HOMEPAGE JANUARY 2009
Week of January 13th 2009
World News of wind ensemble and wind band music from Tim Reynish

HAPPY NEW (Y)EARS

CBDNA Conference in Austin                 WASBE Conference in Cincinnati 

First many greetings for the season,  best wishes for 2009, hope to see you at Conference.

NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
My wife and I will be leaving UK for USA in mid-January, when I take up the post of Visiting Professor and Director of the Wind Ensemble at Cornell University, Ithaca. Until June, please contact me on this email address: timreynish@yahoo.co.uk 

WEBSITE MATTERS
While there, I shall attempt to bring all my files up to date, but below I am starting the new year with catalogues of four of the most popular files based on repertoire. My webmaster has kindly attached no less than seventeen streams of works from the Maecenas and Studio catalogues on the Timpod, many of which will be used at the 2009 Canford/BASBWE International Conducting School in August.

Below are links also to seven works on video, discussion of the wind music of fourteen composers and analyses and interpretation notes on a further nine works, together with news from round the world. We hope you will enjoy browsing and listening, and look forward to any comments or news you might have to share with the incredible world of the wind ensemble and wind band. I hope to meet many browsers at the CBDNA Conference in  Austin, Texas, 25-28 March, or the WASBE Conference in Cincinnati, 5-11 July. No news yet about repertoire for WASBE, but full programmes for CBDNA appear in my November Homepage; they will include the Bolcom First Symphony, news below.

Have a great year,
Tim

INDEX

1 TIMPOD - Seventeen works from Maecenas and Studio catalogues
2 VIDEOS - Seven complete performances on video
3 COMPOSERS - Discussion of wind works by fourteen composers
4 ANALYSIS - Guides to rehearsal and interpretation

NEWS OF NEW WORKS FROM:

AUSTRALIA    Premiere at Elder Conservatorium, Adelaide
CANADA        Gary Kulesha premiere
CROATIA       New Marimba Concerto with Croatian Army Band
GERMANY      Summer Conducting Course
HUNGARY      First Symphony for wind by Kamillo Lendvay
ISRAEL          New version of Gleams from the Bosom of Darkness
JAPAN           Premiere by Stanislaw Skrowaczwski
UK                Four Premieres including Philip Sparke commission
USA              William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Peter Childs and Don Owen                           

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TIMPOD – FULL PERFORMANCES OF REPERTOIRE FROM MAECENAS/MUSIC MASTERS  & STUDIO/SOUTHERN* CATALOGUES 

New for January

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VIDEO PERFORMANCES

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COMPOSERS
Articles on wind music of specific composers

Listed under Repertoire> Composers

NEW FOR JANUARY
A SUMMARY OF THE WIND WORKS OF GUY WOOLFENDEN 

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GUIDES TO REHEARSAL AND INTERPRETATION
Articles by Tim Reynish and Mark Heron on interpreting specific works:

Listed under Repertoire> Composers

NEW FOR JANUARY

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RECENT AND FORTHCOMING WORLD PREMIERES

AUSTRALIA – WORLD PREMIERE
13 October 2008 World Premiere of Brazilian Passacaglia by Aaron Kenny, with the   Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra directed by Bob Hower. Aaron describes Brazilian Passacaglia as being "like a mini-concerto for wind orchestra" - full of Latin rhythms, harmonies and colours.

Also in the programme was the Australian premiere of the Richard Rodney Bennett Trumpet Concerto, played by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's principal trumpet, Shane Hooton. Hooton says of the work:  "Technically it's a real challenge, but the musical rewards are just fantastic, especially the movement dedicated to Miles Davis".

FOR NEW SOFTWARE DESIGN from Australia browse on www.optimosoftware.com
Optimo Software designs and develops database programs for music departments, music schools, music teachers and musicians. The database program can manage sheet music and musical instruments for Universities, Colleges, High Schools, Orchestras, Ensembles, community groups and professional organizations. Optimo Software has developed a unique way to catalog and search on all your music, books, recordings and other resources, linking them together and incorporating them in to one database.

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CANADA – WORLD PREMIERE
1 November 2008 World Premiere of Gary Kulesha’s The Greatness of the New-Found Light, with Toronto Wind Orchestra, Music Director Tony Gomes, (commissioned by the Toronto Wind Orchestra with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts).

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CROATIA – MARIMBA CONCERTO WORLD PREMIERE
February 2 Second Marimba concerto for marimba and wind orchestra, Ivana Bilic with the Croatian Army Wind Orchestra

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GERMANY – NEW CONDUCTING COURSE
International Music Institute of Leipzig - Conducting Symposium 
June 25 – July 6 International Conducting Course run jointly by Leipzig International Music Institute and SUNY Fredonia, with Paula Holcomb and Toshiyuki Shimada of Yale University. Tentative repertoire:
Wagner - Siegfried Idyll
Stravinsky - l'Histoire du Soldat
Stravinsky - Octet
Bach - Brandenburg No. TBA
Bach - Cantata TBA
Mozart - Serenade No. 12
Dvorak - Serenade, Op. 44

Website

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HUNGARY – NEW SYMPHONY BY LENDVAY
News in from Laszlo Marosi that Kamillo Lendvay has completed his Symphony for Wind.

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ISRAEL – RE-SCORING OF MAJOR WORK FOR VOICES & WIND
Good news from Lior Navok that he will be re-scoring his wonderful work Gleams from the Bosom of Darkness and making a nbew version with solo voices.

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JAPAN – SKROWACZEWSKI PREMIERE
CONDUCTOR: STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI
Tchaikovsky/ Serenade in C major, op.48
Skrowaczewski/ Commissioned piece for wind orchestra (Japan premiere)
Brahms/ Symphony No.4 in E minor, op. 98

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UNITED KINGDOM – FOUR NEW WORKS

Michael Purton writes:
You may be interested to know that Bromley Youth Concert Band gave the British Premiere live performance of Adrenaline City at St John’s Smith Square last March, which I conducted. We also gave the world premiere of Kentish Dances, by Philip Sparke, which we commissioned. It’s a lively three movement work based on 18^th and 19^th century Kentish fiddle tunes which I managed to find for Philip via my morris dancing chums (did you know George Butterworth was a keen morris dancer?)  1) ‘Dover Castle’ and ‘The Fair Maid of Wickham’  2) ‘Blackheath’ and ‘Bromley Bells’, 3) ‘We’re alright at Canterbury’, ‘Ramsgate Pier’ and ‘The Northdown Watlz’. Quite challenging and great fun.  

21 March 2009 in the Sheffield University Concert Series, the Sheffield University Wind Orchestra, conductor Anthony Houghton, will give the world premiere of a new work by Sheffield faculty member George Nicholson in the Firth Hall, Sheffield. at 7.30pm

12 July 2009, National Youth Wind Ensemble, conductor Phillip Scott, will give the world premiere of Cloud Atlas, a major new work by Philip Grange, based on the 2004 Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel by David Mitchell.

CONDUCTING COURSE AT RNCM: 1st - 3rd May
With Mark Heron, Mark Shanahan and Clark Rundell. Details.

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USA
WILLIAM BOLCOM SYMPHONY
February 6, Friday
First Symphony for Band (WORLD PREMIERE)
Time TBA
Hill Auditorium
Ann Arbor, MI
The University of Michigan Band, conducted by Michael Haithcock, gives the world premiere of Bolcom's First Symphony for Band.

Named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America, and honored with multiple Grammy Awards for his ground-breaking setting of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Bolcom is a composer of cabaret songs, concertos, sonatas, operas, symphonies and much more.  He was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Twelve New Etudes for piano.

As a pianist he has recorded for Advance, Jazzology, Musical Heritage, Nonesuch, Vox, and Omega. With his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, he has performed in concert for more than 30 years throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad.

In February 2008 his Eighth Symphony was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by James Levine in Boston, MA and Carnegie Hall/New York. Within the same month the Guarneri and Johannes String Quartets premiered Bolcom's Octet:  Double Quartet.  Other recent premieres:  Ballade in January 2008 by pianist Ursula Oppens; Lucrezia, a one-act comic opera for 5 singers and 2 pianists, in March 2008 by New York Festival of Song; Four Piedmont Choruses in May 2008 by the Piedmont Chamber Singers; and A Song for St. Cecilia's Day in June 2008 at the University of Chicago.

In 2007 Bolcom was feted in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, with a two and a half-week festival of his music, including master classes, recitals and concerts of his organ and chamber music. Titled Illuminating Bolcom, the festival was highlighted by two performances of Songs of Innocence and of Experience accompanied by animated projections of Blake's illuminations. The animations were commissioned by VocalEssence and created by projection designer Wendall K. Harrington.

In September 2006 Bolcom's Canciones de Lorca with tenor Placido Domingo, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and conductor Carl St. Clair was premiered at the gala opening concert of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Orange Country Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, CA. Nine New Bagatelles, commissioned by Friends of New Music/Music Teachers’ Association of California and premiered by four student pianists in Los Angeles in July 2006.

Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973-2008. In 1983 he was named a full professor and was Chairman of the Composition Department from 1998 to 2003. In the fall of 1994 the University of Michigan named him the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition.

In addition to their performances, Bolcom and Morris have recorded two dozen albums together. Their first one, After the Ball, garnered a Grammy nomination for Joan Morris. Their most recent recordings are two albums of songs by lyricist E. Y. “Yip” Harburg and Gus Kahn on Original Cast Records and Bolcom’s complete cabaret songs, written with lyricist Arnold Weinstein, on Centaur.

JENNIFER HIGDON
Coming to the wind band and ensemble from a background of orchestra, chamber music and opera, I have often marvelled how divorced from the “real” world of music we still are, but there are signs of rapprochement. One of America’s leading composers, Jennifer Higdon, is arranging two of her very successful concerti for soloists and symphony orchestra.

Higdon will arrange her Oboe Concerto for Wind Ensemble and Soloist for the University of Michigan. The work will be premiered during the 2008-09 season. "The President's Own" United States Marine Band has commissioned Higdon to create an arrangement of her Percussion Concerto for concert band. The work will be premiered in May 2009.

PETER CHILDS WORK STREAMED  
British composer Peter Childs is currently on the faculty of MIT and is composer in residence with New England Philharmonic Orchestra  His work Triptych for Wind Ensemble can be heard here.

Peter Child Triptych, 2007, 10'
Co-commissioned by the wind ensembles of Emory University, MIT, New England Conservatory, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Texas at Austin, and Yale University.

Commissioned by a consortium of seven major universities nation-wide (initiated by MIT) in honor of Frank Battisti’s 75^th birthday, this fresh three-movement continuum piece is surely slated to enter the wind ensemble repertoire. A chorale-like prelude with brilliant declamatory statements in upper woodwinds, piano and harp set the initial mood of the piece before giving way to a middle dance section that is both scherzo-like and serious in character. The work ends with a long exhale of repeated descending phrases, all quiet and in shifting instrumentation (including alto flute and contra bassoon) and married with delicate mallet percussion sonorities. The sonic images continually shift as a light saxophone choir and harp assist the percussion bringing the piece to a delicate murmured conclusion.

MUSIC, MY LIFE, MY GIFT
Cory Parkinson writes:

MUSIC, MY LIFE, MY GIFT by Don Owens (2008), is a piece for wind ensemble and choir, written on commission from Downers Grove South High School in Downers Grove, IL,  for the school's Wind Ensemble and A Cappella Choir, Craig and Joy Belt-Roselieb, directors. The text was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the commission was supported by the Spirit of Music Fund in honor of the Sammell Family. The piece is of college level difficulty (I would rate it a "5"), and is about 9 minutes long.

It is comprised of modern tonalities, difficult rhythms, frequently changing meters, and makes wide use of instrumental soli, duets, and small group soli. The piece is at a slow tempo (1/4 note = 60) however the fast rhythms make it feel much faster, and provides an exciting drive. The percussion choir is extremely involved, almost always playing and providing interludes/transitions between musical sections, utilizing many instruments and interesting techniques, such as stick-clicks. The choir utilizes modern techniques such as aleatoric spoken patterns, disjunct counterpoint, and progressive part-writing. A piano part is included to emphasize choral and instrumental parts, as is a rehearsal reduction of the choral parts. The text is conveyed well. and the meaning is clear: music is a gift that shan't be taken for granted, and should be treasured for all it's worth.

Director Craig Roselieb and I had the pleasure of editing the text, and were both touched by the sincerity of the words and how they apply to all musicians. There is an interesting aleatoric, improvisatory section in which the choir improvises sung or spoken motives based on the text, while the band slowly transitions back into more familiar thematic material. This can be challenging for high school groups, but it certainly is a hallmark of Professor Owens' work.

Professor Don Owens ("D.O" to his friends and students) is a professor emeritus at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, and a close personal friend of mine. He guest conducts extensively throughout the Chicagoland area at high schools, and is frequently commissioned by Chicago-area high schools, among other performance ensembles. His band works are contemporary, yet accessible, and acts as a great gateway, or even chainlink, to more modernistic works. He frequently bends and stretches tonality, without completely tossing it aside, and he always adds certain whimsical elements; such as aleatory, improvised sections, or innovative percussion (bowing vibes, etc.)

His work is also academically intersting to analyze and D.O. is also known for treating the percussion as a separate "choir" (for those who subscribe to the Persichetti/Adler/Kennan theory of instrumental choirs) by always offering it a prominent rhythmic framework that ties his pieces together. And he does it very effectively, without going overboard, as is so easy to do with percussion, and without making his work seem thrown together. He truly is a master of instrumentation "bandstration," form, and his own unique brand of harmony. it has been a pleasure of mine to work with him on the "Music, My Life, My Gift" project. At the time, I was a senior at Downers Grove South High School, and was already a successful and accomplished composer, as well as a member of both the choir and wind ensemble (as pianist), so the school invited me to contribute motivic material to this piece, which is featured throughout the course of the piece.

Overall, I think this piece is a great contribution to the sadly underdeveloped realm of band+choir repertoire, and definitely sets itself apart from the existing literature in the band/choral realm(s). There are not many pieces under 10 minutes for band and choir, and the ones that DO exist are not always appropriate, however, this piece is definitely applicable to almost any concert program. A distinguished career and a wealth of knowledge have all contributed to this D.O.'s legacy, which is his music for band and other ensembles. This piece is a true gem, in my opinion--a genre busting, fun-filled journey that truly expresses its message of music being a truly priceless gift. it was a joy to assist in composing it (however small the contribution was), a real treat (and challenge!) to perform as the pianist, and it truly spoke to the community and the family it was written in honor of. I hope this piece receives many, MANY more performances, as it certainly does deserve it. I would recommend it best at the college level, or for extremely advanced high schools (as mine was). Please contact the composer if you're interested in performing this piece by emailing him at: donowens1@mac.com.

--review by Mr. Cory Parkinson, freshman at the University of Michigan, BMus--Compostion & BMus--Music Education. Cory graduated from Downers Grove South High School in 2008, and is a seven-time awardwinning composer, pianist, vocalist, and music educator/conductor. You can read more about him and his work at: www.myspace.com/coryparkinsonmusic. He can be contacted by email at: corypark@umich.e`du.

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