Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band: Timeless

The UW Wind Ensemble (Timothy Salzman, director) and Symphonic Band (Shaun Day, director) present "Timeless," performing music by Omar Thomas, Jennifer Jolley, Antón Alcalde, Jun Nagao, Huck Hodge, and Ottorino Respighi.

Program

University of Washington Symphonic Band
Shaun Day, director

A Mother of A Revolution! (2019) – Omar Thomas (b. 1984)
Ryan Baker, conductor

The Eyes of the World are Upon You (2017) – Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981)

Symphony no. 1: Marea Negra (2009/24) – Antón Alcalde (b. 1992)
I. Amencer nas Rías Baixas
II. Prestige
III. Marea Negra
IV. Marea Branca

University of Washington Saxophone Octet

Octet for Saxophone (2000) – Jun Nagao (長生 淳) (b. 1964)

University of Washington Wind Ensemble
Timothy Salzman, conductor

from the language of shadows (2011) – Huck Hodge (b. 1977)
I. Prologue in Heaven
II. Tenebrae
III. Of signs and erring stars
IV. Inveiglement
V. Epilogue: Now body, turn to air

Concerto for Marimba (1999) – Eric Ewazen (b. 1954)
II. Andante Cantabile
Taryn Marks, marimba

Huntingtower (1932) – Ottorino Respighi (1875-1936)
Shaun Day, conductor

PROGRAM NOTES

A Mother of A Revolution! is a celebration of the bravery of trans women, and in particular, Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson. Marsha is credited with being one of the instigators of the famous Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969 – one of the pivotal events of the LGBTQ liberation movement of the 20th century – which is commemorated annually during the worldwide Gar Pride celebrations.

Existing as a trans woman, especially a trans woman of color, and daring to live authentically, creating space for oneself in a transphobic world is one of the bravest acts I can imagine. Over 20 trans women were murdered in the United States in 2018 alone. There is no demographic more deserving, and frankly, long overdue for highlighted heroism and bravery. The disco vibe in the latter half is meant to honor a sacred space held amongst LGBTQ persons – a space to love, live, mourn, heal, strategize, connect, and dance in defiance of those outside forces who would seek to do LGBTQ persons harm simply for daring to exist and take up space.

We pump our fists to honor the life, heroism, activism, and bravery of Marsha P. Johnson, to honor the legacy of the Stonewall Revolution, to honor the memory of the trans lives violently ended due to fear and hatred, and in honor of trans women worldwide who continue to exist unapologetically and who demanded to be seen.
–Program note by composer

The Eyes of the World Are Upon You is taken from Alejandra Garza’s article “’The Eyes of the World Are Upon You, Texas’: How the Austin Newspapers Covered the UT Tower Shooting” from the website Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting. UT Austin was the scene of the nation’s first campus mass shooting. On Monday, August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman murdered his mother and wife, then climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower and fired his first shots just before noon. The killing spree went on for ninety-six minutes until Whitman was gunned down; seventeen people were killed.

It has been over fifty years since this shocking event, and many things have changed. There are now campus police forces and significant improvements to mental health services were also made in the aftermath of the shooting. The UT Tower Shooting is both a tragic living history, as well as a celebration of resilience. As stated by the UT Austin President Gregory L. Fenves at the Tower Memorial Rededication, “We will never eliminate the memory of the horror that consumed this campus on August 1, 1966. Nor should we try. But by focusing on the good – on the stories of the heroes and lives of the survivors here with us this afternoon – we can finally begin to remember and endure our burden of the past.”
This piece is a celebration of life: to those who died that day, but also to those who survived.
–Program note by composer

Symphony no. 1: Marea Negra is Antón Alcalde’s first work cataloged (opus 1), written when he was 15 years old. It is a symphonic poem divided into four movements that describe the natural catastrophe produced by the Prestige oil spill.

The Prestige oil spill was an oil spill in Galicia caused by the sinking of the oil tanker MV Prestige in 2002. The spill polluted thousands of kilometers of coastline and more than one thousand beaches on the Spanish, French, and Portuguese coasts and caused great harm to the local fishing industry. It is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal. In the subsequent months, thousands of volunteers joined the public company TRAGSA (a firm chosen by the regional government to deal with the cleanup) to help clean the affected coastline. The massive cleaning campaign was a success, recovering most portions of the coastline from the effects of the oil spill and the accumulated usual contamination. A year after the spill, Galicia had more Blue Flags for its beaches (an award for those with the highest standards in the European Union) than in the previous years.
–Program note by composer

Octet for Saxophones was written for a joint concert with the Aurelia Quartet from the Netherlands, commissioned by the Trouvere Quartet. It was composed in October 2000 and premiered in Amsterdam that December, followed by performances in Tokyo and Hiroshima.

The composition is not for eight saxophones because of this background; it is written for two quartets (S. A. T. B.). Imagine a scenario from the distant past where two groups of traveling musicians meet on a street corner. They decide to perform together and engage in a friendly competition, each trying not to be outdone by the other. As they play, they get drawn into each other’s music, intensifying their passion for the performance. I wrote with such a scene in mind, and I hope that the joy of ensemble playing is felt above all else when it is performed.
–Program note by composer

Huck Hodge is a composer of “harmonically fresh work", "full of both sparkle and thunder” (New York Times). His music has been praised for its “immediate impact” (Chicago Tribune), its "clever, attractive, streamlined" qualities (NRC Handelsblad, Amsterdam) and its ability to "conjure up worlds of musical magic” with “power and charisma" (Gramophone Magazine, London). His musical collaborations include those with members of Ensemble Modern and the Berlin Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestra of the League of Composers, the Aleph, ASKO/Schönberg, Dal Niente, Divertimento, SurPlus and Talea ensembles, the Daedalus, JACK, Mivos, and Pacifica string quartets, and numerous other ensembles. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and at numerous major festivals throughout the world — the New York Philharmonic Biennial, Berliner Festspiele, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Shanghai New Music Week, ISCM World Music Days, and many others. His published music is licensed and distributed by Alexander Street Press and Babel Scores (Paris). Recordings of his music appear on the New World and Albany record labels. Hodge was educated at Columbia University and at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany where he studied with Fred Lerdahl, Tristan Murail, Marco Stroppa, and Georg Wötzer. His major awards include the Charles Ives Living, the largest music award conferred by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rome Prize, the Gaudeamus Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the American Composers Forum, the Barlow Endowment, Music at the Anthology, the Siemens Musikstiftung and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, among many others. Hodge is Professor and Chair of the Composition program at the University of Washington. Of this evening’s work, he writes:

Several aspects of from the language of shadows were inspired by images from F.W. Murnau’s 1926 masterpiece of expressionistic cinema Faust. I was immediately drawn to the striking and stark blending of bright and dark lighting in the film as well as the angularly dramatic imagery. The titles of the movements are taken from Goethe as well as from Christopher Marlowe’s 1604 play Doctor Faustus. Marlowe, a contemporary of Shakespeare, is today comparatively unknown, owing in some part to his death at the age of 29 under mysterious circumstances (he is said to have been a spy).
In Prologue in Heaven, Mephistopheles and the angels discuss the fate of mankind and a wager is born to wrest the soul of Faust. Tenebrae, Latin for shadows and the name of a service held at the height of Lent, recalls the imagery of Murnau’s cinematic plague scene. Of signs and erring stars is a line taken from a scene of Marlowe’s, in which Faust summons Mephistopheles. Inveiglement evokes a scene in which the Devil tempts Faust with the treasures of youth and power. The title of the epilogue is taken from the damnation monologue in Marlowe. Faust reminisces on the lost pleasures of his life. The clock strikes twelve and he exclaims, “O, it strikes, it strikes! Now body, turn to air…”

Over 25 universities comprised the consortium that commissioned from the language of shadows and the University of Washington Wind Ensemble, conducted by Timothy Salzman premiered the work on March 26th, 2011 at the College Band Directors National conference held at the University of Washington.
–Program note by composer

Eric Ewazen was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1954. He received a BM degree from the Eastman School of Music and went on to receive a MM degree and a DMA degree from the Juilliard School. He has an extensive list of reputable teachers that include Milton Babbitt, Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, Joseph Schwantner, and Gunther Schuller. Throughout his career Dr. Ewazen has been the recipient of many awards and honors. His works are recorded on Summit Records, d'Note Records, CRS Records, New World, Clique Track, Helicon, Hyperion, Cala, Albany, and EMI Classics. Dr. Ewazen has had recent premieres of his works given by the Charleston Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife in Spain, Orquesta Sinfonica Carlos Chavez in Mexico City, Orchestre de la Garde Republicaine in Paris, the Jeju Music Festival Wind Ensemble in Korea, and the Moment Musicale Orchestra of Taiwan. Dr. Ewazen has been a guest at over 100 different universities around the United States and the world. He has served as a faculty member at the Juilliard School since 1980.

Ewazen’s Concerto for Marimba was commissioned by marimbist She-e Wu and composed in 1999. The piece is dedicated to the “Taipei firefighters of Taiwan for their bravery during the tragic earthquake of September 20th, 1999.”

Ottorino Respighi wrote Huntingtower in 1932 on a commission from Edwin Franko Goldman and the American Bandmasters’ Association for a tribute concert to the then recently deceased John Philip Sousa. His inspiration for the piece was Huntingtower Castle in central Scotland. The experience of visiting this 15th-century castle inspired Respighi to write this sometimes heroic, sometimes romantic, but mostly grim overture.

Biographies
Taryn Marks

Taryn Marks is a first-year Masters of Music Performance-Percussion major from North Augusta, South Carolina, under the direction of Dr. Bonnie Whiting. Her love for music started as a child, growing up hearing different genres of music from rock to rap to pop and soul. She started playing percussion in sixth grade under the direction of Ms. Jamie Powell, where her love and involvement for music significantly increased. By the time she was under the direction of Mr. Chuck Deen and Mr. Blake Fowler at North Augusta High School, she was a part of the Symphonic Band, the Wind Ensemble, Region Band, and the North Augusta High School Jacket Regiment. In Fall 2017, she moved to the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, South Carolina as a part of the Music Department, under the direction of Dr. David Hamilton and Mr. Everett Beale, going into depth in orchestral and percussion repertoire. In Fall 2019, she started her college career at Furman University in Greenville, SC, under the direction of Dr. Omar Carmenates. She was a part of the Paladin Regiment, Symphonic Band, Furman Symphony Orchestra, Pit Orchestra for Pauper Players, and Furman Percussion Ensemble. With the Furman Percussion Ensemble, she has gone to the Percussive Arts Society International Convention twice, being a part of the New Music Concert in 2019 and the International Percussion Ensemble Competition Concert in 2022, where the ensemble was one of the winners and performed five world premieres on the international stage. She also participated in an internship for Kinds of Kings in Summer 2021, as well as summer research in audio recording and post-production in Summer 2022. Outside of music, she participated in multiple organizations and on-campus jobs, receiving accolades for her work in DEI initiatives throughout the music department and the University. She graduated from Furman Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelors of Music Performance-Percussion in May 2023. While at the University of Washington, she has performed in the University of Washington Percussion Ensemble, Wind Ensemble, and Modern Music Ensemble. Through these ensembles, she has had the opportunity to perform multiple world premieres, participating in masterclasses by Gwendolyn Dease and Allen Otte, performing at the WCCW Outreach Event, Woosong University in Daejeon, South Korea, and the Pacific Northwest Festival in Portland Oregon. When she is not in the practice room or doing academic work, she is learning new recipes, sightseeing, trying new foods, reading, catching up on new music, TV shows, and movies, hanging out with friends, finding different ways of advocating for others, and checking in on her family on the East Coast. She is grateful for everyone that is attending tonight, helping her throughout her journey of music-making, and for the people that made her who she is today.