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Boston University Concert Band & All-Campus Orchestra

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Boston University Concert Band & All-Campus Orchestra BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONCERT BAND & ALL-CAMPUS ORCHESTRA Monday, December 9, 2019 Tsai Performance Center BOSTON UNIVERSITY Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 33,000 students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 16 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University’s research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS Established in 1954, Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is a community of artist-scholars and scholar-artists who are passionate about the fine and performing arts, committed to diversity and inclusion, and determined to improve the lives of others through art. With programs in Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, CFA prepares students for a meaningful creative life by developing their intellectual capacity to create art, shift perspective, think broadly, and master relevant 21st century skills. CFA offers a wide array of undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, as well as a range of online degrees and certificates. Learn more at bu.edu/ cfa. BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS SCHOOL OF MUSIC Founded in 1872, Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music combines the intimacy and intensity of traditional conservatory-style training with a broad liberal arts education at the undergraduate level, and elective coursework at the graduate level. The school offers degrees in performance, conducting, composition and theory, musicology, music education, and historical performance, as well as artist and performance diplomas and a certificate program in its Opera Institute. PERFORMANCE VENUES CFA Concert Hall • 855 Commonwealth Avenue Marsh Chapel • 735 Commonwealth Avenue Tsai Performance Center • 685 Commonwealth Avenue Boston Symphony Hall • 301 Massachusetts Avenue December 9, 2019 Tsai Performance Center BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONCERT BAND Jennifer Bill, conductor BOSTON UNIVERSITY ALL-CAMPUS ORCHESTRA Mark Miller, conductor Celebration Fanfare from Joan Tower (b. 1938) Stepping Stones Arr. Jack Stamp with brightness round about it Nancy Galbraith (b. 1951) October Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) Angela DiBartolomeo, conductor The Seasons Philip Sparke (b.1951) I. Spring Sunshine II. Summer Siesta III. Autumn Alone IV. Winter Winds Minor Alterations: David Lovrien (b. 1963) Christmas Through the Looking Glass Intermission Overture to La Forza del Destino Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Tamara Dworetz, conductor “Intermezzo” from Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919) Pagliacci “Intermezzo” from Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) Cavalleria Rusticana Romeo and Juliet Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Fantasy-Overture (1840-1893) PROGRAM NOTES Celebration Fanfare from Stepping Stones (1993) The music for the ballet Stepping Stones (1993) was commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet. Joan Tower’s rhythmically and harmonically muscular score was developed in close collaboration with Posin’s choreography. Tower commented: “As a composer, I’ve always thought of myself as a closet choreographer. Texture, space, speed, direction, all the words that apply to dance also apply to music.” Friend and fellow composer Jack Stamp suggested to Tower that the final movement, Celebration Fanfare, would transcribe well into an arrangement for wind band, not suspecting that she would give him the task. The rising tones of the Fanfare are fitting for the progressive stages of a woman’s development, which is the subject of the ballet. —Notes from the Publisher with brightness round about it (1993) With brightness round about it is a melodic, tonal work that develops largely through the use of minimalist techniques, which combine with extensive use of percussion and piano to create an exotic atmosphere throughout the development section. The work begins very softly with lush, gentle sounds that underlie a thematic line divided among several instruments. The smaller motives that are created through these divisions then combine to form a collage, which in turn becomes background material for the introduction of a dreamy, ethereal piano solo. The mood suddenly shifts with an outburst in the woodwinds as the theme is stated forcefully in the brass. After the minimalist development section, a recapitulation of this forte section is stated. Following a grand climax, the work concludes softly with the piano solo gradually fading into silence. —Nancy Galbraith October (2000) Something about the crisp autumn air and the subtle changes in light always make me a little sentimental, and as I started to sketch I felt the same quiet beauty in the writing. The simple, pastoral melodies and the subsequent harmonies are inspired by the great English Romantics, as I felt this style was also perfectly suited to capture the natural and pastoral soul of the season. I’m happy with the end result, especially because I feel there just isn’t enough lush, beautiful music written for winds. PROGRAM NOTES October began at a restaurant in Chicago, when I was first introduced to Brian Anderson. Brian, a high school band director from Fremont, Nebraska, knew my work and wanted to commission me, but couldn’t find the finances. If I remember correctly I didn’t immediately hear back from him, and I just assumed the gig would never materialize. About a year later I get this phone call from him and he says that he has put together a commissioning consortium of 30 high school bands from Nebraska. 30 bands! I’ve dealt with institutional bureaucracy for a while now and I can’t possibly imagine how he brought all of those people together, let alone get them to agree on a commission. October is my favorite month. Something about the crisp autumn air and the subtle change in light always makes me a little sentimental, and as I started to sketch I felt that same quiet beauty in the writing. The simple, pastoral melodies and subsequent harmonies are inspired by the great English Romantics (Vaughn Williams, Elgar) as I felt that this style was also perfectly suited to capture the natural and pastoral soul of the season. I premiered the orchestral version with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London on 15 May 2019. —Eric Whitacre The Seasons (2005) The Seasons was commissioned by the Kappa Kappa Psi National Band Fraternity and the Tau Beta Sigma National Band Sorority. It was first performed by the National Intercollegiate Band, conducted by the composer, at their biennial National Convention held in Lexington, Kentucky, on July 26th 2005. Following many earlier models by composers such as Vivaldi and Glazunov, Philip Sparke has taken the yearly cycle of the seasons to inspire a framework for this four-movement suite. 1) Spring Sunshine: The opening movement exploits the wide range of colours available from the concert band to describe a bright spring morning 2) Summer Siesta: A rippling figure in the clarinets underscores a calm and serene melody to conjure up a quiet rest by the river on a hot summer’s afternoon 3) Autumn Alone: A solo clarinet opens this intense movement which sees autumn as heralding the dark days of winter 4) Winter Winds: The last movement describes stormy winter weather in all its fury and glory, but also returns to music from the first movement as winter gives way to spring once again to restart the yearly cycle. —Philip Sparke PROGRAM NOTES Minor Alterations: Christmas Through the Looking Glass (2007) Looking for something REALLY different this Christmas? Here’s a game of holiday hide-and-seek for your audience! Minor Alterations: Christmas Through the Looking Glass is a medley of favorite Christmas tunes, transposed from major to minor keys then disguised, layered and morphed even more. From the ominous Deck the Halls at the start to the final, frenzied Nutcracker Suite finale, each tune is lovingly twisted into something new and inventive. —Note from the Publisher Overture to La Forza del Destino (1862) Early in his career, Verdi became the most talked about composer in Italy. By the end of his long and astonishingly productive life, he was probably the most beloved composer in the world. His rise was swift— after a late start and the failure of his first two operas—and relatively free from major setbacks (although he never understood why his beloved Macbeth didn’t catch on). And the range of his life could not have been greater—from his childhood in a dirt-floored house in Roncole (more of a crossroads than a village) to a retirement marked by the kind of prestige, wealth, and international fame few composers ever enjoy. Of his more than two dozen operas, from Oberto to Falstaff—spanning fifty-four years and including some of the most beloved works ever staged—none has a more rousing or popular overture than La forza del destino. When it was first performed in 1862, the opera opened with a modest and conventional prelude, a device that had often served Verdi well in the past. La forza del destino, however, is one of a handful of operas that Verdi later extensively reworked, and when he revised the score in 1869, he replaced the prelude with this magnificent full- scale overture. It offers a preview of the opera’s highlights, from the stirring “destiny” motive to Leonora’s soaring prayer, but it is shaped and paced with such skill and ingenuity that it not only sharpens our appetite for the complete opera, it stands perfectly on its own in the concert hall. —Phillip Huscher for Chicago Symphony Orchestra “Intermezzo” from Pagliacci (1892) Pagliacci or “clowns” is an opera in two acts with libretto and music written by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Based on the real-life murder and love triangle of one of the Leoncavallo’s servants when Rugerro was a boy, Pagliacci is a play-with-a-play about the behind-the-scenes fallout among a traveling troupe of clowns in Southern Italy.
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