Our second concert of the 2022 - 2023 season features works that investigate fantasy, wonder, and imagination.

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The program opens with Incantation and Dance by John Barnes Chance. While clearly representing an older style of wind band instrumentation, the work is ahead of its time, using elements of bitonality to create “a sound world mystically removed from itself.” The ethereal sound of flutes in the lowest register yields to a sustained bitonal chord as fast-tempo percussion ushers in brass calls and rhythmic thematic material, culminating in an exciting dance.

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Dream Machine by Katherine Bergman completely changes the mood. Soft repetitions and alternations create hypnotic, mystical sensations, just as artist Brion Gysin's “Dreammachine” phonograph-driven stroboscope, “the first art object to be seen with the eyes closed,” is intended to affect the viewer's brain alpha wave activity. Is the dream machine the physical object, or is it within our brains?

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Another complete contrast follows as composer Rolf Rudin re-creates Nemeton, the place of the cultic rituals of the Druids, and their spiritual world. After a bold introduction with long-held chords, sizzling trills, and percussion emphasis, we enter a mysterious forest clearing where we hear bird calls and the hymns of pre-Christian rituals as the Druids mediate between the old gods and the human world.

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Christopher Theofanidis, well known for many orchestral compositions, approached a commission to write for winds as an opportunity to create a novel idea of sustained sound, as if music were played in a large space, building the reverberation into the scoring. He writes that “the title for this work [I wander the world in a dream of my own making] is a reference to the compositional process. Writing a piece of music is like creating a dream that you want to have. The feeling that pervades the work is one of a sense of mystery, and this sentiment is primarily conveyed through the harmonies and orchestration.”

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Our program closes with a rich symphonic setting of the history and myths of the Zenú indigenous people of northern South America. Composer Victoriano Valencia R. writes “The Zenúes stood out for the construction of a complex system of irrigation canals for their crops that worked for nearly two thousand years, until the arrival of the Spanish in 1500. The Suite is built in four movements that recount the processes of meeting races and cultures that occurred throughout the American continent. The work seeks to represent landscapes of the Sinú River region and painful scenes of the Spanish conquest process that overwhelmed the native culture.” This masterful sound-painting firmly emphasizes the composer's standing in a great tradition of Latin- and South American composers of music that represents rich cultural history.