John Adams's Commencement Speech

We'll take just a brief pause from Husa, to enjoy John Adam's commencement address to the 2011 Julliard graduates on May 20th. In it, he speaks about the pains and rewards of being an artist in this day and age. Follow the link to the Nonesuch website, and Enjoy!

Music for Prague, 1968

As a second installment of our "Husa Celebration" posts, here is a link to a recording of Husa's Music for Prague 1968, performed by the Interlochen 2010 World Youth Wind Symphony. Also, below are Husa's own comments on the piece. Enjoy!

"Three main ideas bind the composition together. The first and most important is an old Hussite war song from the 15th century, 'Ye Warriors of God and His Law,' a symbol of resistance and hope for hundreds of years, whenever fate lay heavy on the Czech nation. It has been utilized by many Czech composers, including Smetana in My Country. The beginning of this religious song is announced very softly in the first movement by timpani and concludes in a strong unison Chorale. The song is never used in its entirety. The second idea is the sound of bells throughout; Prague, named also the City of Hundreds of Towers, has used its magnificently sounding church bells as calls of distress as well as of victory. The last idea is a motif of three chords first appearing very softly under the piccolo solo at the beginning of the piece, in flutes, clarinets, and horns. Later it appears at extremely strong dynamic levels, for example in the middle of the Aria movement. Much symbolism also appears: in addition to the distress calls in the first movement (Fanfares), the unbroken hope of the Hussite song, sound of bells, or the tragedy (Aria), there is also a bird call at the beginning (piccolo solo), symbol of the liberty which the city of Prague has seen only for moments during its thousand years of existence."

Karel Husa: A Birthday Celebration

Perhaps the most important living composer, Karel Husa has been a true friend to the wind band. His body of works has raised the level of seriousness of music written for winds, in terms of meaningful content and emotional feeling. Throughout his long career his music has been a gift to the wind community, indeed the music community in general. This August marks the composer's 90th birthday, and UMWO will be celebrating this occassion in the most appropriate way: by playing his music! Our first two concerts next season will feature two of his major works for winds-his Music for Prague 1968 and Apotheosis of This Earth. This is the first in a series of blog posts that will focus on the composers wind works, and it starts with the detailed "Husa primer" below, found on G. Shirmer's website. Enjoy!

Karel Husa, winner of the 1993 Grawemeyer Award and the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Music, is an internationally known composer and conductor. An American citizen since 1959, Husa was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on August 7, 1921. After completing studies at the Prague Conservatory and, later, the Academy of Music, he went to Paris where he received diplomas from the Paris National Conservatory and the Ecole normale de musique. Among his teachers were Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, Jaroslav Ridky, and conductor Andre Cluytens. In 1954, Husa was appointed to the faculty of Cornell University where he was Kappa Alpha Professor until his retirement in 1992. He was elected Associate Member of the Royal Belgian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and has received honorary degrees of Doctor of Music from several institutions, including Coe College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Ithaca College, and Baldwin Wallace College. Among numerous honors, Husa has received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation; awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, UNESCO, and the National Endowment for the Arts; Koussevitzky Foundation commissions; the Czech Academy for the Arts and Sciences Prize; the Czech Medal of Merit, First Class, from President Vaclav Havel; and the Lili Boulanger award.
Husa's String Quartet No. 3 received the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and his Cello Concerto the 1993 Grawemeyer Award. Music for Prague 1968, with over 7000 performances worldwide, has become part of the modern repertory. On February 13, 1990, Husa realized a long-time dream when he conducted the orchestral version of Music for Prague 1968 in Prague. Another well-known work of his, Apotheosis of This Earth, is called by Husa a "manifest" against pollution and destruction. Among other works, Husa has composed The Trojan Women, a ballet commissioned by the Louisville Ballet and Orchestra. Click here to read the full bio.

A nod to the Saxophone on Composers Datebook

Last Tuesday's entry on Composers Datebook gives a nod to the Saxophone: an instrument which sometimes gets the short end of the stick when it comes to orchestral repertoire, but is always of vital importance when it is required!

The entry discusses Debussy's Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra, and the woman who persistently pressed him to write it:  Ms. Elisa Hall. Enjoy!

Bach/Holst: Fugue a la Gigue

This fun, lighthearted dance fugue is a great piece to listen to and to play, despite some technical challenges for everyone involved.

When Holst was commissioned to write ‘Hammersmith’ for the BBC Wireless Military Band in 1928,  he asked if he could first write a transcription of Bach's Organ Fugue in G Major BWV 577 (from Preludes, Fugues and Fantasias) as a sort of orchestration project. This was because he had not written for band for some time, and felt he was out of practice with writing for winds. Holst himself titled the piece ‘Fugue a La Gigue’, presumably because of its dance-like compound meter.

Comparing the piece to Hammersmith, we see several characteristic similarities, including unison clarinet writing, as well as the contrapuntal play between different instrumental groups. Follow the link to see a performance by The UNC-Chapel Hill Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Evan Feldman. Enjoy!

Quickstep with a Crew Cut

Last Monday's Composers Datebook entry featured a wind work, very popular in the band community: Samuel Barber's "Commando March".

He wrote the piece shortly after being enlisted in the United States Army during World War II. The work was completed in February 1943 and was premiered on May 23 of that year by the Army Air Force Tactical Training Command Band in Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, most likely with the composer conducting. Fredric V. Grunfeld, a music critic for High Fidelity magazine described the march as "an old-fashioned quickstep sporting a crew cut," and the work received many performances in the final years of the war. Barber made a transcription of the march for full orchestra, which was premiered by Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 29, 1943. Below is the link to the Datebook entry. Enjoy!

http://composersdatebook.publicradio.org/listings/datebook_20080519.shtml

Sofia Gubaidulina Article in the LA Times

As always, UMWO is on the cutting edge of contemporary music! See the article below from the LA Times on Sofia Gubaidulina whose Hour of the Soul we performed earlier this year. Enjoy!

Sofia Gubaidulina's spiritually musical journey
--------------------

The 79-year-old composer, scheduled to be on hand Thursday when the Los Angeles Philharmonic performs her work 'Glorious Percussion,' still espouses music's heavenly heart.

By David Mermelstein, Special to the Los Angeles Times

May 18 2011

Dressed mundanely in a teal blouse framed by a cream-colored jacket and slacks, Sofia Gubaidulina could be just another diminutive retiree, ready for a game of canasta or a lap around the mall. But in fact this unassuming senior citizen, who remains unknown to most Americans, is among the world's foremost composers. Her scores have made a deep impression on such prominent musicians as the violinists Gidon Kremer and Anne-Sophie Mutter, and, more recently, on Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel.

Read the full article

New York Music Scene: Dave Wacyk

While James Levine battles his health issues and has been forced to resign from the BSO and withdraw from touring with the MET, it seems that New Yorkers are thinking about the New York Music scene- where it has been and where it might go in the future. The below Op-Ed Piece from the New York Times talks about Gustav Mahler’s role in the development of both the NY MET and the NY Phil. Enjoy!

-Dave Wacyk

When Mahler took Manhattan
Peter G. Davis
New York has always held its conductors in chief close. Mahler was followed by Arturo Toscanini, who ruled the musical scene for nearly half a century. New York’s love affair with Leonard Bernstein was long and adoring, while James Levine is no less appreciated today, as we celebrate his 40 years at the Met and worry over his health.
Despite his short time among us, Mahler left as large a footprint as his successors. Already a world-famous composer and conductor, he was hired by the Met in 1907, and he arrived with a reputation as an autocrat who demanded nothing less than perfection… (Click for full story).

More Ukiah

Here is some more ukiah (or haiku) from Dr. Votta. Enjoy!

Man with stick wave to and fro
Orchestra baffled
May we have downbeat? they ask

Saxophone hums like hummingbird
Or perhaps like saw
Skill of player is crucial

Weather turns humid: reeds die
Woodwind players weep
Must play Mahler symphony

A Mozart development:
Changing keys, brass rest.
Graveyard for concentration

Bows go up, down, up, down, up
Harmony prevails
Sowing discord, one starts down.

Composers Datebook-Pulcinella

Given our recent concert with Pulcinella, today's Composers Datebook seemed appropriate.

Audio for Composers Datebook 5/15/2011

Stravinsky and Rochberg start trends

Today we celebrate two premieres and one three-letter prefix: "neo," meaning "new."

On today's date in 1920, Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella" was produced for the first time in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Stravinsky incorporated into the score some instrumental pieces attributed to the 18th century Italian composer Perlogesi. For the next 30 years, Stravinsky turned again and again to 18th-century forms and styles for inspiration, and creating a style that was soon dubbed: "neo-classical."

Fifty-two years after "Pulcinella," a "neo-romantic" movement of sorts was born when, on May 15, 1972, at New York's Alice Tully Hall, the Concord Quartet gave the premiere performance of the String Quartet No. 3 written by American composer, George Rochberg.

Rochberg's new quartet took the critics by surprise. While his previous two quartets had been written in an aggressively atonal style, his new quartet contained melodies that might have come from a late Beethoven string quartet, or a lost work by Mahler.

In a kind of manifesto, Rochberg explained his use of Romantic styles: "We bear the past in us. We do not, cannot, begin all over again in each generation. I came to realize that the music of the old masters was a living presence; that its spiritual values had not been displaced or destroyed by the new music. The shock wave of the enlargement of vision was to alter my whole attitude towards what was musically possible today."

More Ukiah from Dr. Votta

Percussion make much banging
Drums, cymbals, toys all sound
Too loud and out of tempo

Second violins slumber
When they should make sound
Dreaming of concerto glory

Flutes: always inaudible
Until they play high
Then they are always too loud

Oboes turn bright red like beets
Playing a short phrase
Beautiful sound but eyes bulge

Ukiah?

Over the next few days, we will be posting some of Dr. Votta's musical ukiah on our blog. We can't really call it haiku since the syllables are 7-5-7 instead of 5-7-5, but they're entertaining all the same. Enjoy!

Trombones sitting in the rear
So loudly annoy
But better than in the front


Violas why can’t you count?
We follow they say
You must cue us for safety


Clarinets’ arpeggios
Flying everywhere
Sometimes even are correct

Composers Datebook-Sunday May 8

Below is the text and the audio link for Composers Datebook from Sunday, May 8. Andrew Boysen Jr.'s Symphony No. 1, a piece for winds was featured. Enjoy!

Composers Datebook Audio-5/8/2011

On today's date in 1998, a new symphony for winds and percussion had its premiere performance at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It was the first symphony -- and first major commission -- for American composer, Andrew Boysen, Jr., who was 30 years old at the time.

"The piece was actually originally commissioned by my teacher at Northwestern, John P. Paynter," Boysen recalls. "Mr. Paynter was a very influential person for thousands of students who went through N.U., and he was also one of the most important figures in the development of wind literature in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century. It was a huge honor for me to be asked to write something for him. It was also exciting because he told me to write whatever I wanted and it was my first commission from a real top-flight ensemble. That was what prompted me to try my hand at a larger scale work.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Paynter died before I completed the piece. I stopped working on it because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Eventually, his wife Marietta stepped in and made the commission happen. The premiere was conducted by Stephen Peterson, my other mentor at Northwestern."

Boysen's symphony is in three movements, fast-slow-fast, each movement traditional in structure, but with a hint of Indonesian gamelan music in the symphony's middle movement.

Blog Post: Brittney Saline

The Sierra presents a common artistic trap: Repetition + "easy" parts = lack of musical expression. It's easy for as individuals and ensembles to forget that we must stay attentive to each new layer and respond accordingly. It's also easy to get sloppy with articulation, especially when almost everyone else in the ensemble is playing the same thing you are - there's everywhere to hide.

If we remember to articulate, pulse, and respect the dynamics of the layers, this piece will be the summery send-off that I think it's intended to be. It would also be nice if everyone in attendance and performance were given complimentary tropical beverages to go with it.

-Brittney Saline, saxophone

Blog Post: Matt Jones

Olivier Messiaen's piece this semester is one of the most complex pieces I have ever played. Throughout the piece, there are upwards of 100 tempo changes, as well as time signatures not seen in any other pieces. An added challenge in this piece was the construction of my instrument -- essentially a xylophone of pitched cowbells. The frame, constructed from plumbing pipe, loves to warp, twist, and turn, at all the wrong times. Ultimately, this piece is rewarding to complete, and a unique feeling rises after the 15 minute ride.

-Matt Jones, percussion