|
Wind Ensemble
The Wind Ensemble is an assemblage of the most outstanding wind and percussion players in the Department of Music and Dance. They have earned a national reputation for their exemplary interpretation and performance of the most significant twentieth century wind literature. The ensemble utilizes a player pool concept with a repertoire ranging from Mozart to Schuller. The concept of flexible instrumentation provides the performers with a variety of soloistic and ensemble experiences.
The Wind Ensemble has received enthusiastic response from audiences at the MENC Eastern Division Conventions in 1983 and 1989, the CBDNA Eastern Division Convention in 1984 and the MMEA Conference in 1990. The ensemble has received recognition from such prominent composers as Leslie Bassett, Martin Mailman, Karel Husa, Gene Young, Warren Benson, Michael Colgrass, Dana Wilson, Robert Stern and David Maslanka for artistic performance and creative interpretation. The Wind Ensemble has received broadcast performances on WFCR Amherst, WCRB Boston and NPR in Washington, D.C.
The Wind Music of David Maslanka is the first recording produced and performed by the University of Massachusetts Wind Ensemble, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., conductor.
Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., Conductor
Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., is a strong proponent of new music having commissioned and premiered numerous wind compositions. He is the principal conductor of the University Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band. In addition, Professor Rowell is a Visiting Professor at Boston University where he conducts the Wind Ensemble.
His conducting style has been influenced by Walter Beeler, Dr. Frederick Fennell and H. Robert Reynolds. His musical interpretations have won the praise of composers Warren Benson, David Maslanka, Mary Jeanne Van Appledorn, Michael Colgrass, Leslie Bassett, Robert Stern, Vaclav Nelhybel, Dana Wilson, Martin Mailman, Cindy McTee, Gene Young, Karel Husa and John Corigliano.
In 1991, the University of Massachusetts Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., released The Wind Music of David Maslanka on compact disc which has received strong reviews throughout the world. In December 1994 Centaur Records released the Symphonic and Wind Music of Charles Bestor featuring the UMass Wind Ensemble.
In recognition of his professional work, Professor Rowell has received the National Band Association's “Citation of Excellence” and the Kappa Kappa Psi “A. Frank Martin” award for his contributions to Collegiate Bands. In 1979 he was recognized for outstanding performance at the “Band Director's Art” conducting symposium at the University of Michigan and has frequently been recognized as a University of Massachusetts Distinguished Teacher. In 1983, he conducted at the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles Conference in Skein, Norway and was twice selected as a conducting participant at the CBDNA National Conducting Symposium at the University of Colorado. Professor Rowell is frequently called upon to serve as guest conductor/clinician/lecturer and most recently received an invitation to conduct at the 1994 National Concert Band Festival at the Royal Northern Conservatory in Manchester, England.
Professor Rowell's outreach activities include the founding of the University of Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble in 1980 and since 1984 has served as Music Director/Conductor of the South Shore Conservatory Summer Wind Ensemble program in Hingham, Massachusetts. Professor Rowell's summer activities also include the New York State Music Camp and Institute at Hartwick College where he serves as principal guest conductor of the Symphonic Band and Institute Wind Ensemble. In 1985, he initiated the All-Senior Honor Band Festival attracting outstanding high school musicians from throughout the East. He served as Musical Director/Conductor of the Metropolitan Wind Symphony of Boston, Massachusetts from 1986-91, bringing this ensemble into national prominence among adult band organizations.
In the Fall of 1991, Professor Rowell was appointed Music Director/Conductor of the Massachusetts Wind Orchestra which has been broadcast on National Public Radio on numerous occasions.
Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., is the Past-President of the New England College Band Directors Association. He holds active membership in CBDNA, NECBA, WASBE, BASWE, MENC, and MMEA. Professionally, he is frequently invited to serve as guest conductor/clinician/lecturer at state and regional festivals throughout the United States and England.
David Maslanka
David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He studied at the New England Conservatory, the Oberlin Conservatory, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and received a PhD in music theory and composition from Michigan State University. His principal composition teachers were Joseph Wood and H. Owen Reed. He has served on the faculties of the State University College in Geneseo, New York, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York.
He has received grants and fellowships from ASCAP, the MacDowell Colony, the New York State Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts among many others. His music has been widely performed in the United States, and in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. His works for band and wind ensemble include Concerto for Piano, Winds and Percussion, A Child's Garden of Dreams, Symphony No. 2, In Memoriam, Golden Light, Concerto for Marimba and Band, and Concerto for Wind Ensemble. His publishers are Carl Fischer, Inc., Kjos Music Co., and Marimba Productions, Inc.
A Child's Garden of Dreams
A Child's Garden of Dreams was commissioned by John and Marietta Paynter for the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble. It was composed in the summer of 1981 and premiered by Northwestern in 1982.
The following is from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung:
“A very important case came to me from a man who was himself a psychiatrist. One day he brought me a handwritten booklet he had received as a Christmas present from his 10-year-old daughter. It contained a whole series of dreams she had had when she was 8. They made up the weirdest series of dreams I have ever seen, and I could well understand why her father was more than just puzzled by them. Though childlike, they were uncanny, and they contained images whose origin was wholly incomprehensible to the father…In the unabridged German original, each dream begins with the words of the old fairy tale: `Once upon a time…' By these words the little dreamer suggests that she feels as if each dream were a sort of fairy tale, which she wants to tell her father as a Christmas present. The father tried to explain the dreams in terms of their context. But he could not do so because there appeared to be no personal associations to them…The little girl died of an infectious disease about a year after that Christmas…The dreams were a preparation for death, expressed through short stories, like the tales told at primitive initiations…The little girl was approaching puberty, and at the same time, the end of her life. Little or nothing in the symbolism of her dreams points to the beginning of a normal adult life. When I first read her dreams, I had the uncanny feeling that they suggested impending disaster. These dreams open up a new and rather terrifying aspect of life and death. One would expect to find such images in an aging person who looks back on life, rather than to be given them by a child. Their atmosphere recalls the old Roman saying, `Life is a short dream,' rather than the joy and exuberance of its springtime. Experience shows that the unknown approach of death casts an `adumbratio' (an anticipatory shadow) over the life and dreams of the victim. Even the alter in Christian churches represents, on one hand, a tomb and, on the other, a place of resurrection — the transformation of death into eternal life.”
I selected five of the twelve dreams as motifs for the movements of this composition:
IThere is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply into the ground that she reaches hell.
IIA drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober.
IIIA horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl.
IVA drop of water is seen as it appears when looked at through a microscope. The girl sees that the drop is full of tree branches. This portrays the origin of the world.
VAn ascent into heaven, where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell, where angels are doing good deeds.
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 2 was commissioned by the Big Ten Band Directors Association in 1983. I was asked to write a major work for full band. The Symphony was given its premiere at the 1987 CBDNA Convention in Evanston, Illinois. The performing group was the combined Symphonic Band and Symphonic Wind Ensemble of Northwestern University under the direction of John P. Paynter.
The first movement is in sonata form. It travels with gathering force to a climax area halfway through, and then dissolves suddenly into a heated fantasia. A very simple restatement of the opening theme and a brief coda finish the movement. This music is deeply personal for me, dealing with issues of loss, resignation, and acceptance.
The second movement opens with an arrangement of Deep River, a traditional African-American melody. The words of the song read in part: “Deep River, my home is over Jordan. Deep River, Lord, I want to cross over to camp ground.” The composition of this movement involved for me two meaningful coincidences. The body of the movement was completed, and then I came across Deep River while working on another project. The song and my composition fit as if made for each other, so I brought the song into the Symphony. The last notes were put onto the score of this movement almost to the hour of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. The power of these coincidences was such that I have dedicated this music to the memory of the astronauts who lost their lives: Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnick, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
The finale of this Symphony is once again in sonata form. There are three broad theme areas occupying more than a third of the movement, a development based primarily on themes one and three, a recapitulation (minus the third theme area) , and a brief coda. The underlying impulse of this movement is an exuberant, insistent outpouring of energy, demanding a high level of playing precision and physical endurance from the performers.
— Notes by the composer
Recorded: University of Massachusetts/Amherst Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, November 20 & 21, 1989 and November 18 & 19, 1990. Recording engineer: Jeff Harrison. Engineering assistants: Elinor Gates, Stacy Wright. Master tape edited by Harrison Digital Productions, Granby, Massachusetts.
University of Massachusetts/Amherst Wind Ensemble
|
