Deep In The Heart

EUGENE MIGLIARO CORPORON, conductor
NIKOLA RUZEVIC, cello
ROBERT HOKAMP, guitar
MIKE TIDWELL, guitar
KYLE KINDRED, guest composer

Program

Hoe Down from Rodeo, Aaron Copland/Rogers
Baron Samedi’s Sarabande (and Soft Shoe), Donald Grantham
Fanfare for Freedom, Morton Gould
Variations on a Tango, Kyle Kindred
Cello Concerto, Friedrich Gulda
World Premiere of a new work by Christopher Tucker

Concert Description

Music Director Eugene Migliaro Corporon and the Lone Star Wind Orchestra (LSWO) open the 2013-2014 concert season with a tribute to the state of Texas. In the beautiful new Dallas City Performance Hall, the LSWO presents “Deep in the Heart: A Lone Star Tribute” on Sunday, October 6, 2013 at 2:30pm. The LSWO welcomes University of North Texas professor and cellist Nikola Ruzevic, along with a host of local guitarists including Paul Dryer and Mike Tidwell of 5 Second Rule. The program features works by Texas composers Donald Grantham, Kyle Kindred, and Christopher Tucker, along with Aaron Copland, Morton Gould, and Friedrich Gulda.

Program highlights include Aaron Copland’s infamous Hoe Down from his suite Rodeo, a rock-n-roll inspired cello concerto by Gulda, and Morton Gould’s Fanfare for Freedom in celebration of Gould’s 100th anniversary this year. The Lone Star Wind Orchestra also premieres a new work for winds by LSWO’s own Director of Artistic Planning Christopher Tucker. Kyle Kindred’s Variations on a Tango and Donald Grantham’s Baron Samedi’s Sarabande round out the program.

Additional Concert Notes

It is interesting to note that composers Kyle Kindred and Christopher Tucker completed their graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin under the tutelage of composer Donald Grantham.

Guest Artist Bios

A native of Croatia, Nikola Ruzevic has established himself as an international performer and teacher. His career, to date, has taken him to many countries around the world where he has received critical acclaim for his artistry. He has won numerous prizes and awards including the Colorado Symphony National Orchestra Competition – first prize, Rose Pollack Award, and the Yugoslav String Competition – first prize. Ruzevic has performed as a soloist and a chamber musician with such renowned groups and artists as Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden Philharmonic, Zagreb Philharmonic, and the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra. At present, Ruzevic is professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the University of North Texas, Denton, and a regular professor at the “Uzmah Hvar” International Summer School, Croatia, the Coordinator of Texas Cello Academy and Festival, USA, the Accent Music Festival, USA and the Upbeat International Music Festival, Japan. Nikola Ruzevic is a recording artist for A Classics and Croatia Records.

Robert Hokamp is a guitarist and composer from Denton TX. He is a member of The New Rainbows, Bubba Hernandez y los Supervatos, Los Patos Poderosos, A Taste of Herb, A Cruel Country and Payawaru. He attended The Peabody Institute, where he played mandolin in the symphony orchestra and guitar in the lab band, among other ensembles. He transferred to S.U.N.Y. Purchase in 2007, where he studied jazz guitar with John Abercrombie and classical guitar with Frederic Hand. While at Purchase, he started a private teaching studio and played professionally in Westchester County. After graduating with a B.M. in jazz studies, Robert returned to Denton TX to work on his master’s degree at the University of North Texas. He graduated with his M.M. in jazz studies in December 2012. He has recorded two albums of original music to be released in the Fall of 2013. His most recent composition Tiger Dreams was presented in a recital by The New Rainbows on July 11, 2013. More information about Robert’s current and past musical activities can be found at www.roberthokamp.org.

Mike Tidwell has been playing and performing a variety of music for over 35 years. Mike is currently guitarist, lead vocalist, Irish bouzouki, and dobro player for the Dallas-based Celtic eclectic band 5 Second Rule. As a singer-songwriter, he has written and performed rock, blues, Celtic, bluegrass, country, and folk music. Mike has played with various ensembles in California and Texas and produced a number of CDs over the years.

Program Notes

Written and compiled by Seth Wollam

Fanfare for Freedom (1943)
Morton Gould

Fanfare for Freedom was one of a series of fanfares composed by prominent American composers for the 1942-43 season of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Eugene Goossens. During World War I, Goossens had asked British composers for a fanfare to begin each of his concerts. The series had been so successful that he decided he would repeat the process using American composers in World War II. In addition to works by composers such as Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Henry Cowell, and Paul Creston, the series produced Aaron Copland’s celebrated Fanfare for the Common Man. Scored for just the winds of the orchestra, Gould’s contribution to this series was premiered by Goossens and the orchestra in 1943.

American Salute (1943)
Morton Gould
Trans. by Philip J. Lang

American Salute combines Morton Gould’s unique Americanism in his music and an endless wealth of creativity. In American Salute he uses “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” as his only thematic material. He contrives a brilliant fantasy, which reflects Gould’s uncanny skill in thematic development. Written, quite literally, the night before it was performed, American Salute has become a favorite for both orchestra and wind band.

Baron Samedi’s Sarabande (and Soft Shoe) (2005)
Donald Grantham

Baron Samedi’s Sarabande (and Soft Shoe) is one of four works based on related voodoo characters. Baron Samedi is the guardian of the crossroads between the living and the departed. Like many other of his compositions, the piece is a variation on a theme set in a familiar dance form, the “sarabande.” The sarabande evolved in the baroque era and is characterized by tempo, meter, and rhythm. Capturing the different tasks assigned to this baron, he is portrayed as being “not quite tied to Earth” musically by the theme being scored primarily for woodwinds with no supporting bass accompaniment. Large chromatic sections give the listener a sense of uneasiness and only further enhances this musical instability. Toward the end, a “jazz band” takes over with the same tune presented in sarabande, only cleverly distorted almost beyond recognition.

Cello Concerto (1980)
Friedrich Gulda

Gulda composed his Concerto for Cello and Wind Instruments for the cellist Heinrich Schiff. What strikes the listener immediately is the mixture of styles which Gulda utilizes to demonstrate his own contempt for principles of ‘good taste’ or ‘high art’. The Overture is an aggressive rock number, creating significant technical demands on the cellist. This wild and raucous music is juxtaposed with a sentimental romance. At various points – as in some other movements – the music seems to be invaded by a marching band, evoked by Gulda’s extremely apt and idiomatic use of the wind instruments. In this regard one could compare his writing to that of American composer Charles Ives. In the following ‘Idylle’ the music is radically different, sounding more reminiscent of Mozart. He again creates is a village-band atmosphere to the bucolic central section, which is a country dance complete with yodeling effects. The kernel of the Concerto is the Cadenza that forms the middle movement, which looks backwards and forwards (within the Concerto, and also in music history) in a dazzling display of cello virtuosity, including two freely-improvised sections. There follows a surreal Minuet that toys, irreverently, with ideas of archaism and decorum wandering into more oriental regions. The ‘Finale alla marcia’ can best be described as a jazzy moto perpetuo. A parade of big band tunes build to a ‘coda par excellence’ that projects the performer’s virtuosity to the heights of the ridiculous, concluding this enjoyable and monumental work.

Cotten’s Country (2013)
Christopher Tucker

Cotten’s Country was commissioned by a consortium of schools and organizations under the auspices of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra and Dr. Barry Knezek. Cotten’s Country is a musical tribute to a father and son raised in Southeast Texas. A gift to Lone Star Wind Orchestra Co-Founder Robert W. Clark and in dedication to his late father Cotten W. Clark, Cotten’s Country follows a journey through life on a Texas ranch, inspired by Westerns and Country Swing from the 1940s and 50s. Programmatic sections include “Hero on the Range, “The Rancher,” “The Peaceful Cowboy,” “Cowboy’s Lament,” and “Dance Hall.” Focused on Cotten W. Clark’s life, the work features the trumpet, Cotten’s instrument, and his love of dance hall music made popular by groups like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and the Sons of the Pioneers. The composer writes, “Traditional cowboy songs are woven into the fabric of my work, including two American fiddle tunes – Cotten Eyed Joe and Chicken in the Barnyard. Country music at its core is about telling a story. Cotten’s Country is a tone poem telling the story of a father and son from Southeast Texas.”

Variations on a Tango (2012)
Kyle Kindred

Variations on a Tango is a set of continuous variations based upon an original theme in a tango style. The theme, first presented by the pitched percussion instruments, is written in a familiar rounded binary form each time it is presented. The theme is comprised of a melody in the crisp and dramatic habanera style of Georges Bizet’s iconic aria, “L’amour est un osieau rebelle” from the opera Carmen. Each variation is masterfully orchestrated to capture and display all of the sensual excitement inherent in Spanish and Latin American music. As the work builds to its climax, Kindred appropriately incorporates an impassioned quotation of Astor Piazzolla’s (1921-92) Libertango.

“Hoe Down” from Rodeo (1942)
Aaron Copland
Trans. by Mark Rogers

In the spring of 1942, Agnes de Mille, the American dancer and choreographer, asked Aaron Copland to write music for a new ballet set on a western ranch. Having already composed one cowboy ballet, Billy the Kid, in 1938, Copland was reluctant to accept the assignment. But de Mille persuaded him by promising that her work would strike a different tone: no legendary figures, no high drama—just a simple and universal story in a pastoral American setting. A cowgirl raised at Burnt Ranch competes for the attention of the young ranch hands. Her search for romance culminates at a Saturday night barn dance, where she finally gains a suitor. Rodeo, originally subtitled The Courting at Burnt Ranch, premiered in October of 1942 and enjoyed an immediate success. Shortly after Rodeo opened, Copland adapted a concert suite of four dances from his ballet score. The fourth and final dance, Hoe Down, has long been the most popular portion of Rodeo. Here Copland quotes two square-dance tunes, “Bonypart” and “McLeod’s Reel,” which help musically depict a lively rural atmosphere.