Encore Wind Ensemble
Serenade in B♭ (KV 361) (c. 1782)
I. Largo – Molto Allegro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Serenade in B♭ is Mozart’s first wind serenade and now stands as one of the most important wind ensemble compositions to date. Premiered in 1784, this chamber work was written on a much more grand scale and in a serious artistic style than most of the serenades of the time. Often serenades were light in character and intended to be royal background music, whereas this work is much more serious in nature, has more instruments than usual, and also is longer in duration.
Canzon Primi Toni (1597)
from Sacrae Symphoniae
Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
Edited by Robert King
Italian organist and composer Giovanni Gabrieli was a culminating figure of the “Venetian School” of composition at the end of the sixteenth century. He was organist at the great St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, which had two choir lofts on opposite sides of the cathedral. This wonderful space led to a large compositional output of antiphonal music, or cori spezzati (It. ‘broken choirs’), also known as polychoral music.
Gabrieli was one of the first composers to elevate the brass family from accompanimental to a soloistic role. His Canzon Primi Toni is a small work from the larger Sacrae Symphoniae written in 1597. Composed for performance in the St. Mark’s Cathedral, the canzon was scored for two brass choirs stationed in opposite balconies.
Cathedrals (2008)
Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987)
Cathedrals is a “neo-renaissance” fantasy on Gabrieli’s Canzon Primi Toni. It intricately weaves together minimalist-like writings with quotes and elaborations from Gabrieli. The work is a synthesis of the old and the new, evoking the old mystery and allure of Gabrieli’s antiphonal music, counterpoint, and canonic textures, while intertwined with new rich color palettes, modal harmonies, and textures of woodwinds and percussion.
Requiem for the Unarmed (2020/2022)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was murdered by police officers, one of which had a knee on his neck, cutting off all oxygen to his brain. Floyd’s last words, the same words used by Eric Garner in 2014, echo across the United States and through the world. “I. can’t. breathe.”
Seeing the footage of his murder on television, my heart sank and I felt incredibly sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed, and it took me weeks to process what had transpired. Someone who looks like me was just murdered in cold blood by law enforcement. I can recall the many people that also look like me that were murdered in similar fashion, both by law enforcement and by civilians with racist intent. Their names became social media hashtags, and ring in the hearts of every black man, woman, and child in the United States.
Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Treyvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd…
A growing list of names. The unarmed black victims of racial injustice.
Too many names to count.
Requiem for the Unarmed is my musical response to the death of George Floyd and to black lives lost due to racial injustice in the United States. This piece is meant to be a memorial to those lives lost and is my plea and prayer.
May this happen no more.
~ Kevin Day
Grand Symphonic Winds
Dobrado Barroco (2019)
Gilson Silva (b. 1987)
Gilson Silva is a Brazilian composer and conductor who currently serves as the conductor of the Symphonic Band and Chamber Orchestra at the Center for Artistic and Technological Training of the Palácio das Artes–Belo Horizonte. Silva is actively engaged as a composer, with works that have premiered in prestigious venues such as Sala São Paulo and Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, and he is frequently invited to participate in festivals and lecture, where he teaches interpretative practices and musical analysis in bands and wind ensembles.
The idea of composing a dobrado with characteristics of baroque music arose after Silva participated in the first Biennial of Music Bands of Funarte in the city of Mogi das Cruzes–SP in 2018, an event that brought together several bands from Brazil. The dobrado is a genre widely played by Brazilian bands. It is a martial music, and its form is generally divided into three sections: A-B-C. In this work Silva maintains the basis of structure contained in a dobrado; however, he seeks a dialogue with elements present in German, Italian, and English baroque. Dobrado Barroco seeks to sharpen the most attentive ears, while simultaneously inserting a new perspective on the genre.
Havana (2018)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
From the composer:
Havana is a wind ensemble piece that I started working on in 2017, got about 30 measures into writing, and then put on the shelf. I ended up forgetting about it, and while I was searching through my music files on a night in September 2018, I stumbled on this work and found inspiration to write on what I had. I wanted to tell a story with the piece and make it authentic, and so I spent a lot of time carefully writing the work. After messing with a few titles and feeling a good amount of frustration, I decided to go with Havana, despite there being a viral pop song already in existence with the same name (a song that is honestly a guilty pleasure of mine to listen to). This piece, however, has nothing to do with the Camilla Cabello megahit.
Havana (for Wind Ensemble) is a work that is heavily influenced by Cuban music, rhythms, and percussion. I wanted to highlight different dance genres such as salsa, mambo, and cha-cha, while also making the piece in my own voice. I have a strong love for Latin music, so this was incredibly fun to write. I sought to paint a mental picture of the city of Havana, the beautiful landscape, and the culture that it is known and beloved for. There are many Latin-influenced pieces for band already and so I wanted to make Havana stand out as one that is exciting and memorable. I hope that performers and audiences will tap their foot, bop their heads, and feel the music.
I Know Moonrise (2019)
Jess Langston Turner (b. 1983)
Jess Langston Turner is an American composer known primarily for his choir and concert band music. Turner holds multiple degrees in trumpet performance and composition and has received numerous honors for his music, including the 2005 National Winner of the Young Artist Composition Competition of the Music Teachers National Association and the 2010 Walter Beeler Prize for Wind Composition for Rumpelstilzchen: A Fairy Tale for Wind Ensemble.
From the composer:
I Know Moonrise began its life as a work for choir with alto soloist adapted from this anonymous spiritual text from the mid-1800s:
I know moonrise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down
The piece starts slowly and falteringly with a solo French horn taking the place of the alto voice in a poignantly blues-inflected melody. The music darkens as it passes out of moonlight into the graveyard and down into the grave. But on the other side of the grave waits joy, reconciliation, light, and rest.
I Know Moonrise was commissioned for the retirement of my father, Dr. Daniel Turner, after more than 40 years of service as director of bands and head of the Department of Music Education at Bob Jones University in Greensville, South Carolina.
Danse Satanique (2015)
Alexandre Kosmicki (b. 1978)
Alexandre Kosmicki is a French composer, educator, and clarinetist. Kosmicki holds four first prizes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and orchestration from the National Conservatory of Music in Paris as well as the prize of the city of Paris in musical analysis and clarinet. Deeply attached to French aesthetics, he seeks to expand the repertoire for wind orchestras by composing original works.
Danse Satanique begins with an incantation by the solo horn that addresses the occult forces. The end of this incantation is taken up by the clarinets in the form of a litany, giving rise to depths of an evil power symbolized not only by the disorganized tremolo from part of the ensemble but also by the power of the trombones in glissandi. Soon, the emergence of an evil world— with its echoes of the incantatory theme—is set up and inevitably leads to a satanic dance.
The dance represents Satan’s universe with twisted rhythms, brilliant woodwind runs, and complex textures, utilizing a rich and colorful orchestration and demanding extremely careful ensemble balance. This “organized chaos” precedes the frantic appearance of Satan’s theme presented by the low brass. It will only sound once during the piece, but powerfully, accompanied by tremolos and triplets, as well as a subsidiary subject in the flutes.
The main incantation subject returns at last, but it will be soon swept away by sharp and harsh rhythmic mockeries, confirming the violence and insolence of the satanic world.
Danse Satanique represents the very best of the French tradition: lightness of articulation, richness of orchestration, rhythmic sophistication, and a developed harmonic language. Kosmicki creates a fascinating sound world.
Minnesota Symphonic Winds
To Gold in Broadest Blue (2015)
Jocelyn Hagen (b. 1980)
Jocelyn Hagen, a native of North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” and “completely original in all respects.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). She makes her living as a full-time musician, primarily as a composer. She has received grants and awards from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and a wealth of ensembles and performing artists.
Hagen wrote To Gold in Broadest Blue as a musical impression of the countryside and her feelings of home: warm, golden fields and a broad, blue sky. The work is dedicated to her father and was commissioned by the Midwest District of Tau Beta Sigma and Kappa Kappa Psi. It was premiered by the North Dakota State University Gold Star Band, Warren Olfert, conductor.
Corsican Litany (1976)
Václav Nelhýbel (1919–1996)
Paul Kile, Associate Conductor
Václav Nelhýbel was born the youngest of five children in Polanka, Czechoslovakia. He studied at the Prague Conservatory after which, in 1939, he began his career as conductor at Radio Prague. In 1950, he became the first musical director of Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Nelhýbel emigrated to the United States in 1957, becoming a citizen 5 years later. He taught at several schools, including the University of Scranton (PA), where he was composer in residence until the time of his death. In 1962, Nelhýbel received his first exposure to a concert band.
He wrote:
The first band I heard played a piece by Persichetti, and it was so good I just caught fire. I was fascinated with the possibilities of what you can do with half an acre of clarinets, half an acre of flutes, and half an acre of percussion. So I said, why not try it? I did, and it seemed to open new creative channels in my mind.
Music has often been used to express emotion. A strong sense of sorrow and vengeance is evident in Nelhýbel’s Corsican Litany, composed in 1976. The composer has provided some background upon which this work is based:
In many parts of the world it was once common practice during burial ceremonies to have professional mourners dramatize the grief of the bereaved by means of loud and emotional lamentations, repeated endlessly like a chant. In some places, notably the Mediterranean countries, these laments were actually sung, usually by women who were skilled in this macabre art and could command pay for their services.
Corsican laments, like Corsican deaths, were divided into two types: the ordinary lamento for death from natural causes, and the vocero if the mourned had been murdered. The latter then became a song of grief so intense, so filled with pain, that it could only be assuaged by an act of direst vengeance. The murderer was accused and identified by name, and the singer solemnly swore to see to it that he who had murdered would pay for it with his life.
Corsican Litany is based on a vocero first known to have been sung in 1775 at the funeral of a country doctor named Matju who had been murdered by his own patient, one Natale. The melody is introduced mournfully, but grows steadily in passionate intensity until an astonishing climax is reached in the final menacing oath of vengeance.
Elegy (1972)
John Barnes Chance (1932–1972)
John Barnes “Barney” Chance, an American composer, began composing in high school where he participated in the school band and orchestra playing percussion. During that time, he composed his first symphony for orchestra, and it premiered during his senior year. He went to the University of Texas for bachelor and master of music degrees, and after his studies, Chance played with the Austin Symphony Orchestra as well as the Fourth and Eighth U.S. Army Bands. After these performance experiences with the army, he composed seven pieces for school ensembles, including his first work for wind band. Over his career, Chance composed a variety of music of different genres, including band, orchestra, chorus, chamber groups, and solo instruments. He passed away unexpectedly when he was electrocuted in his own backyard at the age of 39.
Elegy was commissioned in memory of a member of the West Genesee Senior High School Band, and its mournful, simple melody, established by low woodwinds and characterized by slow, sustained notes reflects the solemn reason for its existence. An elegy often comments on a life tragically cut short and unfinished; sadly, Chance composed Elegy just months before his own death.
Capricho (2024)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
✦ Premiere Performance ✦
Kevin Day, guest composer/conductor
Commissioned by the Minnesota Symphonic Winds and their director Dr. Timothy Mahr and supported by a consortium of 38 participating band programs from eight states and three countries, CAPRICHO (meaning whimsical or fanciful) is an energetic composition mostly in 6/8 that is written in a march-like style. Featuring aggressive rhythmic gestures and percussion, as well as a contrasting lyrical section, this lively piece takes the audience on a journey through sudden changes or states of mind, similar to the definition of the title of this composition.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Encore Wind Ensemble
Serenade in B♭ (KV 361) (c. 1782)
I. Largo – Molto Allegro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Serenade in B♭ is Mozart’s first wind serenade and now stands as one of the most important wind ensemble compositions to date. Premiered in 1784, this chamber work was written on a much more grand scale and in a serious artistic style than most of the serenades of the time. Often serenades were light in character and intended to be royal background music, whereas this work is much more serious in nature, has more instruments than usual, and also is longer in duration.
Canzon Primi Toni (1597)
from Sacrae Symphoniae
Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
Edited by Robert King
Italian organist and composer Giovanni Gabrieli was a culminating figure of the “Venetian School” of composition at the end of the sixteenth century. He was organist at the great St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, which had two choir lofts on opposite sides of the cathedral. This wonderful space led to a large compositional output of antiphonal music, or cori spezzati (It. ‘broken choirs’), also known as polychoral music.
Gabrieli was one of the first composers to elevate the brass family from accompanimental to a soloistic role. His Canzon Primi Toni is a small work from the larger Sacrae Symphoniae written in 1597. Composed for performance in the St. Mark’s Cathedral, the canzon was scored for two brass choirs stationed in opposite balconies.
Cathedrals (2008)
Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987)
Cathedrals is a “neo-renaissance” fantasy on Gabrieli’s Canzon Primi Toni. It intricately weaves together minimalist-like writings with quotes and elaborations from Gabrieli. The work is a synthesis of the old and the new, evoking the old mystery and allure of Gabrieli’s antiphonal music, counterpoint, and canonic textures, while intertwined with new rich color palettes, modal harmonies, and textures of woodwinds and percussion.
Requiem for the Unarmed (2020/2022)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was murdered by police officers, one of which had a knee on his neck, cutting off all oxygen to his brain. Floyd’s last words, the same words used by Eric Garner in 2014, echo across the United States and through the world. “I. can’t. breathe.”
Seeing the footage of his murder on television, my heart sank and I felt incredibly sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed, and it took me weeks to process what had transpired. Someone who looks like me was just murdered in cold blood by law enforcement. I can recall the many people that also look like me that were murdered in similar fashion, both by law enforcement and by civilians with racist intent. Their names became social media hashtags, and ring in the hearts of every black man, woman, and child in the United States.
Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Treyvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd…
A growing list of names. The unarmed black victims of racial injustice.
Too many names to count.
Requiem for the Unarmed is my musical response to the death of George Floyd and to black lives lost due to racial injustice in the United States. This piece is meant to be a memorial to those lives lost and is my plea and prayer.
May this happen no more.
~ Kevin Day
Grand Symphonic Winds
Dobrado Barroco (2019)
Gilson Silva (b. 1987)
Gilson Silva is a Brazilian composer and conductor who currently serves as the conductor of the Symphonic Band and Chamber Orchestra at the Center for Artistic and Technological Training of the Palácio das Artes–Belo Horizonte. Silva is actively engaged as a composer, with works that have premiered in prestigious venues such as Sala São Paulo and Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, and he is frequently invited to participate in festivals and lecture, where he teaches interpretative practices and musical analysis in bands and wind ensembles.
The idea of composing a dobrado with characteristics of baroque music arose after Silva participated in the first Biennial of Music Bands of Funarte in the city of Mogi das Cruzes–SP in 2018, an event that brought together several bands from Brazil. The dobrado is a genre widely played by Brazilian bands. It is a martial music, and its form is generally divided into three sections: A-B-C. In this work Silva maintains the basis of structure contained in a dobrado; however, he seeks a dialogue with elements present in German, Italian, and English baroque. Dobrado Barroco seeks to sharpen the most attentive ears, while simultaneously inserting a new perspective on the genre.
Havana (2018)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
From the composer:
Havana is a wind ensemble piece that I started working on in 2017, got about 30 measures into writing, and then put on the shelf. I ended up forgetting about it, and while I was searching through my music files on a night in September 2018, I stumbled on this work and found inspiration to write on what I had. I wanted to tell a story with the piece and make it authentic, and so I spent a lot of time carefully writing the work. After messing with a few titles and feeling a good amount of frustration, I decided to go with Havana, despite there being a viral pop song already in existence with the same name (a song that is honestly a guilty pleasure of mine to listen to). This piece, however, has nothing to do with the Camilla Cabello megahit.
Havana (for Wind Ensemble) is a work that is heavily influenced by Cuban music, rhythms, and percussion. I wanted to highlight different dance genres such as salsa, mambo, and cha-cha, while also making the piece in my own voice. I have a strong love for Latin music, so this was incredibly fun to write. I sought to paint a mental picture of the city of Havana, the beautiful landscape, and the culture that it is known and beloved for. There are many Latin-influenced pieces for band already and so I wanted to make Havana stand out as one that is exciting and memorable. I hope that performers and audiences will tap their foot, bop their heads, and feel the music.
I Know Moonrise (2019)
Jess Langston Turner (b. 1983)
Jess Langston Turner is an American composer known primarily for his choir and concert band music. Turner holds multiple degrees in trumpet performance and composition and has received numerous honors for his music, including the 2005 National Winner of the Young Artist Composition Competition of the Music Teachers National Association and the 2010 Walter Beeler Prize for Wind Composition for Rumpelstilzchen: A Fairy Tale for Wind Ensemble.
From the composer:
I Know Moonrise began its life as a work for choir with alto soloist adapted from this anonymous spiritual text from the mid-1800s:
I know moonrise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down
The piece starts slowly and falteringly with a solo French horn taking the place of the alto voice in a poignantly blues-inflected melody. The music darkens as it passes out of moonlight into the graveyard and down into the grave. But on the other side of the grave waits joy, reconciliation, light, and rest.
I Know Moonrise was commissioned for the retirement of my father, Dr. Daniel Turner, after more than 40 years of service as director of bands and head of the Department of Music Education at Bob Jones University in Greensville, South Carolina.
Danse Satanique (2015)
Alexandre Kosmicki (b. 1978)
Alexandre Kosmicki is a French composer, educator, and clarinetist. Kosmicki holds four first prizes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and orchestration from the National Conservatory of Music in Paris as well as the prize of the city of Paris in musical analysis and clarinet. Deeply attached to French aesthetics, he seeks to expand the repertoire for wind orchestras by composing original works.
Danse Satanique begins with an incantation by the solo horn that addresses the occult forces. The end of this incantation is taken up by the clarinets in the form of a litany, giving rise to depths of an evil power symbolized not only by the disorganized tremolo from part of the ensemble but also by the power of the trombones in glissandi. Soon, the emergence of an evil world— with its echoes of the incantatory theme—is set up and inevitably leads to a satanic dance.
The dance represents Satan’s universe with twisted rhythms, brilliant woodwind runs, and complex textures, utilizing a rich and colorful orchestration and demanding extremely careful ensemble balance. This “organized chaos” precedes the frantic appearance of Satan’s theme presented by the low brass. It will only sound once during the piece, but powerfully, accompanied by tremolos and triplets, as well as a subsidiary subject in the flutes.
The main incantation subject returns at last, but it will be soon swept away by sharp and harsh rhythmic mockeries, confirming the violence and insolence of the satanic world.
Danse Satanique represents the very best of the French tradition: lightness of articulation, richness of orchestration, rhythmic sophistication, and a developed harmonic language. Kosmicki creates a fascinating sound world.
Minnesota Symphonic Winds
To Gold in Broadest Blue (2015)
Jocelyn Hagen (b. 1980)
Jocelyn Hagen, a native of North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” and “completely original in all respects.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). She makes her living as a full-time musician, primarily as a composer. She has received grants and awards from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and a wealth of ensembles and performing artists.
Hagen wrote To Gold in Broadest Blue as a musical impression of the countryside and her feelings of home: warm, golden fields and a broad, blue sky. The work is dedicated to her father and was commissioned by the Midwest District of Tau Beta Sigma and Kappa Kappa Psi. It was premiered by the North Dakota State University Gold Star Band, Warren Olfert, conductor.
Corsican Litany (1976)
Václav Nelhýbel (1919–1996)
Paul Kile, Associate Conductor
Václav Nelhýbel was born the youngest of five children in Polanka, Czechoslovakia. He studied at the Prague Conservatory after which, in 1939, he began his career as conductor at Radio Prague. In 1950, he became the first musical director of Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Nelhýbel emigrated to the United States in 1957, becoming a citizen 5 years later. He taught at several schools, including the University of Scranton (PA), where he was composer in residence until the time of his death. In 1962, Nelhýbel received his first exposure to a concert band.
He wrote:
The first band I heard played a piece by Persichetti, and it was so good I just caught fire. I was fascinated with the possibilities of what you can do with half an acre of clarinets, half an acre of flutes, and half an acre of percussion. So I said, why not try it? I did, and it seemed to open new creative channels in my mind.
Music has often been used to express emotion. A strong sense of sorrow and vengeance is evident in Nelhýbel’s Corsican Litany, composed in 1976. The composer has provided some background upon which this work is based:
In many parts of the world it was once common practice during burial ceremonies to have professional mourners dramatize the grief of the bereaved by means of loud and emotional lamentations, repeated endlessly like a chant. In some places, notably the Mediterranean countries, these laments were actually sung, usually by women who were skilled in this macabre art and could command pay for their services.
Corsican laments, like Corsican deaths, were divided into two types: the ordinary lamento for death from natural causes, and the vocero if the mourned had been murdered. The latter then became a song of grief so intense, so filled with pain, that it could only be assuaged by an act of direst vengeance. The murderer was accused and identified by name, and the singer solemnly swore to see to it that he who had murdered would pay for it with his life.
Corsican Litany is based on a vocero first known to have been sung in 1775 at the funeral of a country doctor named Matju who had been murdered by his own patient, one Natale. The melody is introduced mournfully, but grows steadily in passionate intensity until an astonishing climax is reached in the final menacing oath of vengeance.
Elegy (1972)
John Barnes Chance (1932–1972)
John Barnes “Barney” Chance, an American composer, began composing in high school where he participated in the school band and orchestra playing percussion. During that time, he composed his first symphony for orchestra, and it premiered during his senior year. He went to the University of Texas for bachelor and master of music degrees, and after his studies, Chance played with the Austin Symphony Orchestra as well as the Fourth and Eighth U.S. Army Bands. After these performance experiences with the army, he composed seven pieces for school ensembles, including his first work for wind band. Over his career, Chance composed a variety of music of different genres, including band, orchestra, chorus, chamber groups, and solo instruments. He passed away unexpectedly when he was electrocuted in his own backyard at the age of 39.
Elegy was commissioned in memory of a member of the West Genesee Senior High School Band, and its mournful, simple melody, established by low woodwinds and characterized by slow, sustained notes reflects the solemn reason for its existence. An elegy often comments on a life tragically cut short and unfinished; sadly, Chance composed Elegy just months before his own death.
Capricho (2024)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
✦ Premiere Performance ✦
Kevin Day, guest composer/conductor
Commissioned by the Minnesota Symphonic Winds and their director Dr. Timothy Mahr and supported by a consortium of 38 participating band programs from eight states and three countries, CAPRICHO (meaning whimsical or fanciful) is an energetic composition mostly in 6/8 that is written in a march-like style. Featuring aggressive rhythmic gestures and percussion, as well as a contrasting lyrical section, this lively piece takes the audience on a journey through sudden changes or states of mind, similar to the definition of the title of this composition.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Encore Wind Ensemble
Serenade in B♭ (KV 361) (c. 1782)
I. Largo – Molto Allegro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Serenade in B♭ is Mozart’s first wind serenade and now stands as one of the most important wind ensemble compositions to date. Premiered in 1784, this chamber work was written on a much more grand scale and in a serious artistic style than most of the serenades of the time. Often serenades were light in character and intended to be royal background music, whereas this work is much more serious in nature, has more instruments than usual, and also is longer in duration.
Canzon Primi Toni (1597)
from Sacrae Symphoniae
Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612)
Edited by Robert King
Italian organist and composer Giovanni Gabrieli was a culminating figure of the “Venetian School” of composition at the end of the sixteenth century. He was organist at the great St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, which had two choir lofts on opposite sides of the cathedral. This wonderful space led to a large compositional output of antiphonal music, or cori spezzati (It. ‘broken choirs’), also known as polychoral music.
Gabrieli was one of the first composers to elevate the brass family from accompanimental to a soloistic role. His Canzon Primi Toni is a small work from the larger Sacrae Symphoniae written in 1597. Composed for performance in the St. Mark’s Cathedral, the canzon was scored for two brass choirs stationed in opposite balconies.
Cathedrals (2008)
Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987)
Cathedrals is a “neo-renaissance” fantasy on Gabrieli’s Canzon Primi Toni. It intricately weaves together minimalist-like writings with quotes and elaborations from Gabrieli. The work is a synthesis of the old and the new, evoking the old mystery and allure of Gabrieli’s antiphonal music, counterpoint, and canonic textures, while intertwined with new rich color palettes, modal harmonies, and textures of woodwinds and percussion.
Requiem for the Unarmed (2020/2022)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis resident George Floyd was murdered by police officers, one of which had a knee on his neck, cutting off all oxygen to his brain. Floyd’s last words, the same words used by Eric Garner in 2014, echo across the United States and through the world. “I. can’t. breathe.”
Seeing the footage of his murder on television, my heart sank and I felt incredibly sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I had witnessed, and it took me weeks to process what had transpired. Someone who looks like me was just murdered in cold blood by law enforcement. I can recall the many people that also look like me that were murdered in similar fashion, both by law enforcement and by civilians with racist intent. Their names became social media hashtags, and ring in the hearts of every black man, woman, and child in the United States.
Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Treyvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd…
A growing list of names. The unarmed black victims of racial injustice.
Too many names to count.
Requiem for the Unarmed is my musical response to the death of George Floyd and to black lives lost due to racial injustice in the United States. This piece is meant to be a memorial to those lives lost and is my plea and prayer.
May this happen no more.
~ Kevin Day
Grand Symphonic Winds
Dobrado Barroco (2019)
Gilson Silva (b. 1987)
Gilson Silva is a Brazilian composer and conductor who currently serves as the conductor of the Symphonic Band and Chamber Orchestra at the Center for Artistic and Technological Training of the Palácio das Artes–Belo Horizonte. Silva is actively engaged as a composer, with works that have premiered in prestigious venues such as Sala São Paulo and Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, and he is frequently invited to participate in festivals and lecture, where he teaches interpretative practices and musical analysis in bands and wind ensembles.
The idea of composing a dobrado with characteristics of baroque music arose after Silva participated in the first Biennial of Music Bands of Funarte in the city of Mogi das Cruzes–SP in 2018, an event that brought together several bands from Brazil. The dobrado is a genre widely played by Brazilian bands. It is a martial music, and its form is generally divided into three sections: A-B-C. In this work Silva maintains the basis of structure contained in a dobrado; however, he seeks a dialogue with elements present in German, Italian, and English baroque. Dobrado Barroco seeks to sharpen the most attentive ears, while simultaneously inserting a new perspective on the genre.
Havana (2018)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
From the composer:
Havana is a wind ensemble piece that I started working on in 2017, got about 30 measures into writing, and then put on the shelf. I ended up forgetting about it, and while I was searching through my music files on a night in September 2018, I stumbled on this work and found inspiration to write on what I had. I wanted to tell a story with the piece and make it authentic, and so I spent a lot of time carefully writing the work. After messing with a few titles and feeling a good amount of frustration, I decided to go with Havana, despite there being a viral pop song already in existence with the same name (a song that is honestly a guilty pleasure of mine to listen to). This piece, however, has nothing to do with the Camilla Cabello megahit.
Havana (for Wind Ensemble) is a work that is heavily influenced by Cuban music, rhythms, and percussion. I wanted to highlight different dance genres such as salsa, mambo, and cha-cha, while also making the piece in my own voice. I have a strong love for Latin music, so this was incredibly fun to write. I sought to paint a mental picture of the city of Havana, the beautiful landscape, and the culture that it is known and beloved for. There are many Latin-influenced pieces for band already and so I wanted to make Havana stand out as one that is exciting and memorable. I hope that performers and audiences will tap their foot, bop their heads, and feel the music.
I Know Moonrise (2019)
Jess Langston Turner (b. 1983)
Jess Langston Turner is an American composer known primarily for his choir and concert band music. Turner holds multiple degrees in trumpet performance and composition and has received numerous honors for his music, including the 2005 National Winner of the Young Artist Composition Competition of the Music Teachers National Association and the 2010 Walter Beeler Prize for Wind Composition for Rumpelstilzchen: A Fairy Tale for Wind Ensemble.
From the composer:
I Know Moonrise began its life as a work for choir with alto soloist adapted from this anonymous spiritual text from the mid-1800s:
I know moonrise, I know star-rise,
Lay dis body down.
I walk in de moonlight, I walk in de starlight,
To lay dis body down
The piece starts slowly and falteringly with a solo French horn taking the place of the alto voice in a poignantly blues-inflected melody. The music darkens as it passes out of moonlight into the graveyard and down into the grave. But on the other side of the grave waits joy, reconciliation, light, and rest.
I Know Moonrise was commissioned for the retirement of my father, Dr. Daniel Turner, after more than 40 years of service as director of bands and head of the Department of Music Education at Bob Jones University in Greensville, South Carolina.
Danse Satanique (2015)
Alexandre Kosmicki (b. 1978)
Alexandre Kosmicki is a French composer, educator, and clarinetist. Kosmicki holds four first prizes in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and orchestration from the National Conservatory of Music in Paris as well as the prize of the city of Paris in musical analysis and clarinet. Deeply attached to French aesthetics, he seeks to expand the repertoire for wind orchestras by composing original works.
Danse Satanique begins with an incantation by the solo horn that addresses the occult forces. The end of this incantation is taken up by the clarinets in the form of a litany, giving rise to depths of an evil power symbolized not only by the disorganized tremolo from part of the ensemble but also by the power of the trombones in glissandi. Soon, the emergence of an evil world— with its echoes of the incantatory theme—is set up and inevitably leads to a satanic dance.
The dance represents Satan’s universe with twisted rhythms, brilliant woodwind runs, and complex textures, utilizing a rich and colorful orchestration and demanding extremely careful ensemble balance. This “organized chaos” precedes the frantic appearance of Satan’s theme presented by the low brass. It will only sound once during the piece, but powerfully, accompanied by tremolos and triplets, as well as a subsidiary subject in the flutes.
The main incantation subject returns at last, but it will be soon swept away by sharp and harsh rhythmic mockeries, confirming the violence and insolence of the satanic world.
Danse Satanique represents the very best of the French tradition: lightness of articulation, richness of orchestration, rhythmic sophistication, and a developed harmonic language. Kosmicki creates a fascinating sound world.
Minnesota Symphonic Winds
To Gold in Broadest Blue (2015)
Jocelyn Hagen (b. 1980)
Jocelyn Hagen, a native of North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” and “completely original in all respects.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). She makes her living as a full-time musician, primarily as a composer. She has received grants and awards from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and a wealth of ensembles and performing artists.
Hagen wrote To Gold in Broadest Blue as a musical impression of the countryside and her feelings of home: warm, golden fields and a broad, blue sky. The work is dedicated to her father and was commissioned by the Midwest District of Tau Beta Sigma and Kappa Kappa Psi. It was premiered by the North Dakota State University Gold Star Band, Warren Olfert, conductor.
Corsican Litany (1976)
Václav Nelhýbel (1919–1996)
Paul Kile, Associate Conductor
Václav Nelhýbel was born the youngest of five children in Polanka, Czechoslovakia. He studied at the Prague Conservatory after which, in 1939, he began his career as conductor at Radio Prague. In 1950, he became the first musical director of Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Nelhýbel emigrated to the United States in 1957, becoming a citizen 5 years later. He taught at several schools, including the University of Scranton (PA), where he was composer in residence until the time of his death. In 1962, Nelhýbel received his first exposure to a concert band.
He wrote:
The first band I heard played a piece by Persichetti, and it was so good I just caught fire. I was fascinated with the possibilities of what you can do with half an acre of clarinets, half an acre of flutes, and half an acre of percussion. So I said, why not try it? I did, and it seemed to open new creative channels in my mind.
Music has often been used to express emotion. A strong sense of sorrow and vengeance is evident in Nelhýbel’s Corsican Litany, composed in 1976. The composer has provided some background upon which this work is based:
In many parts of the world it was once common practice during burial ceremonies to have professional mourners dramatize the grief of the bereaved by means of loud and emotional lamentations, repeated endlessly like a chant. In some places, notably the Mediterranean countries, these laments were actually sung, usually by women who were skilled in this macabre art and could command pay for their services.
Corsican laments, like Corsican deaths, were divided into two types: the ordinary lamento for death from natural causes, and the vocero if the mourned had been murdered. The latter then became a song of grief so intense, so filled with pain, that it could only be assuaged by an act of direst vengeance. The murderer was accused and identified by name, and the singer solemnly swore to see to it that he who had murdered would pay for it with his life.
Corsican Litany is based on a vocero first known to have been sung in 1775 at the funeral of a country doctor named Matju who had been murdered by his own patient, one Natale. The melody is introduced mournfully, but grows steadily in passionate intensity until an astonishing climax is reached in the final menacing oath of vengeance.
Elegy (1972)
John Barnes Chance (1932–1972)
John Barnes “Barney” Chance, an American composer, began composing in high school where he participated in the school band and orchestra playing percussion. During that time, he composed his first symphony for orchestra, and it premiered during his senior year. He went to the University of Texas for bachelor and master of music degrees, and after his studies, Chance played with the Austin Symphony Orchestra as well as the Fourth and Eighth U.S. Army Bands. After these performance experiences with the army, he composed seven pieces for school ensembles, including his first work for wind band. Over his career, Chance composed a variety of music of different genres, including band, orchestra, chorus, chamber groups, and solo instruments. He passed away unexpectedly when he was electrocuted in his own backyard at the age of 39.
Elegy was commissioned in memory of a member of the West Genesee Senior High School Band, and its mournful, simple melody, established by low woodwinds and characterized by slow, sustained notes reflects the solemn reason for its existence. An elegy often comments on a life tragically cut short and unfinished; sadly, Chance composed Elegy just months before his own death.
Capricho (2024)
Kevin Day (b. 1996)
Guest composer/conductor
✦ Premiere Performance ✦
Commissioned by the Minnesota Symphonic Winds and their director Dr. Timothy Mahr and supported by a consortium of 38 participating band programs from eight states and three countries, CAPRICHO (meaning whimsical or fanciful) is an energetic composition mostly in 6/8 that is written in a march-like style. Featuring aggressive rhythmic gestures and percussion, as well as a contrasting lyrical section, this lively piece takes the audience on a journey through sudden changes or states of mind, similar to the definition of the title of this composition.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.