Jug Blues & Fat Pickin'
Don Freund (b. 1947)
Jug Blues and Fat Pickin' was written in 1986 and revised in 1990. Originally commissioned for the celebration of Tennessee's "Homecoming'86," it is without peer in the wind band repertoire. Inspired by recording of the Memphis Jug Band, the most recorded and perhaps most popular of the jug bands to spring up on Memphis's Beale Street in the late 1920s, and bluegrass banjo pickin', Freund's composition is a unique musical offering that melds "blues elements" with minimalist technique.
The blues should howl, whine, and wail like a harmonica solo, with the same freedom and indulgence one might hear in an unaccompanied blues improvisation. The entire blues must have an unmetered cadenza-like quality. The blues should never drag; the slowed-down sections must have great color and intensity of expression, whether sighing or wailing. The Pickin' doesn't need to be too fast, but has to have the kind of easy-going, self-gratifying, clear-headed virtuosity that characterized great pickers. The performer should communicate a spirit of good, clean, exuberant fun.
- Program Note by composer
Networks
Théo Schmitt (b. 1991)
NETWORKS is a musical reflection on our world, a world that is full of astonishingly connected systems. Music, through harmonic developments, rhythmic patterns and melodic combinations, is full of interconnectivities and I wanted to fully exploit this aspect to represent other network systems through the filter of my composer's imagination. The piece travels through three very distinct movements, each depicting a different type of network.
The first movement is titled after the fungus Mycelium, which grows underground and connects other organisms together, such as trees. The trees then use the fungus to exchange information and nutrients with each other. With its ever-growing branches, mycelium is known to be the largest living organism on Earth. The starting Contrabass Clarinet solo swells to represent the Earth's purr - we are deep beneath the surface; nature is sleeping. After the Alto Flute and the English Horn introduce this mysterious world with a sort of incantation, the Contrabassoon sings a subterranean growing line which spreads slowly to the whole ensemble until the last chord. Each entrance starts a new branch, which grows even further, resulting in a very contrapuntal web. The constant flux of energy traveling through the fungus is symbolized by the unstoppable 16th motion. In the middle of the piece, the brass instruments awaken in a powerful elevation, using the natural tuning to represent the mightiness of nature while the Piccolo solo takes back the original Contrabassoon's line. It is followed by a grandiose hymn which continues blooming. The musical branches finally resolve with a chord which spreads from the very bottom to the very top of the ensemble, representing the connections between the deepest roots and the highest treetops. This marvelous network slowly fades out to bring back the starting purr.
The second movement is inspired by the electric dance of the neurons in our brains. A long and low pedal note gives a dreamy atmosphere to the opening while the Horns, Clarinets and Flutes create a sort of pulsing magnetic field. The Trumpets and Oboes appear and disappear in quick gestures like abrupt changes of directions. The Alto Saxophone solo flies peacefully over this strange landscape to introduce a lyrical theme. Then, an agitated and playful passage occurs suddenly like an awakening. It quickly leads to a repetitive but unpredictable rhythmic pattern; the dance of the mind begins. The agitation grows and the music becomes progressively full of sparkle and lightning, as more neurons connect together. The lyrical theme hovers over this glittering world to finally lead to a gigantic firework. Following this climax, the atmosphere becomes calm and serene. The primal electric pulsation comes back through the timid sparkling network of notes that remains. The movement disappears as if it was only a dream.
The third movement is a musical caricature of the internet. It starts with an Oboe solo mimicking the dial-up modem sounds. The entire piece is then an overwhelming flux of data spurting from the ensemble. Morse code-like rhythms are used to describe machines talking with each other while dodecaphonic structures are used to illustrate this mathematical and complex world. The minor-major chord is also widely used to represent both sides of the internet: the normal web and the dark web. This absurd collage leads to a groovy passage where the melody is chaotically shattered over the entire ensemble like a giant dystopian party. After a sudden Timpani breakdown, the Clarinet starts a cool-crazy-vulgar solo while different sections of the ensemble comment on it. The middle section brings elements from internet-pop culture but presents them in a very distorted way. The flux is constantly interrupted as if the connection lags or freezes. The inappropriate Trombone solo finally conveys an inevitable aspect of the internet: the porn industry. Its over-the-top, orgasm-like last note introduces the last part where the main theme is monstrously played by the lower instruments like Frankenstein himself joining the party while the woodwinds literally overheat under a flood of notes. The whole system overloads and crashes. The network dramatically blows up!
Second Suite in F
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Despite the enduring fame that resulted from his orchestral suite The Planets, Gustav Holst spent most of his life in relative obscurity. In fact, the attention he received for The Planets came as quite a surprise, and an unwelcome one at that. Not only was he a shy and humble man ill-equipped to adequately handle the onslaught of reporters and admirers, he also greatly feared the pressure that success placed on a composer. In the midst of the activity that followed the debut of the piece, Holst wrote to a close friend, “If nobody likes your work, you have to go on for the sake of the work. And you’re in no danger of letting the public repeat yourself.” Indeed, for the remainder of his professional life, Holst continued to develop his distinct compositional voice, taking care not to simply copy the successful formula of The Planets. Though he went on to create strikingly original music, his misgivings about fame and public approval were realized, as he never again enjoyed the recognition The Planets brought him.
However, Holst is also fondly remembered as the composer of three of the most significant early works composed specifically for concert band (or military band, as he designated it), including two Suites and the Prelude and Scherzo, Hammersmith. His work was deeply influenced by English folk songs, a trend that began as early as 1905 when fellow British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams began collecting these songs from native singers throughout the English countryside. Holst’s Second Suite for Military Band is based on several of these songs, as well as a handful of traditional dance tunes. Initially composed in 1911, it was not until a subsequent revision at the request of the Royal Military School of Music at Twyckenham that it was finally premiered on June 30, 1922, at Royal Albert Hall in London, conducted by Lieutenant Hector E. Adkins. Since that performance, the Suite has become a cornerstone of the band repertoire and remains one of the most performed works by the ensemble across the globe.
The seven traditional melodies Holst sets throughout the suite are spread across four movements. It opens with a characteristically British march that begins with a lively Morris Dance entitled “Glorishears” and moves directly into two other folk songs in succession, “Swansea Town” and “Cloudy Banks.” The movement repeats the first two tunes once more before coming to a close. The second movement, subtitled Song without Words, employs the beautiful song “I’ll Love My Love,” that recounts the tale of a young sailor who is sent to sea by his parents to keep him apart from his sweetheart of whom they don’t approve. The brief, yet bold third movement, Song of the Blacksmith, features jagged syncopations and mixed meters, and comes complete with anvil strikes. The last movement, Fantasia on the “Dargason,” is based on a Renaissance dance melody better known today as “The Irish Washerwoman.” After sending the tune through several instrumental variations, Holst transitions to another familiar melody, “Greensleeves.” In a stroke of compositional brilliance, the composer then weaves the two dances together before ending with a final fragmented statement of the Dargason, this time packaged in a capricious duet between the piccolo and tuba.
-Program note courtesy of the United States Marine Band archive
Until the Scars
John Mackey (b. 1973)
Until the Scars is an adaptation of the first movement of Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band, a work based on the ancient story of The Odyssey by Homer.
After ten years of bloody siege, the Trojan War was won because of Odysseus’ gambit: A horse full of soldiers, disguised as an offering. The people of Troy took it in as a trophy, and were slaughtered. Odysseus gave the Greeks victory, and they left the alien shores for home. But Odysseus’ journey would take as long as the war itself. Homer called the ocean on which Odysseus sailed a wine-dark sea, and for the Greek king it was as murky and disorienting as its name; he would not find his way across it without first losing himself.
In this section of the story, Odysseus, having filled his ship with the spoils of war, leaves for home, but he carried another, more dangerous, cargo: pride. This movement opens with his triumphal march, and continues as he and his crew maraud through every port of call on their way home.
- Program Note from publisher
O magnum mysterium
Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943)
Born in Colfax, Washington, to Danish parents, Morten Lauridsen is the most frequently performed of America’s choral music composers. He has been a professor of music at the University of Southern California for over thirty years. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the National Medal of Arts, several honorary doctorates, and was named an “American Choral Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts.
O Magnum Mysterium, commissioned by Marshall Rutter in honor of his wife, Terry Knowles, has had several thousand performances throughout the world and dozens of recordings since its 1994 premiere by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. I have also arranged the work for solo voice and piano or organ (recorded on Northwest Journey by Jane Thorngren accompanied by the composer), men's chorus and brass ensemble; H. Robert Reynolds's stunning adaptation for symphonic winds was recently premiered in Minneapolis by the Thornton Wind Symphony.
For centuries, composers have been inspired by the beautiful O Magnum Mysterium text depicting the birth of the new-born King amongst the lowly animals and shepherds. This affirmation of God's grace to the meek and the adoration of the Blessed Virgin are celebrated in my setting through a quiet song of profound inner joy.
- Program Note by composer
Mannin Veen
Haydn Wood (1882-1959)
Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, was a holiday mecca in Victorian times for people from Northern England. Even before Haydn Wood (1882-1959) was born, his family had regularly journeyed there from Slaithwaite, Yorkshire. At the beginning of the 1885 tourist season, Haydn's elder brother Harry was hired as leader and soloist of the large orchestra at the Falcon Cliff Castle in Douglas. That summer, Sabra Wood brought the entire family, including her little son Haydn, age 3, to proudly watch and listen to Harry and the orchestra. From the age of 7, Haydn studied the violin with Harry. He loved being a member of Harry's Students Orchestra and performed regularly on the Isle of Man.
By the late 1920s, Haydn Wood was becoming known as a conductor of his own music, and he conducted concerts at the Palace from then and throughout the 1930s. On June 19, 1927, in a huge Manx (the common demonym for the Isle of Man) Celtic Concert in which Harry was greatly involved, he conducted the Palace Orchestra in A Health to All Who Cross the Main for baritone, chorus and orchestra, with lyrics by Manxman Henry Hanby Hay, which he had composed expressly for the Manx Homecoming Celebration.
It was not until 1931 that Haydn Wood started composing his large-scale Manx orchestral pieces. The first of these to be played in Douglas was Mannin Veen, on July 9, 1933, conducted by the composer in an exciting concert which included the second and third movements of his new Concerto for Violin, performed by the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with the Palace Grand Orchestra. Mannin Veen was eventually published in 1937 and is a classic band work of the post-Holst, pre-Hindemith era of band works; it draws on the composer’s experiences of Manx culture when his family lived on the Isle of Man, this autonomous island situated between Ireland and the English mainland in the Irish Sea. The composition exhibits both symphonic grandeur and Celtic tunefulness, often featuring the principal clarinet.
On the occasion of the first BBC broadcast in February 1933 of Mannin Veg Veen, Haydn Wood was quoted as saying to the Isle of Man Times: “The critics were struck by the beauty of the national airs. I feel very proud and gratified that our tunes are so appreciated … It was my original intention to call the work Mannin Veg Veen (Dear Little Isle of Man) but I found that people would insist on pronouncing ‘veg’ as a waiter does in a cheap restaurant when he bawls down the lift for ‘meat and a couple of veg.’ I decided to abandon the ‘potatoes and peas’ portion of the title.”
- Program Note from University of North Texas Wind Ensemble concert program, 8 October 2019
Siciliano and Rondo from Prelude, Siciliano and Rondo
Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)
Born to a family of shoemakers in 1917, British composer Malcolm Arnold became a sought-after composer and trumpet performer before his twenty-fifth birthday. Arnold completed his Little Suite for Brass in 1963, adding to the competitive repertoire of British-style brass bands. Consisting of three short contrasting movements, the piece is used to this day as a “test piece” in various brass band competitions – providing a single work that all competing bands are required to perform. This suite was transcribed for full concert band in 1979 and given the name Prelude, Siciliano and Rondo showcasing John P. Paynter’s considerable skill as a transcriber as well as his apparent disapproval of the Oxford comma.
- Program Note by Christopher M. Nelson for Indiana University All-Campus Band concert program, April 2023
Wind Ensemble Conductor
Derek Shapiro
Derek Shapiro is director of bands and assistant professor of music at Virginia Tech where he conducts the Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble and teaches conducting. Prior to his appointment at Virginia Tech, he has held positions at Eastern Michigan University, Georgia Southern University, and Cypress Creek High School in Orlando, FL. A strong advocate for music education with nine years of public school experience, Shapiro has taught at the middle school and high school levels.
He is the co-lead editor of the award-winning Original Études for the Developing Conductor, a peer-reviewed Creative Commons-licensed collection of supplemental études designed to enhance contemporary conducting educational resources by amplifying the voices of composers from historically excluded groups. He has been published in the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series and has presented at clinics across the United States.
Shapiro received a Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music in conducting from The University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Keene State College. He is a member of the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the Virginia Music Educators Association.
Basssett High School Director of Bands
Trey Harris
Trey Harris, a native of Florida, was raised in Elizabethton, Tennessee, where he attended Elizabethton High School. He is a graduate of East Tennessee State University with a BA in Music Education. While at ETSU, he was a member of the Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Trumpet Ensemble, Faculty Brass Quintet, Men’s Choir, Mixed Chorale, and the 7 Bucs Worth Men’s Ensemble. He studied trumpet with Dr. James O’Donnell.
Mr. Harris started his career as the Assistant Director at Pulaski County High School in 1995. There he was the director of the Concert Band, Marching Band, and Winter Guard. In 1996 he began his tenure with the Bassett band program. During this time, the Bassett bands have grown from 75 students to over 160. They have consistently received superior ratings from all ensembles at the VBODA Concert and Marching Assessments, as well as numerous local, regional, state, and national awards. The BHS Marching Band has been named the USBands Group 5 Open State Champions for the last seven years. During this time, they have also finished in the top five in the nation in Group 5 Open at the USBands National Championships finishing second three separate times. In 2012 the Symphonic Band was honored to play at the Virginia Music Educators State Convention held at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia.
Mr. Harris has served as a clinician, judge, conductor, and designer across the country, involved with groups from Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Kentucky. Additionally, he served as a staff member with the 2009 and 2010 All-American Marching Band as well as the Wind Track director for the Western Carolina University Summer Symposium. He has also been a part of many podcast recordings on The Marching Roundtable.
Mr. Harris resides in Bassett, Virginia with his wife, Sheri, and their two daughters Anne Catherine and Addison.