Wind Ensemble Chamber Winds

Members of the UW Wind Ensemble (Timothy Salzman, director) perform music arranged for small ensembles, including works by Kamilló Lendvay, David Biedenbender, Antonín Dvořák, Roberto Sierra, Eugène Bozza, Karl King, David Maslanka, Ludwig van Beethoven, Florent Schmitt, and others. With graduate conductors Shaun Day, Corey Jahlas, and Roger Wu Fu.     

Program Detail

Roberto Sierra (b.1953): Fanfarria (2000)
Shaun Day, conductor

Eugène Bozza (1905-1991): Jour D'Été À La Montagne (1955)
I. Pastorale
IV. Rondo
Flute Quartet

Karl King (1891-1971): Barnum and Bailey's Favorite
Tuba Ensemble

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): Serenade in D minor (1878)
I. Moderato, quasi marcia
II. Minuetto
IV. Allegro molto
Roger Wu Fu, conductor

David Maslanka (1943-2017): Mountain Roads (1997)
I. Overture
Saxophone Quartet

Paul Dukas (1865-1935) (arr. Johnston): The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)
Clarinet Choir with Baritone Saxophone

Florent Schmitt (1870-1958): Lied et Scherzo
Anna Perry, horn        

Intermission

David Marlatt (b. 1974): Spring: A New Beginning (2008)
I. The Call to Spring
II. The Celebration of Spring
Trumpet Ensemble

David Biedenbender (b. 1984) (arr. Tyler Austin): Kyrie (for Machaut and Pärt) (2019)
Corey Jahlas, conductor

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Variations on "La ci darem l mano" (1795)
Oboe Trio

Kamilló Lendvay: Concertino for Piano Solo, Winds, Percussion, and Harp (1961/1983)
Kiwa Mizutani, piano

Program Notes

Roberto Sierra, an American composer from Puerto Rico, wrote Fanfarria in 2000 for brass ensemble and percussion. This short fanfare offers a different approach to the typical fanfare, as it begins with a soft introduction that gradually builds into a final unison statement.

Jour d'été Á La Montagne (Summer Days in the Mountain) explores the relationship between the sound of the individual and group. Passing the calm lyric melody throughout the ensemble the opening Pastorale challenges the performers to balance color and sound. In contrast to the serene Pastorale the piece concludes with a joyfully humorous Rondo, replete with many echoes and chirps sounded between each performer as the work races to its conclusion. 

The most famous of all circus marches, Barnum and Bailey's Favorite was composed in 1913 by Karl King for the Barnum and Bailey Circus Band. Music director Ned Brill's love of "brassy" music must have surely inspired King, a euphonium player, to produce this tour de force for the 32-piece ensemble. King ranks alongside Henry Fillmore and John Philip Sousa as one of the most cherished band composers of the early twentieth century.

Antonín Dvořák composed the Serenade in D minor in two weeks, the first movement being written in one day. With its instrumentation of ten winds and two strings and the charm of its melodies, it is reminiscent of the Mozart serenades written a century earlier. The minuet is an example of the native influence on Dvořák’s compositions. Its trio is a “furiant” – a Czech syncopated dance in quick triple time  – which provides a marked contrast to the surrounding minuet sections of the movement. Also noteworthy is the return of the opening first movement theme toward the end of the final movement, leading to a grand conclusion. This opus is truly one of the masterpieces for wind ensemble.

David Maslanka, whose works are established standards in the wind ensemble repertoire and whose name is synonymous with the very genre, also wrote a number of pieces for chamber ensembles and Mountain Roads is one such example. Written for saxophone quartet, it follows the model of a Baroque cantata and reflects Maslanka's years of studying Bach chorales. The first movement, "Overture," contains two Bach chorale melodies: “Alle menschen mussen sterben” (All men must die) and “Wo soll ich fliehen” (Where shall I run to?). Maslanka writes: “The first title suggests the inevitability of death but is neither morbid nor about mass destruction. Death is not so much about the final end as about change. The process of growth is constantly about “dying” to one way of thinking or feeling and opening to another. After all is said and done there is the fact of physical death. The awareness of that fact points up our deep attachment to all the forms of this life."

Composed by Paul Dukas and based on Goethe’s poem, Der Zauberlehrling, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice depicts a sorcerer’s helper who – too lazy to clean his master’s workshop and fill a bathtub – enchants a broom to do the work for him.  

Of Florent Schmitt American orchestra conductor JoAnn Falletta wrote: “Florent Schmitt is the most important French composer you’ve never heard of. Rhapsodic, brooding and startlingly beautiful, Schmitt’s language is deeply personal – passionate yet extraordinarily detailed, sophisticated, and elusive.” Schmitt’s Lied et Scherzo, Op. 54, is a work for double woodwind quintet featuring a principal French horn that arguably approaches the stature of such cornerstone works as the Mozart Serenades, the Beethoven Octet, the Strauss Serenade in E-flat, or the Stravinsky Octet. The work is not well known in America, however, and neither is its composer. Unlike his contemporary Stravinsky, Schmitt was not in the business of cultivating his own fame. He often downplayed his own significance and disliked being questioned about himself. Though Schmitt’s music is high quality, it is often difficult to categorize as it is comprised of a wide and colorful array of compositional styles, genres, and nationalistic traits. Lied et Scherzo is a musical tapestry woven from a diverse assortment of both progressive and familiar musical techniques, traditions, and ideologies.

Spring: A New Beginning written for six trumpets, depicts the many aspects that the season represents, including a time for renewal throughout nature. 

Kyrie is an arrangement of the second movement of David Biedenbender’s Refraction for reed quintet. Arranged with the composer’s permission, Tyler Austin expanded the instrumentation of the work to include horns and flutes, arranging the musicians in a stereo-setup to accentuate the echoing nature of the work. Composer David Biedenbender writes, “Refraction was commissioned by the Akropolis Reed Quintet. Refraction is split into three distinct movements, each inspired by different musical sources that have been bent and distorted by time, space, and my imagination, much like light is bent as it enters a medium of different density. The second movement, “Kyrie” is dedicated to Guillaume de Machaut and Arvo Pärt.”

The theme heard at the beginning of Beethoven’s Variations on "La ci darem la mano' is the aria sung by Don Giovanni in the first act of Mozart's opera by the same name. " Là ci darem la mano," translates to "give me thy hand, oh fairest," and in the aria, the womanizer Don Giovanni sings to Zerlina, a woman whose wedding to another man Don Giovanni offered to celebrate at his castle. One of many re-imaginings of this famous tune, Beethoven transforms the melody throughout the eight variations and final coda, changing the character, key, and tempo of the aria, while featuring the 2 oboes and english horn in multiple settings.

Kamilló Lendvay studied composition with János Viski and conducting with László Somogyi at the Academy of Music, Budapest. An excellent pianist, he performed in many European countries as soloist in his own Concertino. In addition to his operas, oratorios, cantatas, symphonies, concertos, chamber works and solo pieces, he composed a considerable number of pieces for concert band. 1960 saw the first performance of Lendvay's Concertino for Piano Solo, Winds, Percussion and Harp, an outstanding contribution to the Hungarian concerto literature of the mid-twentieth century. In this work, Lendvay was powerfully influenced by three of Hungary’s greatest composers, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Franz Liszt. A touch of nineteenth century romanticism reminiscent of Franz Liszt is clearly heard in the slow second movement. Lendvay’s fondness for repeated notes and passages based on alternating patterns producing strong rhythmic forces in the first and third movements reminds the listener of Bartók’s numerous works for piano. Although Lendvay’s music is steeped in the musical developments of the twentieth century, it is deeply inspired and accessible to today’s audiences.

Biographies

Kiwa Mizutani, piano

Kiwa Mizutani is originally from the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. She currently holds a Bachelor of Music and is pursuing her Master of Music at University of Washington, studying under Dr. Robin McCabe. In 2020, she took 1st place at the UW School of Music Concerto competition and in 2022 she took 1st in the University division of The American Prize in Piano Performance. She recently performed McDowell’s Concerto No. 2 with Philharmonia Northwest and Mozart No. 14 with the UW symphony.

Anna Perry, horn

Anna Perry has been part of the University of Washington Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra since Fall of 2021, when she began pursuing a Master’s degree in Horn Performance. In addition to her studies, she connects with the community as a freelance musician, substituting with the Seattle Opera and teaching horn lessons. Anna obtained her bachelor's degree in Horn Performance from Brigham Young University–Idaho, during which she substituted in the horn section of the Idaho Falls Symphony.

University of Washington Wind Ensemble

The University of Washington Wind Ensemble has performed at many prestigious music conventions, has presented several world premiere performances of outstanding new music for wind band and in 2004, undertook a highly acclaimed nine-day concert tour of the Kansai region of Japan, returning for more extensive tours of that country in 2007 and 2010. The UW Wind Ensemble presented several concerts in the main concert venues of Beijing, China in March of 2013, including a sold-out concert in the National Center for the Performing Arts in Tiananmen Square that was broadcast nationwide on China Central Television. The ensemble returned to China in both 2016 and 2019, playing before large crowds in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Chengdu. In the spring of 2006, the ensemble was invited by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra to present a concert at Benaroya Hall as a part of the Symphony’s Made in America Festival. The London Financial Times review of the concert applauded “music of surprising sophistication…Cindy McTee’s Finish Line pulsated energetically, and William Bolcom’s Song was simply gorgeous.” Following the 2006 performance the ensemble was invited for return appearances on Seattle Symphony concert series in 2007, 2008 and, most recently in 2011 when Maestro Gerard Schwarz conducted the ensemble. The UW Wind Ensemble has collaborated with internationally renowned guest artists, conductors and composers including Eddie Daniels, Steve Houghton, Allen Vizzutti, Jeffery Fair, Chris Olka, James Walker, Douglas Yeo, Leigh Howard Stevens, David Maslanka, Michael Colgrass, Bonnie Whiting, Cindy McTee, Eric Ewazen, Satoshi Yagisawa, David Stanhope, John DiCesare, Ben Lulich, David Gordon, Mary Lynch, Seth Krimsky, Michael Brockman and Huck Hodge. Nihon Pals, a music education resource company based in Osaka, Japan, released a set of instructional DVDs regarding ensemble musicality featuring the UW Wind Ensemble.