Program notes by Richard M. Kesner
Kah Chun Wong (1986 - ), Pecos Pueblo
Kah Chun Wong was born and grew up in Singapore where he attended school, studied trumpet and eventually conducting. In 2010, Wong was part of a group that formed the Asian Contemporary Ensemble, which focuses on Singaporean and Asian composers. In 2011, he began studying opera and orchestral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. He debuted in March 2015 with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Between 2018 and 2022, Wong served as the chief conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and continues to conduct major orchestras around the world. In his composition for winds, Pecos Pueblo (2007), Wong retells the story of a once large and powerful native American community circa the late 1500s. The music retells this history in an accessible manner in three sections. In the first section, the listener is engulfed in the exciting world of Pecos Pueblo. The second slow section provides a calmer interlude to the piece, before a beautiful climax is reached, signifying the beauty and magnificence of the great 16th Century Church that was built in the native people’s capital. Soon, war drums start the third and last section, showing the anger and triumph of the native peoples in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 over their Spanish conquerors. The piece does not end in tragedy; in fact, the music suggests that the legacy of Pecos Pueblo lives on as a great monument in North American history.
Cait Nishimura (1991 - ), Intrinsic Light
Cait Nishimura is a Japanese-Canadian composer based in Waterloo, Ontario, known for writing nature-inspired, programmatic music. Ms. Nishimura has established herself as a prominent voice in the concert band community, with new works being regularly commissioned and performed by ensembles and individuals around the world. She won the Canadian Band Association’s composition prize in 2017 and is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre. Nishimura holds degrees in music and education from the University of Toronto. According to the composer:
“Intrinsic light is a term for the color or sensation we experience in complete darkness, due to the spontaneous activity of neurons in the retina. My goal with this piece was to represent this phenomenon through sound. Reflecting on this concept prompted a deeper, metaphorical realization: even in times of darkness.”
Intrinsic Light (2021) was commissioned by the Ontario Band Association in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Ontario Music Educators’ Association and is dedicated to those who teach music in Ontario, Canada.
Gunther Schuller (1925 – 2015), Nature’s Way
Gunther Schuller began as a French horn player, performing with the American Ballet Theater as a teenager, as principal horn in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1943-1945), and with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (1945-1959). Thereafter, Schuller focused on musical composition and education, composing more than 200 works, spanning many musical genres including solo works, orchestral and wind ensemble pieces, chamber music, opera, and jazz. As an educator, Schuller first taught at the Manhattan School of Music before moving to Yale University as Professor of Composition. From 1967-1977 Schuller served as president of the New England Conservatory where he formalized NEC’s commitment to jazz by establishing the first degree-granting jazz program at a major classical conservatory. Nature’s Way (2006) for intermediate level band was commissioned by BandQuest, a project initiated by the American Composers Forum. According to the composer,
“Nature’s Way in no way represents a compromise of my personal style, nor my long-held concepts of form, continuity, texture, and instrumentation. I have known for a long time that young, inquisitive minds are eager to learn from new experiences, from previously never encountered challenges….to rise above their present levels of achievement. That’s what education (and this piece) is all about.”
Johan Schop (1590 – 1667), Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light
Johann Schop was a German violinist and composer of the Baroque period. The melody heard in Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light (1641) was first known as Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist (Rouse thyself my weak spirit). J.S. Bach probably found an altered version of the tune in Johann Cruger’s Praxis Pietatis Melica (1647) and subsequently harmonized it in various settings. The original melody had a different character in its original form. By the time Bach harmonized the tune in the 18th century, musical preferences had shifted: the rhythm of the melody was made more consistent, the tempo became slower, and the harmony and counterpoint more complex. The wind version today is offered as a prelude to the David Biedenbender composition upon which it is based.
David Biedenbender (1984 - ), Luminescence
David Biedenbender is a composer, conductor, performer, educator, and interdisciplinary collaborator. He has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his creative interests include working with classically trained musicians and improvisers, chamber and large ensembles. In addition to composing, Mr. Biedenbender is Associate Professor and Chair of Composition in the College of Music at Michigan State University. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan (DMA, MM) and Central Michigan University (BM). Luminescence (2009) is based on fragments from the melody Break Forth O Beauteous Heavenly Light, by Johann Schop and subsequently harmonized in several settings by J. S. Bach. In Biedendender’s work the first fragment of the original tune is a declamatory statement in the horns, followed shortly thereafter by the trumpets and a brief response by the upper woodwinds. An abruptly stark clarinet solo begins a moment of respite, with principal players across several sections playing fragments of the source material. Building in intensity, the timpani restart the motor of the piece and pass off to a rhythmic motif in the saxophones and mallet percussion. Eventually, the vibrant woodwind melody from the opening bars of the work breaks through, and the antecedent phrase of Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light is presented in augmentation by the trumpets. The final moments of the piece highlight Biedenbender’s signature compositional techniques, with whirling woodwinds, a triumphant statement of the primary theme, and expansive harmonies.
-intermission-
Gunther Schuller (1925 – 2015), Blue Dawn Into White Heat
Blue Dawn into White Heat is perhaps the first (or at least one of the very few) jazz compositions written for concert band. It is therefore a piece not only with its own intrinsic musical merits, but one that also serves a certain educational, didactic purpose, i.e., teaching classical players something about jazz. The work, in one continuous movement, is divided into three sections delineated by clearly discernible, ever-faster tempos as well as changing meters. Although mostly written out (through-composed), the work does feature some brief improvisational episodes for trombone, tenor saxophone, and piano. This title of the piece was suggested by Fred Harris, the conductor who commissioned the work for the use of the Belmont (Mass.) High School Concert Band.
Erik Santos (1983 - ), The Seer
with David Jiles Jr., Tenor soloist
Erik Santos is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer and teacher, who is active in many musical genres, from rock and jazz, to classical, to electronic, world music, and music for theater and dance. He is the Chair of the Composition Department at University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Professor Santos has received commissions, prizes, fellowships, and other recognitions for his concert music, including the prestigious 2020 Sousa-ABA-Ostwald Prize from the American Bandmasters Association and is actively engaged in a wide variety of performing ensembles – both traditional and non-traditional.
David Jiles, our tenor soloist, has been on faculty at Berklee College of Music since 2014, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Voice department. He has taught singing, dancing, and acting since 2006. In that time, he has managed international gospel choirs, performed in musicals and plays throughout the United States and abroad, managed performers on cruise ships, and choreographed, and produced various shows in and out of the U.S. Professor Jiles is also the lead singer for Flipside Band (voted Boston’s best wedding band in 2016).
Santos’ composition The Seer (2019) depicts the thinking and experiencing of a “Seer,” that is one who, through supernatural insight, can see what the future holds, and can see through to unseen truths. Santos has constructed a musical mandala - a piece of music structured with circular or symmetrical patterns, like a traditional visual mandala, often used as a tool for meditation, healing, and expressing emotions. Santos’ musical mandala weaves together many disparate strands of creative inspiration, including: the works of Langston Hughes and Rainer Maria Rilke, Nina Simone, Howlin’ Wolf, Killing Joke, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Rod Serling, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the stories from Parsifal and Ulysses. In the composer’s own words: “As much as possible, I let the subconscious lead, as my conscious mind struggled to render dream dictation into a linear language that might resonate with another.”
“Through visualizing the anatomy of my voice, discussions about the mind-body connection, and helping me learn to listen to my voice with more than my ears, my first year with David allowed me to see ways that I was unhealthily singing—and a huge element to that was my mindset. David is encouraging, relatable, hands-on, and committed to seeing the human that is a messenger of the music and not just a statistic of his job.”
— Tamia E