Pacific Symphony • 11 GREGORY X. WHITMORE • CONDUCTOR MITCHELL J. FENNELL • GUEST CONDUCTOR pacific symphony youth wind ensemble MAY 22 John Mackey (b. 1973) Lightning Field Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) Cloudburst Kai Quizon (b. 1999) Impulse Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Colonial Song Mitchell J. Fennell, guest conductor David Maslanka (b. 1943) Give Us This Day The concert begins at 1 p.m. SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS RENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL presents 2015-16 PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH WIND ENSEMBLE CONCERT SERIES Heaven and Earth This afternoon’s performance is generously sponsored by Barbara Roberts and the William Gillespie Foundation. INTERMISSION
Transcript
Pacific Symphony • 11
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May 25, 2016 • 7 p.m.OC Can You Play With Us? The Side by Side Orange County community musicians play the finale to Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony with Pacific Symphony on the stage of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, under the baton of Carl St.Clair.
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GREGORY X. WHITMORE • CONDUCTORMITCHELL J. FENNELL • GUEST CONDUCTOR
pacific symphony youth wind ensembleMAY 22
John Mackey (b. 1973) Lightning Field
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) Cloudburst
Kai Quizon (b. 1999) Impulse
Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Colonial Song Mitchell J. Fennell, guest conductor
David Maslanka (b. 1943) Give Us This Day
The concert begins at 1 p.m.
SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTSRENÉE AND HENRY SEGERSTROM CONCERT HALL
presents
2015-16 PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH WIND ENSEMBLE CONCERT SERIES
Heaven and Earth
This afternoon’s performance is generously sponsored by Barbara Roberts and the William Gillespie Foundation.
I N T E R M I S S I O N
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NOTESmonsoon season. Inspired by the vast open spaces of the American West, Maria’s work offers a new way of reveling in the grandeur of nature. Mackey’s composition captures this grandeur through bold instrumentation and broad musical gesture. He depicts the energy of thunderstorms through rhythmic percussion, and uses thunder tubes (handheld percussion instruments) to simulate the sound of thunder.
Cloudburst ERIC WHITACRE (B. 1970)
A native of Reno, Nevada, Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) has made an international name for himself in music. Having won many national and international prizes in composition, Whitacre is
one of today’s rising stars of classical music. Particularly known for choral and wind ensemble music, he played synthesizer in a pop band as a high school student and originally sought to become a rock star. He received his master’s degree in composition at Juilliard, where he studied with John Corigliano and David Diamond. Unlike many 20th-century composers, Whitacre aims for accessibility and audience appeal in his music. Like many others in this generation of composers, Whitacre’s music truly speaks to today’s audiences, combining a deceptive surface simplicity with a harmonic sophistication. Slow, drawn out melodies and smooth textures create floating halos of sound, while at the same time, he uses tone clusters and draws his harmonic palate from extended triads, seconds, fourths and fifths.
The original version of Cloudburst was composed in 1992 for eight-part choir, with piano and percussion accompaniment. The piece uses highly dissonant tone clusters, but in a soft, deemphasized way to create a mysterious halo quality. The choral version uses aleatoric (chance) techniques inspired by John Cage and European modernist composers of the late 20th century. Singers are directed to speak words of the text randomly at the discretion of each individual singer. Taken as a whole, this serves to heighten the halo effect. This version was nominated for a Grammy Award for best choral performance in 2007. The concert band version of the piece was commissioned by the Indiana All-State Band in 2001.
The text of the choral version was taken from some of the lines of the poem “El Cántaro Roto” (“The Broken Water Jug”) by Octavio Paz (1914-1998), a Mexican poet, writer and diplomat. An English translation of the Spanish poem is given below:
The Broken Water Jug
The rain...
Eyes of shadow-water, eyes of well water, eyes of dream-water.
Blue suns, green whirlwinds, beaks of light that peck open stars like pomegranates.
But tell me, burnt earth, is there no water? There is only blood, there is only dust, only naked footsteps on the thorns?
The rain awakens…
Lightning Field JOHN MACKEY (B. 1973)
A n Ohio native, the young composer John Mackey (b. 1973) has written a great deal of music for large ensemble. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in music from the Cleveland
Institute of Music, he received his master’s degree in composition at The Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano. Mackey is currently a resident of Cambridge, Mass. He has written much orchestra music, but has focused particularly on music for wind band.
To many audiences, classical music composed after the year 1900 has a reputation for being difficult. Dissonant, atonal harmonies vie with sharp, angular melodies and inscrutable rhythms. Many composers of this period tended to write music that challenged audiences as much as they challenged performers. Throughout the 20th century, composers experimented with new musical techniques, structures and languages, each struggling to radically redefine traditional conceptions of music at the expense of comprehensibility.
However, by the late 1960s this aesthetic of hyper-modernism had largely played itself out. Beginning with composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, composers began to question modernist attitudes. Among other factors, a sincere desire to connect with audiences led composers to once again embrace more traditional modes of writing music. Since the early 1970s, relatively few composers have been writing atonal music. Instead, today’s generation of composers has looked once again to the past as a source of inspiration, writing more traditional-sounding music based on familiar musical principles. Future historians may well speak of a new historical period beginning around 1965 or 1970 (some contemporary critics already call this new period “post-modern”).
A very recent work, Lightning Field received its world première on May 12, 2015. It is based on a piece of artwork, The Lightning Field, by conceptual artist Walter de Maria (1935-2013). The Lightning Field is an array of four hundred steel rods that Maria installed in the New Mexico desert in 1977. The metal posts act as lightning rods during the many thunderstorms that roll through the landscape during
by joshua grayson
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NOTEShe has also been enrolled in the Young Composers Program. These two musical experiences have fueled his drive and love of music that eventually led to composition. Impulse is Quizon’s first full wind ensemble piece; his other literature includes two brass quintet works: The Black Rose and Figment.
Colonial Song PERCY GRAINGER (1882-1962)
B orn in Australia, Percy Grainger (1882-1962) was perhaps one of the 20th century’s most idiosyncratic composers. After spending his youth in the city of Melbourne, he moved
to Germany in 1895 to study at the conservatory in Frankfurt. After several years of study he settled in London in 1901, where he lived until the outbreak of World War I. Upon the onset of violence, Grainger left Europe and settled in the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Grainger maintained a lifelong interest in folk music, particularly English and Scandinavian. During his decade in England, he maintained friendships with composers such as Delius and Grieg whose interest in folk music mirrored his own. He spent a good deal of time collecting, recording and transcribing folk songs. While living in England, he participated in the English folk music revival of the early decades of the 20th century, which also influenced composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although he is best known today for his arrangement of the traditional English folk song “Country Gardens,” he also composed a good deal of original music, most of which was experimental and highly unusual. The great majority of his works are of relatively short duration, and unlike many other classical composers, he sought to achieve continuity and sameness in his works rather than contrast and form. Grainger spent the beginning of his career firmly establishing his reputation as a pianist. He did not begin publishing his compositions until 1911.
Colonial Song is one of Grainger’s earliest compositions. He began ideas for the piece as early as 1905 but composed most of it in 1911,
We must sleep with open eyes, we must dream with our hands, we must dream the active dreams of a river seeking its course, dreams of the sun dreaming its worlds, we must dream in a high voice, we must sing till the song puts forth roots, trunk, branches, birds, stars, we must find the lost word, remember what say the blood, the tides, the earth, and the body, return to the point of departure…
Impulse KAI QUIZON (B. 1999)
Impulse is a unique, thematic piece written in 2015 for full wind ensemble by Kai Quizon, under the guidance of Narong Prangcharoen. Its inspiration comes from one of the most basic
facets of life: electrical potentials. Impulse is modeled after the “action potentials” that occur within neurons, the cells that make up the brain and nervous system. These cells experience potential voltage differences that allow for the transfer of information throughout the body. Quizon took this idea of an action potential and its biological implications as the model for his piece. Many of the thematic motifs mirror a certain aspect of this complex process. This piece represents the synthesis of two integral parts of Quizon’s life—biology and music; this fusion produces a unique experience for both audience and players alike. Impulse is dedicated to Quizon’s two biology teachers: Mr. Rick Young and Mrs. Jill Ronstadt.
Kai Quizon is a junior at Orange Lutheran High School in Orange, Calif. His passions include the theater, all things Disney, STEM—particularly engineering—and, of course, music. Quizon is the instrumental intern at his high school where he has learned both leadership and instructional skills in music. He has participated in Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble for two years, during which
YOUNG COMPOSERS PROGRAM
Pacific Symphony Youth Ensembles launched its second season of the Young Composers Program, curated by Pacific Symphony Composer-in-Residence Narong Prangcharoen. Eleven Youth Ensembles students were chosen to receive mentorship and guidance through the compositional process by Prangcharoen and to present their completed works in recital for their peers on April 17.
Pacific Symphony Youth Ensembles would like to recognize and congratulate these composers for their inspiring work and artistic dedication!
Jaden Fogel Ihab Hamideh Justin Lee Valerie Narumi Kai Quizon Phillip Seo Brandon Shin Megumi Suzuki Eleas Vrahnos Max Wang Aaron Zimmer
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once people can learn to be mindful. The piece features a prominent role for hand bells, which according to Maslanka,
…particularly have that quality of immediate mental, spiritual focus ... In Buddhist practice the bell is the voice of the Buddha. So, when that bell sounds, there is a quieting of your person and the ability to move into a deeper space of meditative place and to have that bell sound be the focus from conscious mind to the deepest places of the universe.
The work is in two movements. The first movement has an atmosphere of quiet reflection and spiritual searching, while the second ends with a setting of “Unser Vater im Himmel” (“Our Father in Heaven”), a four-part chorale by J. S. Bach. The juxtaposition of Bach’s Christian hymn with Eastern philosophy represents a universal search for truth that transcends political and cultural boundaries.
Joshua Grayson is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology at the USC Thornton School of Music.
while living in England. He dedicated the piece to his mother. The work features an original melody that is inspired by—not a quotation from—folk music. Grainger found inspiration in the work of 19th-century American popular composer Stephen Foster. Seeking to replicate Foster’s accomplishments, Grainger sought to compose music that would represent the Australian landscape. As expressed in his own words,
“...I have wished to express feelings aroused by my thoughts of the scenery and people of my native land (Australia), and also to voice a certain kind of emotion that seems to me not untypical of native-born Colonials in general.
“Perhaps it is not unnatural that people living more or less lonely in vast virgin countries and struggling against natural and climatic hardships (rather than against the more actively and dramatically exciting counter wills of the fellow men, as in more thickly populated lands) should run largely to that patiently yearning, inactive sentimental wistfulness that we find so touchingly expressed in much American art; for instance in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and in Stephen C. Foster’s adorable songs “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Old Folks at Home,” etc.
“I have also noticed curious, almost Italian-like musical tendencies in brass band performances and ways of singing in Australia (such as a preference for richness and intensity of tone and soulful breadth of phrasing over more subtly and sensitively varied delicacies of expressions), which are also reflected here.”
Grainger has described his music as consisting of “smooth,” “grained” and “prickly” textures. His music features continual rhythm with constant forward motion, mild dissonances and freely moving voices. Unlike most composers who achieve dramatic forms through contrast, Grainger sought uniformity and similarity in his compositions, possibly reflecting the vast distances and arid flats of the Australian outback. Grainger viewed music as a democratic art form. Rather than having only trained professionals composing and performing, Grainger wanted all citizens to participate. The simplistic style and folk-like elements of his musical style are drawn directly from this compositional philosophy.
Give Us This Day DAVID MASLANKA (B. 1943)
D avid Maslanka (b. 1943) studied at New England Conservatory while still in high school. He received his Bachelor of Music in composition from Oberlin College,
and studied conducting at the Mozarteum Institute in Salzburg. He received his PhD in conducting from Michigan State University, has taught in numerous universities, and won many awards for his music. Maslanka composes in a largely neo-Romantic, tonal idiom. Maslanka began composing for wind ensemble in 1979. Since then, he has been guest conductor at over 100 universities, festivals and conferences. He has long maintained an interest in meditation, self-hypnosis and spirituality, concepts that have deeply informed his music.
Give Us This Day was composed in 2005. Subtitled “A Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble,” it was commissioned in 2005 by a consortium of schools led by the Rancho Buena Vista High School Wind Ensemble. Its title comes from the Lord’s Prayer, but the music is inspired by Buddhism. The primary idea behind the composition, inspired by Buddhist philosophy, is that peace in the world can come
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G regory Xavier Whitmore is music director of Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble. Whitmore is also director of bands at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif. These appointments follow a 13-year career as director of bands at Cathedral City High School
in the Palm Springs Unified School District and a career as conductor of the College of the Desert Symphony Band in Palm Desert, Calif. Whitmore, a native of Ypsilanti, Mich., received his bachelor’s degree in instrumental music education from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance in Ann Arbor, Mich. While a student there, Whitmore actively performed in the University of Michigan Concert and Symphony Bands and led the University of Michigan Marching Band as “Michigan’s Man Up Front”—drum major—from 1999 to 2001. Whitmore received his master’s degree in music with an emphasis in wind conducting from California State University, Fullerton, studying under Mitchell Fennell. Whitmore is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in New York City.
Whitmore has conducted ensembles in such notable concert venues as The Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.), Carnegie Hall (New York, N.Y.), Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles, Calif.), Meng Hall (Fullerton, Calif.), Holy Trinity Church (Stratford, England), St. John’s Smith Square (London, England), Chateau Vaux le Vicomte (Paris, France), and Heidelberg Castle (Heidelberg, Germany). Under Whitmore’s direction, the Cathedral City High School Symphony Band was selected to perform as the showcase ensemble during the 2008 California Band Directors Association Annual Convention, and the Cathedral City High School Marching Band has garnered numerous awards and performed on national television three times (2010, 2007 and 2005).
Whitmore belongs to several professional organizations that include College Band Directors National Association, Phoenix Honorary Leadership Society, Kappa Kappa Psi Honorary Band Fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society, The National Association for Music Education, Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association, and California Music Educators Association. Whitmore is a contributor to the 2013 GIA publication Musicianship: Composing in Band and Orchestra.
A recognized member of four editions of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, Whitmore has been included in the 2005-06 edition of the National Honor Roll’s Outstanding American Teachers. Whitmore is a Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce Golden Apple Educator Award recipient and Orion Award recipient for Excellence in Education. Whitmore was selected to represent the state of California by School Band and Orchestra magazine in the 2008 edition of “50 Band Directors Who Make A Difference.”
M itchell Fennell is professor emeritus and recently retired director of bands and coordinator of wind studies at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). Fennell joined the CSUF School of Music faculty in 1986, and during his tenure he conducted
the University Wind Symphony, Symphonic Winds and the University Band, and also taught undergraduate and graduate instrumental conducting, courses in wind literature and courses in music education.
Under Fennell’s direction, The University Wind Symphony produced six compact disc recordings featuring the music of Warren Benson, Alfred Reed, Richard Wagner, Paul Hindemith, Karel Husa, Leslie Bassett, Zdenek Lukas and Vincent Persichetti. Their most recent recording, Monuments and Motifs, featuring Hakan Rosengren in the premiere recording of Frank Ticheli’s Concerto for Clarinet and Band, has been featured on the nationally syndicated radio program “Wind and Rhythm.” Fennell has conducted world premieres of William Kraft’s Vintage Renaissance and Beyond and Kraft’s Concerto for Timpani and Wind Ensemble, in addition to many other works commissioned by CSUF.
In addition to his duties at CSUF, Fennell has conducted a live public radio broadcast of Myer Kupferman’s Images of Chagall and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat. He has also published a teaching guide to “Winds of Nagual” by Michael Colgrass, which appears in the second volume of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band by Richard Miles.
Fennell received his bachelor of music degree from California State University, Long Beach and his master of music and doctorate of arts degrees from the University of Northern Colorado. He holds an honorary life membership in the Southern California Band and Orchestra Association and is a recipient of the Orpheus Award from Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. He is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Mu Alpha, Music Educators National Conference and the College Band Directors National Association.
PERCUSSION Jeremy Davis, principalJustin AhnKyle GrahamMitchell RogersDylan SellersSydnie So
PIANOSamantha Chen
STAFFNicole KroesenYouth Wind Ensemble Manager
*piccolo†English horn PARTICIPATING SCHOOLSAliso Niguel High SchoolArnold O. Beckman High SchoolCapistrano Valley High SchoolChaparral High SchoolCypress High SchoolDiamond Bar High SchoolGreat Oak High SchoolHuntington Beach High SchoolJeffrey Trail Middle SchoolJohn A. Rowland High SchoolLaguna Beach High SchoolLaguna Hills High SchoolLakeside Middle SchoolLos Osos High SchoolLutheran High School of Orange CountyMontessori on the LakeNorthwood High SchoolOrange County School of the ArtsOrchard Hills SchoolRancho San Joaquin Middle SchoolRogers Middle SchoolSantiago High SchoolSunny Hills High SchoolTorrance High SchoolTroy High SchoolUniversity High SchoolWoodbridge High School
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PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH ENSEMBLES
P acific Symphony Youth Ensembles (PSYE) is one of the largest pre-professional musical training programs in the country, nurturing and inspiring young musicians in grades 6 through 12. PSYE provides members with high-quality and innovative artistic experiences,
which strive to encourage musical development, personal growth and lifelong learning through the art of classical performance. The program comprises three performing ensembles (Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble and Pacific Symphony Santiago Strings), which are all united by the artistic vision of Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair. Each ensemble focuses on excelling student musicianship in a nurturing environment through professional repertoire and unique performance experiences. Pacific Symphony Youth Ensembles primarily performs in the world-class Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa and in various community venues across Orange County. These well-received performances are free to the public, are often sold out, and touch the lives of thousands of Southern California residents. Student membership into PSYE is determined by an annual audition process, which attracted a record-breaking 600 candidates for the 2015-16 season. The 250 selected students who participate in these three Youth Ensembles represent 75 school music programs in and beyond the Orange County community. One hundred percent of PSYE’s graduates move on to pursue higher education, attending such notable institutions as The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory of Music, Harvard University, Brown University and many more. For more information about PSYE, please visit www.PacificSymphony.org/psye or contact our office at [email protected].
PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH WIND ENSEMBLE
E stablished in 2007, Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble (PSYWE) is a unique performing ensemble well-regarded as one of the few premier youth wind symphonies in the country. Under the baton of accomplished band educator Music Director Gregory X.
Whitmore, PSYWE exposes musicians and audiences to the rich, diverse and colorful canon of wind ensemble repertoire. PSYWE provides pre-professional musical training to woodwind, brass and percussion instrumentalists in grades 8 through 12, and the opportunity to explore challenging repertoire in a nurturing, creative environment. The ensemble experience provides members with high-quality and innovative artistic experiences through a three-concert series at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Each season, students enjoy an interaction with Pacific Symphony Music Director St.Clair, regular coaching sessions with Pacific Symphony professional musicians and collaborations with world-renowned guest artists such as saxophonist Kenneth Tse, composer Narong Prangcharoen and conductor Allan McMurray. The opportunity for PSYWE to work with the music professionals of today and to learn a repertory of diverse styles creates a unique environment for musicians that is conducive to creativity and well-rounded musicianship.
PACIFIC SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRA
P acific Symphony Youth Orchestra (PSYO), founded in 1993, is a prestigious pre-professional orchestra recognized as one of the most outstanding youth orchestras in the country. Under the baton of Pacific Symphony Assistant Conductor Roger Kalia, the
musicians of PSYO master the pillars of professional orchestral repertoire each season. This orchestra was named Youth Orchestra of the Year in 2011 by the national arts organization Classics Alive and attracts hundreds of musicians from across Southern California to audition for the ensemble each year. PSYO cultivates the talents of symphony orchestral musicians in grades 9 through 12 through a variety of world-class artistic experiences and performance opportunities, including a three-concert series at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and a side-by-side performance with their adult counterparts of Pacific Symphony. Aimed to redefine the 21st century youth orchestra, PSYO values innovative programming, offering its musicians and the Orange County community unique experiences that challenge the creative thought process and introduce the younger generation to memorable artistic encounters. As a culmination of the 2015-16 Season, PSYO will embark on a once-in-a-lifetime 10-day international performance tour of China, where students will visit and perform in the cities of Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. In 2011, the orchestra embarked on its first-ever performance tour to Bulgaria, where its 75 musicians performed in 3 cities, each for standing-room-only audiences.
