Laurier Wind Orchestra Program Notes October 25, 2024

Oct. 7, 2024

Fall Fair

Canadian composer Godfrey Ridout lived and taught in Toronto, achieving early fame in his composition career for his film and radio scores used by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation and National Film Board of Canada. His works encompass a variety of genres, but Ridout is best known for this overture for orchestra, defining his traditionalist tendencies, easy lyrical style, and sense of fun. This arrangement was written for the Stadacona Band of the Royal Canadian Navy by staff arranger Earl Fralick.

Fall Fair is the result of a commission by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for performance (by the CBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Ernest MacMillan conducting) at the United Nations, New York City, on United Nations Day, October 24, 1961. Described by the title, there are snatches of country fiddle tunes, a noisy gaiety and activity, and a pastoral nostalgia.

Allerseelen

Richard Strauss was a German composer known for his creative and innovative methods for combining instrumental textures. He created tone poems in which the orchestra became one marvelous instrument, capable of expressing the whole gamut of human emotions. Among them Till Eulenspiegel, Death and Transfiguration, Don Quixote and The Hero's Life, beside his famous operas Der Rosenkavalier, Salome and others, regarded as masterpieces of the Romantic Era. His art songs also achieved fame and success, among which Allerseelen became a great favorite. Several times it has been transcribed for orchestra; however, this setting by A. O. Davis was the first for symphonic band. Allerseelen was written by Strauss as part of a collection of eight lieder in 1885 when he was just 21 years old. Translated as “All Souls’ Day” (November 1) in English, was initially performed by soprano voice and piano. Allerseelen was based on a poem written by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg.

Place on the table the fragrant mignonettes,
Bring the last red asters inside,
and let us speak again of love,
As once in May.

Give me your hand, so that I may secretly press it;
And if someone sees, it’s all the same to me.
Just give me one of your sweet glances,
As once in May.

Every grave blooms and is fragrant tonight,
One day in the year are the dead free,
Come to my heart, so that I may have you again,
As once in May.

River of Stars

Barbara Spence (Potter) York was born in Winnipeg, Canada, began piano lessons at the age of 5, with a music teacher who came to the family home to provide lessons for Barbara and her two older sisters. “I learned to read music at the same time I learned to read words,” she was quoted as saying in an interview, prefacing the knowledge that music would become her career. By age 7, she was actively composing and played cello from 6th grade through to high school, and attended McGill University with a Bachelor’s in School Music Degree (choral). In 1981 she was awarded a Dora Maver Moore award for her score and lyrics to the musical Colette: The Colours of Love. In 1993 she moved to Kansas City working primarily as a collaborative pianist for Pittsburg State University (KS), composing works inspired by and commissioned for her colleagues on tuba and saxophone alongside her personal projects. The same year, York’s 50-minute scripted, children’s piece, A Butterfly in Time was nominated for a Juno Award. In addition to her composing, Barbara was an active freelance collaborative pianist, playing regularly at community, university, and professional concert venues throughout the United States and Canada. She recorded for CBC Radio and premiered numerous works for other composers before her death in 2020.

York’s River of Stars is an energetic and dramatic journey through space, commissioned and premiered in 2019 by Dr. Michael Scott Butler, at the time the conductor of the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Wind Ensemble. York “had in her mind an image of the Milky Way, and Van Gogh’s painting ‘Starry Nights’ ”. She didn’t want it to be the sweet and romanticized version of stars, since she believed that our idea of what the galaxy is, and what the stars are, has changed a great deal through our scientific endeavours. In this work, we hear the “vastness and constant moving and rotations'' of the galaxy.

Jumpscare Tango

As a young musician, Roshanne Etezady studied piano and flute, and developed an interest in many different styles of music, from the musicals of Steven Sondheim to the 1980's power ballads and Europop of her teenage years. Dr. Etezady holds academic degrees from Northwestern University and Yale University, completing her doctorate at the University of Michigan, where she teaches on faculty today.

Her works have been commissioned by the Albany Symphony, Dartmouth Symphony, eighth blackbird, Music at the Anthology, and the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and by groups throughout the United States and Europe. Jumpscare Tango is a sultry and dramatic tune where Etezady weaves melody ideas into increasingly complicated conversations, which get interrupted using the staple technique of horror movies and video games, the jumpscare! Periods of quiet or calm are interrupted when the audience least expects it in this nod to the Halloween season.

Shenandoah

Omar Thomas is an American composer, arranger and educator, born and raised in New York City by Guyanese parents. He earned Master of Music degree in jazz composition at the New England Conservatory of Music, and now teaches on faculty in the composition area at the University of Texas in Austin. His works for wind ensemble have gained rapid notice, and earned him the distinction of being the first Black composer to have been awarded a National Bandmasters Association/Revelli Compostion Award in 2019. Shenandoah is one of the most well-known and beloved Americana folk songs. Originally a river song detailing the lives and journeys of fur traders canoeing down the Missouri River. Thomas describes his arrangement recalling the beauty of Shenandoah Valley, “not bathed in golden sunlight, but [fragments of the melody] blanketed by low-hanging clouds and experiencing intermittent periods of heavy rainfall, created with a combination of percussion textures, generated both on instruments and from the body. There are a few musical moments where the sun attempts to pierce through the clouds, but ultimately the rains win out. This arrangement of Shenandoah is at times mysterious, somewhat ominous, constantly introspective, and deeply soulful.”

Kalos Eidos (Kaleidoscope)

Carol Brittin Chambers is a Texas-based composer, educator and arranger. Ms. Chambers received a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Texas Tech University and a Master of Music degree in trumpet performance from Northwestern University. She is on the music faculty at Texas Lutheran University, teaching composition and serving as Composer in Residence, and was named the winner of the 2019 WBDI (Women Band Directors International) Composition Competition for this work, Kalos Eidos (Kaleidoscope). From her notes in the score, she writes,

“Most people know that a kaleidoscope is an optical device, or tube, containing mirrors and bits of colored glass or paper. When the tube is rotated, an endless variety of patterns can be seen. But the work itself is derived from the Greek words kalos (beautiful) and eidos (form or shape). The word "scope" refers to seeing or observing, thereby forming the complete definition: the observation of beautiful forms or shapes.”

Roma

American composer and flautist Valerie Coleman is the founder of the Grammy-winning quintet Imani Winds, and is a resident composer of the ensemble, giving Imani Winds their signature piece Umoja which is listed as one of the “Top 101 Great American Works” by Chamber Music America. In addition to her significant contributions to wind quintet literature, Valerie has a works list for various winds, brass, strings and full orchestra, earning many awards including from ASCAP, Chamber Music America, and nominations from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition to her quintet and solo performances and recording schedule, Ms. Coleman currently serves on the faculty of The Juilliard School’s composition department. Coleman describes her inspiration for Roma in the notes in her score:

“A nation without a country is the best way to describe the nomadic tribes known as gypsies, or properly call, the Romani. Their traditions, their language (Roma), legends, and music stretch all over the globe. from the Middle East, the Mediterranean region, and the Iberian peninsula, across the ocean to the Americas.

Roma is a tribute to that culture, in five descriptive themes, as told through the eyes and hearts of Romani women everywhere: Romani Women, Mystic, Youth, Trickster, and History. The melodies and rhythms are a fusion of styles and cultures: malagueña of Spain, Argentine tango, Arabic music, Turkish folk songs, 3/2 Latin claves, and jazz.”