Yale ConCert BandThomas C. Duffy, Music Director

Blue Ink:Music of Yale Composers

Woolsey Hall, Yale UniversityFriday, December 2, 2011, at 7:30 pm

Felix Mendelssohnarr. Felix Greissle

Anderson Alden

nAThAn prillAMAn

irving Finearr. R. Mark Rogers

John philip sousA

ThoMAs c. duFFy

AlFred reed

Overture for Band

Winter Concerto for Electric Violin [premiere] Jourdan Urbach, electric violin

Transcontinental [premiere]

Blue Towers

The National Game March

Three Places in New Haven I. Castle in the Sky (Rollo Reads a Book) II. The Long Wharf (Rollo Sails Away) III. City Band March (Rollo Gets A Job) Ian Rosenbaum, marimba with the Yale Band Percussion Ensemble

Russian Christmas Music

~ INTERMISSION ~

overture for Band (1824)FELIX MENDELSSOHN(arr. Felix Greissle)Felix Mendelssohn composed Overture in C Major for wind band in the summer of 1824 dur-ing his stay at the fashionable seaside resort of Doberan on the shores of the Baltic. The bathing establishment there boasted of a very acceptable wind band, so acceptable that the young compos-er prompted to write a composition for the group to perform at one of its concerts. Mendelssohn’sprecocity(hewasonlyfifteenyears old at the time) is even more amazing when one considers the maturity of the work. Already the style is elegant, the imagination fanciful, the form lucid,and theorchestrationrefinedandbalanced.The creative glow of the music to “A Midsum-mer Night’s Dream,” composed two years later, is clearly foreshadowed in this spontaneous score.

Winter concerto for electric violin (2011)ANDERSON ALDEN“Halfway through last year, I decided I needed to write a piece about winter. Growing up in Los Ange-les, seasons came and went without fanfare. Snowy, frosty winters were an exotic, elusive concept. Each winter I traveled east for vacation, hoping, often in vain, to catch just a glimpse of true winter. “As a sophomore at Yale last year, I expe-rienced the most severe winter I had ever seen. Trudging out into two feet of freshly fallen snow, snow drifts as tall as me, snow that completely buried cars and made parking meters disappear, I felt like an explorer traversing the arctic. Instead of melting, a crust of ice formed on top of the snow. The world was glazed, sealed, preserved. Trees sparkled. This was the winter I had fanta-sized about. So I expressed my excitement the way I know best: I wrote music.

About Tonight’s Music “Around that time I was playing keyboards in theAmplifiedChamber Ensemblewith JourdanUrbach, tonight’s soloist. I was inspired by how Jourdan’s electric violin behaved differently from an acoustic violin. It has an extended lower range (with 6 strings) and frets like an electric guitar. It sounds at times more aggressive than its acoustic counterpart, and at times sweeter and more pure. This high, mellow timbre blended quite well with theflute inourensemble,soIstartedimaginingother ways the electric violin could be paired with wind instruments. In the middle of Winter Con-certo for Electric Violin, you’ll hear sounds of ice cracking and shattering, snow crunching, and taps on glass bottles that I have recorded, edited and programmed into a keyboard.”

– Anderson Alden

Transcontinental (2011)NATHAN PRILLAMAN“Over the past few years, I’ve found myself liv-ing a life in transit. It seems that every few weeks, Ifindmyselftravelingtoadifferentplace,shift-ing between studying in New Haven, visiting my home in Maryland, and performing in New York and other cities. Those places, and the sounds I heard as I traveled via train between those plac-es, launched the idea for this piece. “I was inspired by the propulsive rhythm of Amtrak’s trains, by the sound of wind rush-ing past the cabin, and most importantly, by the sometimes gradual, sometimes sudden changes in environment one witnesses through the win-dow as the train rumbles on. One moment, you see suburbs, the next, a city, and the next, moun-tains. These real-world, sensory experiences are inexorably tied to my emotional experience of travel, and as such, I worked to weave them into the musical dialect of this piece.

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“For me, the imagery and emotions associ-ated with Transcontinental begin in New Ha-ven, and follow my journey home to Maryland, butpleasefeelfreetofillintheblankswithyourjourney of choice.”

– Nathan Prillaman

Blue Towers (1959)IRVING FINE(arr. R. Mark Rogers)“During his twelve years on the Brandeis Univer-sity faculty, Irving Fine played many roles: edu-cator, mentor, administrator, and composer of a three-minute marching song, ‘The Blue and the White.’ The orchestra version’s title references the Brandeis school colors and a campus architectural landmark, Usen Castle, known for its three origi-nal towers. Blue Towers is dedicated to Brandeis University and its president, Abram Sachar.”

– Jennifer L. DeLapp

The national game March (1925)JOHN PHILIP SOUSAJohn Philip Sousa wrote The National Game March tocommemoratethefiftiethanniversaryof baseball’s National League. It features many ofthedynamicfireworksfanshavecometoex-pect of the March King, as well as the crack of a bat launching a ball into the bleachers.

Three places in new haven (2000)THOMAS C. DUFFYCharles Ives spent four years on the Yale cam-pus in New Haven from 1894-1898. Many of the places he frequented are still intact. Each move-ment of Three Places in New Haven addresses one particular place in New Haven. Each is fre-quentedorvisitedbyRollo,Ives’fictionalchar-acter of lowest-common denominator aesthetic sophistication and taste.

I. Castle in the Sky (Rollo Reads a Book)Yale’s library was built by stone masons and is set in a gothic style. The workers took left over materials and, instead of constructing ventilation boxes on the roof in the traditional square-box fashion, covered the air vents with a miniature medievalcastle,completewithflyingbuttressesand cobbled walls. From some distance, one can see this castle, perched curiously on the top of aten-storybuilding.ItfloatsaboveYale’sCrossCampus green-space, where students go to sit on the grass after studying. One hears the opening bustle of students scur-rying to class. The motives are made of Charles Ives’ name through the ancient technique of sogge-to cavato (carved subject). C = c, H = b, A = a, R = re = d, L = la = a, E = e, S = Eb, and I = ti = b. Thus, the Ives motive is c, b, a, d, a, e, eb, b. The scurry-ing fades to reveal the quiet contemplative sounds of students at work (Yale’s alma mater, Bright College Years [Die Wacht Am Rhein]). Students run for the library before it closes and one hears the clock tower sounding the warning for doors to close. Once inside, students set to work and the solo marimba presents a four-part hymn. But Rollo has a very short attention span. As the monotony of reading begins to affect him, he daydreams. First the sounds of student life out-side begin to invade his consciousness. In fact, he wonders why he studies at all – what’s the use? (The metaphysical question is presented by the trumpet – in the style of a question that ‘may never be answered.’) Eventually, he fan-tasizes that a military maneuver is taking place in the castle in the sky. One hears the sounds of percussion marching troops here and there. The solo marimba attempts to “question” Rollo’s daydream, and things end with neither an answer to thequestionnorafirmsenseofwhether thedream is real or the reality a dream.

II. The Long Wharf (Rollo Sails Away)The Long Wharf extended far out into the shal-low New Haven harbor, and had for many many years been the place where ships loaded and unloaded their produce and other goods. This was the harbor into which the British sailed during the Revolutionary War (and a few pa-triotsfiredacannonattheBritishships.Theiraim was so poor that the British reported that they conquered New Haven unchallenged!). The harbor also is the home of Savin Rock, for years New Haven’s miniature version of Coney Island. Now the New Haven Green is far inland from the harbor’s water, but before a century oflandfill,thechurchinwhichIvesplayedtheorgan was very close to the shore itself. Close enough for the sounds of the church’s bells to be heard on the water. Rollo opts to spend Sunday morning not in church, but sailing on the harbor. The sun comes up on the peaceful waters of the harbor andRollofloatsaboutinastateofblissfulde-tachment. Rollo dozes on the boat, here and there one (and perhaps he) hears the sounds of the church service – the hymn that wafts out over the harbor contains a message – it is Wa-chet Auf (Sleepers Wake!).

III. City Band March (Rollo Gets A Job)City Band March is homage paid to Charles Ives’ Country Band March. This march follows the form of its country cousin, including a da capo exposition, and a “coda” in which things become complicated. The city of New Haven was home to Eli Whitney, the innovator who brought the con-cept of mass production to life. During Ives’ time in New Haven, industry boomed and citi-zensenjoyedafinemasstransportationsystem,founded on a network of trains and trolley cars.

This music present the sounds of a city at work, busily producing “things;” some of metal, some needing to be stamped out, and some requiring much repetitive attention. Rollo works in a factory, and dreams throughout the workday of the pleasant train ride home to the country. He himself is a “mass product:” he dresses like everyone else, he rides the train in like everyone else, he repeats the same task all day like everyone else, and at day’s end, he joins the long trudging line of automatons as the “masses” move in synchron-icity, coming and going to their assigned jobs (here their robot-like cadence, two quarter-notes, two eighth-notes, and one quarter note!). Does the piece end with Rollo boarding a train that increasingly speeds him home, or is it his imagination – the acceleration representing his increasing desperation to be out of the fac-tory and on his own? You decide.

russian christmas Music (1944)ALFRED REEDAn ancient Russian Christmas Carol, Carol of the Little Russian Children, together with much original material and elements derived from the liturgical musical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, form the basis of this musi-cal impression of old Russia during the jubilant Christmas season. The inspiration from both car-ols and the music of the Eastern Orthodox Chuch (which permits only vocal music during its ser-vices) give the piece a beautiful, lyrical quality. Although written as a single movement, four sections can be discerned in Russian Christmas Music: Children’s Carol, Antiphonal Chant, Vil-lage Song, and the closing Cathedral Chorus (which is heralded by church bells). Together they create a powerful and moving work.

nathan prillaman ’13 is a twenty-year-old composer, performer, and pro-ducer of classical, pop, jazz, and electronic music from Potomac, Maryland. Currently a junior at Yale University, he is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Music with composition studies under Kathryn Alexander and Michael Klingbeil. He has also studied at the Brevard Music Center with Kevin Puts and Robert Aldridge, and at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute with Martin Amlin. Recent-ly, Nathan has worked with a variety of ensembles, from Yale’s own SiC INC to Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble. Nathan’s music has been featured at the North American Saxophone Alliance Region V Conference, at Yale College New Music Events, and at various other concerts on the East Coast. In addition to his composing activities, Nathan is active as a perform-er and producer of multiple genres of music, and is the marketing director of

theAegisCollective,aNewYork-basednon-profitdedicatedtowardscreatingartisticcollaborationsbetween young artists from all media and genres. Nathan is currently in the process of producing A Streetcar Named Funk’s debut EP, due out late 2011. For more information, or for recordings of Na-than’s work, head to www.nathanprillaman.com.

Anderson F. Alden ’13, a twenty-year-old composer from Santa Monica, California, is currently a junior at Yale University. In the fall of 2007 An-derson was selected to be a Composer Fellow with the Los Angeles Phil-harmonic in a newly established program for student composers, under the direction of Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky. In 2008 and again in 2009, Anderson was thrilled to hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra per-form his music. As part of the 5th annual Grand Avenue Festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2008, Christian McBride and the Sonus Quartet per-formed a composition of Anderson’s for double bass and string quartet. In summer 2011, Anderson enjoyed attending the NYU/ASCAP Buddy Baker Film-Scoring Workshop and also the Bowdoin International Music Festival

where he studied with Robert Beaser. Anderson is the recipient of three ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards andHonorableMentions, and among others, five first-place state composition awards inCalifornia. This is currently Anderson’s fourth year as a member of the prestigious MTAC Young ComposersGuild,wherehewonafive-yearmembership(2007-2012)withyearlyperformancesofhis compositions. Anderson’s composition teachers include Kathryn Alexander, Michael Kingbeil, A.J. McCaffrey, and Peter Gilbert. Anderson’s formal music studies began in piano performance and keyboard theory at age seven, with Deborah H. How. Anderson has garnered recognition and prizes in numerous piano performance competitions and has had the honor of performing two world premieres, one composed by Gabriella Lena Frank and the other by Chen Yi.

About Tonight’s Student Composers

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Jourdan urbach ’13 has been compared by NY critics to a “Modern day Pa-ganini…superlative in every way…exhibiting both impeccable technique and exquisite artistry.” NY Concert Review adds, “Urbach is a violinist that dares to challenge himself and thrives.” Urbach has headlined four sold out perfor-mances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden and The Meadowlands. He has been featured on Good Morn-ing America, The Today Show, CNN-Lou Dobbs, CBS Sunday Morning Pro-gram with Charles Osgood, and From the Top. WQXR’s esteemed Young Artist Showcase called Urbach “the one to watch for the future…a brilliant performer.” Urbach performs in his original musical style that fuses the classical, jazz, blues theatrical and contemporary genres. His concert career has included musi-cal collaborations with multi-Platinum country music star Clay Walker, Grammy

winner Mark Wood, and Emmy-nominated composer Chris Caswell – with two world premieres written for him by Caswell. Urbach was presented as classical music’s “Rising Star” at The Ventura Music Festival, under the direction of Maestro Nuvi Mehta; in Memphis as the prestigious “2009 Artist Ascending Winner” (following in the footsteps of such past winners as: Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham). Urbach is featured on comedian Steve Martin’sGrammy-winningbluegrassalbum,TheCrow;andcomposed thefilmscoreforseveralshortfilmsincluding: “Elah and the Moon,” by director Vera Mulyani, screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, 2009 and The Cannes Film Festival 2010; and dozens of productions for Dramat, Yale Rep and Yale School of Drama. Urbach was named Goodwill Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence to the UN Council of Arts for Peace; and the 2010 recipient of the World of Children Nobel Prize for Global Child Advocacy.

Still only 24 years of age, American percussionist ian rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth far beyond his years. As a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra Ian performed with many of the world’s most noted conductors, including Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev and Zubin Mehta. Tours with this extraordinary orchestra comprised of musicians from around the world took him to the major concert halls of France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States. The following season, he successfully entered the realm of solo marimba perfor-mance, making his Kennedy Center debut in Washington D.C., and later that year gar-nered a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition. However, it is in the sphere of chamber music performance that Ian has achieved his greatest success. He frequently performs with the acclaimed So Per-cussion group and has appeared at the Norfolk, Yellow Barn and Chamber Music

Northwest Festivals. At the conclusion of Yellow Barn, artistic director Seth Knopp said of Ian, “Ian Rosen-baum’s music-making is informed by a wonderful intelligence, interpretive insight and prodigious control. But above all, it is his openness of approach that makes him an unusually sensitive artist and collaborator.” Ian is a member of Le Train Bleu, Novus NY and the Wanmu percussion trio. He recently joined the faculties of the Peabody Institute’s preparatory program and Yale College where he founded an undergraduate percussion ensemble. Ian is a member of Chamber Music Society Two. Ian received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Institute of Music in 2008. He graduated from the Yale School of Music in 2010 with a Master of Music degree, and again in 2011 with an Artist Diploma in Percussion Performance.

About Tonight’s Guest Artists

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About the Music DirectorThomas c. duffy (b. 1955), composer and conductor, is Professor (ad-junct) of Music and Director of Bands at Yale University. He served as Acting Dean of the School of Music in 2005-2006, having served as As-sociate Dean since 1996 and Deputy Dean since 1999. He has served as a member of the Fulbright National Selection Committee and was a member of the historic Tanglewood II Symposium (2007). He attended the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education in 2005. He has served as president of the College Band Directors National Associa-tion (CBDNA) and the New England College Band Association (NECBA), editor of the CBDNA Journal, publicity chair for the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and chair of the Connecticut Music Edu-cators Association’s Professional Affairs and Government Relations com-mittees, and has represented music education in Yale’s Teacher Preparation Program. He is member of American Bandmasters Association, American Composers Alliance, Connecticut Composers Inc., the Connecticut Acad-

emy of Arts and Sciences, and BMI. An active composer with a D.M.A. in composition from Cornell University, where he was a student of Karel Husa and Steven Stucky, he has accepted commissions from the American Composers Forum, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Field Band, and numerous bands, choruses and orchestras. He joined the Yale faculty in 1982. In2009hereceivedanawardfromtheUnitedStatesAttorney’sOfficeforhisinnovativepro-gram with the Yale Concert Band (Yale 4Peace Rap for Justice) which, through the integration of classical and rap music, addressed gangs, crime and violence in Connecticut’s cities.

Upcoming Yale Bands Performances

• Sunday, December 4: Yale Jazz Ensemble at the GPSCY. Two cabaret-style shows – 4:00pm and 8:00pm – at Yale’s GPSCY Bar (204 York St., New Haven). Featuring the music of Rosamonde Safier and New Haven in the 1920s-30s, and music by Count Basie, Earle Hagen, and Duke Ellington. Free.• Friday, February 10, 2012: Yale Concert Band: The Silver Screen. Music from Halo (M. O’Donnell); From the Language of Shadows (H. Hodge); Parliament in Flight (C. Dafnis), with a specially commis-sioned animation; and Star Wars Trilogy (J. Williams.). 7:30pm, Woolsey Hall. Free.• Wednesday, February 29, 2012: Yale Jazz Ensemble: Music of Yale Composers. Program TBA. 7:30pm, Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. Free.• Friday, March 30, 2012: Yale Concert Band Spring Concert. Harvest (J. Mackey), featuring Scott Hartman, trombone; Serenade for Winds (R. Strauss). 7:30pm, Woolsey Hall. Free.• Sunday, April 15: Yale Jazz Ensemble: Fifth Annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert. With the Reunion Jazz Ensemble. Program TBA. 2:00pm, Levinson Auditorium, Yale Law School (127 Wall Street, New Haven). Free.• Sunday, May 20: Yale Concert Band: Annual Twilight Concert. Ceremonial music on the eve of Yale’s Commencement. 7:00 PM, outside on the Old Campus. Free.

yAle concerT BAnd 2011-2012ThoMAs c. duFFy, Music DirectorSTEPHANIE T. HUBBARD, Business Manager

PiCColoJoohee Son SY 15

fluTeLeah Latterner CC 14 PrincipalHannah Perfecto SY 12Monica Ague SM 14Kerri Lu PC 14Hayden Hashimoto CC 12Shira Calamaro GSAS 14

oboeRachel Perfecto SY 15Kaitlin Taylor YSM 12

english hornKaitlin Taylor YSM 12

ClarineTAnthony Hsu ES 12 PrincipalKate Carter SM 12Molly Haig DC 14Acshi Haggenmiller MC 15Nathan Prillaman JE 13James Mandilk SY 13Carrie Cao MC 15Liz Jones BR 15Melinda Becker TC 15Rachel Yen SM 14

bass ClarineT Jared Bard BK 12

bassoonNick Baskin ES 14 PrincipalBilal Siddaqui MD 15 Ellie Killiam DC 15

ConTrbassoonEllie Killiam DC 15

alTo saxoPhone Alex Pappas SM 15 PrincipalAlyssa Hasbrouck MC 14

Tenor saxoPhoneWilliam Gearty BR 14

bariTone saxoPhoneKelsey Sakimoto ES 12

TrumPeTJean Laurenz YSM 13 PrincipalLogan Gregoire-Wright CC 15Michael Lam SY 14Connor Moseley BK 14Sagar Setru BR 13Joshua Stein TD 13

frenCh hornDaniel Rigberg BK 15Katherine McDaniel JE 14Austin Long CC 15David Bruns-Smith BR 15

TromboneMelvin Loong SY 14Hope Wilson SY 15Emily Massey JE 14

euPhoniumTim Gladding SY 13

TubaJames Volz SY 15Landres Bryant YSM 13

sTring bassJohn Greenawalt SY 12

PerCussionSamuel Anklesaria ES 15Erin Maher SM 14Anne Schweikert BK 15Chase Young CC 13Daniel Whitcombe JE 12

harPLara Zipperer MC 14

PianoDavid Molina TD 15

synThesizerNathan Prillaman JE 13

musiC librarianNick Baskin ES 14

For further information please contact: Yale University Bands, P.O. Box 209048, New Haven, CT 06520–9048

ph: (203) 432–4111; stephanie.hubbard@yale.edu; www.yale.edu/yaleband

Yale Band PerCussion ensemBleIan Rosenbaum, Director

Chris Chow JE 13, Christian Schmidt MC 14, Daniel Whitcombe JE 12, Chase Young CC 13