Throughout Washington, D.C., majestic monuments to the foundations of our country and those who have been most influential in establishing and preserving our democracy permeate the city. These tangible structures are the most common representation of a “monument”; however, the true power of these impressive art pieces lies not just in their scale and design, but also in the emotions elicited when we interact with them. In a larger sense, a monument need not physically exist. It must only be an enduring symbol and memory of something that is important to each of us. In this way, music is in itself a monument; an art that exists on paper, but only becomes an emotional experience when it is brought to life in a moment in time by the people who create it with, and for, each other. The collection of music on this album shares many qualities, including the fact that most were written or arranged specifically for “The President’s Own” and are represented here in world première recordings. Each is also a monument to something of substance: our Constitution, iconic American architecture and performing art from a bygone era in our country, the love and lament for a great European city, and love and lament for a family member taken too soon. Some of the monuments that inspired this music are there for us to see and to touch—and others touch us within—but all are preserved and illuminated through the unmatched power of music, and the personal experience of the composers and performers who have shared it here with great passion and dedication.
Fanfare Politeia (2021)
Kimberly Archer
world première recording
Dr. Kimberly Archer currently serves as professor of composition at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, where she teaches composition, music theory, orchestration, analysis, and counterpoint. She also served on the faculties of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Western Carolina University in North Carolina, and Southeast High School in Florida. Archer holds a Bachelor of Music Education from Florida State University, a Master of Music in Composition from Syracuse University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from University of Texas at Austin. Her teachers include David Maslanka, David Gillingham, Andrew Waggoner, Donald Grantham, and Charlie Carter.
As a specialist in music for winds and percussion, Archer’s works have been performed internationally at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles International Conference, at regional conventions of the College Band Directors National Association, and state conventions of the Nebraska State Band Association, Oklahoma Music Educators Association, and the National Band Association-Wisconsin. Her music has been commissioned and performed by bands of all levels throughout the United States, as well as by ensembles in Spain, Japan, and the Netherlands. Archer is also a contributor for Composers on Composing for Band: Volume 4 and her published music is available from Murphy Music Press and C. Alan Publications.
In 2021, Archer was commissioned by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band to contribute a work for the 59th Presidential Inauguration. Fanfare Politeia was premièred by the band on live international television during the pre-ceremony performance as part of a special collection of new fanfares written and arranged for the occasion. Given the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was in its most serious stages at the time, the work was composed in under two weeks, and completed just before the ceremony. The composer cites the following inspiration for her musical contribution to this great American tradition of the Presidential Inauguration:
Fanfare Politeia is an homage to the origins of our democracy, and to the ancient sources that Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Adams drew from in their conceiving and writing our Constitution. “Politeia” is a Greek word derived from “polis” (city). Aristotle used the term to represent concepts such as citizens’ rights and constitutional government, while Plato’s examination of justice – a book which we now call The Republic, in English – was actually titled Politeia in the original Greek. Fanfare Politeia celebrates our traditions of a free and fair election, and of a peaceful transfer of power.
Music for Prague 1968
Karel Husa
- Introduction and Fanfare
- Aria
- Interlude
- Toccata and Chorale
Karel Husa was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, just over a century ago in 1921. After the Nazi occupation of World War II, Husa left his native country for Paris in 1946 and continued his composition studies with several notable teachers, including Nadia Boulanger and Darius Milhaud. He subsequently immigrated to the United States and became a U.S. citizen in 1959. Husa joined the composition faculty at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1954, and taught there for nearly 40 years until his retirement in 1992. He won countless awards for his works, including the Grawemeyer Award and the Pulitzer Prize in music, which he received in 1969 for his String Quartet No. 3. He was also commissioned by numerous major orchestras during his illustrious career, including the New York Philharmonic and the Baltimore and Chicago Symphony Orchestras.
Husa secured a place among the most significant composers of the twentieth century through music that explored new creative possibilities in an astounding array of musical ensembles. In addition to his extensive work for orchestra, he also contributed to the wind band repertoire. His wind band works are anchored by his masterpiece, Music for Prague 1968. The composer offered the following about this landmark piece:
Music for Prague 1968 was commissioned by the Ithaca College Concert Band. It was premièred by the commissioning ensemble in Washington, D.C., on 31 January 1969, Dr. Kenneth Snapp, conductor, at a concert for the Music Educators National Conference.
Three main ideas bind the composition together. The first and most important is an old Hussite war song from the fifteenth 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 the 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 reappears at extremely soft dynamic levels, for example, in the middle of the Aria.
Different techniques of composing as well as orchestrating have been used in Music for Prague 1968 and some new sounds explored, such as the percussion section in the Interlude, the ending of the work, etc. 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 the bird call at the beginning (piccolo solo), symbol of liberty which the City of Prague has seen only for a few moments during its thousand years of existence.
Husa’s moving tribute to his native city filled with its majestic spires has become a staple in the standard repertoire of the wind ensemble, and has enjoyed over 7,500 performances worldwide since its première. Recently, the work was central to a gala performance by “The President’s Own” given in the city of Prague in the summer of 2022 as part of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles International Conference, and in celebration of the composer’s centennial. Reflecting on the passionate and often violent struggle that lies at the very heart of Music for Prague 1968, Husa once eloquently stated that “it is not as beautiful a music as one always would like to hear. But we cannot always paint flowers, we cannot always speak in poetry about beautiful clouds, there are sometimes we would like to express the fight for freedom.”
blue cathedral (2000)
Jennifer Higdon
transcribed by Maj. Ryan J. Nowlin
transcription world première recording
Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed and most frequently performed and commissioned living composers. A leader in contemporary classical music, she received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto, and most recently, a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto. Her works have been recorded on more than sixty CDs, including a recording of the Percussion Concerto by the United States Marine Band on the 2015 album Elements. Higdon received the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The prize is awarded biennially to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. She also previously held the Rock Chair in Composition at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Higdon enjoys several hundred performances a year of her works, and blue cathedral is one of today’s most performed contemporary orchestral works with more than 600 performances worldwide to date. The work was commissioned and premièred in 2000 by The Curtis Institute of Music, and for many years since its composition, symphonic bands have been eagerly waiting for a version for winds. In 2020, the piece was transcribed for band by the Marine Band’s Assistant Director Major Ryan Nowlin in consultation with the composer. The première of the transcription was given by the United States Marine Band under the baton of guest conductor JoAnn Falletta on February 17, 2020. Of her deeply personal piece, blue cathedral, Higdon writes:
Blue...like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals...a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression...serving as a symbolic doorway in to and out of this world. Blue represents all potential and the progression of journeys. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky. Because the walls would be transparent, I saw the image of clouds and blueness permeating from the outside of this church. In my mind’s eye the listener would enter from the back of the sanctuary, floating along the corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, moving in a contemplative stance. The stained glass windows’ figures would start moving with song, singing a heavenly music. The listener would float down the aisle, slowly moving upward at first and then progressing at a quicker pace, rising towards an immense ceiling which would open to the sky...as this journey progressed, the speed of the traveler would increase, rushing forward and upward. I wanted to create the sensation of contemplation and quiet peace at the beginning, moving towards the feeling of celebration and ecstatic expansion of the soul, all the while singing along with that heavenly music.
These were my thoughts when The Curtis Institute of Music commissioned me to write a work to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Curtis is a house of knowledge—a place to reach towards that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. I began writing this piece at a unique juncture in my life and found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make in our lives, crossing paths with so many individuals singularly and collectively, learning and growing each step of the way. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the group...our inner travels and the places our souls carry us, the lessons we learn, and the growth we experience. In tribute to my brother, I feature solos for the clarinet (the instrument he played) and the flute (the instrument I play). Because I am the older sibling, it is the flute that appears first in this dialog. At the end of the work, the two instruments continue their dialogue, but it is the flute that drops out and the clarinet that continues on in the upward progressing journey.
This is a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing and of that song called life.
Photo of Jennifer Higdon by Andrew Bogard
Wooden Dimes: Ballet for Wind Ensemble (2021)
James Stephenson
transcription world première recording
James Stephenson came late to his full-time composing career, having performed seventeen seasons as a trumpeter in the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. As such, the composer is largely self-taught, making his voice truly individual and his work all the more remarkable. Colleagues and friends encouraged his earliest efforts, and enthusiasm followed from all directions. As his catalog grew, so did his reputation. That catalog now boasts concertos and sonatas for nearly every instrument, earning him the moniker “The Concerto King” from Chicago Symphony clarinetist John Yeh. Many of his compositions came through commissions by and for major symphony principal players, in Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Oregon, Milwaukee, and Dallas.
An early opportunity came from the Minnesota Commissioning Club, which led to two violin concertos receiving premières in 2012; one by Jennifer Frautschi with the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä and the other by Alex Kerr with the Rhode Island Philharmonic under Larry Rachleff. Other international soloists for whom Stephenson has composed include saxophonist Branford Marsalis and trumpeter Rex Richardson. He has since been commissioned by The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the San Francisco Ballet, and multiple times by “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. These commissions include his Symphony No. 2, which was premièred by the ensemble in 2016 at the Midwest Clinic, and subsequently recorded. His music was premièred at Carnegie Hall in 2017, and he served as a composer-in-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of music that same year.
Stephenson is also a highly sought-after arranger and conductor. His arrangements have been performed, recorded, and broadcast by virtually every major orchestra in the country, including the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, New York Pops, and more. On the podium, Stephenson has led orchestras in Bozeman, Charleston, Ft. Myers, Modesto, and Wyoming, in addition to numerous concert bands. With the Lake Forest Symphony, near his Illinois home, he has not only conducted but served for six years as composer-in-residence.
Wooden Dimes is Stephenson’s first ballet and was composed for the San Francisco Ballet. The original ballet was choreographed by Danielle Rowe and tells the story of Betty Fine and Robert Adler. Its title is taken from a popular saying from the 1920s: “Don’t take any wooden dimes” meaning “Don’t be naïve or don’t be fooled.” Betty and Robert have a love they believe will last forever, but situations, circumstances, and their evolution as people inevitably change their relationship, which ends up being nothing like they predicted.
In his evocative and creative score for the ballet, Stephenson channels the musical spirit of the 1920s, and the aura of this golden age of stage performers. Combining classical popular dances and styles of the time, like the charleston and ragtime, the composer also harkens back to earlier dance traditional forms, including colorful episodes inspired by gavottes and tarantellas. The emotional center of the score, however, lies in two pas de deux dances in a traditional classical ballet style, where Stephenson’s evocative score creates further distance from the ghosts of composers past that permeate the ballet. Several leitmotifs appear throughout the ballet and are transformed as the story unfolds, representing the characters’ personalities, their relationship to each other, and the misty surroundings of this period in history.
Once the original score for the ballet was completed, Colonel Fettig and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band commissioned the composer to create a concert suite for wind ensemble to capture the most essential moments from the ballet for the concert stage while still preserving the arc of this passionate story of love, loss, and the price of fame.
Usonian Dwellings (2019)
Michael Gilbertson
world première recording
The works of Michael Gilbertson have been described as “elegant” and “particularly beautiful” by The New York Times, “vivid, tightly woven” and “delectably subtle” by the Baltimore Sun, “genuinely moving” by the Washington Post, and “a compelling fusion of new and ancient” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Gilbertson holds degrees from The Juilliard School in New York and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He is currently the composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and is a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His music has earned five Morton Gould Awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Broadcast Music Incorporated Student Composer Award. In March 2016, he was Musical America magazine’s featured New Artist of the Month.
Additionally, Gilbertson was one of three finalists for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in music for his String Quartet. Gilbertson’s works have been programmed by several major ensembles, including the Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Washington National Opera, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, as well as professional choirs including Musica Sacra, The Crossing, and The Esoterics. His chamber works have been performed by the Verona Quartet, Akropolis Quintet, Sybarite5, SOLI Chamber Ensemble, the Copland House Ensemble, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble.
Usonian Dwellings was commissioned by the United States Marine Band and was premièred on May 15, 2019, in Kanazawa, Japan, and subsequently performed in the cities of Hamamatsu and Iwakuni during the band’s historic first tour of the country. The commission is one of Gilbertson’s first major works for the ensemble, and the composer offered the following regarding the influence of Wright’s architecture in his piece:
The movements of Usonian Dwellings are inspired by the work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright used the term “usonian” to describe not only the aesthetic but also the values behind some of his later homes. His designs draw inspiration from the landscapes that surround them—evoking an America that is both forward thinking and conscious of the natural world. Each movement of Usonian Dwellings is inspired by one of his iconic designs. Taliesin West reflects the stark, desert landscape that surrounds his home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. Fallingwater, perhaps Wright’s most famous residential design in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, appears to hover majestically over the rushing falls on which it was built.
Although Wright was one of the quintessential American architects of the twentieth century, his aesthetic was actually deeply influenced by Japanese art and culture, which makes the Japanese world première of this exciting new American work especially appropriate. Wright was never formally trained as an architect; however, he had a keen artistic eye. During his formative years, he was introduced to traditional Japanese wood prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He was mesmerized by these images, most notably their specific lines, textures, and treatment of space. Wright’s artistic focus on overlapping shapes and blurring of the boundaries between inside and outside spaces was clearly influenced by these prints. “The print,” he once said, “is more autobiographical than may be imagined. If Japanese prints were to be deducted from my education, I don’t know what direction the whole might have taken.”
