Wind Symphony Erica Neidlinger, Conductor
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Saturday, January 28, 2017 • 8:00 P.M. WIND SYMPHONY Erica Neidlinger, conductor DePaul Concert Hall 800 West Belden Avenue • Chicago Saturday, January 28, 2017 • 8:00 P.M. DePaul Concert Hall WIND SYMPHONY Erica Neidlinger, conductor PROGRAM Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Fanfare Ritmico (2002) William Grant Still (1895-1975) Summerland (1937) Aaron Copland (1900-1990) trans. Mark Hindsley El Salón México (1936) Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Lincolnshire Posy (1937) Lisbon Horkstow Grange Rufford Park Poachers The Brisk Young Sailor Lord Melbourne The Lost Lady Found WIND SYMPHONY • JANUARY 28, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Fanfare Ritmico Duration: 7 minutes Jennifer Higdon is one of the leading 21st century American composers, having received numerous commissions and performances by professional ensembles around the world. Her Violin Concerto won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in music and her Percussion Concerto won a Grammy in 2010 for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Her latest work is a commissioned opera, Cold Mountain, based on the best-selling novel by Charles Frazier. Higdon began her musical studies at age 15 (teaching herself to play the flute) and began formal musical studies at Bowling Green State University where she played in the band. She did not begin studying composition until age 21. Higdon holds graduate degrees in Composition from the University of Pennsylvania and an Artist Diploma in Composition from the Curtis Institute of Music. Fanfare Ritmico premiered in 2000 and Higdon’s own transcription for winds premiered in 2002. She wrote: Fanfare Ritmico celebrates the rhythm and speed (tempo) of life. Writing this work on the eve of the move into the new Millennium, I found myself reflection on how all things have quickened as time has progressed. Our lives now move at speeds much greater than what I believe anyone would have ever imagined in years past. Everyone follow the beat of their own drummer, and those drummers are beating faster and faster on many different levels. As we move along day to day, rhythm plays an integral part of our lives, from the individual heartbeat to the lightning speed of our computers. This fanfare celebrates that rhythmic motion, of man and machine, and the energy which permeates every moment of our being in the new century. William Grant Still (1895-1975) Summerland Duration: 5 minutes Born in 1895, William Grant Still’s career as a highly influential American composer, conductor, and musician spanned much of the 20th century. Still studied violin as a child and was greatly influenced by listening to opera recordings given to him by his stepfather. He began making a noticeable mark as a composer during the 1920s in New York and received many honors throughout his career, including a Guggenheim fellowship, commissions from major ensembles such as the Cleveland Orchestra, and honorary doctorates from the New England Conservatory and the Peabody Conservatory to name a few. Still lived during a time that, as a minority, being recognized as a successful classical musician was challenging, therefore he was labeled a pioneer due to WIND SYMPHONY • JANUARY 28, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES his many “firsts.” He was the first African American to: have a major orchestral work performed by a major American orchestra, conduct a major American orchestra, conduct a major American orchestra in the deep south, conduct a major network radio orchestra, have an opera produced by a major American company, and have an opera nationally televised in the United States. Still was a gifted musician whose voice was truly American and spoke to a diverse population, even if American society as a whole may not have been ready to fully embrace it. Summerland is the second movement of Still’s Three Visions for piano (1936), written for his wife who was a journalist and concert pianist. He scored instrumental versions of the second movement the following year. It easily evokes the image of the title, but can be interpreted as having metaphorical meanings as well. Aaron Copland (1900-1990); trans. Mark Hindsley El Salón México (1936) Duration: 10 minutes Born in Brooklyn, New York, Copland studied the piano as a child. As his compositional interest grew, he went to Paris in the early 1920s to study with Paul Vidal at the Fontainebleau School of Music. It was there he began his studies with famed teacher Nadia Boulanger instead, and spent two years under her guidance. Copland was greatly influenced by his years in France, having found a musical community unlike any he had known. Later in life, he credited Boulanger as his most significant musical influence. Copland’s compositions were highly innovative due to his use of jazz and American folk idioms. However, in El Salón México Copland’s folk influence was inspired by several visits he made to Mexico under the encouragement of Carlos Chávez, a highly influential conductor and dominant figure in Mexican art music. Although there is some speculation surrounding the authenticity of the story, it is said that Chávez took Copland to a dance hall (the Salón México) that had three distinct rooms for the different social classes: the most elite, the working class, and the peasants. Copland’s piece explores the music of each of these social classes, beginning with the art music of the upper class, moving through the vigorous rhythms of the working class and ending with the foot- stomping peasant music, all with seamless transition. According to Copland, during his visits he felt a very close connection to the people of Mexico: I was attracted by the spirit of the place and by the Mexican people. Using Mexican melodies seemed appropriate. My purpose was not merely to quote literally, but to heighten without in any way falsifying the natural simplicity of Mexican tunes. WIND SYMPHONY • JANUARY 28, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Lincolnshire Posy (1937) Duration: 15 minutes Percy Grainger studied piano as a child in Australia and in 1900 began his career as a concert pianist, enjoying great success around the world. Grainger immigrated to America in 1914, and eventually became a citizen in 1919. He enlisted as an army bandsman at the outbreak of World War I, where he learned to play and developed an appreciation for most wind and percussion instruments. The saxophone, especially the soprano saxophone, was his favorite because he believed it was the closest instrument to the human voice. Self-taught in composition, Grainger’s style was innovative, using irregular meter and rhythm before Stravinsky, collecting folk music at the same time as Bartok, and predating Varèse in his experiments with electronic music. Lincolnshire Posy has been recognized as a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire. All six movements are based on folk songs gathered in Lincolnshire, England, where Grainger recorded folk singers on an Edison wax cylinder phonograph. Grainger’s settings not only represent the folk songs, but also attempt to depict the personalities of the folk singers and the manner in which they delivered the songs, sometimes free of rhythm, sometimes ornamented, but always full of individual character. Grainger championed the cause of the folksinger and bitterly denounced the manner in which they were treated as musical and social outcasts. He viewed Lincolnshire Posy as a “bunch of musical wildflowers,” hence the use of posy in the title. Commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association in their quest for serious band music, Lincolnshire Posy was premiered at the ABA convention in March of 1937. As it turned out, movements 3 and 5 were not performed because the band was not able to play them. Grainger had read these movements with student musicians in preparation for the convention, but the professional bandsmen assembled were unable to grasp the rhythmic content in time for the performance. Grainger later wrote, “The only players that are likely to balk at those (irregular) rhythms are seasoned professional bandsmen, who think more of their beer than of their music.” However, the fact was that the challenges of movements 3, 5, and even 2 (unusual harmonies and oddities of meter and rhythm) were unprecedented in the band world. Lincolnshire Posy was shocking to many bands at the time. The Goldman Band did perform the piece in its entirety later in 1937, but it took another 20 years of growing acceptance on the part of conductors and musicians in the medium before the piece caught on. Notes by Erica Neidlinger. WIND SYMPHONY • JANUARY 28, 2017 BIOGRAPHY Erica Neidlinger is Associate Professor and conductor of the Wind Symphony at DePaul University. Additional responsibilities include teaching conducting and instrumental music education courses. Dr. Neidlinger has conducted performances across the United States and in Europe. She has traveled to Singapore and Canada as an ensemble adjudicator and clinician and has been featured as a guest conductor and clinician in Latvia. Presentations at international conferences include the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles in Killarney, Ireland and the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. She has also conducted honor bands and presented at many conferences across the United States. Before her teaching at DePaul, Dr. Neidlinger served as Assistant Director of Bands at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she conducted university concert ensembles and directed the marching band. She has been a member of the band and music education faculty at The Ohio State University and has also served as conductor of the Nebraska Wind Symphony. Under her direction the ensemble was selected to perform for the 2005 Association of Concert Bands National Convention and the 2007 Nebraska State Bandmasters Conference. Neidlinger completed her doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota under the supervision of Professor Craig Kirchhoff. In addition, she holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and a Master’s degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.