous bass drum, the music in Mirage appears and disappears, like an optical illusion one might encounter in the scorching desert, or driving from the pitch-black darkness of Death Valley in the dead of night toward the bright lights of Las Vegas. The final movement, Fever, is a swinging tribute to an earlier epoch, when legendary entertainers such as Elvis, Peggy Lee, Bobby Darin, Stan Kenton, and Frank Sinatra’s ‘Rat Pack’ performed in intimate and swanky showrooms of the Sands, Tropicana, and Flamingo hotels. Torn down long ago, the original neon signs, casinos and hotels of the Vegas ‘Strip’ have been replaced by impersonal, corporate glass towers. The cozy nightclubs, where the ‘Rat Pack’ once performed edgy material, have been replaced by large arenas, where commercialized family entertainment is now presented. My composition for symphony band is a trip down memory lane to an adventurous and vibrant Vegas that once was and returns, if only for a moment, in Lost Vegas.” – Michael Daugherty
YALE CONCERT BAND American composer Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) grew up playing the keyboard in jazz, rock and funk bands. He studied at North Texas State University (1972-6), at the Manhattan School of Music (1976-8) and at Yale University (DMA 1987), where his teachers included Earle Brown, Jacob Druckman, and Roger Reynolds. He also spent a year at IRCAM as a Fulbright Fellow (1979-80), collaborated with jazz musician Gil Evans in New York (1980-82) and studied with Ligeti in Hamburg (1982-4). After teaching composition at Oberlin College Conservatory (1986-91), he was appointed professor of composition at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1992. Daugherty first came to national attention in the USA when Snap! – Blue Like an Orange (1987) won a Kennedy Center Friedheim Award in 1989. The work, which established the primary characteristics of his compositional style, combines rigorous polyrhythmic counterpoint with a playful and pointed use of the popular music of his youth. This lively mixture is presented in many works with a wry sense of timing, deft orchestration, and sensitivity to the spatial dimension of music. The Metropolis Symphony (1988-93) and Bizarro (1993) were inspired by Daugherty’s enthusiasm for the Superman comic strip of the 1950s and 60s. The symphony inaugurated a series of works concerned with American icons. Other works in the series include Desi (1991), a Latin big band tribute to Desi Arnaz in the television show I Love Lucy; the chamber work Dead Elvis (1993); and a piano concertino, Le tombeau de Liberace (1996). Works commissioned by the Kronos Quartet include Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover (1992), featuring the voice of the infamous FBI director, and Elvis Everywhere (1993) for three Elvis impersonators and string quartet. The chamber opera Jackie O (1997), set in the late 1960s, explores the interplay of musical idioms associated with “high” and “popular” culture. Daugherty has also composed a series of works dedicated to popular places in America, including Niagara Falls for band (1997), Route 66 for orchestra (1998), Sunset Strip for chamber orchestra (1999), and his symphony in three movements, Motorcity Triptych (2000).
About Tonight’s Guest Performers The Breaking Winds Bassoon Quartet is an innovative chamber ensemble that pushes the limits of creativity and entertainment in instrumental music. Brittany Harrington, Yuki Katayama, Kara LaMoure, and Lauren Yu met while studying bassoon performance at the Eastman School of Music, and their extracurricular project of playing quartets quickly developed into a dynamic schedule of high-energy performances. BWBQ shows feature a broad range of music accompanied by skits, costumes, props, drumming, and dancing. With a focus on comedy, the Breaking Winds promote music as a connective force that can excite, inspire, and heal. The Breaking Winds are committed to performing original arrangements, compositions, and transcriptions. No genre or style is safe from the hand of group members, who continually generate new material from the music of classical composers, pop musicians, indie rock bands, classic rock bands, tangos, the blues, and even electronic DJs. The result is an enormous repertoire unique to the group, with no two performances alike. Sheet music to arrangements and compositions by the members of the quartet are published as BWBQ Editions through Trevco Music Publishing. Advocates of music education, the Breaking Winds perform for students across the United States, most recently with tours in Chicago, New Haven, CT, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Their performances cover all levels of education from preschool to university, and their school visits have included discussions with students, master classes for young bassoonists, and even collaborations with student instrumentalists. In March 2012, the Breaking Winds performed as soloists with high school bands from Buffalo, NY at the Williamsville Concert Band Festival. As educators, they have also served as artists-in-residence and faculty members at Bocal Majority Bassoon Camp in Houston, TX. In the greater community, the BWBQ perform at independent living centers, pubs, pizza places, and train stations, to name a few. The Breaking Winds maintain an active web presence. Their YouTube channel contains an extensive library of music videos, live performances, and “behind-the-scenes” footage. In 2010, a video of the BWBQ performing “Lady Gaga Saga” went viral and generated press buzz from such varied sources as NPR, Billboard.com, WQXR, The Aspen Institute, and Hollywood blogger Perez Hilton. The group regularly adds new performances to their channel and interfaces with their audience via Facebook and Twitter. Their first album, Breaking In, will be released in March 2013. The album, which will feature an eclectic playlist of the BWBQ’s favorites, was crowdfunded by private backers through the website Kickstarter.com, where the project received overwhelming support and ultimately raised over 500% of its initial fundraising goal. Breaking In will be available through major online CD vendors.
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
• Monday, February 25, 2013: Yale Jazz Ensemble “Cole Porter – Class of 1913”. Featuring an assortment of Cole Porter arrangements in honor of the centennial of Porter’s graduation from Yale University. 7:30 pm, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free. • Sunday, April 7, 2013: Yale Jazz Ensemble Sixth Annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert. With the Reunion Jazz Ensemble. 2:00 pm, Levinson Auditorium, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. Free. • Friday, April 12, 2013: Yale Concert Band Spring Concert. Precious Metal (D.J. Sparr), feat. Jake Fridkis YSM 14, flute; Immersion (Alex Shapiro); Century Shouts (Thomas C. Duffy). 7:30 pm, Woolsey Hall. Free. • Sunday, May 19, 2013: Yale Concert Band Annual Twilight Concert. Ceremonial music on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. 7:00 pm, outside on the Old Campus. Free.
For further information please contact: Yale University Bands P.O. Box 209048, New Haven, CT 06520–9048 ph: (203) 432–4113; fax: (203) 432–7213 stephanie.hubbard@yale.edu; www.yale.edu/yaleband
YALE CONCERT BAND 2012-2013 THOMAS C. DUFFY, Music Director STEPHANIE T. HUBBARD, Business Manager Piccolo Joohee Son SY 15
Bass Clarinet Ben Weissler CC 15
Flute Helen Caldwell MC 16 Principal Paige Breen SY 16 Ariana Hackenburg GSAS 17 Eve Roth MC 16 Lance Banks ES 15 Monica Ague SM 14 Vicky Tu DC 16
Bassoon Nick Baskin ES 14 Principal Miguel Goncalves ES 16
Oboe Mason Ji MC 16 Principal Jeffrey Reinhardt YSM 13 English Horn Timothy Gocklin YSM 14 Eb Clarinet Carrie Cao MC 15 Clarinet Albert Jiao SY 16 Keith L. Wilson Principal Clarinet Chair Eugene Kim BK 16 Acshi Haggenmiller MC 15 Daniel Hwang TC 16 Molly Haig DC 14 Catherine Holland ES 16 Liz Jones BR 15 James Mandilk SY 13 Carrie Cao MC 15 Nathan Prillaman JE 13 Melinda Becker TC 15 Rachel Yen SM 14 Paul Singer JE 16
Contrabassoon John Searcy YSM 14 Alto Saxophone Alex Pappas SM 15 Principal Alyssa Hasbrouck MC 14
Trombone Melvin Loong SY 14 Principal Noah Steinfeld MC 14 Kevin Dombrowski YSM 14 Euphonium Christopher Brown YSM 14 Tuba James Volz SY 15 Quinn White BR 14 String Bass Jim Andrews YSM 84
Tenor Saxophone William Gearty BR 14
Harp Chelsea Lane TD 14
Baritone Saxophone Catherine Stark BR 16
Piano David Molina TD 15
Trumpet Jay Villella YSM 13 Principal William Thomas PC 16 John Allen YSM 13 Connor Moseley BK 14 Sagar Setru BR 13 Joshua Stein TD 13 Jeffery March TD 15
Percussion Chase Young CC 13 Principal Samuel Anklesaria ES 15 Erin Maher SM 14 Christian Schmidt MC 14 Anne Schweikert BK 15 Andi Zhou JE 13
French Horn Craig Hubbard YSM 13 Principal Samuel Nemiroff JE 16 Austin Long CC 15 Katherine McDaniel JE 14 Sophie Janaskie ES 15 Adam Adler LAW 15
Music Librarian Nick Baskin ES 14
Yale Concert Band Officers
President: Rachel Yen Personnel Manager: Eugene Kim General Managers: Annie Schweikert, Catherine Stark Media Specialist: Joohee Son Social Chairs: Liz Jones, Billy Thomas