Of Time And Place

MATTHEW MCINTURF, conductor
LYNNE JACKSON, guest conductor
NATHAN SALAZAR, alto saxophone (WINNER OF THE YOUTH WIND CONCERTO COMPETITION)
2014 “MUSIC CHANGING LIVES” SCHOLARSHIPS ANNOUNCED

Program

Variations on a Korean Folk Song, John Barnes Chance
Phantasticke Spirites, Donald Grantham
Pulsar, Kyle Kindred
Resting in the Peace of His Hands, John Gibson
Euphoric Sparks, Christopher Tucker
“Giration” from Alto Saxophone Concerto, Henri Tomasi

Concert Description

The LSWO Youth Winds ends the 2013-2014 concert season with a Mother’s Day celebration titled “Of Time and Place.” Matthew McInturf, Director of Bands at Sam Houston State University, leads the Youth Winds on Sunday, May 11, 2014 at 2:30pm in a concert featuring works connected with events in history and life. Lynne Jackson, Music Education Professor at SMU, guest conducts, and the concert will feature the 2014 Youth Winds Concerto Competition Winner. In addition, the 2014 “Music Changing Lives” Scholarships will be announced!

The LSWO Youth Winds will perform Donald Grantham’s Phantasticke Spirites, Kyle Kindred’s new work Pulsar, John Gibson’s beautiful Resting in the Peace of His Hands, and the wind band standard Variations on a Korean Folk Song by John Barnes Chance, among others.

Guest Artist Bios

Nathan Salazar is a sophomore at McKinney High School (MHS) and is the son of Alan and Julie Salazar of McKinney, Texas. He receives private music lessons from SMU Professor Donald Fabian of Plano, Texas. He is a two season member of the LSWO Youth Winds, two year member of MHS Symphonic Wind Ensemble, placed 4th at 2014 Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) 5A Area C Band High School auditions, first chair at 2013 TMEA 5A All-Region 25 Band High School auditions, fifth chair at 2012 TMEA 5A All-Region 25 Band High School auditions, and twice 2nd Chair at the TMEA All-Region 25 Band Middle School auditions. He was runner up in the 2013 LSWO Youth Wind Concerto Competition, 2013 McKinney Independent School District (MISD) Concerto Contest Champion, and Honorable Mention in the 2012 Collin County Young Artist Competition, Junior Division Winds. He has received four Outstanding Solo Performance Awards, five MISD Solo Contests 1 Ratings and five MISD Ensemble Contest 1 Ratings, and was the recipient of the 2011 Evans Middle School Band Overall Outstanding Band Member Award. He is enrolled in the MISD Gifted and Talented program and has been employed as a soccer referee the last four years. When not practicing his alto, tenor, and soprano saxes 2 to 3 hours a day, he enjoys listening to classical music, going to musicals and plays, watching movies, reading books, and hanging out with family and friends. Nathan plans on attending Southern Methodist University as a double major in Music Performance and Applied Mathematics.

Lynne Jackson is currently in her 44th year as a music educator. She has degrees from the University of Michigan and Vandercook College of Music. Ms. Jackson is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Education at Southern Methodist University and also teaches part-time at Berkner High School in Richardson, Texas.

Lynne spent 26 years as a band director for RISD in the Pearce Area Cluster as well. Her tenure included positions at North Junior High and Parkhill Junior High as well as thirteen years at J.J. Pearce High School. In 1983, Ms. Jackson was selected as the Richardson ISD Teacher of the Year. She is also a lifetime honorary member of the PTA.

In 1995, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Ms. Jackson a grant to study Mozart in Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic. She has also traveled and performed with students in London, Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany and Hungary. In the summer of 2012 she traveled to England, Wales and Scotland as a conductor for the Texas Youth Orchestra and Choir. In the past three years, Ms. Jackson has also established a relationship with the state of Singapore where she has worked closely with music educators and students on two separate occasions.

In 2010, Ms. Jackson was awarded the Meritorious Achievement Award by the Texas Bandmasters Association (TBA). Ms. Jackson’s professional affiliations include TBA, Phi Beta Mu, and the Texas Music Educators Association. Lynne is widely known throughout Texas as an adjudicator, clinician, and mentor to young students and teachers.

Program Notes

Written and compiled by Andrew and Kendal Tucker

Euphoric Sparks (2010)
Christopher Tucker

Euphoric Sparks is a celebratory four-minute work for wind band, incorporating musical quotes from George Frederic Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, including material from movements Overture, La Paix, Bouree, and La Rejouissance. Euphoric Sparks can be followed programmatically in relation to emotions felt when fireworks are present (anticipation, elation, and excitement). The actual depiction of fireworks dominated by the piano and percussion can be found in the transitions between major sections of the piece.

Pulsar (2013)
Kyle Kindred

A pulsar is a highly magnetized spinning neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation from its poles as it rotates. Humans can only see a pulsar when the beam of emission is pointing toward Earth, much the way a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of the observer. Thus, a pulsar viewed from Earth appears to blink on and off as its light is repeatedly pointed towards and away from Earth in a regular pulsating fashion. Pulsar is dedicated to the memory of Venancio Perez.

“Giration” from Concerto for Alto Saxophone (1949)
Henri Tomasi
Trans. by Mamoru Nakata

Tomasi’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone is in two movements. Its opening is both mysterious and foreboding, but this is just an introduction to the second movement Allegro kept perpetually off-balance by its odd meter. The band is a full partner here and throughout the Concerto, with brilliant and inventive scoring at every turn. An accompanied cadenza recalls the opening music, more sensuous than firey; the final Allegro then comprises an amazing number of moods in a very short time. A flurry of woodwinds leads off the rhythmically-charged second movement. At times, the saxophone joins the furious note-spinning, at others, it sings long-lined melodies over the always-busy orchestra. Just when we think that the movement is about to end in a blaze of fast notes, it veers into a Largo of powerful intensity.

Variations on a Korean Folk Song (1965)
John Barnes Chance

John Barnes Chance became familiar with the folksong Geen Arrirang (“Long Horizon”) while serving in Seoul, Korea, with the Eighth U.S. Army Band in 1958-59. It is the song of a woman who does not want the man she loves to leave her. The work consists of the opening theme and five distinct variations. Variations on a Korean Folk Song, which Chance dedicated to his wife, won the American Band Association’s prestigious Ostwald Award in 1966.

Resting in the Peace of His Hands (1994)
John Gibson

This evocative composition by John Gibson is a tribute to German artist Kaethe Kollwitz (1867-1945) and her art. Resting in the Peace of His Hands expresses the remarkable sense of peace the composer felt upon viewing Kollwitz’s sculpture bearing the same name in Harvard’s Busch – Reisinger Museum. Kollwitz lost her son in World War I and her grandson in World War II.

The piece opens with quiet sustained B’s in the flute and vibraphone, which float high over the opening melodies. This seems to musically portray a state of peaceful rest, effectively expressing the spirit of the title. The work grows from a very gentle opening in the woodwinds through a more active central section followed by a return to the opening state concluded with an instrumental Amen.

Phantasticke Spirites (2002)
Donald Grantham

The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in England, the Elizabethan period, were times of immense musical productivity and invention. Two fo the most charming and entertaining genres to appear were the madrigal, or ‘Fa La’ as they were sometimes called due to the use of these or other nonsense syllables in their refrains; and the ayre-usually a love song and often accompanied by the lyte. The emotional range of these short pieces is striking, with texts dealing with everything from the bawdy, to the absurd, to the tender and melancholy. In Phantasticke Spirites (the title is borrowed from Thomas Weelkes), the composer has assembled six of his favorite madrigals and ayres that represent this diversity, and that also fit together in a satisfying and balanced way to form a longer composition. The six works are: “Strike it up Tabor” by Thomas Weelkes, “Turn Back, You Wanton Flyer” by Thomas Campian, “Nightingale, Lark, Thrush, Blackbird and Cuckoo” by Weelkes, “Away Delight” by Robert Johnson, “Come Again” by John Dowland, and “Ha, Ha. This World Doth Pass” by Weelkes. The three pieces by Weelkes are from his “Ayres or Phantasticke Spirites for three voices” (1601). “Turn Back, Delight,” is best known for the songs he composed for Shakespear’s The Tempest, and Dowland’s “Come Again” is from his first book of “Songs of Ayres” (1597).