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Bowling Green Philharmonia
Donald Crockett
Roethke Preludes
Stephen Albert
Wind Canticles
Bernard Rands
...body and shadow...
David Heuser's (b. 1966) music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. He has also won various awards, grants and commissions including an ASCAP Young Composer Award, five ASCAP Standard Awards, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, and the Delius Composition Contest Chamber Music Award.
Mr. Heuser's degrees are from Eastman and Indiana University and his composition teachers have included Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, David Liptak, Warren Benson, Frederick Fox and Don Freund, as well as Jeffrey Hass in electronic music.
A native of New Jersey, Mr. Heuser currently resides in San Antonio, where he is a faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has also taught at West Chester University, Temple University, and Indiana University. His music is published by Non Sequitur Music.
Cauldron was commissioned and premiered by the New York Youth Symphony. In it, the composer strove for a lively, rhythmic quality, and to provide a high level of enjoyment for the young performers. At the same time, the title connotes darkness, a quality that pervades most of Heuser's music. The piece divides into three sections (A-B-Á), with the “A” sections generally active and loud, focussing on fragments of melody and short threefold repetitions of chords. In contrast, the quieter B section features longer legato lines played by solo wind instruments. These, however, are eventually fragmented, and gradually pile up on each other in a crescendo of activity.
Donald Crockett was born in Pasadena, California in 1951. He is Professor of Composition and Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he joined the faculty in 1981. From 1991-1997 he was composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Commissions have come from such artists and ensembles as the Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Stanford String Quartet, PittsburghNew Music Ensemble, and Core Ensemble, among others. Mr. Crockett has been recognized with awards and prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Music Center, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, BMI, Composers Inc., the Aaron Copland Fund, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His work, Celestial Mechanics, placed second in the 1991 Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards and he has twice been the winner of the Kenneth Davenport National Competition for Orchestra Works. Active as a conductor of new music, Mr. Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble Xtet, the University of Southern California Contemporary Music Ensemble and as a guest conductor with ensembles and orchestras around the United States. Recordings of his music appear on the CRI, Laurel, Orion and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels. His music is published by MMB Music, St. Louis.
Roethke Preludes was commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and given its premiere performances in February 1995. It comprises six short movements, with the entire piece taking a little over a quarter of an hour. The movements range in length from under two minutes to about four minutes, and explore a wide variety of mood and orchestral color. Each prelude takes as a point of departure a fragment from the writings of the 20th-century American poet Theodore Roethke. These fragments, which I gleaned from reading many of Roethke's poems and notebook entries, are strongly evocative to me, and the music grew directly out of them. For example, the violins are almost literally “tethered” to the high register (“another moon”) while the rest of the orchestra tries hard to reach them. The “shepherd of slow forms” is the time-honored musical structure known as the chaconne, in which a repeated chord progression is the vehicle for additive variation. In “Straw for the Fire” clumps of notes (exclusively from the C major scale) are thrown in fugally, beginning with solo piccolo, which is a musical straw if there ever was one. Roethke Preludes also features the percussion section in an important and structural way. The timpani play a fairly important part throughout, and each movement has its own particular “percussion color,” which is often expressed in pairs of instruments.
Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winning composer Stephen Albert, whose tragic death in 1992 stunned the music world, was recognized in his lifetime for a body of work at once powerful, dramatic, colorful and deeply emotive. He won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for his symphony RiverRun and from 1985 to 1988 served as composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony. Albert received commissions from the Chicago, National, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Seattle symphonies, as well as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress. Among his other awards and honors were two MacDowell Colony Fellowships, a Huntington Hartford Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Rome Prizes and grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation and the Alice M. Ditson Foundation. From 1988 to the time of his death, he was professor of composition at Juilliard. He had taught in the Lima public schools under a Ford foundation grant as composer-in-residence, and at the Philadelphia Musical Academy, Stanford University and Smith College.
Albert's gift for writing vocal music is also reflected in his last concerto, the sweetly lyrical Wind Canticle for clarinet and orchestra, tailor-made for soloist David Shifrin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Cast in an extended sonata form, this work tellingly combines the clarinet's richly timbred, low “chalumeau” register with Albert's typically dark tonal palette. Its spacious melodies, transparent orchestra textures, and coda of rare delicacy help create the mood of an impressionistic tone poem. (from the Stephen Albert retrospective booklet published by G. Schirmer, pg. 15.)
Bernard Rands is considered one of the world's most renowned composers. He has been acclaimed as a major figure in contemporary music with more than 90 works for a wide range of genres, including large choral and symphonic compositions, chamber music, music theatre pieces and instrumental solos. An active conductor, his works are performed regularly throughout the world by leading orchestras and at major music festivals. Among his many commissions are ones for the New York Philharmonic's 100th anniversary; the centenary of Carnegie Hall; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Philadelphia Orchestra; and a cello concerto for the Boston Symphony and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in honor of his 70th birthday. In addition to the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, he has been honored with a Friedheim Award; major prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from the Guggenheim, Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations; and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has served as professor of music at Harvard since 1988 and a member of the faculty as well as composer-in-residence at the Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood. Born in Sheffield, England, he attended the University of Wales where he studied music and English literature. He subsequently studied composition in Italy with Luigi Dallapiccola, Bruno Maderna and Luciana Berio, and later in the United States at Princeton and the University of Illinois. He has served on the faculty of the University of California at San Diego, where he established the SONAR new music ensemble. He is also a founding artistic director of the Contemporary Music Festival at the California Institute of the Arts.
“…body and shadow…” (1988)
This work, like several others by Rands, takes its title from an early poem of Samuel Beckett in the group of four poems “Dieppe.” Over several years Rands has explored the musical implications of poetic text-fragments, resulting in the compositions “…in the receding mist…” for flute, harp and string trio; “…among the voices…” for mixed chamber chorus and harp; “…where the murmers die…” for large orchestra; “…requiem…” for large chorus and orchestra; and “…body and shadow…”
“…body and shadow…” was composed in 1988 in response to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was first performed by that orchestra in 1989 under Seiji Ozawa. It is, in effect, a concerto for orchestra in that over the course of the work's two movements, each section of the orchestra is featured and is gradually reduced in size until the principals of each section remain as soloists. The first movement begins with an extended timpani solo that provides the material for the entire work. The second movement is characterized by the juxtaposition of an extended, mellifluous melody and “fantasy” elaborations of it.
(Program notes edited by Carol Hess from materials provided by the composers.)
Kevin W. Schempf, an assistant professor of clarinet, joined the Bowling Green State University faculty in 1999. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and holds bachelor's and master's degrees with the performer's certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Prior to his appointment at BGSU, he had previously taught on the faculties of Connecticut College and Wesleyan University, and had performed as principal clarinet with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. In addition, Schempf is a former member of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and the United States Coast Guard Band, and has played with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the Skaneateles Festival and the Society of New Music. His chamber music activities include performances with the New London Contemporary Players, Chamber Music Plus, the Wall Street Chamber Players and the New World Consort. He has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, playing E-flat clarinet on The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7. Schempf is also a member of the resident faculty wind quintet, the Venti da Camera.
Emily Freeman Brown, who holds the distinction of being the first woman to receive a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the prestigious Eastman School of Music, currently serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Bowling Green Philharmonia and Opera Theater at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She serves as a guest conductor with the Toledo Symphony, and was the Music Director of the Perrysburg (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2000. From 1987 to 1989, she was Associate Conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and Conductor for the Eastman Opera Theater. In 1988, Ms. Brown was a winner of the internationally acclaimed Affiliate Artists' Conductor's Program. Ms. Brown has been engaged by orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and South America, as well as various festivals. Some of her American appearances include the Rochester Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the Eastman Virtuosi. In Santiago, Chile, she led the National Symphony of Chile and the Bartók Ensemble. Additionally, she has conducted at the American Festival of the Arts in Houston, the Interlochen Arts Festival and the Chautauqua Institution.
With the Bowling Green Philharmonia, Ms. Brown has recorded for Albany Records, and with separate projects on the Opus One label. A published author, her articles have appeared in the BACH Journal and the Journal of the Conductors Guild.
Emily Freeman Brown studied conducting and cello at the Royal College of Music in London, England, where she was a two-time winner of the Sir Adrian Boult Conducting Prize. Her major teachers have included Leonard Slatkin, Herbert Blomstedt, Franco Ferrara, and David Effron.
The Bowling Green Philharmonia
The Bowling Green Philharmonia was founded in 1918 by decree of the university president at Bowling Green State University. At that time, a combined student/faculty ensemble of fewer than 20 musicians, he declared that it should “furnish suitable music for many college functions.”
It has grown considerably since then under the direction of many distinguished conductors. They include Merrill C. McEwen (1922-23, 1931-32 and 1934-40), Seymour Benstock (1955-61), Harry Kruger (1961-66), Charles Gigante (1966-69), Emil Raab (1969-81), Grzegorz Nowak (1982-85), Robert Spano (1985-1989).
In the last several years the Philharmonia, with conductor Emily Freeman Brown, has established a wider reputation through performances at the Bowling Green New Music and Art Festival. Work of composers such as John Adams, Gunther Schuller, John Corigliano and Joan Tower have been performed under their guidance. The works on this recording were first performed at this festival and recorded during the fall months of 1997, 1999 and 2000. They are all world premiere recordings.
Bowling Green Philharmonia
Amanda Taylor William Valichnac
Graduate Conducting Assistants
* Section Leader for one or more works
Special acknowledgement goes to Interim Dean Richard Kennell, the staff of the College of Musical Arts and the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music. This CD is dedicated to the memory of Dorothy Bryan who created the beautiful painting used as cover art. She will be missed. We would also like to acknowledge Professor Richard Cornell who provided us with recordings of lectures given by Stephen Albert at Boston University. Excerpts from these have been used to create his introductory remarks.
Producers: Emily Freeman Brown, Russell Schmidt
Recording Engineer: Mark Bunce
The Voice of the Composer
New Music From Bowling Green, Volume II
The Bowling Green Philharmonia
Emily Freeman Brown, conductor
1 David Heuser comments…[:50]
3 Donald Crockett comments…[1:14]
4 Tethered to Another Moon [2:41]
5 Making Music With His Bones [3:10]
7 The Principality of Tears [3:35]
8 Shepherd of Slow Forms [3:00]
9 Straw for the Fire [2:05]
10 Stephen Albert comments…[1:51]
11 Wind Canticle (1992) [13:47]
12 Bernard Rands comments…[1:31]
14 II. Legatissimo: tranquillo e misterioso [12:15]
World premiere recordings. The recording of “…body and shadow…” is taken from a live performance.
This CD contains introductory tracks by each composer preceding his piece. The remarks of Stephen Albert were extracted from a lecture given at Boston University.
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