TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF MUSIC in the

COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS AND COMMUNICATION

presents

On My Way Back: A Multiple Woodwinds Recital

JOSUÉ J. MORA SAXOPHONE, CLARINET, AND BASSOON

in collaboration with FAITH DEBOW, PIANO

GILBERT GARZA, SAXOPHONE ELIZABETH MORA, CLARINETS

LEO BENAVIDES, OBOE JOSHUA WEISBROD-TORRES

KEVIN RODRIGUEZ, BASS CLARINET _______________________

FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2016 6 P.M.

MUSIC BUILDING RECITAL HALL

P R O G R A M Tachycardia Marc Mellits Gilbert Garza, saxophone (b. 1966)

Fuzzy Bird Sonata Takashi Yoshimatsu II. Sing, bird Faith DeBow, piano (b. 1953) Clarinet Sonata, op. 167 Camille Saint-Saëns I. Allegretto (1835-1921) II. Allegro Animato III. Lento IV. Molto Allegro

Faith DeBow, piano

I N T E R M I S S I O N

Sonata for Two Clarinets Francis Poulenc I. Presto (1899-1963) II. Andante III. Vif Elizabeth Mora, A clarinet Concerto for Bassoon Carl Maria von Weber and Orchestra in F Major, Op. 75 (1786-1826)

I. Allegro ma non troppo Faith DeBow, piano

Four-Letter-Word Robbie McCarthy I. First Offense (b. 1988) II. Second Chance III. Final Warning

Leo Benavides, oboe Elizabeth Mora, clarinet

Joshua Wiesbrod-Torres, saxophone Kevin Rodriguez, bass clarinet

PROGRAM NOTES Tachycardia – Marc Mellits

Tachycardia is the result of a 2013-2014 consortium by highly regarded saxophonist Dave Camwell and Stephen Page.

Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed living composers in the United States. From Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to prestigious music festivals in Europe and the US, Mellits’ music is a constant mainstay on programs throughout the world. His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener. Mellits' music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience. “This was music as sensual as it was intelligent; I saw audience members swaying, nodding, making little motions with their hands” (New York Press). He started composing very early, and was writing piano music long before he started formal piano lessons at age 6. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood. Mellits often is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections. His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colourful, and always has a sense of forward motion.

Marc Mellits is an Assistant Proferssor of music at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters, and spends significant time in Romania.

- Notes by Andrew Russo & Gerald Blackhammer Fuzzy Bird Sonata — Takashi Yoshimatsu

Takashi Yoshimatsu is Japanese composer from Tokyo. He is a self-taught composer as he studied in the engineering

department of Keio University. Through his studies is was performed in multiple jazz and rock groups at the university. He objects to the “unmusical” character prevalent in “modern music” and composes with tonality and melody.

The sonata was written for Nobuya Sugawa in 1991, who is one of the most distinguished Japanese saxophonists. The “Fuzzy Bird”, sonata as translated from Japanese, suggests a bird floats freely between the three styles of music: classical, jazz, and ethnic, as though the boundaries are blurred or fuzzy. Reflecting the ‘fuzzy’ image of the bird, the composer uses a variety of musical materials without strictness.

The second movement, Sing, bird, allows the saxophone to sing the melody “freely,” while the piano provides an improvisatory effect in the right hand over ostinato (a repeated phrase or rhythm) in the left hand.

- Notes taken from Brett Pitemel, Woodwind Specialist, Revised by Josué J. Mora

Clarinet Sonata, op. 167 – Camille Saint-Saëns

In the last year of his life, at the age of 85, Camille Saint-Saëns was still active as a composer and conductor, traveling between Algiers and Paris. Besides a final piano album leaf, his last completed works were three sonatas, one each for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. He sensed that he did not have much time left; he wrote to a friend, "I am using my last energies to add to the repertoire for these otherwise neglected instruments." He intended to write sonatas for another three wind instruments, but was never able to. Saint-Saëns began the pieces early in the year while in Algeria and completed them in April in Paris. He was not alone in wanting to write for these instruments. English composers, such as Holst and Bax, and other French composers, such as Honegger and Milhaud, were also starting to expand the literature for woodwind instruments around the same time. In fact, Saint-Saëns' sonatas have pastoral and humorous moments that are similar to those

others' works, relying on simpler melodies and textures than are found even his earlier chamber works, yet retaining Classical forms for their structure. Although all three sonatas were published before Saint-Saëns' death, they were not premiered until later.

The Sonata for clarinet and piano in E flat major, Op. 167, is cherished by many performers. Saint-Saëns' Clarinet Sonata has four movements, and thus might be said to reach back past the Romantic sonata tradition, with its normal three-movement vessel, to the Classical tradition that Saint-Saëns loved so dearly. The opening melodic strains of the Allegretto first movement float upon a sea of utterly calm eighth note waves in the piano (bobbing up and down in 12/8 meter); the composer is in no hurry to reveal the secrets of the movement, but there is still passion aplenty as we go along, even if the movement as a whole is not especially long. A scherzo movement comes next, taking up A flat major, and then Saint-Saëns provides a Lento in the dark key of E flat minor; its steady half notes and, in time, quarter notes, are so persistent in their slow plodding that we almost feel anguish at their inability to break free from the dirge they create. Much happier, though, is the Molto Allegro fourth movement that follows it without pause. Here the clarinetist is given a chance to whirl and spin to some very florid virtuoso stuff, but at the end it is the quiet tone, and even in fact the very music, of the first movement that the composer uses to close.

- Notes by Mike Magatagan, musescore.com

Sonata for Two Clarinets, op 75 – Francis Poulenc The Poulenc biographer Roger Nichols notes that the composer wrote chamber music throughout his life, and that the pieces fall "conveniently" into three distinct groups: some early sonatas and a Trio for various wind combinations; the 1930s Sextet for Piano and Winds, plus violin-piano and cello-piano sonatas from the Forties; and a group of late sonatas and an Elegy, duo works for individual wind instruments with piano. Poulenc was

generally happier writing for wind instruments than for strings, at least in solo and chamber-music contexts; at various times in his life he abandoned work on several string compositions, including a quartet, apparently because he just didn't think his musical ideas translated well into the string medium. Of the early works, Nichols writes: "[They] are acidly witty, garnishing plain triadic and scalic themes with spicy dissonances...they share something of the spirit of the18th-century divertissement." The 1918 Sonata for Two Clarinets, revised in 1945, calls for one B-Flat instrument and one in A. Its movement headings are typical of the composer, with very strong tempo contrasts, the lively rhythms and high spirits of the two outer movements framing a central, much slower Andante.

The American composer Ned Rorem, a great admirer of Poulenc, quotes Jean Cocteau about the Two-Clarinet Sonata: "It comes out of the silence, and then returns to silence like a cuckoo in the clock." "A cuckoo, yes," Rorem adds, "or a nightingale or a prophet bird. For what the piece owes to Stravinsky's Rossignol or Schumann's Vogel als Prophet is inestimable."

- Notes by Andrea Lamoreaux, Chicago Chamber Musicians Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra – C.M. von Weber

Weber was a composer, pianist, and, as one of the founding members of the "Harmonischer Verein" secret society, eminent music critic. The composer’s father wanted him to be the next Mozart, and, luckily for bassoonists, he followed Mozart in writing an outstanding bassoon concerto. The Mozart and Weber concertos are the two most played pieces in the bassoon repertoire. Concerto in F Major, Op.75 was originally written in 1811. Weber had traveled to Munich and was asked to put on a concert for the Queen. The clarinet was the composer’s favorite wind instrument, and he composed Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra for the outstanding Bärmann, premier clarinetist at the time. After the tremendous success of the Concertino, numerous other

instrumentalists asked Weber to write a concerto for them. The composer took interest in Georg Friedrich Brandt, a soloist on bassoon before joining the Munich orchestra, and wrote the Concerto in F Major. The opening movement is the longest of the concerto and in traditional sonata form.

The orchestra succinctly lays out two highly contrasting themes a noble march and a distinctly lyrical melody. Weber develops both themes with alacrity, lavishing virtuosic passagework upon the soloist, and emphasizing the march tune. He recapitulates the themes and efficiently moves into the coda without offering the soloist a real cadenza.

-Notes taken from Gwendolyn Rehm, academia.edu

Four-Letter-Word – Robbie McCarthy After one glance at the score to Robbie McCarthy’s Four Letter Word, four letters come to mind: B-A-C-H. McCarthy’s modern spin on counterpoint is perfectly suited to the instrumentation of the work, which affords him both the contrast necessary to weave together multiple lines, as well as the capacity to blend these sonorities. This blend particularly emerges in the second movement, in which the layering of voices and subtle changes and relaxations of dissonance evoke the vocal music of the Renaissance. The echoes of Palestrina give way to an interior section of great rhythmic drive and a dancing character. The Final Warning seems akin to a macabre cabaret waltz. The reedy sonority of McCarthy’s instrumentation creates the effect of an eerie calliope on a carousel that ultimately spins out of control.

- Notes taken from Patrick Jankowski, Chamber Music Northwest

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Josué J. Mora is a multiple woodwinds musician and educator. He is currently the instructor of the woodwind methods courses at Texas State University. Josué graduated with Summa Cum Laude honor from Texas State University on Spring 2014 with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Studies with an All-Level Teacher Certification. He had the pleasure to study with wonderful professors that

shaped him into the educator and performer he is today.

During his time at Texas State University, Josué began to discover his passion for multiple woodwind instruments. Even though his primary instrument was saxophone, Josué was able to enroll to take lessons on clarinet and bassoon. He had the pleasure to study with Dr. William Oxford on saxophone, Stephen Girko on clarinet, and with Daris Hale on bassoon. Josué was principal saxophonist in the Wind Symphony, under Dr. Caroline Beatty, in the Fall 2011 and just a year later he was playing bassoon in the same ensemble. It was then when he began to discover the world of a multiple woodwinds musician. Thanks to the advice of his music education professors Dr. Mary Ellen Cavitt and Dr. Amy Simmons, on Spring 2012 Josué enrolled in bassoon lessons with the amazing bassoon professor Daris Hale. This was a turning point in his career and life.

While at Texas State University, Josué was also the recipient of multiple awards, including the Presser Foundation Scholar Award (‘13-‘14), the Outstanding Student in Wind Studies (2014), and the Downbeat Magazine 36th Annual Student Music Awards Classical Group College Undergraduate Award (2012) with the Phoenix Saxophone Quartet.

Josué decided to pursue graduate school right after completing his Bachelor Degree in Music. With the advise from his professors he selected to attend Indiana University Jacobs School of Music to pursue a Master of Music degree in Multiple Woodwinds. Josué decided to make bassoon his primary instrument, as it was the one he needed the most instruction. He studied bassoon under the instruction William Ludwig, clarinet with Howard Klug, and saxophone with Dr. Thomas Walsh.

During his first year at the Jacobs School of Music, Josué was a member of multiple large ensembles, mainly on bassoon, including the Wind Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, Concert Orchestra, University Orchestra, and the Summer Philharmonic Orchestra.

Aside from being involved in large ensembles, Josué had the pleasure to work in multiple chamber groups. In particularly, Josué was the tenor saxophonist for the Melos Saxophone Quartet that won multiple competitions and made it all the way to the final round of the Music Teachers National Association Wind Chamber Competition that was held in Las Vegas, NV in March 2015.

During the summer of 2015, Josué received the invitation to return to Texas State University to teach the woodwind methods classes. With the support and advise from his teachers at Indiana University, Josué decided to take the opportunity. He is truly enjoying teaching college students and younger students at multiple schools throughout San Marcos CISD. The experience has been amazing! Josué will be finishing up with his duties in Texas in the middle of May. He will then embark to Indiana to begin summer school in June.

In preparation to his return to complete his graduate studies at Indiana University, Josué has prepared this Multiple Woodwinds Recital on saxophone, clarinet, and bassoon. Enjoy!

Pianist Faith DeBow is sought after for both solo and collaborative performances as well as choral accompaniment and teaching. She enjoys a vibrant career based in the Central Texas region, where she joined the Texas State University faculty in 2001. She has performed in over a dozen US states and eight countries, and has played solo concerts at the National Conservatory of Panama and for the US Ambassador to Panama. Ms. DeBow’s playing has been heard in outer space at

the International Space Station, performing Christmas music on video for astronauts working there during the holiday season. Ms. DeBow has performed with opera singer Renée Fleming; conductors Peter Bay, Anton Coppola, Craig Hella Johnson, and Sebastian Lang-Lessing; and has performed the works of composers Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, Roberto Sierra, and Michael Schelle. She has also premiered works by Donald Grantham, Cary Ratcliff, Jake Runestad, and John Muehleisen. In 2012, Ms. DeBow commissioned and premiered Brilliant Sky, a solo piano work by Colin Sorgi. She has served as rehearsal pianist in premieres composed by Stephen Paulus, Kevin Puts, Nico Muhly, Tarik O’Regan, Dan Welcher, Eric Banks, and Robert Kyr. Faith maintains a longstanding collaboration with the Grammy®-winning choral ensemble, Conspirare. In May 2016, Ms. DeBow will embark upon a concert and recording project with the choir, featuring the music of Stephen Paulus. Performances will take place in two Texas cities; St. Paul (Minnesota); and two cities in western Canada, Calgary and Edmonton. Ms. DeBow has also performed with the choir in Texas cities such as San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fredericksburg, Round Top, and its home base of Austin. Outside the state, she toured the greater US: New York City, San Francisco, Omaha, Oklahoma City, and Goshen (Indiana); internationally, Copenhagen, Paris, and Saint-Lo (France).

In November 2012, she toured France with Conspirare, where the group gave six invited performances at the Polyfollia Festival and one concert in Paris. In 2008, at the Copenhagen 8th World Symposium on Choral Music, Conspirare performed American music and premiered the Light Mass for chorus, two pianos, bass and drumset by Lithuanian composer Vytautas Miskinis. Ms. DeBow also regularly performs with Musica Viva’s Susan Doering (violin), and Dieter Wulfhorst (cello) across California’s Central Valley. In 2010, she traveled to Reykjavik to collaborate with Tim Buzbee, Principal Tuba of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. DeBow and Buzbee gave a recital at the Hallgrimskirkja national cathedral and recorded a CD for Albany Records, Angels and Demons. Her performances have been broadcast on PBS, NPR’s Performance Today, Georgia Public Radio, KPAC San Antonio, KMFA Austin, and Victoria Public Radio. Ms. DeBow appeared in Conspirare’s one-hour television special for PBS broadcast nationally in March 2009; the CD of that concert, A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert, was nominated for a 2010 Grammy® Award for “Best Classical Crossover Album.” Faith DeBow has also recorded for Harmonia Mundi with Conspirare (Pablo Neruda: The Poet Sings, 2015 and Samuel Barber: An American Romantic, 2012). The Neruda CD received a 2016 Grammy® Nomination for “Best Choral Performance.” She has recorded for Albany Records with tuba player Tim Buzbee (Angels and Demons, 2012, featuring Sonata del Angel Caido by Ferrer Ferran; Apocalyptic Voices by James Meador; and Three Miniatures for Tuba and Piano by Anthony Plog). Faith has served as collaborative pianist and Young Artist Coordinator on the leadership team of the Victoria Bach Festival since 2010. She teaches class piano and collaborative piano as a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University, a position she has held since 2001. She also accompanies instrumental students at Trinity University and is the pianist for the boy choir at the historic San Antonio Academy. Ms. DeBow often plays orchestral keyboard with the Austin Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. DeBow was honored in the 2010 edition of Who’s Who in America, and the 2007 Who’s Who Among American Teachers and Educators. Faith holds a master's degree in Piano Accompanying and Chamber Music from the Eastman School of Music; a competitive swimmer while at Butler University, she earned her bachelor's degree in Piano Performance. Ms. DeBow is also a singer and plays the harpsichord and organ.

Gilbert Garza is pursuing a Master of Music degree in saxophone performance at The University of Texas at Austin – Butler School of Music, under the tutelage of Dr. Stephen Page. He currently performs with The University of Texas Saxophone Ensemble, The University of Texas

Wind Ensemble, and is the Soprano Saxophonist of the Vermilion Saxophone Quartet. He set to begin his Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Iowa with Dr. Kenneth Tse in the Fall of 2016.

Garza graduated Summa Cum Laude from Texas State University and holds a Bachelor of Music Studies with EC-12 Texas All-Level Certification. During his undergraduate work, Garza performed with the Texas State Wind Symphony as principal saxophonist, and was a member of the Phoenix Saxophone Quartet. He has also earned several awards including Downbeat Award for Classical Group (Phoenix Saxophone Quartet), TMEA undergraduate scholarship, first place in the Woods Kone Scholarship performance competition, "Best in Wind Studies" at Texas State University award, and received honorable mention in the Texas State Concerto Competition.

Recently, Garza was one of the first Butler School students to be named a semi-finalists for the NASA solo and quartet competition. He has also performed in masterclasses with Masahito Sugihara (Sam Houston State University), Otis Murphy (Indiana Jacobs

School of Music), and Chien Kwan-Lin (Eastman School of Music.) Garza also has attended several prestigious summer programs including the 2012 Eastman Saxophone Institute, the 2013 American Saxophone Academy with saxophone professors Chien Kwan-Lin, Timothy McAllister, Otis Murphy, Kenneth Tse, Carrie Koffman, and L’Université Européenne de Saxophone. In the European University, he studied with esteemed teachers Claude Delangle, Vincent David, Arno Bornkamp, Masataka Hirano, Christian Wirth, and Timothy McAllister.

Mezcolanza is the Spanish word for hodge-podge. With the root word mezclar (meaning “to mix”), the quintet strives to mix and blend the sounds of our five different instruments together to create music that is enjoyable by every audience.

The Mezcolanza Reed Quintet is comprised of students, past and present, at Texas State University and has enjoyed success including fellowships to the University of Nebraska- Lincoln Chamber Music Institute, judges in the Calefax Composers Competition, and recently performing at the 2016 North American Saxophone Alliance conference.