Expectations

Program

Alleluia! Laudamus Te Alfred Reed
Nativitas!Fantasy on Perotin’s 112^th Century Alleluia Don Freund
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor J.S. Bach/arr. Hunsberger
Lauds (Praise High Day) Ron Nelson

      Intermission

Joy Joseph Curiale
Sinfonia V: Sacra et Profana Timothy Broege
O Magnum Mysterium James Syler
Kirsten Osbun Manley, soprano
Linda Sycks, oboe
Scenes from the Louvre Norman Dello Joio
     IV. Nativity Paintings
Pictures at an Exhibition Moussorgsky/arr. Boyd
     X. The Great Gate of Kiev

The 2008-2009 ONU Wind Orchestra Personnel

Flutes

Virginia Abernathy,* Beavercreek OH
Gretchen Bailey, Strongsville OH
Sarah Voll,+ Ada OH
Rachel White, Lakewood OH

Piccolo

Sarah Voll, Ada OH

Oboes

Ali Bodary, Victor NY
Axel Brandt, *Rocky River OH
Denise Jansen, North Royalton OH

Clarinets

Kathleen Cox, Newcomerstown OH
Laura Linn, Chattanooga OH
Lindsey Miller,* Fairfield OH
Abigail Mogren, Grove City OH
Caitlin Rowland, Boardman OH
Nathan Slusher, Alger OH

Eb Clarinet

Nathan Slusher, Alger OH

Bass Clarinet

Emily J. Lockwood, West Liberty OH

Bassoons

David Walch,* Fairfield OH
Amanda Weaver, Mentor OH

Alto Saxophones

Brittani Csongendi, N. Royalton OH
Michael Krak,* Senecaville OH

Tenor Saxophone

Kevin Mangan, Lakewood OH

Baritone Saxophone

Ashley Ebersole, New Paris OH

Trumpets

Mark Blowers,* Toledo OH
Melissa Else, Cambridge IL
Tyler Graves, Wickliffe OH
Matthew Keasal,* Fostoria OH
Leah Thompson, Van Wert OH

Horns

Jennifer Focht, Dublin OH
Christina North, Ada OH
Joseph Sasak, Broadview Heights OH
David Tietz,* Westerville OH

Trombones

Abbey Kramer, Edon OH
Jenna Roney, Ottoville OH
Andrew Straw,* Curwensville PA

Bass Trombone

Kevin Earnest, Rensselaer IN

Euphonium

Megan Pierce, Grove City OH

Tuba

Zack Voll, Ada OH

Percussion

Josh Haudenschield, Kenton OH
Timothy Herrick,* Strongsville, OH
Megan Quay, Lima OH
Joshua Purk, Urbana OH
Korey Sarven, Lima OH
John Taylor, Lima OH

Piano

Elesha Hodges, Lima OH

String Bass

Collin Morelock, Upper Arlington OH

Harp

Dani Bash, Bowling Green OH

*= Principal, + = Ensemble President

Expectations

The theme of tonight’s concert, Expectations, is intended to communicate on many different levels. The Advent season is upon us, which is defined by the expectation of Christmas. The performers this evening, university students, are full of dreams and expectations. Lastly, Dr. Hunt has a world of expectations for the ONU Wind Orchestra, of which he is the director.

Program Notes

Alfred Reed, one of America's most prolific and frequently performed composers. During World War II he served in the Army Air Force Band, for which he composed his famous Russian Christmas Music. He then attended the Juilliard School of Music, studying under Vittorio Giannini, followed by a stint as staff arranger first for NBC, then for ABC. He was then hired by Baylor University to conduct the university’s orchestra while he pursued his bachelors and masters degrees. From 1965 until his death in 2005 he was professor of music at the University of Miami. Alleluia! Laudamus Te is a canticle of praise without words; the band being treated both as a single massive choir and, at times, broken down into individual sections. The music is based on three main themes heard in succession, followed by a return of the first theme in commanding power and sonority.

Don Freund has composed over 100 major works ranging from solo, chamber, and orchestral music to pieces involving live performance with electronic instruments, music for dance and large theatre as well as operatic works. His compositions have won countless prizes and awards and are published by MMB Music, Boosey and Hawkes, ECS, Seesaw and Vivace Press. Dr. Freund describes Nativitas as “a fantasy on the 3-voice organum, Alleluia Nativitas, composed by Perotin, one of the first music masters of the Notre Dame Cathedral in 12^th century Paris. Perotin’s organum is built over a plainchant Alleluia (which is played by the winds in octaves over driving drum rhythms in the middle of the piece). In Perotin’s organum the lowest voice sings the chant at an extremely slow tempo creating monumental drones, while the top pair sings a lilting contrapuntal dance. Nativitas uses great blocks of Perotin’s polyphony, juxtaposed and superimposed at multiple tempos and embroidered with some new materials echoing the Gothic style, celebrating this ecstatic powerful sound from the 12the century.”

The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor belongs on any short list of the best known works of J. S. Bach. The Donald Hunsberger arrangement of it, performed on tonight’s program, represents an outstanding new rendition for the wind band. Of special interest to both performer and listener is the fact that the organ is a wind instrument, making an arrangement for winds most fitting.

Ron Nelson is a prolific composer of music for winds, orchestra and also choir. He has received commissions from the Rochester Philharmonic, the United States Air Force Band, as well as from many college and university ensembles such as the University of Minnesota, Dartmouth college, Western Michigan and Lawrence Universities. Lauds (Praise High Day), which derives its title from one of the eight canonical hours, is an exuberant and colorful work intended to express feelings of praise and glorification. It received its world premiere by the United States Air Force Band under Lt. Colonel Alan L. Bonner at the College Band Director’s National Association Conference in Charlotte NC in 1992.

Before turning to the composition of art music in the 1990’s Joseph Curiale worked in Los Angeles as a prolific composer of music for film and televisions. Since then he has written a number of extended works which have been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and performed by many major orchestras. Joy, which opens the second half of tonight’s program, is the first movement of Curiale’s Symphony #1 and was arranged by the composer for winds and percussion. In February Mr. Curiale will visit the ONU for the world premiere performance of Silent Snow, a work commissioned by ONU for the Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Lloyd Butler.

Timothy Broege’s Sinfonia V has been performed, since it was composed in 1973, under such well-known wind-band conductors as Robert Reynolds, Eugene Corporon and Craig Kirchoff. Broege writes, “Sinfonia V is both a musical diary and a musical collage. I incorporated several musics that were very much on my mind at the time the work was written, including ragtime, as well as the plainchant hymn, Divinium Mysterium . . . If one imagines dialing across the FM radio band in a large city such as New York, the resulting collage might include a bit of early music, some ragtime, or jazz, some contemporary music, some voices, some instruments etc. At the same time the Sinfonia contrasts secular musics—such as the Pavane and the ragtime fragments—with sacred musics such as the Scheidt Chorales and the plainchant hymn. There is no attempt to reconcile these two music traditions and the work ends in ambiguity.”

Of O Magnum Mysterium, the composer, James Syler writes, “The O Magnum Mysterium is an ancient Christmas day text that describes the great mystery of God becoming man—even the animals behold him. In this setting I attempt to transcend time and space by juxtaposing the nativity scene with the crucifixion scene—Christ’s entrance and exit in this world. Now the “great mystery” is intensified as we see Christ not as the sentimentalized baby in a manger, but as the God-man who will grow up and become the atoning sacrifice on the cross.”

The ONU Wind Orchestra’s next concert, on February 22, 2009, features John Boyd’s arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, as well as Norman Dello Joio’s Scenes from the Louvre. In the spirit of the theme, Expectations, the ONU Wind Orchestra closes tonight’s concert with movements from each of those multi-movement works—Nativity Paintings and The Great Gate of Kiev.

The grand finale of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, titled The Great Gate of Kiev, is included on tonight’s program not only for its grandeur as a program closer, but also in keeping with the expectant Advent theme of the gate found in Psalms 24:7, “Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.”