Wind Ensemble Thursday, October 9, 2025 ∙ 7:30 pm ∙ UNCG Auditorium

Masquerade

Anna Clyne

In 2010, Clyne met Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, at the Cabrillo Festival of Music in Santa Cruz. When the BBC invited Alsop to be the first female conductor for the Final Night of Proms, the BBC also invited Clyne to compose a piece to open the occasion.

Clyne wrote Masquerade for performance on the Final Night of Proms, a large concert featuring fan-favorite music as well as many nationalistic songs. The Final Night of Proms acts as a representation of British culture. It has been changed and adapted over the years by the people of Britain, and to be asked to write a piece to be performed at the concert is an incredible honor.

Clyne wrote Masquerade, inspired by the masquerade balls that were found in 18th-century promenade concerts. These concerts were held in London’s pleasure gardens, which were entertainment venues that offered music, dancing, dining, and more, and would often feature a wide variety of ensembles performing simultaneously across the gardens. This layout allowed the guests to walk through the gardens and experience a variety of different music. Clyne’s composition evokes the same excited sense of celebration that the guests would feel at these promenade concerts. The piece has two primary themes: the first is an original melody written by Clyne, and the second is an old English country dance and drinking song, “Juice of Barley.”

In This Breath

Shuying Li

Originally from China, Shuying Li is a composer, educator, and artistic director currently on the faculty at California State University, Sacramento. Previously, she directed the Composition and Music Theory Program at Gonzaga University and served as research faculty at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Li holds degrees from the Hartt School of Music and the University of Michigan. Li’s works have been widely performed across the world by major orchestras and ensembles including “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, the Seattle Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

In This Breath was premiered by the Baylor University Wind Ensemble at the March 2025 CBDNA National Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. It was composed in memory of Glen Adsit. Li offers the following regarding the piece:

“My nature is the nature of the cloud—the nature of no birth and no death. Just as it is impossible for a cloud to die, it’s impossible for me to die. I enjoy contemplating my continuation body, just as the cloud enjoys watching the rain fall and become the river far below. If you look closely at yourself, you will see how you too are continuing me in some way. If you breathe in and out, and you find peace, happiness, and fulfillment, you know I am always with you, whether my physical body is still alive or not. I am continued in my many friends, students, and monastic disciples.” Thich Nhat Hanh - The Art of Living

This quotation comes from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Living. This book is a collection of the Vietnamese monk’s ruminations on life and death that guided my partner Glen Adsit through his personal struggles when confronted with his own mortality. As well as being my beloved life partner and musical collaborator, Glen was a beloved figure in the music community who touched the lives of countless collaborators and students. In the wake of Glen’s sudden passing in January 2024 we have all become the rain to Glen’s cloud. His inextinguishable spirit and profound influence continue to resonate deeply within all of us. Although his physical body is no longer with us, we now constitute his continuation body and are charged with continuing his legacy of support and love for one another.

This piece is a tribute to Glen, the physical life we shared together, and the new life we share as I continue his legacy in my own way. It reflects the profound love and connection we share, both personally and through our collaborative musical endeavors. The piece is lyrical and tender, inviting listeners into the intimate emotional spaces Glen and I navigated together. It captures the essence of Glen's loving spirit—missed by many, cherished by those who experienced his warmth and guidance, and still apparent in the life and work of his family, colleagues, and students. It is both a celebration of Glen’s life and the enduring bond he and I share and a tribute to the legacy of love and artistic collaboration that he left behind for all of us to continue together. Glen Adsit was a conductor and trombonist. He served as the director of bands at The Hartt School and the national president of the College Band Directors National Association.

As the piece concludes, the ensemble decrescendos to silence making space for a solo trombone crescendo as a tribute to Glen Adsit, a trombonist, and his enduring legacy.

Note by Shuying Li and Patty Saunders

The Bird-While

Gala Flagello

Gala Flagello is an American composer, educator, and nonprofit director. A passionate educator, Flagello co-founded the nonprofit contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest. Her compositions routinely uplift environmental advocacy, mental health, and gender equity while her teaching encourages students to develop works from broad composing influences while including visual art and technology.

Written as a concerto for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and symphonic winds, Flagello’s The Bird-While is based on the environmental poem “Acolytes in the Bird-While” by Michigan poet Keith Taylor. The piece is a three-movement celebration of the environment that explores Michigan-specific flora and fauna and the enduring realities of climate change. Flagello explains that she “aimed to write a concerto for an unconventional group of instruments that demonstrates their virtuosity while providing a platform for awareness of and education around environmental and climate justice.”

The title of each movement is taken from Taylor’s poem. Inspired by the pileated woodpecker’s five-note call and the repeating redstart warbler high note screech, the first movement, “Avian Gods,” celebrates these Michigan species in two-, three-, and five-note groupings. The second movement, “Fragile, Vanishing Gifts,” includes thematic material based on Flagello’s Moon Dream written for solo soprano saxophone. In the movement, each solo voice is introduced independently before coming together as a metaphor for the tender balance between the individual and the whole. The third and final movement, “Survive,” is a tribute to Flagello’s best friend and fellow horn player, Marina Krol Hodge, who had suddenly passed away. Flagello writes that this loss left her “pondering my own ability to weather life’s storms.” Written as a question and a call to action, the third movement is dedicated to Marina and celebrates her life through featured horn solos and a brass chorale. Flagello also quotes Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita no. 3 in E Major for solo violin, BWV 1006.1 to highlight the surviving presence of music across history.

Five percent of all sale and rental proceeds from The Bird-While are donated to the Bird Center of Michigan. The Bird-While was commissioned by Hub New Music and premiered by the University of Michigan Symphony Band.

Note by Gala Flagello and Patty Saunders

Sensemayá

Silvestre Revueltas

Silvestre Revueltas was a Mexican composer, violinist, and teacher. After completing his education, Revueltas worked several jobs before traveling to Spain in 1937 to support the Spanish Republic, which had fallen into a civil war the previous year. He took this trip as a member of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios or LEAR, a collective of artists who believed in art for the masses, held Communist ideals, and championed social causes of the time. Revueltas met poet Nicolás Guillén on this trip at La Casa Kostakowski, a local salon gathering place for creatives. It was there that Guillén read "Sensemayá" (1934) and inspired Revueltas to compose his own piece of the same name.

Revueltas wrote Sensemayá in 1937 and drew direct inspiration from the Guillén poem. Guillén, an Afro-Cuban poet and activist, based his poem on the Afro-Cuban Palo Monte religion, in which he depicts the ritualistic sacrifice of a snake. The poem is auditory, meaning it is more effective when heard rather than read, due to its rhythm and meter. Many of these rhythmic ideas translate directly into Revueltas’s musical interpretation. Phrases such as “Sensemayá, la culebra, sensemayá,” and “¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!” are used as rhythmic motifs throughout the piece. The piece builds to the end until the coda brings down the final blow, killing the snake.

Note by Jaden Brown