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University of Miami Wind Ensemble
New Music for Winds & Percussion
Michael Daugherty · Motown Metal
Clarke McAlister · Elegía para Quijote y Quijana
Michael Colgrass · Urban Requiem
Michael Daugherty (b. 1954, Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
As a young man Michael Daugherty was active as a jazz, rock, and funk keyboardist and studied classical piano. At North Texas State University he composed his first orchestral work, and played piano in the jazz big bands. Daugherty then spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow composing computer music at Boulez's IRCAM in Paris, began performing live synthesizer concerts of his own music with classic silent films, and collaborated with jazz arranger Gil Evans in New York. He received a doctorate in music composition in 1986 from Yale University, studying in New Haven from 1980-82 with composers Earle Brown, Jacob Druckman, Bernard Rands, and Roger Reynolds, and from 1982-84 in Hamburg, Germany with Gyorgy Ligeti. After teaching composition at Oberlin Conservatory, Daugherty joined the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Music where he is currently Associate Professor of Composition.
Michael Daugherty's music, reflecting his diverse musical background, has been performed throughout America and abroad. His music reveals an array of titles inspired by contemporary American culture. Daugherty has received numerous awards for his music, including recognition from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts and a Friedham Kennedy Center Award.
Motown Metal was commissioned and premiered by the Detroit Chamber Winds in February 1994 under the baton of H. Robert Reynolds. This seven minute composition for brass ensemble and percussion was inspired by the rhythms of industrial Detroit: city of automobile clamor, the '60s Motown sound and the '90s techno beat. Thus, Motown Metal features instruments made only of metal: four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, and percussion instruments such as vibraphone, glockenspiel, cymbals, and brake drum. The composition is rigorously structured around a series of glissandi crescendos for the trombones, a funky tuba counterpoint, big band staccato chords for the trumpets, and metallic percussion riffs. Motown Metal is published by Peer International Music, as are Daugherty's other two wind ensemble compositions, Desi and Bizarro.
A German born Swede, Dahl was a pupil of Busoni and trained at the Cologne Conservatory. Afterward he studied musicology at the University of Zurich and conducted at that city's opera house. In 1935 he visited America and settled in Los Angeles three years later, where he made a career for himself in radio and film music, mostly as an arranger. In 1945 he became a member of the music department of USC, where he taught until his death. His output was relatively small and is almost all instrumental, inclining toward works of small proportions.
Hymn and Toccata, an original piano solo by Ingolf Dahl was composed in 1947. The completion of this orchestration for winds and percussion by John Boyd of Indiana State University adds a 'new piece' of Ingolf Dahl's to the wind repertoire.
Pianist Carles Fierro, a student of Ingolf Dahl, has provided the following note on the original piano version of Hymn. "The clanging heterophony of gongs and chimes is suggested in the Hymn. Majestic and lyrical, the music suggests nature worship, perhaps a hymn to the sun. A four note germinal aria unifies the work, permeating melodies, inner voices, vertical combinations and the harmonic framework in a variety of related moods. The result is an impressive essay resembling a Baroque chorale fantasy." Hymn is available from Ludwig Publications.
Clarke McAlister has written a variety of music for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and concert band. He is Editor-in-Chief of Edwin E. Kalmus and Company, Inc. and Masters Music Publications, and currently serves as Music Director and conductor of the Deerfield Beach (CVE) Symphony Orchestra. Dr. McAlister has been Music Administrator and assistant conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Florida, Music Director and conductor at Palm Beach Community College, instructor at the Canford Summer School of Music in Canford, England, and composer-in-residence at the University of Montana at Missoula. The recipient of a fellowship in composition from the Florida Arts Council, Dr. McAlister received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of Miami.
Elegía para Quijote y Quijana
Diferencias sobre Cervantes (Variations on Cervantes) was commissioned by Lucas Drew. In our preliminary discussions concerning what kind of piece I should write, Lucas told me of his long-standing wish to have a piece for double bass and English horn. From almost that moment, all I could see and hear in my mind were Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. For me, the double bass was the perfect aural embodiment of the "Knight of the Woeful Countenance," and the English horn that of his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza.
The third movement of this set of variations, Elegía para Quijote y Quijana is sincere, an affectionate farewell to and a remembrance of both the man and his alter-ego. The dialog in this movement concerns Sancho's attempts to revive the spirit of Quixote, and Quixana's renunciation of Quixote. This sad discourse concludes with the passing of Quixana/Quixote, at which moment the ensemble falls silent, the double bass having descended to its lowest note. The ensemble sings the final verse of this elegy, led by Sancho (the English horn). The piece concludes with a final reference by the double bass to the theme of the nobility of knight-errantry.
McAlister's music is available from Maecenas Music.
Called 'something of a maverick' by the New York Times' Harold Schonberg in 1969, Michael Colgrass is an American composer whose distinct musical style contains strains of jazz, poetic quiet and rich orchestral textures. A graduate of the University of Illinois and a Tanglewood scholar, Colgrass received
a Pulitzer Prize in 1978, Guggenheim Fellowships in 1964 and 1968, and a Rockefeller Grant in 1967. He has been commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Ford Foundation, Joffrey Ballet, and New World Festival of the Arts, to name but a few. Today, Colgrass makes his living as a composer and gives workshops in the psychology and technique of performance drawing on his extensive American and European studies in a wide spectrum of performing arts.
Urban Requiem for four saxophones and wind orchestra was commissioned by the University of Miami School of Music through its Abraham Frost Commission series. This was the first work in a perpetual series of biennial commissions made possible by the Abraham Frost Endowment. Established by Dr. Phillip Frost in memory of his father, the endowment seeks to support the creation of major works for a variety of mediums that will encourage contributions to the orchestral, wind, choral, and jazz repertoire.
A requiem is a dedication to the souls of the dead. Urban Requiem might be described as an urban tale, inspired by a diversity of random impression. I thought of our urban areas, where the saxophone was spawned, and of the tragedies and struggles that occur in this environment daily. But I also was inspired by the energy and power of our cities and the humor inherent in their conflicts. I feel that the saxophone is particularly well suited to express the variety of emotions required for this idea, because it can be not only highly personal and poignant in character but also powerful and commanding. It can howl like a banshee or purr like a kitten. In short, the saxophone is perhaps more like the human voice than any other instrument. In my mind I heard four saxophones singing like a vocal quartet, a music that was liturgical in nature but with a bluesy overtone, a kind of 'after hours' requiem.
The size of the wind ensemble for Urban Requiem matches the non-string instrumentation of a symphony orchestra (triple winds and brasses, tuba, four horns, harp, synthesizer, timpani, and four percussion). The players are divided into four groups surrounded by the larger wind ensemble, with each sax having its own little 'neighborhood.' The soloists interact in virtuoso display and play duets and trios with principal players in their bands. The sax players are called upon to improvise occasionally over basic material in sometimes jazz, sometimes ethnic musical traditions.
Urban Requiem is respectfully dedicated to Gary Green, whose boundless enthusiasm for its creation was a constant inspiration to me. It is written for all urban souls, living and dead, who like myself love our cities and continue to be inspired by them.
Urban Requiem is available from Carl Fischer Publishing Company.
The University of Miami Wind Ensemble
The Wind Ensemble consists of the finest wind and percussion students at the University of Miami and performs during numerous conventions and festivals throughout the season. Active in the area of commissioning new music for the repertoire, this ensemble has offered world premieres by composers such as Charles Campbell, Clarke McCallister, and James Willey. All of the music presented on this recording represents world premiere recordings. One of the guiding principles of the Wind Ensemble is contact with leading musical minds of this century, resulting in recent residencies by such notable musicians as James Syler, David Maslanka, and Michael Colgrass. Former members of the University of Miami Wind Ensemble hold positions in symphony orchestras and military bands and serve as teachers and conductors throughout the world.
Gary Green, associate professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of Miami, conducts the Wind Ensemble and is associate conductor of the University Symphonic Band. Besides being responsible for all band activities at the University of Miami, he is also Chairman of Instrumental Performance and is a member of the Clinics Committee of the Florida Bandmasters Association.
Prior to coming to Miami, Green was Director of Bands at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut for ten years. He was also Director of Bands at University High School in Spokane, Washington for ten years, where his ensembles received superior awards in all mediums. Green has been influential in commissioning and recording new works for the wind and percussion medium, including Symphony No. 3 by David Maslanka and A Cornfield in July and the River by William Penn.
Gary Green is a member of the College Band Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference, Florida Bandmasters Association and the National Band Association. Throughout his career, Green has received numerous honors and awards and has conducted international, national and regional honor bands and intercollegiate bands in most of the fifty states.
John J. Dee teaches oboe at the School of Music at the University of Miami and is a member of the artist faculty at Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida. He is principal oboe of the Florida Philharmonic and Florida Grand Opera orchestras. Mr. Dee has performed and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under such conductors as Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado and Sir Georg Solti. A regular performer at the Ravinia Festival, he is also a faculty member at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.
Lucas Drew is a professor in the Department of Instrumental Performance at the School of Music at the University of Miami and the Principal Double Bass for the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Drew serves as the artistic director of the Highlands (North Carolina) Chamber Music Festival.
Recorded February 24 and 25, 1996 at the Colony Theater, Miami Beach, Florida.
Producers: Margaret Donaghue and Lorrie Holt
Cymbals: Courtesy of Sabian Cymbals
Equipment: Ramsa WRS 4412 recording console (modified by John Windt); Sennhyeiser MKH 20 microphones; MIT CVT cables; Millennia Media microphone preamps; Lexicon 20/20 AD processor; Panasonic SV 3700 DAT recorers; PS Audio Ultralink II Da converter; ATC SCM 20 monitors; AVI S2000 monoblock amplifiers; Sonic Solutions editing.
Cover art: photograph of the skyline of Miami by Ted J. Crager
University of Miami Wind Ensemble Personnel
Lillian Santiago-Caballero
University of Miami Wind Ensemble
New Music for Winds & Percussion
Ingolf Dahl arr. John Boyd
Elegía para Quijote y Quijana
John Dee, English horn · Lucas Drew, double bass
David Fernandez, Tom McCormick, Stephen Welsh, George Weremchuk, saxophones
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