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Home , Carmina Burana (Orff), Der Mond, Die Bernauerin

Symphony Band Chamber Winds Michael Haithcock, Conductor

Nicholas Balla, Kimberly Fleming & JoAnn Wieszczyk, Graduate Student Conductors

Friday, February 12, 2021 Hill Auditorium 8:00 pm

Il barbiere di Siviglia: Overture (1816) Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) arr. Wenzel Sedlak JoAnn Wieszczyk, conductor

Three Dances and Final Scene fromDer Mond (1939) Dance 1 (1895–1982) Dance 2 arr. Friedrich K. Wanek Final Scene Dance 3 JoAnn Wieszczyk, conductor

Selene (Moon Chariot Rituals) (2015) Augusta Reed Thomas (b. 1964) arr. Cliff Colnot

Intermission

Timbuktuba (1995) Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) Nicholas Balla, conductor

Bull’s-Eye (2019) Viet Cuong (b. 1990) Kimberly Fleming, conductor

Symphony for Brass and (1956) Herbert Haufrecht Dona Nobis Pacem (1909–1998) Elegy Jubilation

THe use of all cameras and recording devices is strictly prohibited. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers or set ringers to silent mode. ROSSINI, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: OVERTURE

If the music of Rossini’s overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) seems to have a peculiar amount of swashbuckling surge and vigor for a comic prelude, it is because the overture originally was composed for an earlier opera, Aureliano in Palmira, a historical work based on the Crusades. In fact, it is believed that Rossini used this music two other times be- fore this opera. The composer’s recycling provides an interesting contrast with Beethoven, who composed four different overtures before arriving at a final version for his only opera,Fidelio . The once-perceivedSturm und Drang of Rossini’s overture has been blunted by association, not only by the composer’s accompanying setting of the Beaumarchais comedy, but also by its jocular appearances in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, the Beatles’ filmHelp , and an episode of Seinfeld. The music is now inextricably linked with high-spirited humor.

Owing to its separate origins, the overture contains no material from the opera. It does, how- ever, serve the basic function of creating nervous anticipation for the action that follows, em- ploying a wealth of vivacious and varied themes, and a feeling of impetuous momentum. Two forte chords open the piece, followed by a scampering yet hesitating figure, which runs through most of the introduction. A contrasting central section follows, which uses a lyrical, aria-like melody that allows the music to drift into somnolence until the opening chords jolt it back to reality. In the allegro section, a well-known and slightly grotesque Neapolitan dance takes center stage, which is followed by a jovial theme tossed between woodwinds and horns. A dra- matic crescendo with breakneck energy leads into a dramatic and sonorous chord progression in the coda, in which one may hear the overture’s more serious origins. The final cadence, in a major sonority, ends one of opera’s most popular and best crafted overtures.

Rossini was one of the most prolific opera composers of his time, and many of his works were arranged for winds as entertainment for nobility. Wenzel Sedlak, an equally prolific and suc- cessful arranger of the period, made this version shortly after the opera’s premiere in Vienna in 1816. Note by Wayne Reisig

ORFF, THREE DANCES AND FINAL SCENE FROM

After the successful premiere of his in 1937, Carl Orff’s next major work for the stage was Der Mond (The Moon), for which he wrote his own , inspired by a Brothers Grimm tale from their Book of Children’s and Home Tales. The premiere occurred on February 5, 1939 in the composer’s home city of Munich. The staging, which features scenes both on earth and in the underworld, caused great difficulties for the composer, who revised his work three times over the course of the next thirty years. Nevertheless, he said that Der Mond always had a special place in his heart.

Der Mond tells the tale of Petrus (whom Orff specified is not quite the same as St. Peter) restor- ing cosmic equilibrium between the living and the dead. A narrator tells us (primarily in the words of the original Grimm tale) that, when the world was created, there was a lack of suf- ficient night light for all parts of the Earth, and a portion of the land lay in the darkness. Four village louts, as they pass through another village, discover the moon, which they see hanging from an oak tree. They are told that this other village’s mayor had purchased it. They decide to steal this new source of light and bring it back to their home, leaving the other village lament- ing the darkness and cursing their bumbling mayor (the disappearance of light and negative portrayals of authority are both major themes in Orff’s output, and the villagers’ lament is echoed in his later and his final work for the stage,De temporum fine comoedia). Upon returning to their village, the four louts acquire significant wealth and fame (they do not give away the light of their stolen moon for free). These four characters waste their respective fortunes frivolously on earthly pleasures. In utter despair, the four stand on the threshold of their grave with only one possession, the moon on the oak, which they have tended to most of their lives. Each has a quarter of the moon buried with him. Upon the last one’s death, the now complete moon shines within their grave, illuminating the underworld and awakening the dead. The inhabitants celebrate their new circumstances uproariously, but eventually descend into the same turmoil and chaos that had plagued them in life. Petrus, the one responsible for maintaining order in Heavens and on Earth, travels to the underworld to retrieve and replace this mystical moonlight to its rightful place in the Heavens, putting the dead back to sleep (he is perhaps the most beneficent of any authority figure in Orff’s works). He hangs the moon in the sky where all can benefit from its light. Peace and quiet are restored to the kingdoms of the living and the dead, with sweet folk melodies played on and tuned water glasses (struck with mallets)—but the dissonant groans of the dead may be heard beneath the earth.

As in Carmina Burana, much of Orff’s music is characterized by diatonicism, folk music, and Bavarian dances (including one called the Zwiefach), as he collected traditional Bavarian music with his colleagues Kurt Huber and Hans Bergese. The three dances and final scene of Der Mond were arranged for twelve winds by the composer’s friend and editor Friederich K. Wanek, in the tradition of transcribing operatic material for small groups of wind instruments, called Harmonie, dating back to the eighteenth century.

THOMAS, SELENE (MOON CHARIOT RITUALS)

The music of Augusta Read Thomas is nuanced, majestic, elegant, capricious, lyrical, and col- orful; “it is boldly considered music that celebrates the sound of the instruments and reaffirms the vitality of orchestral music” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Thomas’s impressive body of works “embodies unbridled passion and fierce poetry” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). The New Yorker magazine called her “a true virtuoso composer.” Championed by such luminaries as Barenboim, Rostropovich, Boulez, Eschenbach, Salonen, Maazel, Ozawa, and Knussen, she rose early to the top of her profession. The American Acad- emy of Arts and Letters described Thomas as “one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music.”

She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at the University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997–2006). She won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Not only is Thomas one of the most active composers in the world, but she is a long-standing, exemplary citizen with an extensive history of being deeply committed to her community. Thomas was named the 2016 Chicagoan of the Year.

In February 2015, music critic Edward Reichel wrote, “Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is without question one of the best and most important composers that this country has today. Her music has substance and depth and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and she knows how to say it — and say it in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated.”

In Greek mythology, Selene, goddess of the moon, drives her moon chariot across the heavens. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios and Eos, goddess of the dawn.

In this version of Selene (Moon Chariot Rituals), an ensemble of nine woodwind instruments is joined by a percussion quartet. The combination of these two quite different instrumental families results in one of the most strikingly distinctive sound worlds to be encountered in Thomas’s output. For one thing, the two instrumental families are seldom used separately, and solo breaks from either the woodwinds or percussion, while present, are conspicuous by their rarity. Instead, Thomas prefers to use the players as a compact instrumental unit whose colors, texture, and complexion changes constantly as the music gambols along. This is one of Thomas’s most concentrated essays in forward motion, with the pace almost always at a run. There are a few pockets of introspection, but they are too brief to ever dispel the sense of vast spaces covered in the blink of an eye as Selene, the lunar goddess of Greek mythology, would do when driving her moon chariot across the firmaments. With its powerfully driven rhythmic through-line, one cannot be unaware of the work’s incipiently balletic connotations, a notion that was confirmed in conversation with Thomas herself: composing for her is as physical an action as it is for the performer to play the music in question, and in the wild hockets into which the music crystallizes in its concluding stages, the feeling that the journey is about to reach a point of arrival is as exhilarating as it is inescapable. Typically for Thomas, though, when the music does attain its goal, it is not in the shape of some grand apotheosis, but in a single, sharp, terse flash.

The work was co-commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center in honor of its 75th An- niversary Season, with generous support from Deborah and Philip Edmundson; by Miller Theatre at Columbia University; and by Third Coast Percussion, with the generous support of Sidney K. Robinson. Note by Paul Pellay

DAUGHERTY, TIMBUKTUBA

Michael Daugherty is one of the most frequently commissioned, programmed, and recorded composers on the American concert music scene today. He has been hailed by the Times (Lon- don) as “a master icon maker” with a “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense, and me- ticulous ear.” Daugherty first came to international attention when the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Zinman, performed his Metropolis Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Since that time, Daugherty’s music has entered the orchestral, band, and chamber music repertoires and made him, according to the League of American , one of the ten most performed living American composers. Born in 1954 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Daugherty is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. He studied music composition at the University of North Texas (1972–76) and the Manhattan School of Music (1976–78), and computer music at Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris (1979–80). Daugherty received his doctorate from Yale University in 1986, where his teach- ers included Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Roger Reynolds, and Bernard Rands. During this time, he also collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York, and pursued further studies with composer György Ligeti in Hamburg, Germany (1982–84). After teaching music composition from 1986 to 1990 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daugherty joined the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where, since 1991, he has been a mentor to many of today’s most talented young composers.

Timbuktuba was commissioned by the International Euphonium Association. The work was first performed at the 1995 International Tuba-Euphonium Conference under the direc- tion of Fritz Kaenzig, Daugherty’s University of Michigan colleague. Timbuktuba presents a variety of Malian musical traditions through Daugherty’s compositional lens. The work begins with an extensive improvisatory solo with sparse drone-like accompaniment. As the solo evap- orates, the music shifts into a slow and distant dance, whose rhythmic long-long-short mo- tive can be found throughout Malian traditional and popular music. Gradually, the rhythmic motive takes on new forms as it progresses through a series of increasingly energetic dances. Daugherty’s influences from pop, rock, and jazz can be heard within the changing textural landscapes. Finally, after a series of musical acrobatics, the music reaches a wailing and crash- ing conclusion. Note by Nicholas Balla

CUONG, BULL’S-EYE

Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by the New York Times, the “irresistible” (San Francis- co Chronicle) music of American composer Viet Cuong has been commissioned and performed on six continents. In his music, Viet enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. Viet is also passionate about bringing different facets of the contemporary music community together, and he will have opportunities to do so with an upcoming con- certo for Eighth Blackbird and the United States Navy Band.

He recently began his tenure as the California Symphony’s 2020–2023 Young American Composer-in-Residence, where he and the symphony will develop three new orchestral works together over three years. Viet is also a composition and music theory faculty member at Ken- nesaw State University while finishing his PhD at Princeton University. He holds degrees in music composition from the Curtis Institute of Music (Artist Diploma), Princeton University (MFA), and the Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM). His mentors include Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, Donnacha Dennehy, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Dmitri Tymoczko, Kevin Puts, and Oscar Bettison.

The composer offers the following insights into the inspiration for this composition:

“I’ve always been intrigued by Picasso’s line drawings, where he captures the energy and personality of a subject—often an animal—with just a line or two. Picasso’s Bull (1945) includes a simple line drawing of a bull in this fashion. However, this drawing is also preceded by a series of ten lithographs depicting his process of simplification and abstraction. The first lithograph is a fully-formed bull that, over its next two -it erations, increases in opacity and detail. Then, over the next eight panels, layers are gradually peeled away to reveal just the essence of the bull.

“While Bull’s-Eye is not an exact one-to-one depiction of these eleven drawings, the piece follows the same narrative: musical material is presented, made more complex, then distilled. The distillation process in the second half of the piece reveals the way the music preceding it is orchestrated, almost as if you were to mute and unmute cer- tain sections of the ensemble.”

HAUFRECHT, SYMPHONY FOR BRASS AND TIMPANI

Herbert Haufrecht first gained renown as a composer of orchestra-and-narrator scores for chil- dren. Among other composers, however, he was best known for his substantial contributions in rediscovering American folksongs prior to World War II. He collected these songs working in the field during 1936 as a music representative of the Resettlement Administration in West Virginia and continued his work in the Catskill Mountains, where in 1940 he helped organize the Folk Festival of the Catskills.

The Symphony for Brass and Timpani, finished sixteen years later, represents the composer’s more mature works. Haufrecht provided the following commentary concerning the composi- tion:

“Composed between 1953 and 1956, the Symphony came after a long period of wars, as all of mankind yearned for peace. This idea is reflected in the titles of the movement but the work has no specific program. It may seem paradoxical that I have chosen an instrumental combination often associated with the military to plead the cause of peace. An answer to this dilemma might be found in the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: ‘and they shall beat their swords into plowshares.’ By bringing out the expressive qualities of the brass, alongside their more somber and clangourous aspect, I have sought to endow them with more human utterances.”

“The first movement,Dona nobis pacem, has two main ideas: a chorale-like melody, which has the quality of supplication, and a second, more fanfare- and military-like theme. The form of the movement is determined by the interchange of these two ideas. The first theme is treated canonically over an ostinato . On each recurrence, the imitation becomes a closer stretto. Towards the middle of the movement, this theme is inverted and broadened in augmentation.

“The Elegy is basically a passacaglia, which offers a feeling of lament. Its middle sec- tion and recapitulation define the movement’s ABA form. The finale, Jubilation, has a fanfare introduction, in which the main theme of the first movement is briefly recalled, although transformed through tempo and diminution. The ensuing themes and their treatment suggests the character of folksong, folk dances, and fanfares expressing joy and the heralding of peace.”

Notes Edited by Andrew Kohler SUPPORT BAND AT MICHIGAN!

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ME: 1016 SYMPHONY BAND Michael Haithcock, Director of Bands Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Music ROSSINI/SEDLAK Jonathan Chan & Megan Wojtyla, ; Triniti Rives & Nathan Rodriquez, Ryan Goodwin & Emily O’Donnell, ; Liza Knight, Andrew Bohn & Joel Greenfield, ; Max Braun & Natalie Myers, horns

ORFF/WANEK Adria Cafferillo & Alexis Phinney, ; Ryan Hirokawa & Mattie Levy, oboes Jesse Bruer & Nathan Landers, clarinets; Liza Knight & Emily O’Donnell, bassoons Grace Gilpatrick, ; Sam Himes & Dena Levy, horns Ryan Meyaard, bass

READ THOMAS Danielle Kim, Jordan Smith & Leonardo Viglietti, flutes Cassandra Goodwin, ; Lia Boncoeur & Asher Harris, clarinets Triniti Rives & Everett Rutledge, bass clarinets; Ryan Goodwin, Olivia Cirisan, Ancel Neeley, Reed Puleo & Sui Lin Tam, percussion

DAUGHERTY Salvador Flores, saxophone Joseph Bickel & Doug Ferguson, euphoniums Andrew Colon, Christopher Hall & Alexander Tran, Daniel Vila, percussion

CUONG Adria Cafferillo & Leonardo Viglietti, flutes Jesse Bruer, ; Cameron Leonardi, Philip Kleutgens, saxophone; Brian Kachur, alto saxophone Roberto Campa, tenor saxophone; Jason Frazier, saxophone Keenan Bakowski, trumpet; Landon Young, horn Ancel Neeley & Daniel Vila, percussion; Nhi Luong Khanh, keyboard

HAUFRECHT Francis Chiodo, Grace Gilpatrick & Gabriella Rock, trumpets Gretchen Bonnema, Sam Himes, Lea Humphreys & Dena Levy, horns Tyler Coffman & Yuki Mori, ; Avery Wolf, bass trombone Christopher Hall, tuba; Reed Puleo, percussion

PRODUCTION STAFF

DIRECTOR EQUIPMENT PUBLICITY Paul Feeny Aidan Alcocer Brandon Monzon Joseph Lauermann MANAGER Walter Puyear PROGRAMS Erin Casler Tom Erickson

LIBRARIAN SOUND ENGINEER Alizabeth Nowland Roger Arnett

OPERATIONS COORDINATOR Jonathan Mashburn

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