The music of Dana Wilson has been commissioned and performed by such diverse ensembles as the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, Washington D.C. military bands, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, and Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Included among his numerous awards and grants are the Sudler International Composition Prize and the Ostwald Composition Prize. Wilson holds a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and is currently the Charles A. Dana Professor of Music at Ithaca College School of Music. He is the co-author of Contemporary Choral Arranging and has written articles on diverse musical subjects.
Regarding Shortcut Home, Wilson writes: “Shortcut Home is a rousing and rather elaborate fanfare that features each section of the ensemble. Drawing upon various jazz styles, the music proclaims and cascades, always driving towards the ‘home’ of the final C Major chord.”
Program Note by Dana Wilson
In conceiving of Embers to Ash, I was interested in both the physical and emotional meanings of these words. Embers are the smoldering remains of a fire, while ash is the powdery residue that remains after a fire, as well as being a pale shade of gray. However, both have double meanings: embers can also refer to slowly fading emotions, memories, or relationships, and ash can mean feelings of remorse, regret, and nostalgia. Ash is also a type of tree, something alive and growing. These definitions reminded me of the mythological creature of the phoenix, a bird that is cyclically reborn from the ashes of the fire in which its previous life had ended. Embers to Ash is structured around these concepts: fire, decay, a gray-like stasis, and finally, a sense of rebirth and renewal. Embers to Ash was the winner of the 2016 CU Wind Ensemble Composition Competition and was premiered in Macky Auditorium in Boulder, CO on April 20, 2017.
Program Note by Elena Specht
Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the music of American composer Viet Cuong has been performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Eighth Blackbird, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, So Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Atlanta Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, Albany Symphony, PRISM Quartet, and Dallas Winds, among many others. Viet’s music has been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, and his works for wind ensemble have amassed hundreds of performances worldwide. His upcoming projects include a concerto for Eighth Blackbird with the United States Navy Band. Viet also enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. His recent works thus include a snare drum solo, percussion quartet concerto, and, most recently, a double oboe concerto. He is currently the California Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence, and recently served as the Early Career Musician-in-Residence at the Dumbarton Oaks. Viet holds degrees from Princeton University (MFA/PhD), the Curtis Institute of Music (AD), and Peabody Conservatory (BM/MM).
Charles Rochester Young has won high praise and honors for his work as a composer. His compositions have been performed on five continents, in all fifty states, and in major halls of the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. His music has been performed by members of most major orchestras in the United States as well as some of the world’s foremost soloists and chamber ensembles. Among his many honors, Young has received awards from ASCAP (annually since 1994), National Flute Association, National Band Association, National Association of Composers, British and International Bassists Federations, National Endowment for the Arts, Aaron Copland Foundation, and Meet the Composer. Young is a graduate of Baylor University and the University of Michigan. His mentors include Pulitzer Prize-winner Leslie Bassett, Donald Sinta, Marianne Ploger, and Keith Hill. Young is currently Director of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Previously, he served as Associate Dean and Chief Academic Officer of Baldwin Wallace University’s Conservatory of Music. Prior to Baldwin Wallace University, Young taught at University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, Central Connecticut State University, and Interlochen Arts Camp.
His Concerto for Flute and Wind Ensemble was commissioned and premiered by Gro Sandvik and the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point Wind Ensemble in 2008.
Born in Cheltenham, England to a musical family, Gustav Holst began piano lessons at early age with his father, the conductor of the local town orchestra. During the 1890s, he studied composition at the Royal College of Music. In 1905, he accepted a teaching position at St. Paul’s Girls’ School, a position he held until his death in 1934. Although it is not clear why Holst composed his Second Suite in F for Military Band, his daughter and biographer Imogen Holst believed it was likely written for the Festival of Empire, a celebration of the coronation of King George V. However, the suite was unperformed for eleven years until its premiere on June 30, 1922 at Royal Albert Hall by the Royal Military School of Music Band. Ironically, Holst’s First Suite in E-flat for Military Band, written in 1909, was also unperformed until 1922, a delay of thirteen years. Unlike the Suite in E-flat, the Suite in F uses English folk songs for its musical raw material. The English Folk Song Society, an organization formed in 1906 to preserve English folk music, collected these melodies. The society’s membership included such prominent figures in English music as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott, George Barnet Gardiner, and Charles Villiers Stanford.
The first movement is a combination of three tunes: “Glorishears” (a morris dance), “Swansea Town,” and “Claudy Banks.” The second and third movements use only one melody each: “I’ll Love my Love” and “The Blacksmith,” respectively. The fourth movement, which Holst recast as the finale of St. Paul’s Suite (1913), is a combination of “Dargason” and “Greensleeves.” Imogen Holst, describing the finale’s melodic combination wrote: “It is difficult to believe that the two tunes were not meant for each other: they live their own lives, each leaning to the other instead of fighting for their independence. It was a fortunate venture: never again did he succeed so brilliantly in this highly dangerous practice.”
Jonathan Caldwell is director of bands and assistant professor of conducting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band and teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting. Prior to his appointment at UNCG, Caldwell held positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and Garner Magnet High School (Garner, NC).
Ensembles under Caldwell’s guidance have performed for the College Band Directors National Association Southern Division, the National Band Association–Wisconsin Chapter, and in Carnegie Hall. His writings have been published in the Journal of Band Research and the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series. He has given presentations for the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the College Band Directors National Association, the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Förderung der Blasmusik (IGEB), and music educator conferences in North Carolina and Virginia.
Caldwell received a Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music in instrumental conducting from the University of Maryland, College Park. He holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and a Bachelor of Music in performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Erika Boysen is an international performer, educator and collaborator who is the Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Known for her verve and energy while teaching, Erika has previously served as faculty at the Interlochen Arts Academy and Interlochen Arts Camp, Northwestern Michigan College and Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts.
Committed to developing new and innovative ways of presenting and teaching the traditional model of classical flute, the majority of her research and scholarship focuses on cross-disciplinary collaboration between the arts. Through movement, singing and acting, she promotes an approach to education and performance that highlights multiple aspects of artistic expression.
In demand as a clinician and speaker, she has been a featured artist at the Montana Flute Festival, Eastern Carolina Flute Symposium and Iowa Flute Festival. In addition, she has published articles in Flute Talk Magazine and Physics Education Journal and presented at the North Carolina Music Educators Association Conference and Wild Acres Flute Retreat.
Erika has toured across the United States and Europe performing in a variety of chamber, orchestral and improvisation-based ensembles. Currently, as a member of the UNCG East Wind Quintet, Seen/Heard Trio and COLLAPSS Ensemble (Collective for Happy Sounds), she is dedicated to championing music of living composers. Erika has received orchestral fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, Texas Music Festival and Brevard Music Festival having worked with conductors: Christian Arming, David Robertson, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano and Hugh Wolff. These orchestral and chamber pursuits are complemented by her appearances at ArtX Detroit, Meadowbrook, and Culture Lab Festivals as a part of Shara Nova’s indie rock/alternative pop band, My Brightest Diamond.
Her first solo debut album, Reimagining the Album, will be released via an online application featuring newly commissioned works for the singing/moving flutist by composers: David Biedenbender, Mark Engebretson, Jane Rigler and Sam L. Richards. In addition, she can be heard on the Blue Griffin and Arts Laureate Recording labels.
A native of Iowa, Dr. Boysen received her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, Master of Music from the New England Conservatory and Bachelor of Music from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.