Our Performance This Evening. Peabody Presents One of the Most Vibrant, Diverse, and Exciting Concert Seasons in the Baltimore/Washington Area
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Welcome to our performance this evening. Peabody presents one of the most vibrant, diverse, and exciting concert seasons in the Baltimore/Washington area. Whether your tastes tend toward contemporary music, jazz, early music, opera, chamber music, or orchestra, you are bound to take pleasure and inspiration from some of the 1,000 concerts presented in Peabody’s halls this year. This is Peabody’s 155th year, and the Institute has a deep history and long record of success in educating students for the music profession. Our students come from all around the United States and 22 other countries, and they are all united in sharing a passion for the common language and power of music. Your presence here tonight helps inspire our students and faculty to give their best. You are listening to tomorrow’s professional artists in their formative years, and your thoughtful engagement in the performance is a critical part of enriching their education and making tonight’s experience unique. I hope it also inspires you as you share in the energy of live performance as much as we are delighted to share our music with you. Yours sincerely, Jeffrey Sharkey Director Peabody Wind Ensemble Harlan D. Parker, Conductor Wednesday, October 9, 2013 Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall 7:30 p.m. George Washington Bridge (1950) William Schuman (1910-1992) Mare Tranquillitatis (2012) Roger Zare (b. 1985) Suite Française, Op. 248a (1944) Darius Milhaud Normandie (1892-1974) Bretagne Ile de France Alsache-Lorraine Provence Intermission Chapter Finál (2006) Michael A. Mogensen (b. 1973) Sinfonietta (1961) Ingolf Dahl Introduction and Rondo (1912-1970) Notturno Pastorale Dance Variations Please disable all electronic devices including phones, E-readers, and tablets during performances. The use of cameras and sound recorders during performances is strictly prohibited. Notice: For your own safety, LOOK for your nearest EXIT. In case of emergency, WALK, do not RUN to that EXIT. By order of the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. -2- HARLAN D. PARKER, Conductor Program Notes Harlan D. Parker has been the conductor of the Peabody Wind George Washington Bridge Ensemble and coordinator of the music education division at the William Schuman Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University since the fall of 1990, and in the fall of 2007 was appointed as There are few days in the year when I do not see George the conductor of the Peabody Youth Orchestra. Under his direction, Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Peabody Wind Ensemble has given over 30 world premieres, the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since and has performed at state, regional and national conventions. my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, Considered “among the very top wind bands in the US” (Fanfare), this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and the Peabody Wind Ensemble has received critical acclaim from this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods contemporary composers such as David Amram, James Syler, Eric depending on the time of day or night, the weather, the traffic Ewazen, Stella Sung, H. O. Reed and Johan de Meij. and, of course, my own mood as I pass by. Their debut CD, From an Antique Land, has been praised as one of I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, the most exciting wind ensemble recordings in recent times and the and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday. I have driven second CD, Orff, Bird and Reed, was re-released in August 2006 over it countless times and passed under it on boats. Coming to on the Naxos label. Of the performance of La Fiesta Mexicana New York City by air, sometimes I have been lucky enough to fly on the second CD, composer H. Owen Reed, in a letter to Dr. right over it. It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or Parker wrote, “I have just listened, twice, to your brilliant recording dramatic entry to the great metropolis. of my La Fiesta Mexicana, and I must tell you that it was a thrill – William Schuman to hear my music performed exactly as I always hoped for. Your total understanding of the work showed up on all parameters. Mare Tranquillitatis Your tempos were on the mark, and the overall conception of Roger Zare the work was superb.” The Orff, Bird and Reed CD was also listed on the “Best of the Year Discs for 2006” by Audiophile Mare Tranquillitatis translates to “Sea of Tranquility,” and is the Audition. Their second CD for Naxos, Collage: A Celebration famous location on the moon where Apollo 11 landed and the of the 150th Anniversary of the Peabody Institute: 1857 - 2007, first man set foot on the lunar surface. The music seeks to capture was the top classical music download (out of more than 12,000 a dichotomy of emotions – tranquil beauty and restless isolation. CDs) on eMusic.com for the first half of April 2007. Their third All of the musical material is derived from only two ideas – the CD for Naxos, Trendsetters, was released in the summer of 2009. descending fourth heard in the opening bar, and the flowing and The Peabody Wind Ensemble continues recording, and recently surging melody heard not long after. These two ideas trade back completed recording the symphonies of Johan de Meij for release and forth within a contrapuntal texture, swelling and flowing as on Naxos. they interact with each other. The music recedes into a quieter realm and solo instruments emerge, juxtaposing the lush full As well as his duties at Peabody, Dr. Parker has a very active textures with a delicate and intimate passage. musical life outside of the Conservatory. He is a past-president of the Conductors Guild, an international service organization After many peaks and dips, the emotional arc of the piece dedicated to encouraging and promoting the highest standards culminates in the long-awaited return of the second theme. It grows in the art and profession of conducting. Dr. Parker is also a and transforms into a sweeping gesture, bringing closure to the member the American Bandmasters Association, an organization pent-up tension from before. What follows is an epilogue, and the whose membership is by invitation and recognizes “outstanding piece ends with one final tender moment with the solo oboe. achievement in the field of the concert band and its music.” He – Roger Zare is active regionally, nationally and internationally as a guest conductor, conducting pedagogue, clinician and adjudicator, having worked with professional musicians and students from all Suite Française 50 states and over 40 countries. Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud had been thinking of composing a piece for high In his first year as a faculty member at Peabody, Dr. Parker school students when in 1945, Leeds Music asked him to compose reorganized the Peabody Wind Ensemble into its present format and a significant work for high school band. TheSuite Française is was awarded the Peabody Student Council Faculty/Administration one of a number of works celebrating the Allied victory and end Award for outstanding contributions to the Peabody community. In of World War II. An additional purpose was to familiarize the the fall of 2000, Dr. Parker accepted the first graduate class of wind students with folk melodies of “those parts of France where their conducting students. Graduates and students of the program are fathers and brothers fought to defend the country from the German teachers and conductors in high schools and colleges and conductors invaders.” The suite is in five contrasting movements, each named of military bands, with two recent masters students accepting positions for a French province. Melody, always important for Milhaud, is as conductors with the United States Air Force. Dr. Parker received especially so. Of the 18 melodies, seven have not been identified. his bachelor of music from Emporia State University and his master of Regarding folk music, he recommended: “...using a folk melody music and doctor of philosophy in music education with an emphasis with all possible freedom...and mixing it with original themes in conducting from the University of Kansas and has completed post- that seem like folk music but are not.” It seems highly likely the doctoral work at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in unidentified melodies fall into this latter category. Various sectional New York. forms are utilized in the individual movements, melodies playing a leading role regarding structure. Harmonic language is rich and typical of the composer, including bitonality, quartal harmony, parallelism, and abundant cross relations. Keen use of instrumental -3- color also gives the work variety and vitality. The spirited first The tonal idiom of the work grows out of the acoustical properties movement, Normandie, utilizes two folk tunes in major mode and of the symphonic band: a wealth of overtones. Thus I feel that one unidentified minor mode melody. The subject of the main tune, bands call for music with more open and consonant intervals Germaine, is the homecoming of the warrior. In La bergère de than would a string ensemble or a piano. The Sinfonietta is tonal, France et le Roi d’Angleterre (The French Shepherdess and the King and centered around A-flat major. At the same time, however, its of England), initial hostility ends in embrace. Bretagne (Brittany) is corner movements are based on a series of six tones (A-flat, E-flat, the quietest and most expressive movement. Three folk songs (mostly C, G, D, A) which, through various manipulations, provide most in minor mode) are used in an arch form.