Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData School of Music Programs Music 4-24-2021 Symphonic Winds, April 24, 2021 F. Mack Wood conductor Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/somp Part of the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Wood, F. Mack conductor, "Symphonic Winds, April 24, 2021" (2021). School of Music Programs. 4453. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/somp/4453 This Performance Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Music at ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Music Programs by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Illinois State University Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts School of Music ________________________________________________________________ Symphonic Winds F. Mack Wood, conductor _________________________________________________________________ Center for the Performing Arts April 24, 2021 Saturday Noon This is the one-hundred and eighth program of the 2020-2021 season. Program Please silence all electronic devices for the duration of the concert. Thank you. Ecstatic Fanfare (2012/2015) Steven Bryant (born 1972) Arranged by Alan Lourens Hymn to a Blue Hour (2010/2021) John Mackey (born 1973) Dancing Fire (2016/2020) Kevin Day (born 1996) Arranged by Josh Trentadue ~Intermission~ Endowed Scholarship Award Presentations Menlo Park, 1879 (2020) James M. David (born 1985) Letters from the Traveling Doll Nicole Piunno (born 1985) I. Love and Loss II. The Mountains Are Calling III. Star Gazing IV. Cityscapes V. Love Will Return Program Notes Thank you for joining us for today’s performance of the Illinois State University Symphonic Winds. We hope that you will enjoy our concert, and that you might consider joining us again for future performances here at the ISU School of Music. Please visit http://www.bands.illinoisstate.edu for more information. Thank you for your support! Steven Bryant studied composition with John Corigliano at The Juilliard School, Cindy McTee at the University of North Texas, and William Francis MacBeth at Ouachita University. The son of a professional trumpeter and music educator, he strongly values music education, and his creative output includes a number of works for young and developing musicians. Bryant offers a varied catalog, including works for wind ensemble, orchestra, electronic and electro- acoustic creations, chamber music, and music for the web. He is particularly known the wind ensemble world for Ecstatic Waters and his monumental 2019 work, The Automatic Earth. Recent works include a Concerto for Alto Saxophone for Joseph Lulloff and the Michigan State University Wind Symphony (winner of the 2014 American Bandmasters Sousa Ostwald Award), and a Concerto for Trombone for Joseph Alessi and the Dallas Wind Symphony. Other commissions have come from the Gaudete Brass Quintet (Chicago), cellist Caroline Stinson (Lark Quartet), pianist Pamela Mia Paul, the Amherst Saxophone Quartet (funded by the American Composers Jerome Composers Commissioning Program), the University of Texas – Austin Wind Ensemble, the U.S. Air Force Band of Mid-America, the Japanese Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference, and the Calgary Stampede Band, as well as many others. Steven trained for one summer in the mid-1980s as a break-dancer, was the 1987 1/10 scale radio- controlled car racing Arkansas state champion and has a Bacon Number of 1. He was also Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of North Carolina Greensboro for the 2014-2015 academic year. He resides in Durham, N.C., with his wife, conductor Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant. Program notes from the composer: Ecstatic Fanfare is based on music from movement I of my Ecstatic Waters. One day in May 2012, I mentioned to my wife that it might be fun to take the soaring, heroic tutti music from the earlier work and turn it into a short fanfare someday. She goaded me into doing it “immediately,” and so in a panicked three-day composing frenzy, I created this new work, which was premiered by Johann Mösenbichler with the Polizeiorchester Bayern just three short weeks later, followed immediately by my wife, Verena, conducting it with the World Youth Wind Orchestra Project in July 2012. This has to be a record time for conception-to-premiere for a large ensemble work. The work unfolds with a flurry that can best be described as aggressive jubilation that winds down into a quiet, pure, pastoral melody marked by descending fourths in the clarinets. The use of open harmonies and descending fourths provide a sense of innocence and simplicity to this music, giving the listener something familiar to connect with, reminiscent of the music of Aaron Copland. This quiet music is eventually transformed into a powerful statement by the horns, marked “aggressive and celebratory.” This moment of celebration explodes into elation and the work rallies toward an energetic, powerful conclusion. John Mackey (born 1 October 1973, New Philadelphia, Ohio) is an American composer. Mackey holds a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald Erb, respectively. Mr. Mackey particularly enjoys writing music for dance and for symphonic winds, and he has focused on those media for the past few years. His works have been performed at the Sydney Opera House; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Carnegie Hall; the Kennedy Center; Weill Recital Hall; Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival; Italy's Spoleto Festival; Alice Tully Hall; the Joyce Theater; Dance Theater Workshop; and throughout Italy, Chile, Japan, Colombia, Austria, Brazil, Germany, England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. John has received numerous commissions from the Parsons Dance Company, as well as commissions from the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, the Dallas Theater Center, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, the New York Youth Symphony, Ailey 2, Concert Artists Guild, Peridance Ensemble, and Jeanne Ruddy Dance, among many others. Recent and upcoming commissions include works for the concert bands of the SEC Athletic Conference, the American Bandmasters Association, and the Dallas Wind Symphony. As a frequent collaborator, John has worked with a diverse range of artists, from Doug Varone to David Parsons, from Robert Battle to the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swim Team. (The team won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics performing to Mackey's score Damn.) John has been recognized with numerous grants and awards from organizations including ASCAP (Concert Music Awards, 1999 through 2006; Morton Gould Young Composer Award, 2002 and 2003), the American Music Center (Margaret Jory Fairbanks Copying Assistance Grant, 2000, 2002), and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust (Live Music for Dance commissioning grants, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2005). He was a CalArts/Alpert Award nominee in 2000. In February 2003, the Brooklyn Philharmonic premiered John’ s work Redline Tango at the BAM Opera House, with Kristjan Jarvi conducting. John made a new version of the work for wind ensemble in 2004 -- Mackey's first work for wind band -- and that version has since received over 100 performances worldwide. The wind version won the 2004 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize, and in 2005, the ABA/Ostwald Award from the American Bandmasters Association, making John the youngest composer to receive the honor. In 2009, John's work Aurora Awakes received both the ABA/Ostwald Award and the NBA William D. Revelli Composition Contest. John served as a Meet-The-Composer/American Symphony Orchestra League "Music Alive!" Composer In Residence with the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony in 2002-2003, and with the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2004-2005. He was Composer In Residence at the Vail Valley Music Festival in Vail, Colorado, in the summer of 2004, Composer In Residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in August 2005. He has held college residencies at Florida State, University of Michigan, Ohio State, Arizona State, University of Southern California, University of Texas, among many others. Mr. Mackey served as Music Director of the Parsons Dance Company from 1999-2003. Program notes from the composer: The blue hour is an oft-poeticized moment of the day -- a lingering twilight that halos the sky after sundown but before complete darkness sets in. It is a time of day known for its romantic, spiritual, and ethereal connotations, and this magical moment has frequently inspired artists to attempt to capture its remarkable essence. This is the same essence that inhabits the sonic world of John Mackey's Hymn to a Blue Hour. Programmatic content aside, the title itself contains two strongly suggestive implications -- first, the notion of hymnody, which implies a transcendent and perhaps even sacred tone; and second, the color blue, which has an inexorable tie to American music. Certainly Hymn to a Blue Hour is not directly influenced by the blues, per se, but there is frequently throughout the piece a sense of nostalgic remorse and longing -- an overwhelming sadness that is the same as the typically morose jazz form. Blue also has a strong affiliation with nobility, authority, and calmness. All of these notions are woven into the fabric of the piece -- perhaps a result of Mackey using what was, for him, an unconventional compositional method: "I almost never write music 'at the piano' because I don't have any piano technique. I can find chords, but I play piano like a bad typist types: badly. If I write the music using an instrument where I can barely get by, the result will be very different than if I sit at the computer and just throw a zillion notes at my sample library, all of which will be executed perfectly and at any dynamic level I ask.