University Wind Ensemble "American Imagery"

Charles Ives (1874-1954)/trans. Sinclair
Country Band March (1903/1974) 

Carlos Simon (b.1986)
Sweet Chariot (2019)
Muhamad Yusri Bin Mohamed Ali, conductor

Mason Bates (b. 1977)
Mothership (2012)

--------Intermission--------

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964)
Crackle (2020) 
Rose Craig Tyler, conductor

John Corigliano (b. 1938)
Gazebo Dances (1972/1974) 

1. Overture
2. Waltz
3. Adagio
4. Tarantella

Country Band March (1903/1974)     Charles Ives/trans. Sinclair 

Charles Ives was born in the small manufacturing town of Danbury, Connecticut, on October 20, 1874. He began composing at age thirteen – his first pieces were marches, fiddle tunes, and songs for church. One of his early works is titled Variations on "America" for organ, which he wrote at seventeen. Ives also wrote a good deal of choral and organ music in connection with his organist job at Center Church. Ives was a free thinker who wrote music that sounded decades ahead of its time. His wildest ideas were inherited from his father George, a musical jack-of-all-trades and Danbury’s bandleader who instructed his son to sing songs in one key and play the accompaniment in another. His work reflected a transcendentalist philosophy, aiming to capture the spirit of American life by incorporating hymns, popular tunes, and military band music alongside challenging harmonies to create a "controlled cacophony" and new musical experiences. 

From a harsh introduction to a pandemonious ending, the Country Band March is a piece that displays some of Ives’ most distinguishing characteristics, particularly the use of quotations of tunes that were popular in his childhood. The piece features quotes from Arkansas Traveler, Battle Cry of Freedom, British Grenadiers, The Girl I Left Behind Me, London Bridge, Marching Through Georgia, "Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground, My Old Kentucky Home, Violets, Yankee Doodle, May Day Waltz and Semper Fidelis. There is rarely anything straightforward about the use of this material; Ives's use of polymeter, polytonal passages, and multiple layers of rhythm, pitch, and texture are present throughout the piece. Of particular interest is Ives's use of "ragtime" elements to enliven the already spirited march. 

Note compiled by Nahal Javan  

Sweet Chariot (2019)                           Carlos Simon

Carlos Simon is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, whose music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism. Simon is the Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the inaugural Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer Chair, and was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY award for his album Requiem for the Enslaved.  Simon earned his doctorate degree at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty and Evan Chambers. He has also received degrees from Georgia State University and Morehouse College. He is an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Music Sinfonia Fraternity and a member of the National Association of Negro Musicians, Society of Composers International, and Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society. He has served as a member of the music faculty at Spelman College and Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and now serves as Associate Professor at Georgetown University. Simon was also a recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization to recognize extraordinary classical Black and Latinx musicians, and was named a Sundance/Time Warner Composer Fellow for his work for film and moving image.

Sweet Chariot features fragments of two tunes with meanings about death; In Paradisum, from the Latin Mass for the dead and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, one of the most famous African American spirituals. Audiences will not hear the two songs in fullness but will be able to appreciate how the composer had weaved the two melodic fragments together into this beautiful piece. A soft and somber beginning grows slowly to a big climax, as if reaching out for the heavens and then returning back to end in a peaceful calm and rest.

Note compiled by Muhamad Yusri Bin Mohamed Ali

Mothership (2012)               Mason Bates 

Mason Bates was born in Pennsylvania in 1977 and grew up in Virginia. When he was younger, Bates showed an interest in creative writing, which led him to write choral arrangements in high school. At the ​​1993 Brevard Music Center, he received his first symphonic orchestra commission. Bates earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and a Master of Music in music composition from the Columbia University-Juilliard School program. During this time, one of his teachers was John Corigliano. Afterwards, Bates attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received a PhD in composition. Since then, Bates has been closing the gap between classical and electronic music either through Mercury Soul, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization he co-founded, which mounts club shows combining classical music and DJ sets, or his composer-in-residence with major orchestras, which perform his works that have electronic components to them.

Mothership is an example of Bates’s genius and pioneering in expanding classical music with the use of electronics. Mothership premiered by the YouTube Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas on March 20, 2011, at the Sydney Opera House. About the piece, Bates writes: 

This energetic opener imagines the wind ensemble as a mothership that is ‘docked’ by several visiting soloists, who offer brief but virtuosic riffs on the work’s thematic material over action-packed electro-acoustic orchestral figuration.

The piece follows the form of a scherzo with double trio (as found in, for example, the Schumann Symphony No. 2). Symphonic scherzos historically play with dance rhythms in a high-energy and appealing manner, with the ‘trio’ sections temporarily exploring new rhythmic areas. Mothership shares a formal connection with the symphonic scherzo but is brought to life by thrilling sounds of the 21st Century — the rhythms of modern-day techno in place of waltz rhythms, for example.

Note compiled by Malcolm Burke 

Crackle (2020)                 Augusta Read Thomas

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) is an American composer based in Chicago. Thomas studied with compositional greats including Oliver Knussen at Tanglewood (1986, 1987, 1989),  Jacob Druckman at Yale University (1988), with Alan Stout and Bill Karlins at Northwestern University (1983-1987), and at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1989). Currently, Thomas serves as professor of composition at the University of Chicago. Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for conductors Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez (1997-2006). Thomas’ compositional style was described by the Huffington Post as  “music that is always in motion, as if coming perpetually out of a magician’s hat. It leads but doesn’t direct, and is playful and subtle, dancing on light feet. It is music that conjures."

About the piece, the composer writes:

I care about craft, clarity, and passion. My works are organic and, at every level, concerned with transformations and connections. The carefully sculpted musical materials of Crackle are agile and energized, and their flexibility allows a way to braid harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal elements that are constantly transformed–at times whimsical and light, at times jazzy, at times layered and reverberating. 

Across Crackle’s 11-minute duration, a labyrinth of musical interrelationships and connections unfold that showcase the musicians in a virtuosic display of rhythmic agility, counterpoint, skill, energy, dynamic range, clarity, and majesty. Throughout the kaleidoscopic journey, the work passes through many lively and colorful episodes and, via an extended, gradual crescendo, reaches a full-throttle, sparkling intensity–imagine a coiled spring releasing its energy to continuously propel the musical discourse. Vivid, resonant, brassy, and blazing, Crackle culminates in music of enthusiastic, intrepid (almost Stravinsky-like, or Stravinsky-crossed-with-Bebop-like) spirits while never losing its sense of dance, caprice, and effervescence.

Crackle is an expansion and a transcription made by the composer of her composition Brio for orchestra and is dedicated with admiration and gratitude to John Bierbusse on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

Note compiled by Rose Craig Tyler

Gazebo Dances (1972/1974)                       John Corigliano

John Corigliano was born in 1938 in New York City to a musical family. His father served as the concertmaster for the New York Philharmonic, and his mother was an accomplished pianist and teacher. Corigliano earned a Bachelor of Arts in composition from Columbia University in 1959. Afterwards, he independently studied with professors at the Manhattan School of Music. Corigliano won the 1964 Spoleto Festival chamber music prize, which propelled his career. Along with his distinguished compositional output, Corigliano has served as composition faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard School of Music, and Lehman College. 

This transcription of Gazebo Dances was completed by the composer himself, who originally composed it as a set of pieces for four-hand piano. About this piece, Corigliano writes:

Gazebo Dances was originally written as a set of four-hand pieces dedicated to certain of my pianist friends. I later arranged the suite for orchestra and for concert band, and it is from the latter version that the title is drawn. The title Gazebo Dances was suggested by the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts were given on summer evenings. The delights of that sort of entertainment are portrayed in this set of dances, which begins with a Rossini-like overture, followed by a rather peg-legged waltz, a long-lined adagio and a bouncy tarantella.

Each movement was given a dedication, as follows:

I - for Rose Corigilano (composer's mother) and Etta Feinbert (composer’s 

mother’s best friend)

II - for John Ardoin (music critic for the Dallas Morning News and author)

III - for Heida Hermanns (composer's father's accompanist)

IV - for Jack Romann (head of Baldwin pianos and close friend) and Christian 

Steiner (photographer)

Note compiled by Malcolm Burke

Emily Threinen is director of bands and associate professor at the University of Minnesota. She conducts the Wind Ensemble, guides the graduate wind band conducting program, and provides administrative leadership for the bands. Threinen consistently works with composers, arrangers, and performing artists of varied disciplines. She is active across the nation and abroad (recently in Brazil, Spain, Australia, and Canada) as a guest conductor, clinician, and conference presenter. An advocate for music education, Threinen is a Yamaha Master Educator and is active in ABA, WASBE, CBDNA, NBA, and NAfME.

Muhamad Yusri Bin Mohamed Ali is a doctoral candidate in Conducting with a wind band emphasis. He serves as a teaching assistant in the School of Music and Band program. Prior to coming to the U.S., Yusri completed his Master of Education (Music) at the Nanyang Technological University and also the Specialist Diploma in Orchestral Conducting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore. He completed his Bachelor of Arts (Music) from Kingston University and Bandmaster Certificate from the Royal Military School of Music in the United Kingdom. Yusri served in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Band for 18 years, rising from a Musician to becoming the Director of Music of the SAF Central Band. He was also conductor of the Republic Polytechnic Wind Symphony. Yusri is a Reynolds Conducting Institute Fellow for 2025 and recently was appointed as the Principal Conductor of the Twin Cities Gamer Symphony Orchestra. 

Rose Craig Tyler is a wind band conducting doctoral candidate. Rose holds a masters degree in wind band conducting from the University of Minnesota and dual bachelor degrees from the University of Illinois in Instrumental Music Education and Piano Pedagogy. From 2017-2022, Rose served as band director at Matthews Middle School in Wauconda, Illinois. Rose currently serves as conductor of the UMN Maroon Campus Band. Outside the university, Rose is a professional collaborative pianist, serves as associate conductor of LadyBand Minneapolis, and is the Visiting Director of Symphony Band at Carleton College. 

Thank you to the Ted Mann Concert Hall staff for the partnership in making this performance possible. University Bands wishes to thank Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma, and the University of Minnesota Band Alumni Society (UMBAS) for their ongoing support. Please enjoy the light reception after the performance provided by UMBAS.

We want to acknowledge that the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is built within the traditional homelands of the Dakota people. It is important to acknowledge the peoples on whose land we live, learn, and work as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with our tribal nations. We also acknowledge that words are not enough. We must ensure that our institution provides support, resources, and programs that increase access to all aspects of higher education for our American Indian students, staff, faculty, and community members.