Wind Symphony

Parhelion (2022) was commissioned for the 2019 retirement of Gary W. Hill from his post as director of bands at Arizona State University by his former students. Etezady's program note describes its inspiration:

A Parhelion, sometimes also called “sun dog,” or “whirling rainbow,” is an optical illusion caused by sunlight passing through ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, causing bright spots to appear around a “solar halo” that encircles the sun. The phenomenon causes a ring of brilliance to appear around the sun, with gems of light dotting the perimeter of the circle, evoking the appearance of three suns in the sky. In some folk traditions, parhelia signify a sign of great change or transition on the horizon.

Parhelion is dedicated to Gary Hill, whose warmth and brilliance enlighten everyone and everything in his radius. All of us who have worked with him, laughed with him, and learned from him are brighter because of his luminous curiosity and radiant energy. This piece is written in honor of his transition from full-time university professor into the next phase of his life and career.

- Program Note by composer

Is A Rose
As a professional vocalist in the GRAMMY® winning and technically revolutionary vocal octet Roomful of Teeth and an accomplished Baroque violinist, Caroline Shaw is uniquely prepared to write works for period orchestra and voices. Shaw’s music taps into the forms, sonorities, and techniques of the eighteenth century in a wholly contemporary style that is not born out of an antiquarian “neoclassicism.” Her sensitivity to the delivery of the text is often unencumbered by specific rhythms subject to divisions of a beat, giving the singer the freedom to inflect the words according to the subtle accents of speech, an innovation called recitative that dates back to the very beginnings of the Baroque period circa 1600. Shaw eschews the excessive vocal gymnastics of the bravura arias of the High Baroque period, as well as the literal representations of the text known as “word-painting,” although those aspects are frequently assigned to the orchestral accompaniment in introductions, interludes, and postludes which illuminate -- rather than overwhelm -- the clarity of the text.

The song trilogy Is A Rose, written for the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, juxtaposes poetry from the 18th and 21st centuries, an appropriate complement to a Baroque orchestra playing contemporary music. The first installment was Robert Burns’s ballad “Red, Red Rose,” written in 1794 and composed in 2016. This was followed the next year by “The Edge,” to a text by the living British poet Jacob Polley. The centerpiece, written and composed in 2019, is Shaw’s own existential meta-musing on Burns, Gertrude Stein, and the composer’s creative task.

“The Edge” is most clearly related to its Baroque ancestors. Following an introduction that warms from “steely” to “buoyant” with the entrance of an oboe solo, the orchestra introduces a recurring passage in the sarabande rhythm of Handel’s aria “Lascia ch’io pianga” that precedes, accompanies, and concludes the song. Unconstrained by this rhythm, the vocal line declaims the poem “with freedom & warmth.” In a rondo-like form, the recurrence of the introspective refrain “Where does the grace of the moment go” is separated by two climactic arcs of accelerating motion, rising pitch, and mounting dynamics.

“And So” begins with harpsichord supporting the nonchalant text in the manner of a lute-song. Following a brief unaccompanied soliloquy, a fabric of lilting string figures, as circuitous as Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose,” underscores the voice. The poet/composer wryly reflects on her own condition by answering a couplet by Burns (“When a’ the seas rise high, my dear/And the rocks melt with the sun…”) with one of her own (“Will the memory of us/Still rhyme with anyone…”). Following a reprise of the lute-song texture, the strings and harpsichord return to the rhythmically repetitive motive, an endless clockwork in response to “And so we stay, on borrowed time.”

The metrical regularity and rhyme scheme of Burns’s Scottish song Red, Red Rose invite a more traditional approach to the text. The folk-like ballad leisurely unfolds after a freely intoned introduction over a pizzicato bass. An undulating string ostinato, later taken up by the harpsichord, accompanies the entrance of the oboe in the second stanza. A churning figure in the lower strings (“And the rocks melt with the sun”) is picked up by the harpsichord, whose delicate brilliance evokes an image of the running sands of time. Following the final stanza, reminiscences of the text trail off into an ethereal humming by the orchestra players.

- Program Note by Bruce Lamott, Scholar-in-Residence and Chorale Director, retired, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale.

The Edge
[by Jacob Polley, 2016]

the wind is light
the light wind
beating its wings about your face
as it rises
where you cannot rise

the loaf
baked full of the fields’
light and air
the honey ablaze
on the knife

wind with no
relief in it, turning a cylinder
of leaves a shadow
falls into and tumbles out bright

where does the grace
of the moment go
from the stream, a palmful
of silver your life

wing-beats, the long grass
whipped by
the light that sings
off the edge of the rose

And So
[by Caroline Shaw, 2019]

Would a song by any other name
Sound as sweet and true?
Would all the reds be just the same
Or violets as blue?

If you were gone
Would words still flow
And would they rhyme with you?
If you were gone
Would I still know
How to love, and how to grow
And how the vowel threads through?

And so, you say, the saying goes
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a rose is a tired rhyme
But in the verse there's always time

Would scansion cease to mark the beats if I went away?
Would a syllable interrupt the feet of tetrametric iambs when I am gone?
Listen, and I will sing a tune of love and life, and of the ocean's prose
And the poetry of a red, red rose that's nearly sprung in June

And so, you say, the saying goes
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a rose is how I'm
Keeping track of time

When all the seas rise high, my dear
And rocks melt with the sun
Will the memory of us
Still rhyme with anyone?
Will we still tune our violins?
Will we still sing of roses?
Will we exist at all, my love
Or will we fade to stanzas of our dust
That, I suppose, is all we were and all we'll be?

And so, the saying, so it goes
Depends a lot on if a rose
Is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Is a rose is a rose is a thing sublime
And so we stay on borrowed time

Red, Red Rose
[“A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns, 1794]

O my Love’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly spring in June
O my Love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only Love
And fare thee well awhile
And I will come again, my Love
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Love & Nature (2024) was commissioned by a consortium of wind bands led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and explores how love prevails through cosmic lore, social movements, and mercurial mythos. Each of the work's three movements connect a different instrumental sound world to the concepts of earth, air, and fire, depicting a blossoming of kindness and hope for the future of our planet. The first movement, "Flower Power," is inspired by the titular social movement of the 1960s–1970s and sonically critiques the juxtaposition of fragility and strength, beauty and utility, and nonviolence and force. "Flower Power" reflects the ethos of Marc Riboud's iconic photograph The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet and incorporates a musical Easter egg—a countermelody for counterculture. The second movement, "Star-Crossed," summons the hope, whimsy, and longing of its ill-fated protagonists through celestial textures and luminous scoring. The third and final movement, "Slow Burn," explores both versions of the titular literary trope—romantic and anger-fueled—through the arboraceous lens of controlled fire, an originally indigenous practice that mitigates the drought-driven effects of climate change. "Slow Burn" foregrounds bright and wooden sounds to pay homage to our forests and the necessity of ecological restoration.

Special thanks to Kim Fleming, Christi Blahnik, Rachel Zephir, Ashley Killam, Ancel "Fitz" Neeley, Michael Avitabile, Sagar Anupindi, Allison Chu, and Hannah Hickman for their guidance during the writing of this work. And Pete Williams: to the moon and back. Endless gratitude to the bands whose support has made Love & Nature a reality.

“The King of Cups” from Tarot (2022)
Gustav Holst was incredibly interested in Indian culture, going so far as to teach himself Sanskrit. Some evidence suggests that he tried to incorporate Indian rāgas into his works, and after investigating Holst’s resources and analyzing his Planets, I believe that Holst tried to reference rāgas that evoked similar characters to those of the planets in his suite. Holst’s access to authentic performance of Indian music was limited, however, and like many composers -- especially as a British composer entrenched in modal composition during the English folk song revival of the early twentieth century -- he took what he understood of rāgas and filled in the gaps with Western theoretical knowledge, resulting in the treatment of what were once rāgas as scales or modes.

I decided to compose a suite that traces Holst’s footsteps but applies his musical experimentation to a new topic: Tarot. Like astrology, Tarot cards have been used for divination, and as each planet in modern astrology represents specific characteristics and personality traits, so too does each Tarot card. Some elements of the Hindustani thāts, Karnātak mēlakarta rāgas, and pitch sets Holst references in his Planets are referenced in Tarot using a similarly Western approach to portray Tarot card analogs.

In Tarot, the suit of cups corresponds with emotional energy and the element of water. A deeply empathic soul, the King of Cups tempers his emotions by balancing his heart with his head. The King leads diplomatically through compassion. The second movement, The King of Cups, references the pitches of mēlakarta rāga Dhavalāmbari from Neptune as a nod to a fellow intuitive and ruler of the sea, and additionally employs the pitches of the Bhairavī that are found in Venus to allude to the King’s kind and gentle countenance.

- Program Note by composer

Lincolnshire Posy was commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association and premiered at their convention with the composer conducting. It is in six movements, all based on folk songs from Lincolnshire, England. Grainger's settings are not only true to the verse structure of the folk songs, but attempt to depict the singers from whom Grainger collected the songs. Since its premiere, it has been recognized as a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire.

Lincolnshire Posy, as a whole work, was conceived and scored by me direct for wind band early in 1937. Five, out of the six, movements of which it is made up existed in no other finished form, though most of these movements (as is the case with almost all my compositions and settings, for whatever medium) were indebted, more or less, to unfinished sketches for a variety of mediums covering many years (in this case, the sketches date from 1905 to 1937). These indebtednesses are stated in the score.

This bunch of "musical wildflowers" (hence the title) is based on folksongs collected in Lincolnshire, England (one notated by Miss Lucy E. Broadwood; the other five noted by me, mainly in the years 1905-1906, and with the help of the phonograph), and the work is dedicated to the old folksingers who sang so sweetly to me. Indeed, each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody -- a musical portrait of the singer's personality no less than of his habits of song -- his regular or irregular wonts of rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesqued delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone.

- Program Note by Percy Aldridge Grainger

Flute
Emily Fluty
Ashley Busch
Elijah Ondrish, picc
Evelyn Purdin
Alyssa Brannon

Oboe
Michael Berchert
Megan Strait, ob/eng hrn
Kathryn Swanson

Eb Clarinet
Ryan Kramer

Bb Clarinet
Adam Williams
Ryan Moore
Willis McClure
Alex Proctor
Andrew Sowders
Morgan Thompson

Bass Clarinet
Natalie Kyser

Contra Bass Clarinet
Alex Proctor

Bassoon
Jordan Wier
Lorelei Wilkerson
Susan Nelson*

Saxophone
Mary Borus
Matthew Reed
Lukas Bass
Aidan Peper
Jacob Loitz*
Chandler Creedon*

Trumpet
Trace Coulter
Matt Pileski
Sydney Nitschke
Jack Mantonya
Bingcheng Li
Eliana Peron

Horn
Elena María Farmer Ocrus
Bird Birmingham
Mitchell Hemme
Tre Myers
Krystina Rodkey
Patrick Scully

Trombone
Peyton Gray
David Franklin
Christian Chang
Xander Soural, bass

Euphonium
Benjamin Bates
Zephyr McQuade

Tuba
Ethan Morris
Matt Brewton
Alyssa Shimmel

Percussion
Liam Lockhart
Brooke Guyton
Jacob Kendall
Jude Crawford
Alex Minniear
Zach Hallam
Matthew Graves

Piano and Harpsichord
Wesley Romanko

Harp
Beth Henson

Double Bass
Ellie Kornowa

*additional musician for Grainger

Lindsay Kesselman is a twice GRAMMY-nominated soprano known for her warm, collaborative spirit and investment in personal, intimate communication with audiences. She regularly collaborates with orchestras, wind symphonies, chamber ensembles, opera/theater companies, and new music ensembles across the United States, often premiering, touring and recording new works written for her by living composers. She is a passionate advocate for contemporary music, and has commissioned/premiered over 100 works to date.
 
Recent and upcoming highlights include frequent performances of Darkening, then Brightening by Christopher Cerrone across the country, a tour culminating at National CBDNA with the UNC Greensboro Wind Ensemble, premieres of wind transcriptions of Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose and Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, Pierrot Lunaire with Ensemble ATL, Energy in All Directions by Kenneth Frazelle with Sandbox Percussion at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the role of Anna in Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins with the Charlotte Symphony, the role of Ada Lovelace in a new opera, Galaxies in Her Eyes by Mark Lanz Weiser and Amy Punt, Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space with Voices of Ascension, ongoing performances of works written for Kesselman by John Mackey with orchestras and wind symphonies across the country, the John Corigliano 80th birthday celebration at National Sawdust (2018), Quixote (Amy Beth Kirsten and Mark DeChiazza) with Peak Performances at Montclair State University (2017), a leading role in Louis Andriessen’s opera Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Dutch National Opera and an international tour of Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble (2012-2015).
 
She is featured on several recent recordings: David Biedenbender’s all we are given we cannot hold (2023, Blue Griffin), Chris Cerrone’s opera In a Grove (2023, In a Circle Records), Caroline Shaw’s Is a Rose (2023, Blue Griffin), Chris Cerrone’s The Arching Path (2021, In a Circle Records), Russell Hartenberger’s Requiem for Percussion and Voices (2019, Nexus Records), Chris Cerrone’s The Pieces That Fall to Earth with Wild Up (2019, New Amsterdam Records), Mathew Rosenblum’s Lament/Witches’ Sabbath with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (2018, New Focus Recordings), Louis Andriessen’s Theatre of the World with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2017, Nonesuch), and Jon Magnussen’s Twinge with HAVEN (2016, Blue Griffin).
 
Kesselman has been the resident soprano of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble for 13 seasons, and Haven, Kesselman’s trio with Kimberly Cole Luevano, clarinet and Midori Koga, piano ( www.haventrio.com ) actively commissions and tours throughout North America. Haven is the recipient of a 2021 Barlow Endowment for Music Composition award with composer David Biedenbender and a 2021 Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant with composer Ivette Herryman Rodríguez.

She is a dedicated teacher and serves as Assistant Professor of Voice and Choral Music at UNC Greensboro. There she maintains an active voice studio and she conducts the UNCG Treble Ensemble. Kesselman also co-directs the Heretic’s Guide to Musicianship: A Score Study and Interpretation Workshop with Kevin Noe. A frequent guest clinician at colleges and universities across the United States, Kesselman specializes in voice teaching, leadership, entrepreneurship, musicianship, young composer mentoring, chamber music, audience development, programming, interdisciplinary collaboration, harnessing vulnerability in performance, and community engagement.

Kesselman holds degrees in voice performance and music education from Rice University and Michigan State University. She is represented by Trudy Chan at Black Tea Music and lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband Kevin Noe and son Rowan. More information can be found at:  www.lindsaykesselman.com

Matthew Dockendorf is Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music Education at Bowling Green State University. His duties include guiding all aspects of the concert band program, artistic director of the BGSU Wind Symphony and teaching courses in undergraduate and graduate conducting and music education.

Previous professional appointments include interim Director of Bands, Associate Director of Bands and Director of the “Golden Buffalo” Marching Band, and Assistant Director of Bands all at the University of Colorado Boulder. During this time, he developed a national profile for music education, artistic performance, undergraduate and graduate teaching, and a generous collaborator.

Dr. Dockendorf is an advocate for new music, music education, and developing artistry in all ages of musicians. He has most recently commissioned and premiered works by composers Kevin Day (Glimmerglass, Concerto for Flute and chamber winds, Christina Jennings), Annika Socolofsky (The Full Hundred), Alexandra Gardner (Concerto for Saxophone, Nathan Mertens), and collaborated with ~Nois Saxophone quartet and Viet Cuong. Other meaningful musical collaborations include Stacey Berk, Lindsay Bronnenkant, Peter Cooper, Henry Dorn, Tyler Grant, Jennifer Jolley, Ricardo Lorenz, David Maslanka, Abigail Nims, Chris Pilsner, Kevin Poelking, Ivette Herryman Rodríguez, James Stephenson, Luka Vezmar, and Cheldon Williams.

Dockendorf maintains an active teaching, conducting, and clinician schedule with engagements throughout the United States. He has guest conducted high school and middle school bands in Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, and has presented clinics at various state music conferences, the Texas Music Educators Association convention, and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.

Dockendorf taught public school at Lakeville South High School in Minnesota where he was the Assistant Director and was involved in administering and teaching: marching band, concert bands, chamber music, percussion ensemble, pit orchestra, and guitar class.

Dr. Dockendorf earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from Michigan State University under Dr. Kevin L. Sedatole; a Master of Music in Conducting from The Ohio State University under Dr. Russel Mikkelson; and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Minnesota where he studied and performed under Prof. Craig Kirchhoff, Prof. Jerry Luckhardt, and Dr. Timothy Diem.