³Ô¹ÏÍø

Feb. 3, 2025

Lift Off

Roger Zare has been praised for his “enviable grasp of orchestration” (New York Times) and for writing music with “formal clarity and an alluringly mercurial surface.” He was born in Sarasota, FL, and has written for a wide variety of ensembles, from solo instruments to full orchestra. Often inspired by science, mathematics, literature, and mythology, his colorfully descriptive and energetic works have been performed on six continents. Zare holds a DMA from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty, Paul Schoenfield, Bright Sheng, and Kristin Kuster with previous degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Southern California. Zare currently serves as assistant professor of music at Appalachian State University and previously taught composition at Illinois State University. Lift Off was awarded first prize in the third annual Frank Ticheli Composition Competition. Zare describes it as “a very quick and energetic piece…. It was written when NASA was returning the Space Shuttle to flight in 2005 and is a celebration of human space exploration. There are very few delicate moments in this piece, and I concentrate more on large gestures and thick orchestration. Highly pointed rhythmic sections give way to richly harmonized melodic sections, with an almost constant rushing of 16th notes throughout the entire piece. It is a thrilling ride for both the performers and the audience.”

Remembrance

Dong-In Danny Choi (b. 1998) is a versatile young Canadian composer known for his expansive repertoire spanning large ensemble concert works, chamber music, solo compositions, and more. A professional media composer for film and television scores, his music has been placed in TV shows produced by Warner Bros Discovery, and in various short films. An active member of the Canadian music scene, he is also on the judging panel of the JUNOS Awards. Remembrance was written in 2018 and won the 2019 Howard Cable Memorial Prize in Composition. “In remembrance of what it took for us to be here...” was the only original program note. The piece can mean different things to different people; however, it brings unity to all under the theme of remembrance. We fight for many things: love, patriotism, freedom, ideology, possession...and these things brought tremendous sacrifice. It was the battles, the blood and sweat, and the sacrifice of those that came before us that created the world as we know it. "Remembrance" is a bittersweet reflection that silently gives thanks to every step and every sacrifice that was made to bring us what we have today. Yes, what we have may not be perfect or ideal, but with each generation’s responsibility to "carry the torch" and never forget, hopefully we can make everything worth it. - from www.didchoi.com

"March" from The Love for Three Oranges

Sergei Prokofiev began composing in his early childhood and continued even as he concentrated on his career as a piano virtuoso. He graduated from St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1914 during the period of war and revolution, but despite this, began to achieve renown for some of his most popular works. Travelling to Chicago in 1919, he spent his voyage composing an opera score based on a fairy tale by Carlo Gozzi, which satirized trends in contemporary art and drama. An unrealistic and over-the-top story, The Love for Three Oranges became one of Prokofiev’s best-known operas after the premiere in 1921. The “March” appears between acts of the opera, depicting the hero’s travels to search for three enchanted oranges, one of which was his trapped future wife. It later became the theme of a popular US radio show, “The FBI in Peace and War,” creating a layer of irony from the composer who was regarded unjustly as “a Communist composer.”

I Dance For Myself

Composer-tubist Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre style and a burning desire to help performers represent themselves. With a focus on process over product, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage. Hope is always chasing opportunities to connect with others through music, valuing community first and foremost. Hope holds a BMus from Mount Allison University and a MMus in Composition from the University of British Columbia. Her teachers have included Kevin Morse, T. Patrick Carrabré, Jennifer Butler, Keith Hamel and Dorothy Chang, and she continues to learn from the students she teaches and works with. Now, she’s back in her hometown of Kjipuktuk (Halifax), sharing in music with friends new and old while figuring out where her next journey will take her. I Dance for Myself was written for the all-female community wind band “The Glass Winds” in Nova Scotia for their March 6, 2024 concert. Hope describes her process in her score notes: “This composition uses repeating upbeat rhythms to reflect on the urge to let loose and dance sometimes. Through this, I try to have a bit of fun while still having something serious to say: that we need this kind of dance, and we need somewhere to feel safe enough to let loose. Towards the end, even as the dance continues, the music starts to turn inward, yearning for a space where our minds can be this free all the time.

- from https://www.hopeariamusic.com/about

Rescue

E.K.R. Hammell (Evan) is a Toronto-based composer, arranger, & music engraver originally from Prince Edward Island. As a professional sheet music engraver & score editor he has prepared scores for countless performers, conductors, artists, and musicians, including the likes of: the artistic director of the largest Bollywood festival in Canada; acclaimed Canadian contemporary composers Larysa Kuzmenko and Imant Raminsh; and musical theatre composer/music director Bob Foster. Evan received his Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Toronto in 2017, and wrote Rescue in 2020, and after a few covid-delayed years he submitted it and won the 2023 Howard Cable Memorial Prize in Composition. The title is deceptive, he describes, as it “while gives impressions of fantastical adventure and heroism, but is actually grounded in everyday reality. At its heart, this piece is for young people, about young people. In our youth, we often rely on people close to us to rescue us from moments of distress. Additionally, our youth is a period when we develop the ability to see beyond our immediate surroundings and serve a purpose greater than our own. Rescue is a celebration of this exciting, tumultuous time in our lives and everything that becomes of it.”

Caribana Afterparty

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. Exploring the dance styles of soca and calypso traditions, Caribana Afterparty refers to the largest Caribbean carnival celebration outside of the Caribbean itself, which takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada every summer. After a lush and opening, the piece progresses from more calm stylings of calypso music to the more jumping rhythms of soca music. Complete with a “riddim section” breakdown section that calls for all winds to use either their body or their music stands to add to the celebratory groove, this work is a blast to listen to AND play

Second Suite in F

Gustav Holst, one of Britain’s most prominent composers, was also a professional trombonist and a teacher of composition and organ. His works include symphonies, operas, ballets, chamber music, and choral songs. Holst was deeply interested in the collection and documentation of folk music and used it as the basis for much of his own compositions. The Second Suite in F for Military Band, composed in 1911, borrows British folk songs as the compositional basis for each movement. The opening March includes the songs “Morris Dance,” “Swansea Town,” and “Claudy Banks,” linked together thematically through lyrics that all reference a sailor heading out to see and leaving loved ones at home. The second movement is a lyrical setting of the ballad, “I Love My Love,” which tells of a young girl’s grief over losing her love to the sea, and her committal to an insane asylum, while the third “Song of the Blacksmith” provides a lively contrast, revealing the story from the point of view of a woman who has been rejected by the object of her affections, accompanied by the sounds of his smithing in the background, first in the brass, and then with an anvil (actually a brake drum, as is traditional for the concert settings of today, since anvils are more difficult to come by, not to mention easily move). The concluding “Dargason” is a country dance that has roots that are traced back to John Playford’s publication of The English Dancing Master of 1651, and is combined with the well-known “Greensleeves” through a set of brilliant variations, ending humorously with a piccolo-tuba duet.