Symphonic Band (2018)
Free concert
- Presented by: CU Boulder College of Music
- Intermission: None
- Venue: Macky Auditorium
- Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, 1595 Pleasant St, Boulder, CO 80309
The CU Symphonic Band welcomes the Monarch High School Wind Ensemble, conducted by Chuck Stephen, as special guests in its final concert of the fall semester, titled "Spirited Shades of Blue." The program features music containing jazz and/or blues elements, while offering a variety of spirited musical selections for all who attend.
Performance date and time:
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m.
Program:
PROGRAM: Monarch High School Wind Ensemble program: Todd Stalter: "Ignition"; Steven Bryant: "Dusk"; Michael Sweeney: "Swamp Rabbit Stomp." CU Symphonic Band program: Steve Danyew: "Magnolia Star"; Aaron Perrine: "Pale Blue on Deep"; Frank Ticheli: "Blue Shades"; Michael Daugherty: "Niagara Falls"
Chuck Stephen, conductor of the Monarch High School Wind Ensemble, serves as director of bands and fine arts department chair at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado. Matthew Roeder, CU's associate director of bands, conducts the CU Symphonic Band. Matthew Dockendorf, CU assistant director of bands, guest conducts the CU Symphonic Band.
Read moreProgram notes
Ignition
Ignition is a blindingly fast and raucously energetic concert opener that derives its title from the consecutive, rising three-note cells that are the building blocks for almost the entire work. However, the energy unleashed in the music and the imagery of the title serve both as a metaphor for the “spark” of creativity, and as a “celebration in sound” for those who find and follow their own true life’s passion and pass it along to others, “igniting” the flame for another generation. It was written for the Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony
and their conductor, Scott Stewart, who have been steadfast supporters of Todd Stalter’s compositions, as a musical “Thank you!” from a grateful composer.
—Todd Stalter
Dusk
This simple, chorale-like work captures the reflective calm of dusk, paradoxically illuminated by the fiery hues of sunset. I’m always struck by the dual nature of this experience, as if witnessing an event of epic proportions silently occurring
in slow motion. Dusk is intended as a short, passionate evocation of this moment of dramatic stillness.
—Steven Bryant
Swamp Rabbit Stomp
Commissioned by the 2015 South Carolina All-State Junior Band and written to celebrate the natural scenic beauty of that state’s famed Swamp Rabbit Trail, Michael Sweeney’s Swamp Rabbit Stomp is a joyous romp of rhythm and harmony. Exploring layers of sounds as well as an expanded role for the percussion section, this work also calls for a middle section where all members of the band perform with egg shakers.
Magnolia Star
When I was playing saxophone in my middle school jazz band, we started every rehearsal the same way—with an improvisation exercise that our director created. It was a simple yet brilliant exercise for teaching beginning improvisation and allowing everyone in the band a chance to “solo.” As a warm-up at the opening of each rehearsal, the whole band played the blues scale ascending, resting for one measure, descending and resting for another measure.
During the measures of rest, each member of the band took turns improvising a solo. Looking back, this exercise not only got the band swinging together from the start of rehearsal, but it made improvisation, a daunting musical task to many, seem within everyone’s abilities. This experience was my introduction to the blues scale, and I have long wanted to write a piece inspired by this group of pitches.
In Magnolia Star, I explore various ways to use these pitches in harmonies, melodies and timbres, creating a diverse set of ideas that will go beyond sounds that we typically associate with the blues scale. I didn’t want to create a “blues” piece, but rather a piece in my own musical voice that uses and pays homage to the blues scale.
Nearly all of the pitches used in Magnolia Star fit into the concert C blues scale. It is interesting to note that embedded within the C blues scale are both a C minor triad, an E-flat minor triad, and an E-flat major triad. I explore the alternation of these tonal areas right from the start of the piece, and continue to employ them in different ways throughout the entire work.
Another influence was trains and the American railroad. The railroad not only provides some intriguing sonic ideas, with driving rhythms and train-like sonorities, but it was also an integral part of the growth of jazz and blues in America. In the late 19th century, the Illinois Central Railroad constructed rail lines that stretched from New Orleans and the “Delta South” all the way north to Chicago.
Many southern musicians traveled north via the railroad, bringing “delta blues” and other idioms to northern parts of the country. The railroad was also the inspiration for countless blues songs by a wide variety of artists. Simply put, the railroad was crucial to the dissemination of jazz and blues in the early 20th century.
Magnolia Star was an Illinois Central train that ran from New Orleans to Chicago with the famous Panama Limited in the mid 20th century.
—Steve Danyew
Pale Blue on Deep
I arrived at the title, Pale Blue on Deep, while sitting on the shore of Lake Superior. Though I’ve visited this lake countless times, I’m always mesmerized by its power and serene beauty. You don’t just see this Great Lake; it’s a feeling you experience with all of your senses.
While there are certainly melodic and harmonic motifs used throughout the work, the larger unifying themes present are a bit more abstract. One main theme is the idea of colors blurring into each other. This was inspired by the place on the horizon where the water appears to blend right into the sky. Moments of tension and release can be attributed to a number of things such as waves crashing to the shore or the imagery of what might lie beneath the water’s surface. Above all,
I believe the most prevalent theme of the piece is its pensive, introspective feeling, which is exactly the same feeling that comes over me upon each visit to Lake Superior
—Aaron Perrine
Blue Shades
In 1992, I composed a concerto for traditional jazz band and orchestra, Playing With Fire, for the Jim Cullum Jazz Band and the San Antonio Symphony. That work was composed as a celebration of the traditional jazz music I heard so often while growing up near New Orleans.
I experienced tremendous joy during the creation of Playing With Fire, and my love for early jazz is expressed in every bar of the concerto. However, after completing it I knew that the traditional jazz influences dominated the work, leaving little room for my own musical voice to come through. I felt a strong need to compose another work, one that would combine my love of early jazz with my own musical style.
Four years and several compositions later, I finally took the opportunity to realize that need by composing Blue Shades. As its title suggests, the work alludes to the blues, and a jazz feeling is prevalent—however, it is in not literally a blues piece. There is not a single 12-bar blues progression to be found and, except for a few isolated sections, the eighth-note is not swung. The work, however, is heavily influenced by the blues: “Blue notes” (flatted 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths) are used constantly; blues harmonies, rhythms and melodic idioms pervade the work; and many “shades of blue” are depicted, from bright blue, to dark, to dirty and to hot blue.
At times, Blue Shades burlesques some of the clichés from the big band era—not as a mockery of those conventions, but as a tribute. A slow and quiet middle section recalls the atmosphere of a dark, smoky blues haunt. An extended clarinet solo played near the end recalls Benny Goodman’s hot playing style, and ushers in a series of “wailing” brass chords recalling the train whistle effects commonly used during that era. Blue Shades was commissioned by a consortium of thirty university, community, and high school concert bands under the auspices of the Worldwide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund. The University of Colorado was a member of this consortium.
—Frank Ticheli
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls (1997) was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphonic Band in honor of its 100th Anniversary, and is dedicated to its conductor, H. Robert Reynolds. The work was premiered by that ensemble on October 4, 1997 at “Band-O-Rama,” conducted by H. Robert Reynolds at Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The composer writes:
“Niagara Falls, a gateway between Canada and the United States, is a mecca for honeymooners and tourists who come to visit one of the most scenic waterfalls in the world. The Niagara River also generates electricity for towns on both sides of the border, where visitors are lured into haunted houses, motels, wax museums, candy stores, and tourist traps, as well as countless stores that sell Niagara Falls postcards, T-shirts, and souvenirs.
“This composition is another souvenir, inspired by my many trips to Niagara Falls. It is a 10-minute musical ride over the Niagara River with an occasional stop at a haunted house or wax museum along the way. Its principal musical motive is a haunting chromatic phrase of four tones corresponding to the syllables of “Niagara Falls,” and repeated in increasingly Gothic proportions. A pulsing rhythm in the timpani and lower brass creates an undercurrent of energy to give an electric charge to the second motive, introduced in musical canons by the upper brass. The saxophones and clarinets introduce another level of counterpoint, in a bluesy riff with a film noir edge. My composition is a meditation on the American Sublime.”
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