USF Symphonic Band: A Sousa Spectacular

November 20, 2012 – 7:30 p.m. USF Concert Hall

Dr. Matthew McCutchen, Conductor

Dr. John C. Carmichael, Guest Conductor

Bruce Herrmann, Graduate Conductor

Tom Brantley, Trombone; Jay Coble, Trumpet

USF School of Music

Tampa, FL

Program

March With Trumpets (1957) ............................. William Bergsma

Cousins (1904) ................................... Herbert L. Clarke/ Cramer

Tom Brantley, Trombone; Jay Coble, Trumpet

Jericho Rhapsody (1941) ..................................... Morton Gould

Bruce Herrmann, Conductor

Der Vogelhändler: Selections from the Operetta (1891) ............... Carl Zeller/ Suzuki

Dr. John C. Carmichael, Conductor

Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) (1993) ............. Ron Nelson

About the Concert This evening’s concert is presented in the style of those given by the great John Philip Sousa around the turn of the century. You may know him as "The March King," and that he certainly was, but to remember just his marches barely scratches the surface of his musical accomplishments. Sousa was a rock star in an era before rock and roll. In addition to his 136 marches he also composed waltzes, suites, overtures, instrumental solos, operettas, songs, orchestral fantasies, and various dance forms. He firmly believed that a march should be a short masterpiece, and that he could say as much in a 3-minute march as most composers could in a 45-minute symphony. His charisma, musicianship and knack for structuring concerts made him wildly popular with turn-of-the-century audiences, and his ability to produce concerts that were tremendously entertaining as well and meticulously performed is a legacy that bands continue to strive to attain. While tonight’s performance is in the style that Sousa presented with his professional bands, it is not intended to be a direct replication. His concerts always contained a great deal of variety, and his philosophy on programming was “What do you like? I’ll play it if it kills me!” He once said “I learned very early in life that if musicians depended upon musicians for a living, there would be no musicians. The support of all art depends entirely upon those who love art for art's sake, and as music is universal, it becomes necessary to heed the wishes of the masses if one hopes to succeed. It is not incongruous to me to see a comedy scene immediately following a tragic scene in Shakespeare or any other of the master dramatists, or laughter following tears in the romantic drama. Therefore, as I have nature and the best examples of men as my champions, I have no hesitation in combining in my program clever comedy with symphonic tragedy, rhythmic march or waltz with sentimental tone pictures.”

There are three concepts that are uniquely in keeping with the Sousa-Style concert: (1) the concert is fast moving; (2) encores come unexpectedly during the concert as well as after; and, (3) the music that is presented is varied in nature. He never "played down" to his audiences, but rather, worked diligently to elevate their musical tastes while entertaining them at the same time. Sousa must be thought of as an entertainer, but he always managed to slip in a few classics in a persistent effort to upgrade America's tastes in music. Sousa was a showman of the first magnitude, capitalizing on music of the moment if he thought it would ring true with his audiences. When he toured with his band, the usual soloists were performers on the cornet, trombone, or Euphonium. There was always an attractive lady vocalist, and usually a lady violinist. Tonight we are fortunate to have outstanding musicians in these rolls. It is our hope that you enjoy the performance and are mentally transported back to a simpler time before television, mp3s, iPads, and Spotify. Imagine it is 1920; you are sitting in a park with your sweetheart, a parasol, and basking in the eager anticipation that you are going to witness something truly special.

Notes William Bergsma (1921-1994) was born in Oakland, CA, where he studied piano and viola before concentrating on composition. At the age of sixteen he took his first composition lessons from Howard Hanson with whom he later studied at the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his bachelor's and his master's degrees. From 1946 to 1963 Bergsma served on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music in various roles, most importantly as chair of the composition department. From 1963-1971 he was director of the University of Washington School of Music. Bergsma composed works for symphony orchestra, opera, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and choral groups. He is particularly known for his opera The Wife of Martin Guerre, the full orchestral work First Symphony, and suites from the ballets Paul Bunyan and Gold and the Senor Commandante. Bergsma also composed string quartets, a woodwind quintet and other works for piano, voice, chorus and band. His music, unequivocally based in the twentieth century, is noted for its lyrical contrapuntal elements. March with Trumpets is Bergsma’s only composition for band. It begins with a bright trumpet and percussion fanfare interspersed with woodwind interplay. This is followed by a discordant theme (marked brilliant, grotesque) performed by the clarinets. This transitions into a flowing melody that illustrates the influence of Howard Hanson, Bergsma’s first composition teacher. The trumpet fanfares and flourishes return and blend once more into the cantabile theme. This concert march concludes in a grand and punctuated manner. March with Trumpets was written in 1957 and was the first in a series of commissions sponsored by Richard Franko Goldman. Herbert L. Clarke (1867–1945) was an American cornetist, composer, conductor, teacher and one of the most influential musicians at the turn of the 20th Century. As bandsman and featured soloist, he toured the world once, the United States and Canada thirty four times, Europe four times, and performed at the Paris, Chicago, Atlanta, Buffalo, Glasgow, Panama, San Francisco, and St. Louis expositions. Clarke's early musical instruction was on violin and at 13 years of age he was a second violinist in the Philharmonic Society Orchestra of Toronto. About this time he began to play his brother Ed's cornet and was soon earning fifty cents a night playing in a restaurant band.

His first fully professional position was as a cornet player with the Citizens' Band of Toronto. His brother Ernest was playing trombone with the Patrick Gilmore Band, and when a solo cornet vacancy occurred, Herbert applied, was accepted and toured with the group for several months. In 1893, he joined Sousa’s band in the solo cornet section. He also played second trumpet in the New York Philharmonic, and later principal in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. From 1900 to 1921 he performed, tested cornets for the Conn Company and began to write his four instrumental methods for cornet. At this time he also made many solo recordings (many of these recordings were his own compositions) and combined on others with Walter Rogers, Herman Bellstedt and Arthur Pryor. He had heard other fine performs who had continued to perform solos, far after the prime of their careers and although he did play a few selections after he turned 50, he began to concentrate on conducting and teaching. Clarke died on January 30, 1945 and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa. Clarke wrote Cousins, a cornet and trombone duet with band accompaniment in 1904 for himself as the cornet soloist and Leo Zimmerman as the trombone soloist. Tonight we are fortunate to be joined by USF Brass Faculty members Tom Brantley in the Zimmerman role, and Dr. Jay Coble channeling Herbert L. Clarke himself. Morton Gould (1913-1996) was recognized as a child prodigy for his uncanny ability to improvise and compose by the age of 6. During the Depression, Gould (still a teenager) found work in New York's vaudeville and movie theaters. When Radio City Music Hall opened, the young Gould was its staff pianist. By the age of 21 he was conducting and arranging a series of orchestral programs for WOR Mutual Radio. Gould attained national prominence through his work in radio, as he appealed to a wide-ranging audience with his combination of classical and popular programming. In addition to his works for wind band, Gould composed Broadway scores, film scores, music for television, and ballet scores. His music was commissioned by symphony orchestras throughout the United States, the Library of Congress, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. Gould integrated jazz, blues, gospel, country-and-western, and folk elements into compositions that bear his unequaled mastery of orchestration and imaginative formal structures. As a conductor, Gould led all the major American orchestras as well as those of Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Australia. In 1966 he won a Grammy Award for his recording of Ives's First Symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a recording that led the way for a new appreciation of Ives's work. Jericho Rhapsody was Gould’s first work for concert band. The work closely follows the Old Testament story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho proceeding through a “Prologue and Roll Call,” “Chant,” and “Dance’ before arriving that the climactic “March and Battle.” Throughout the work the audience will clearly hear Gould's fascination with jazz and spirituals. One of the most thrilling episodes of the piece is “Joshua’s Trumpets” which features the entire trumpet section in a series of antiphonal exclamations. Following the “Walls Come Tumbling Down” the tension subsides and the final victor of good over evil is conferred by a majestic “Hallelujah.” Carl Zeller (1842-1898) was perhaps the most remarkable of all the 19th-century Viennese operetta composers. As a boy he possessed such an excellent soprano voice that, at the age of eleven, he joined the Wiener Sängerknaben - the still-famous Vienna Boys' Choir, whose principal function was to sing at the services in

the Imperial Chapel in the Austrian capital. He displayed exceptional aptitude on several instruments and, after his voice broke, he studied composition with Simon Sechter, the teacher of Anton Bruckner, whilst studying law at Vienna University. For a time Zeller practiced law before entering the Austrian Ministry of Education and Culture in 1873. As a full-time ministry official, with a gift for melodic invention and an enviable understanding of the voice and ensemble numbers, his composing activities were restricted to his spare time and as a result his seven stage works were spread over a 22-year period. Der Vogelhändler: Selections from the Operetta is a collection of tunes from an operetta in 3 acts by Zeller, Moritz West and Ludwig Held. Set in Bavaria, this is a story of two young lovers - Christel, the village postmistress, and Adam, a handsome bird seller from the Tyrol – who become embroiled in romantic complications at the Court of the reigning Prince. The highly entertaining intrigues and misunderstandings are eventually sorted out to the accompaniment of some of Zeller's brightest and most tuneful music. As the opera opens, Adam comes to the Rhenish Palatinate to see his bride. At the Court of the Princess Marie, the position of the director of her menagerie is vacant. Christel wants to ask the Prince to take Adam for the vacant position. But Adam does not agree with her plan since the Prince is well known womanizer, and Adam is very jealous! Baron Weps, who has been ordered by the Prince to arrange the hunting, is faced with the unpleasant surprise that all wild boars have already been shot by the farmers. The farmers offer him hush money that Weps willingly accepts. Weps is then faced with a new, difficult situation when the Prince suddenly cancels the hunting. He is obliged to return the money or make compensation. So Count Stanislaus pretends to be the Prince. Christel asks to be admitted to an audience of the false prince in the pavilion where she is watched by farmers who immediately inform Adam of her actions. Because of his disappointment he pays attention to a pretty country-girl called Marie. She is none other than the Princess who came here to watch the escapades of her husband. Marie likes the handsome, unaffected boy and gives him a rose. The Princess very soon learns the whole story of the quarrel between Adam and Christel and realizes that the man in the pavilion was not the Prince. She takes Christel with her to the Court to unmask Count Stanislaus as the swindler. Adam, who does not believe in Christel's protestations of innocence, demands that Stanislaus marries her, and he himself courts the Princess' favor. But she only wants to give him the vacant position of director of her menagerie. In the meantime preparations are made for the marriage of Christel and Count Stanislaus. The Princess causes Stanislaus to speak with Adam about the rendezvous in the pavilion and he willingly confirms that nothing improper has happened. Adam and Christel end their quarrel and everybody lives happily ever after. Ron Nelson (b. 1929) began studying piano at the age of six and shortly thereafter wrote his first piece, The Sailboat. When he was twelve he began organ lessons, and in high school he taught himself string bass in order to join the legendary Joliet Township High School Band. It was for this ensemble that he composed his earliest works for winds. After hearing a performance of Howard Hanson’s Romantic Symphony played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Nelson became determined to study at the Eastman School of Music. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Composition from Eastman, studying primarily with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. Shortly after beginning his doctoral studies at the same institution he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in France at the École Normale de Musique and the Paris Conservatory. He completed the

coursework for his Doctorate in Composition from Eastman in 1956 (although it wasn’t awarded until 1957) and shortly thereafter joined the music faculty of Brown University. There he eventually rose to Chairman of the Music Department, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1993. The list of honors and awards that have been bestowed upon Nelson include the 1955 Fulbright Award, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1963, a Benjamin Award in 1964, a Howard Foundation Grant for World Tour in 1965-1966, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grants in 1973, 1976, and 1979, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Awards from 1962-present. In 1991 he was the first musician to be named the Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts. He was awarded the Medal of Honor of the John Philip Sousa Foundation in Washington, DC in 1994. In 2006, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oklahoma City University. Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) was commissioned by a consortium of the United States Air Force Band, the Wind Studies Department of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the Eta Omicron chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia in honor of the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. The piece was premiered at the University of Cincinnati on October 3, 1992 by The U.S. Air Force Band with Colonel Alan Bonner conducting. Nelson’s program notes read: Passacaglia (Homage on B-A-C-H) is a set of continuous variations in moderately slow triple meter built on an eight-measure melody (basso ostinato) which is stated, in various registers, twenty-five times. It is a seamless series of tableaux which moves from darkness to light. Written in homage to J.S. Bach, it utilizes, as counterpoint throughout, the melodic motive represented by his name in German nomenclature, i.e. B flat, A, C and B natural. Bach introduced this motive in his unfinished The Art of Fugue, the textures of which are paraphrased (in an octatonic scale) in the fourth and fifth variations. The seventh variation incorporates Gustave Nottebohm’s resolution (altered) of the unfinished final fugue of The Art of Fugue. The famous melody from Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor appears once (also altered) in variation nineteen. In 1993 the piece made history by being the first work to win all three major wind band compositions – the National Association Prize, the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Prize, and the Sudler International Prize.

Personnel

Piccolo Julia Ford Flute Kelly Jordan April Copeland Jocelyn Escobar Haley Choen Christina Gutierrez Oboe Sameer Bhatia Mary Murphy Kathryn Bottomley Vanesa Vanzile English Horn Kathryn Bottomley Bassoon Stephen Padgett Christy Hobby Nick McKain Clarinet Wesley Mejia Laura Garcia Walter Ostarly Caitlyn Autry - Eb Chelsea Tortora Michelle Bednarek Jesse Strouse Antoinette Panagiotouros Anna Schwab Bass Clarinet Aaron Cabrera Michael Frazier Saxophone Alyson Agemy -Alto Stephen Gabin Chase Hadley Michael Yapello - Tenor William Nogueira Reed Stricsek - Baritone

Horn Austin Moss Arie Matthew Caitlyn Lutz Trevor Butts Katherine Palmer Bethany Finch Trumpet Robert Apple James Coyne Chris Simmons Paige Hall John Casanas Corbin Smith Juan Tellado Max Slakoff Stacey Jones Tyler Vance Stathis Linardos Sam Garnett Brenden Sweeney Matt Hopper Ryan Violette Trombone Josh Hammer Lisa Duxbury Zach Smith Nancy Karan Nicholas Atheras Michael Biggan Louis Meyer – Bass Trombone Danielle Batcheller Euphonium Aaron Campbell Logan Sorey Zach Dardis Bruce Herrmann Tuba Stephen Senseman John Hadden David Suarez Adam Preston Kelly Bravard Haley Powell

Percussion Aaron Castillo Bryan Braue Mitchell Montgomery Bryan Scott Alex Murphy Daniel Greenwood Amanda Yoho Sherry Donataccio Kyle Kinsey Piano Peter Belk

Upcoming School of Music Events:

Monday N igh t Ja z z : Ja z z Ensemb le I & Rex R i cha rdson , t r umpe t Monday Nov. 26, 2012 7:30 pm, USF Concert Hall Advance Tickets: $8 Students/Seniors, $12 Adults Day of Performance: $10 Students/Seniors, $15 Adults The always exciting Monday Night Jazz Series at the University of South Florida will feature Yamaha and Summit records recording artist Rex Richardson on the trumpets along with the USF Jazz Ensemble I. The music will feature originals by Richardson as well as the music of Woody Shaw and Freddie Hubbard. Rex has performed with the Joe Henderson group, Rhythm and Brass, as well as on his own around the world.

USF Hono rs Co l l ege Ph i l ha rmon i c O rches t ra Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 7:00 pm, USF Concert Hall Free Event Among USF’s ‘brightest and best’ students who are new to the USF - Honors College each year, there are many who arrive at USF with valuable prior instrumental, concert & jazz, as well as vocal/choral music experiences and activities, fondly developed from their previous high school years.

Bu l l apa loo za ! Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012 8:00 pm, USF Concert Hall Tickets available at the door only, 1hr prior to performance $7 Adult/$5 Student & Senior Bullapalooza! is a rapid-fire sequencing of diverse music and musical ensembles is designed to run 70 minutes without a break. During that time, you will experience the tremendous variety and the exceptional excellence of the instrumental music program of the USF School of Music. You will also be visually stimulated by the movement associated with the ensemble locations and by the lighting effects used to augment what you hear. For additional information and to purchase tickets, visit music.arts.usf.edu

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