Lakay is a Haitian Creole title and translates to "home" in English. Being a native Haitian who has spent a lot of years away from my home country, this piece expresses some thoughts and feelings of longing for your home sweet home. Lakay isn't a sad piece; on the contrary, it is pretty excited and full of energy, which is a representation of the Haitian culture: consistently strong, always looking at the bright side, and happily moving forward in life while honoring and remembering our past.
This composition is based on a Haitian rhythm called Yanvalou. Yanvalou is a rhythm and dance of Haiti named after its associated movements. Yanvalou is one of the most important rhythms in Haitian folklore; it is sometimes linked to knowledge, patience, strength, and healing. It is usually played on three different congas named Manman (mother), Segon (second), and Kata, the latter being always played with sticks on the body of a conga. I used one conga to play a combination of the Manman and Segon rhythms and two bongos with sticks for a variation of the Kata. The beat of the rhythm of Yanvalou is a combination of triple-duple time in this composition, with three eighth-notes forming the triple and two dotted eighth-notes (or eighth-notes duplet) for the duple.
Program note by Christopher J. Ducasse
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was the first Western classical composer of African heritage and one of the most remarkable characters in music history. Joseph’s father, George de Bologne de Saint-Georges, was the owner of a large plantation in the French Directory of Guadeloupe, a Caribbean island to the southeast of Puerto Rico. Joseph’s mother, known as Anne or Nanon, was a woman enslaved by George and a Guadeloupean of Senegalese descent.
In 1747, Joseph’s father accidentally killed a man during a duel. To escape being charged for murder, George Saint-George fled Guadeloupe, leaving authorities to seize his possessions. Two years later, George’s title of nobility allowed him to obtain a pardon and return to the Caribbean, where he gave his son his first instruction in music and fencing. In 1753, Joseph moved to Bordeaux, France, where he started school, after the arrival of George and Nanon, they all moved to Paris, where George worked as an aide to Louis XV. 12 months later, Joseph entered a boarding school where he studied humanities, fencing, and horsemanship. Joseph was given the title of Ecuyer in the position of Controller Ordinary of Wars, which led to a distinguished and impressive military career.
Joseph studied composition with Francois-Joseph Gossec, and violin with Jean-Marie Leclair. In addition to composition, he performed as a violin soloist, was accomplished at harpsichord, and conducted two orchestras, notably the first-rate Concert des Amateurs ensemble. After this group suffered several financial blows, Joseph’s status as a Black Mason led the Masons to revive the orchestra and rebrand it as Le Concert Olympique, the ensemble that commissioned Haydn’s Paris Symphonies in 1787. 10 years later, Joseph became the director of Le Cercle de L’Harmonie, and eventually, music director for the Marquise de Montesson. Joseph was still serving as a member of the image military while he led weekly concerts.
Saint-Georges’s output includes six operas, though he turned more to instrumental music in 1776. Joseph composed in a wide variety of musical styles and genres, but he is most famous for his large ensemble work. His music is Classical in style and vocal in characterization. It includes attractive melodies, French coloring with touches of the Mannheim School, and complex solo parts. Much of that describes his two symphonies, written around 1775 (the second is essentially the overture to his opera, L'Amant Anonyme). The first movement is fast and lively, and the melody appears almost exclusively in the first violin (something to be expected, from a composer who was also a virtuoso violinist). The second movement is flowing and seamless. The melody, mostly appearing in the first violins once more, is punctuated with fanfare-like figures to close phrases and/or sections of the movement. The third movement finale is remarkably similar in style to a finale in a Haydn symphony.
Program note from The DuBois Orchestra
Vasily Sergeyevich Kalinnikov was a Russian composer whose body of work consists of two symphonies, several additional orchestral works, and numerous songs, all of them imbued with characteristics of folksong. His symphonies, particularly the first, were frequently performed in the early 20th century. The Serenade for Strings is an intensely lyrical work that begins with a short introduction in which the voice of the cellos responds to the pizzicato of the strings. The mood then expands in melodious passages while the cellos repeat the subject in tones approaching an ostinato. These lyrical phrases are echoed among the sections of the orchestra with various refrains that reveal the composer’s skill in imitation. The outcome is a rich palette of orchestral sound and color. Light on its feet, with a waltz-like flow and much delicate pizzicato writing, the serenade plays with a single theme full of spring-like freshness and optimism.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving origin to many imitators and admirers. He pioneered many developments in orchestration, violin technique, and programmatic music. He consolidated the emerging concerto form into a widely accepted and followed idiom, which was paramount in the development of Johann Sebastian Bach's instrumental music.
Vivaldi composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other musical instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than fifty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as the Four Seasons. Many of his compositions were written for the all-female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children. Vivaldi also had some success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua, and Vienna. The Sinfonia in C is the overture to the opera L'incoronazione di Dario, written by Vivaldi with a libretto by Adriano Morselli, and first performed in 1717. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for royal support. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died in poverty less than a year later.
Estampas Mexicanas is a three-movement suite for orchestra featuring Mexican folk elements. In particular, it is inspired by the rhythmic vitality of the music of Carlos Chávez, the ritualistic mysticism of Silvestre Revueltas, and the lyric melodies of Manuel M. Ponce.
The first movement, Ferial, is a festive parade of simple, colorful, folk-like tunes and rhythms woven into a tapestry of western European textures. The opening measures present a paraphrase of the opening of Sinfonia India by Carlos Chavez, one of the first and most influential composers of Mexican classical music. Moreover, the piece makes reference to a historic moment in the development of Mexican classical music. Having attained its political independence from Spain and gone through the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Mexico was left to explore how to reconcile the diverse elements of its rich cultural heritage. Some composers that had been writing in the European salon-music styles favored prior to the Revolution now started to incorporate folk music elements in their compositions. Ferial plays with that juxtaposition of Spanish and native Mexican elements.
A ferial is a combination of a religious procession and a street parade, typical of central Mexico. In the Latin percussion of this movement, one hears the festive sounds of a town celebration and even the sound of matachines (autochthonous dancers that participate in major Mexican religious parades, wearing shells and other ornaments in their hands and feet to create percussion music as they dance). At more intimate moments, however, like the little waltz at the center of the movement, those Mexican elements are replaced by sounds and rhythms from the Old World. The melody of this section is more self-conscious and distinctly European, as is the suggestion of the waltz form in which it is presented. It is as if the exuberance of the native Mexican world had been allowed to be displayed in public but not invited into the intimate salons of the Spanish homes of the aristocracy of the New Spain. The opening music of the movement comes back in different forms–irregular, repetitive, primal, vibrant. The pervasive sense of joy and festivity brings Ferial to a hopeful conclusion.
Music has been José Elizondo's passion since he was 5, when he began performing in concerts and participating in piano and organ competitions at a national level in Mexico. From an early age, Jose received awards and recognition from institutions like FONAPAS (Mexico's National Fund for Social and Artistic Activities) and the International Yamaha Music Foundation.
José moved to Boston, where he received degrees in Music and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At Harvard University, he studied musical analysis, orchestration, and conducting. His main teachers at MIT and Harvard were professors Peter Child, Edward Cohen, Lowell Lindgren, Bill Cutter, James Yannatos, Constance DeFotis, and Jameson Marvin.
José's music has been performed by over 100 orchestras around the world. He is particularly proud of his collaboration with youth orchestras. For example, the Brighton Youth Orchestra (UK), conducted by maestro Andrew Sherwood, has performed his compositions in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Zimbabwe, and the Congo. Maestro Wayne Toews has conducted José's music with the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra and several other orchestras in Canada in a number of performances and educational projects. José considers maestros Andrew Sherwood, Wayne Toews, and Sergio Buslje (music director of several orchestras in Washington, Honduras and Argentina) as his most influential mentors, at a personal and professional level.
Program note by José Elizondo
Rotem Weinberg is an Israeli conductor known for his profound musicality, creative programming, and polished performances. He is a cross-genre musician, at home in classical, operatic, and pops repertoires alike.
Weinberg comes to UNCG from the University of Michigan, where he served as Music Director of the Campus Symphony Orchestra and the Michigan Pops Orchestra. He also filled the role of Assistant Conductor to the University of Michigan’s prestigious orchestra program, supporting the work of four student orchestras as well as cover conductor of the University of Michigan Opera Theater. Weinberg has also served as Music Director of the Spectrum Orchestra in Birmingham, Michigan; Associate Conductor of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra; and Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Weinberg has participated in workshops and masterclasses with world renowned orchestral conductors, including Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Zsolt Nagy, and Christopher Lyndon Gee. An advocate of contemporary music, Weinberg has collaborated and premiered works by composers Tyler Arnold, Sawyer Denton, Natalie Moller, Nina Shekhar, and Samuel Sussman.
In Israel, he led several orchestral, wind, and vocal ensembles, achieving national acclaim as a conductor and an educator. He received honors and awards for his conducting and musicianship, including the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Excellence Grant in Orchestral Conducting, the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music Excellence Scholarship, and the Tel Aviv University Dean of Arts Excellence Award for his outstanding musical and academic achievements.
Weinberg holds a BM in orchestral conducting from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University. He earned MM and DMA degrees in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, studying with the renowned conductor and pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler.
Amber Svetik is attending the University of North Carolina Greensboro in pursuit of a master’s degree in Music Education. Previously, Amber was the Orchestra Director at Electa Arcotte Lee Magnet Middle School in Bradenton, FL from 2018-2021. An alumna of the program, Amber conducted ensembles for the Sarasota Youth Orchestras and Sarasota Youth Orchestra Summer Camps.
Amber completed her Bachelor’s of Music Education at Florida State University in 2018. As a student, Amber was a recipient of the Gaston Dufresne Scholarship and the undergraduate Presser Scholar Award. Alongside teaching after graduating, Amber worked as an adjudicator for the Florida Orchestra Association and as a section violinist for the Venice Symphony.