|
David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did graduate work in composition at Michigan State University with H. Owen Reed. Maslanka has served on the faculties of various universities and colleges and presently resides in Missoula, Montana. The works of David Maslanka have become especially well known spanning many performance mediums including wind band, small ensemble, chamber, orchestral and choral pieces.
The following notes are provided by the composer:
Song Book is a set of pieces that are song-like - that is, intimate and expressive, though not necessarily quiet. The solo flute feels like a voice to me, a voice which has a complex story to tell, in the form of musical dreams.
The 371 Four-Part Chorales by J.S. Bach have been a long-time focal point for my study and meditation. These chorales are the models for melodic and harmonic movement used by every beginning music theory student. I had my first encounter with them as a college freshman in 1961. Ten years ago I returned to singing and playing them as a daily warm-up for my composing. In that time I have come to experience the chorales as touchstones for dream space. I have used many of them as the jumping off point for my own compositions. The feeling is one of opening an unmarked door and being suddenly thrust into a different world. The chorales are the doors.
I have used three chorale melodies in Song Book. The first movement, A Song of Com-ing Awake is based on Christ ist Erstanden (Christ is Risen); the third movement, In Loving Memory, based on von Gott will Ich nicht lassen (I never wish to part from God); and the fifth movement, A Song for the End of Time, based on O Gott, du frommer Gott (O Good and Gentle God).
The title of the second movement, Solvitur Ambulando, is Latin for “it is solved by walking.” There is a centuries-old tradition that good ideas come while walking. It is a practice that I have used in my creative work for some years. Intuition and intellect are engaged together by the alternating motion of the limbs. The Danish philosopher Kiekegard wrote: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being; I have walked myself into my best thoughts…If one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”
In the Crucible of Your Pain is a title that appeared in my mind as I was writing the fourth movement. I couldn't explain it very well at the time of writing. Turmoil can be personal, but it can also come from the outside world. I am guessing in hindsight that this movement touches on the events of September 11th. The music embodies a deep sense of struggle and of unresolved pain.
Daron Hagen was born in Milwaukee on November 4, 1961. He began the study of piano, music theory, conducting and com-position at the age of fourteen at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. He continued his studies at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, working with teachers as diverse as Ned Rorem, Joseph Schwantner, David Diamond and Witold Lutoslawski. Hagan received international, popular and critical acclaim for his first opera, Shining Brow, about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, premiered by the Madison Opera in 1992. Mr. Hagen's music is published by Carl Fisher and by E.C. Schirmer.
The following notes are provided by the composer:
Paul Kreider, for whom I have written several operatic roles and song cycles, joined conductor Michael Haithcock and me for dinner one March evening in 1999 after the sitzprobe (the rehearsal at which the opera singers first sing through the score with the orchestra) for the world premiere production of my wind orchestra opera Bandanna in Austin. Excited by the technical challenges that making winds and voices work well together posed, we discussed adding to the repertoire for voice and wind ensemble. The result was The Heart of the Stranger, a song cycle for baritone voice and orchestral winds, which was first performed September 20, 1999 at Baylor University by the Baylor Wind Ensemble, Paul Kreider, baritone soloist, under the direction of Michael Haithcock.
The orchestra is split into four groups for this work:
I.2 flutes, alto flute, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet;
II. 3 horns, 3 trumpets;
III.2 oboes, English horn, 3 bassoons;
IV.harp, vibraphone, marimba, double bass.
Each song in the cycle explores the timbre potential of a different instrumentation; each time the entire ensemble is called for, it is scored using a different set of orchestration techniques. The groups are arranged from left to right on the stage in a semi-circle around the singer. Special care was taken to create challenging antiphonal effects and instrumental "hand-offs" between groups.
Text for The Heart of the Stranger:
1. Symmetry - Andrei Codrescu (Everyone)
Sooner or later
everyone finds out who his murderer is
and most times it lies in bed next to him
holding him by the Murder weapon.
For a monk it is harder to guess,
weapon and Murder belong to another world:
there are no identities to point out
only reflections.
Sometimes a word blows up like a bomb.
2. Evening Twilight - Charles Baudelaire (Woodwinds)
Twilight, how gentle you are and how tender! The rosy glow that still lingers on the horizon, like the last agony of day under the conquering oppression of night; the flaring candle flames that stain with dull red the last glories of the sunset. O night! O refreshing darkness!
3. It Weeps in My Heart - Paul Verlaine (Horns, Trumpets and Percussion)
It weeps in my heart
As it rains on the town.
What is this dull smart
Possessing my heart?
Soft sound of the rain
On the ground and the roofs!
To a heart in pain,
O the song of the rain!
It weeps without cause
In my heart-sick heart.
In her faith, what? No flaws?
This grief has no cause.
`Tis sure the worst woe
To know not wherefore
My heart suffers so
Without joy or woe.
4. To Nobodaddy - William Blake (Horns and Trumpets)
Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin'd,
Lawless wing'd, and unconfin'd
And breaks all chains from every mind.
5. Dawlish Fair - John Keats (Everyone)
Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourn to Dawlish,
Where ginger-bread wives have a scanty sale,
And ginger-bread huts are smallish.
Rantipole Betty she ran down a hill
And kick'd up her petticoats fairly:
Says I I'll be Jack if you will be Gill -
So she sat on the grass debonairly.
Here's somebody coming, here's somebody coming!
Says I `tis the wind at parley;
So without any fuss and hawing and humming
She lay on the grass debonairly.
Here's somebody here and here's somebody there!
Says I hold your tongue you young Gipsey;
So she held her tongue and lay plump and fair
And dead as a Venus tipsey.
O who wouldn't go to Dawlish fair,
O who wouldn't stop in a Meadow,
[O who] wouldn't rumple the daisies there
And make the wild ferns for a bed do!
6. Under the Night Sky - Kim Roberts (Flutes and Clarinets)
Lying out under the night sky in October,
until even my teeth were cold,
and you oblivious to all
except those clusters of stars moving slowly
on their great wheel
and singing in contrapuntal harmony,
if we ere clever enough to hear,
to the melody of the planets.
Teeth can't feel cold, you said,
naming each cluster,
Richard Nixon, you said,
and pointed until I could see:
the broad forehead, the ski-slope nose.
Nineteen-fifty-eight Cadillac, with fins,
the constellation Frigidaire.
I leaned closer for warmth
but you weren't giving any away.
You loved instead the feel of the words
As they formed in your mouth,
Bruised words as empty as threats.
I stopped hearing and after awhile
the stars stopped forming
high-rise apartments, actresses,
the shape of Tennessee,
and became just teeth
not sensitive the way I knew them but
teeth as you had described:
inert stones in the mouth.
7. O, When I Was in Love with You - A.E. Houseman (Horns and Trumpets)
O, When I was in love with you
then I was sweet and brave
and miles around the wonder grew
so well did I behave.
But now the fancy passes by
and nothing will remain.
And miles around they'll say that I
am quite myself again.
8. An Irony - Gwen Hagen (Everyone)
There was a silver sycle
The shape of a carving tear
And it rose at the handle
A double hand-clasp in length.
It was swung through the tender wheat
And it shed a curving tear
To see the young field bleeding.
9. Specimen Case - Walt Whitman (Everyone)
Poor Youth, so handsome, athletic, with profuse shining hair.
One time as I sat looking at him while he lay asleep, he
suddenly, without the least start, awaken'd, open'd his eyes,
gave me a long steady look, turning his face very slightly to
gaze easier, one long, clear, silent look, a slight sigh, then
turn'd back and went back into his doze again. Little he knew, poor
death-stricken boy, the heart of the stranger who hover'd near.
10. Song - Theodore Roethke (Double Reeds, Harp and Percussion)
From whence cometh song?
From the tear far awy,
From the hound giving tongue,
From the quarry's weak cry.
From whence, love?
From the dirt in the street,
From the bolt stuck in its groove,
From the cur at my feet.
Whence, death?
From dire hell's mouth,
From the ghost without breath,
The wind shifting south.
Stephen K. Steele began his tenure as Director of Bands at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois in the Fall of 1987. He is responsible for the administration of all band activities. Dr Steele also teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, Wind Literature, and Music Education courses.
Under his direction, the Wind Symphony has performed for state and national conventions, including the 1990 American Band-masters Association and the 1993 and 2001 College Band Directors National Association.
Before moving to Illinois in the fall of 1987, Dr. Steele was the Marching Band Director and Assistant Director of Bands at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He also spent thirteen years as a high school band director in California, Oregon and Arizona.
Dr. Steele has served as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor in Canada and throughout the United States.
Dr. Steele is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, National Band Association, College Band Directors National Association, American School Band Directors Association, Phi Mu Alpha, Pi Kappa Lambda, and holds honorary memberships in Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma.
Flutist Kimberly McCoul Risinger is widely acclaimed as both a soloist and ensemble musician. She performs as Principal Flutist with the Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestras and is a member of the Sonneries Woodwind Quintet and the Linden Flute and Guitar Duo.
Risinger made her solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall in June of 2003, and a Chicago solo debut as part of the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in March of that year. The recipient of many awards and grants, she was awarded first prize in the 1996 Flute Society of Washington Young Artist Competition and was a prize winner in the 1996 Myrna Brown International Competition and the 2003 Mid-America National Chamber Music Competition.
A champion of new music, she has recently performed the U.S. premiere of Samuel Zyman's Concerto for flute and orchestra and the world premiere of Matthew Halper's Sonata for flute and piano and Steve Taylor's Seven Microworlds for flute and guitar. In the spring of 2002 Risinger toured with the Sonneries Woodwind Quintet in Budapest, with a week residency in Austria. Other recent highlights include performances and premieres by invitation of the National Flute Association, the Society of Composers, the College Music Society, Ars Vitalis: The New Jersey New Music Forum, SEAMUS, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and have included performances at venues such as the Juilliard School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Risinger received a DMA from the University of Maryland, a MM from Illinois State University and a BM from the College of Wooster. She is an Assistant Professor of Flute at Illinois State University in Normal Illinois.
John Michael Koch is an Associate Professor of Music at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He holds a Master of Music from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music where Koch studied with Andrew White and Italo Tajo.
Having performed over 35 operatic roles internationally and in the U. S., Mr. Koch came to international prominence as the 1989 laureate of the Montreal International
Music Competition for Singers, where he received outstanding reviews for his operatic and art song interpretations. Since then he has performed leading roles with the Montreal Opera, Florentine Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Edmonton Opera, New Orleans Opera, Dayton Opera, and San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre 1989 -1990 National Tour.
Also in demand for oratorio roles, Mr. Koch has performed with the Milwaukee Sym-phony, Peoria Symphony, Cincinnati Sym-phony, Montreal Philharmonic, Asheville Symphony, and Dayton Philharmonic.
Mr. Koch has been a National Finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and a winner of the Opera Columbus Competition, the Meistersinger Competition in Graz, Austria, and the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Auditions.
Mr. Koch resides in Bloomington, Illinois with his son, Nicholas, and his wife, Tracy.
Stephen K. SteeleMatthew Luttrell
Director of BandsAssistant Director of Bands
Kimberly Risinger
Flute
Judith Dicker
Oboe
Peggy Dees
Clarinet
Michael Dicker
Bassoon
Jim Boitos
Saxophone
Amy Gilreath
Trumpet
Steve Parsons
Trombone
Joe Neisler
Horn
Michael Forbes
Tuba/Euphonium
Illinois State University
School of Music
Music has played a significant role at Illinois State throughout its history. The Music School enrolls approximately 290 under-graduate and 65 graduate students who study with a dedicated teaching faculty of 43 that include world-class performers, published scholars and leading educators. Undergraduate programs lead to degrees in music education, performance, music therapy, arts technology, theory and composition, as well as specializations in music business and musical theatre. The graduate program offers a Master of Music Education and also three sequences in the Master of Music: performance, music therapy and theory/composition.
Illinois State University
Wind Symphony
The Wind Symphony is a select group of the finest instrumentalists at Illinois State University, performing outstanding and representative works in all styles and genres. In addition to campus programs, the Wind Symphony tours annually. The Wind Sym-phony has been a featured performing ensemble at the American Bandmasters Association Convention, the Illinois Music Educators Association Conference, and College Band Directors National Association National Conventions.
Illinois State University
Wind Symphony Chamber Winds
Flute
Kristi Benedick, Arnold, MO*
Megan Lomonof, Oak Lawn†
Christa Ruesink, Palos Heights*
Leigh Ann Singer, Ottawa*
Elivi Varga, Bloomington†
Oboe
Heather Broyles, Bristol, TN†*
Patrick McGuire,
Round Lake Heights†*
English Horn
Vanessa Passini, Normal*
Clarinet
Jennifer Bland, Normal*
Jessica Boese, Shorewood*
Sally Friedrich, Joliet†
Ivory Sebastion, Aurora†
Bass Clarinet
Kristina Toma, Northbrook*
Joseph Conway, Sterling†
Contrabass Clarinet
Robert Rake Jr., Springfield†
Bassoon
Kathryn Bartel, Westmont†*
Erin Click, Jackson, MO†*
Amy Zordan, Odell*
Contrabassoon
Kathryn Bartel, Westmont†
Alto Saxophone
Tobias Thomas, Tremont†
Tenor Saxophone
Travis Thacker, Normal†
Horn
David Bostik, Lockport*
Sara Giovanelli, Iowa City, IA†*
John Hansen, Pontiac*
Christopher Render, Houston, TX†
Trumpet
Kyle Berens, Crystal Lake*
Elizabeth Clapper, Bellville, OH*
Elisa Curren, Danbury, NH†
Ryan Elliot, Saginaw, MI*
Kelly Watkins, Henderson, TX†
Trombone
Michael Bingham, Chicago†
Bass Trombone
Matt Kelm, Lockport†
Harp
Joy Hoffman†*
Piano
Kristof Kovacs, Budapest, Hungary†
String Bass
Grant Souder, Normal†*
Percussion
Andrés Bautista, Skokie†
William Cuthbert Jr., Elkhart, IN†*
David Dunbar, El Paso, TX†
Bill Roberts, St. Charles†
Scott Simon, Belvidere†*
† Maslanka personnel
* Hagen personnel
|
