Funding for tonight’s performance was provided, in part, by the John R. Locke Endowment for Excellence in Music. For more information on giving to the UNCG School of Music, please visit https://vpa.uncg.edu/music/giving/
Folk Song Suite
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Originally composed in 1923, Folk Song Suite has become a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire. Its enduring appeal lies in the thoughtful way Vaughan Williams engages with the folk melodies, not merely arranging them but shaping them into something structurally and artistically substantial. The tunes come from songs he collected throughout rural England, and he transforms them through modal color, layered textures, and carefully balanced scoring. While the character of each melody remains recognizable, the pacing and architecture reveal that Vaughan Williams is doing more than preserving folk material—he is crafting a cohesive, expressive work with genuine artistic weight. The first movement, “Seventeen Come Sunday,” features three tunes: “Seventeen Come Sunday,” “Pretty Caroline,” and “Dives and Lazarus.” The primary melody has a buoyant, dance-like energy, while the additional tunes are woven into the texture through contrapuntal interplay and shifting sonorities. The second movement, “Intermezzo,” centers on “My Bonny Boy,” introduced with a warm, lyrical quality before giving way to “Green Bushes,” a lighter, more rhythmic tune that provides contrast. The final movement, “Folk Songs from Somerset,” returns to a march-like character and incorporates several melodies, including “Blow Away the Morning Dew,” “High Germany,” “The Tree So High,” and “John Barleycorn.” The opening is lively and forward‑driving, shaped by crisp articulation and energetic pacing. “High Germany” brings contrast with its broader melodic lines in the low brass. The trio section highlights “The Tree So High,” where the texture thins and the woodwinds take on a more prominent role. The suite concludes with the bold, confident character of “John Barleycorn,” closing the work with strength and clarity.
Note by Molly Allman
Sure-fire
Catherine Likhuta
Catherine Likhuta is a Ukrainian Australian composer, pianist, and recording artist who frequently writes highly emotional and programmatic music. In 2023, an international consortium led by Lanette López Compton and the Oklahoma State University commissioned Likhuta to write a piece. Being inspired by her growing record of pieces for band and pieces featuring horn, she wanted to write a piece to showcase her love for both and how the two can work together. This piece would end up being her concerto for horn and wind band, Sure-Fire. Likhuta knew the piece would be inspired by fire for a while before writing it. Each of the three movements emobies a different aspect of fire as well as incorporating elements from Likhuta’s personal life. The first movement, “The Spark,” was inspired by horn player Adam Unsworth, Likhuta’s first horn collaborator, and his exceptional jazz playing. It is meant to inspire listeners to look for exciting things on the horizon as well as reflect on her horn composition career, which began with Unsworth. The second movement is titled “Lament in Ashes” and draws inspiration from the bushfires that ravaged Australia in 2019–20. Likhuta describes this movement as “an emotional outcry through music, when one cannot find the words through which to grieve. Finally, the third movement “Firecracker” provides an explosive, fast-paced finale to the piece. Inspired by horn player Peter Luff, this section features frequent conversation between the soloist and ensemble with a combination of classical and jazz styles. The piece is technically challenging for the horn soloist and embodies the excitement, grief, and anger described by Likhuta. The title Sure-Fire comes from Likhuta’s husband who suggested the name after hearing that her inspiration would be fire.
Note by Jaden Brown and Catherine Likhuta
Networks
Théo Schmitt
Théo Schmitt is a Swiss composer, conductor, and educator based in Los Angeles, where he works extensively as a studio conductor for film, television, and video game recording sessions. His creative output spans symphonic and wind ensemble works as well as large-scale audiovisual projects. An active collaborator with filmmakers, Schmitt was a prizewinner in the 9th Swiss National Conducting Competition and has recently been nominated for the Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards, the Jerry Goldsmith Awards, and the International Digital Music Festival of Shanghai. In 2024, he co-founded the Unprecedented Music Association to promote new music throughout the Los Angeles area. Networks, commissioned by the Swiss Music Association for the National Youth Wind Orchestra in 2023, offers a musical exploration of three interconnected systems that shape contemporary life: mycelium, neurons, and the internet. Each movement examines a different kind of network—natural, biological, and digital—highlighting both its potential and its vulnerability. The opening movement, “Mycelium,” takes inspiration from the vast fungal networks that sustain ecosystems beneath the forest floor. Schmitt evokes this organic growth through overlapping entrances and a gradually expanding texture, forming what he describes as a “contrapuntal web.” Constant energy flows through shifting harmonies and natural tuning, suggesting the invisible yet essential connections linking roots, soil, and towering trees, before the movement settles into a unified conclusion. The second movement, “Neurons,” mirrors the electrical activity of the human brain. A low pedal tone and gently pulsing figures in the horns, clarinets, and flutes support a lyrical alto saxophone solo. Sudden bursts of rhythmic unpredictability follow, symbolizing the rapid firing and branching of neural pathways. After reaching a climactic surge, the movement gradually dissipates, fading as if the entire episode were a brief, flickering thought. The final movement, “Internet,” presents a vivid—and at times satirical—portrait of digital life. It opens with dial-up–inspired gestures in the solo oboe and rhythmic patterns reminiscent of computer code, with major and minor harmonies colliding to hint at both the visible web and its shadowy implications. A driving, groove-based section propels the music forward as fragmented ideas ricochet across the ensemble in a chaotic, dystopian whirl. Cultural nods, distorted signals, and exaggerated sonorities accumulate until the main theme bursts forth in the low voices—only for the entire system to overload in a dramatic sonic collapse.
Note by Patty Saunders
Abigail Pack
Dr. Abigail Pack, Professor of Horn at UNCG and a native of Roanoke, Virginia, received her training from East Carolina University (BMA), University of Iowa (MM), and University of Wisconsin-Madison (DMA) where she was a Bolz Teaching Fellow. Before assuming her current position at UNCG she was horn faculty at James Madison University from 2001 to 2008. She has also been on faculty at Knox College in Galesburg, Il, Western State College in Gunnison, CO and in the Gunnison Watershed School District. An avid symphony player Dr. Pack has held positions with the Barton Symphony Orchestra, Quad Cities Symphony Orchestra, Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra, Green-Bay Symphony Orchestra, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and currently has a position with the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest Chamber Orchestra, the Greensboro Opera, Amici Musicorum (chamber orchestra), and the Opera Roanoke Orchestra. Other orchestral subbing engagements include the Greensboro Symphony, Winston Salem Symphony, and the Charlotte Symphony. Other venues have included performances with the Western Piedmont Wind Symphony, North Carolina Brass Band, the Iowa Brass Quintet, Western Slope Brass Band, and Massanutten Brass Band. Performance and presentation highlights include the National Flute Association (Washington DC with the Montpelier Winds), the International Horn Symposium (University of Cape Town, South Africa, Ithaca, NY, Montreal, Canada), the International Midwest Band and Orchestra Conference (Chicago 2009, 2022), International Double Reed Society (Athens, GA), Western International Band Clinic (2022), the American Band College (2017, 2021, 2024) and The Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts (Washington). She is a founding member of System 5 Brass Quintet and CORalina Horn Quartet and can be heard on the Centaur label.
Molly Allman
Molly Allman is pursuing her Master of Music degree in instrumental conducting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), where she studies with Dr. Jonathan Caldwell and serves as a music education graduate teaching assistant. In this role, she supports the mission of the UNCG School of Music through teaching and service to the music education area. Prior to her graduate studies, Molly taught band and choir for three years in the North Carolina public schools.
Jonathan Caldwell
Dr. Jonathan Caldwell is director of bands and associate professor of conducting at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band and teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting. Prior to his appointment at UNCG, Dr. Caldwell held positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and Garner Magnet High School (Garner, NC). Ensembles under Dr. Caldwell’s guidance have performed for the College Band Directors National Association, the North Carolina Music Educators Association, the National Band Association–Wisconsin Chapter, and in Carnegie Hall. His writings have been published in the Journal of Band Research, the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series, and the International Trombone Association Journal. Original Études for the Developing Conductor, written in collaboration with Derek Shapiro, was published in 2023. The book was awarded “Highly Commended” in the inaugural Impact Award category by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (UK). Dr. Caldwell has given presentations for the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the College Band Directors National Association, the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Förderung der Blasmusik (IGEB), and music educator conferences in North Carolina and Virginia. He is a member of the editorial review board for the Journal of Band Research and the Journal of the International Conductors Guild. Dr. Caldwell’s conducting teachers include Michael Haithcock, Michael Votta, Jerry Schwiebert, James Ross, and Tonu Kalam. He is a member of the College Band Directors National Association, the National Band Association, the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (Alpha Rho), Tau Beta Sigma (Beta Eta), Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Kappa Phi.