Three Dissertation Recitals of Tenor and Bass Trombone Music

Three Dissertation Recitals of Tenor and Bass Trombone Music

by

Christopher Frederick Hernacki

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts (Music: Performance)

in the University of Michigan 2021

Doctoral Committee:

Professor David Jackson, Chair Associate Professor Chad Burrow Professor Colleen Conway Professor Damani Partridge Assistant Professor Matthew Thompson

Christopher Frederick Hernacki

[email protected]

ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2252-9410

© Christopher Frederick Hernacki 2021

DEDICATION

This is dedicated to my family for their unconditional love and support over the years, not just throughout the duration of my doctoral studies, but my entire life. It’s been a most interesting ride and I am all the better for having you along for it.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This musical, professional, and life journey of mine would not have been possible without the many individuals and organizations that I have had the great pleasure of sharing quality time and space with. I thank and truly appreciate the foundational teachings of my principal teachers in jr. high and high school — Les Benedict, Scott Sutherland, and Bill Reichenbach. Much of how I continue to learn and grow is because of their investment in me as a student and in fostering my unbridled sense of curiosity and love of music. The constant focus on ear training and playing to my interests (I still use Star Wars melodies as substitutes for certain fundamental brass exercises), as well as the variety of musical genre exposure are things that I carry forward into my own career with great pleasure. To Professor David Jackson, I owe much of my refinement of a player and as an individual. The learning environment and lessons from my undergraduate provided me the opportunities to thrive amidst even the wildest of schedules. Even as I returned many years later to pursue this doctorate in search of a shift from a performance-oriented lifestyle to one of teaching, I am grateful for the tremendous support in navigating the most advanced stages of my career and life decisions. I am grateful to John Engelkes and the rest of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music low brass instructors (Tim Higgins, Paul Welcomer, Mark Lawrence, Jeff Anderson, and Peter Wahrhaftig) for enriching my abilities to be competitive at a professional level, but remaining humble in the process. I especially thank John, from whom I learned that no matter how far along I get, where I go, and what I do, to never lose sight of the 14-year-old kid who fell in love with playing trombone/music. To Dr. Gregory Hamlin, who helped me nurture a more complete sense of self when I most needed it during a darker point in my life and career. I continue to use the tools I learned to be the best version of myself that I can be and to provide a light for others along the way. For my time in Phoenix with Chris Wolf, Pat Sheridan, and the Brass Gym crew, I value the friendship we shared and the wonderful opportunity of weekday morning warmups that had the benefit of improving my playing with wonderful company and abundant laughter. I thank the various fellows and administration at the New World Symphony for helping me see the possibilities of life adjacent to the career as an orchestral musician. To Patrick Montgomery, Steve Peterson, and Lee Hipp, among others from the San Antonio Symphony, who were some of the best colleagues and friends, helping me feel comfortable and confident in making the move to a teaching career. And to that end, I appreciate the many friends I have met and shared wonderful times with across my many moves and transitions in life. You all have made this journey worthwhile.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

ACKNOWEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

RECITAL 1

Recital 1 Program

Recital 1 Program Notes

RECITAL 2

Recital 2 Program

Recital 2 Program Notes

RECITAL 3

Recital 3 Program

Recital 3 Program Notes

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ABSTRACT

Three trombone recitals given in lieu of a written dissertation for the degree A. Mus. D. in performance.

Sunday, February 7th, 2021, Snell Theater, Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. Ling Lo, piano. A Winter’s Journey. A Winter’s Night, by Kevin McKee; Selection from Colors (III. Blue), by Bert Appermont; Selections from Winterreise (I. Gute Nacht, V. Der Lindenbaum, VI. Wasserflut, VII. Auf dem Flusse, XI. Frühlingstraum), by Franz Schubert; Selections from The Nutcracker (I. Spanish Dance [Chocolate], II. Arabian Dance [Coffee], III. Chinese Dance [Tea], IV. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, V. Russian Dance [Trepak]), by Pyotr Tchaikovsky; Winter, by David Snow.

Saturday, March 27th, 2021, Snell Theater, Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. Ling Lo, piano. Reflections. The Old Burying Ground: Book I, by Evan Chambers; infinite morning, by Joel Puckett; Comments by Computers, by Gala Flagello; Reflections on the Mississippi, by Michael Daugherty.

Wednesday, June 16th, 2021, YouTube Premiere Presentation, YouTube, Google, LLC. Jorge Piano (YouTube channel), piano; The Piano Guys, cello, piano, and digital instrument accompaniment; Brianne Borden and James Madeja, trumpets; Lauren Becker, horn; Charles Guy, tuba. Perspectives. Sång till Lotta, by Jan Sandström; Stereograms (No. 1: Dedicated to James Pankow, No. 3: Dedicated to George Roberts, No. 14: Dedicated to Tommy Pederson), by David William Brubeck; Canzone, by Frescobaldi, arranged by Eddy Koopman; Soundtrack for Trombone and Orchestra, by Brian Sadler; Pictures at an Exhibition, by Modest Mussorgsky, arranged by Al van Der Beek and Steven Sharp Nelson; Contrapunctus IX, by Johann Sebastian Bach, arranged by John Glasel; Kanto X Kalos: A Pokémon Medley, by Junichi Masuda and Shota Kageyama, arranged by Christopher Hernacki.

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RECITAL 1 PROGRAM: A WINTER’S JOURNEY

ChristopherHernacki,TromboneLingLo,Piano

Sunday,February7th,2021,3:00pmSUNYPotsdam,CraneSchoolofMusic,SnellTheater

https://www.potsdam.edu/academics/crane-school-music/crane-school-music-live-concert

AWinter’sNight(2011)

Colors(1998)

III.Blue

SelectionsfromWinterreise(1828)

I.GuteNacht

V.DerLindenbaum

VI.WasserTlut

VII.AufdemFlusse

XI.Fruhlingstraum

SelectionsfromTheNutcracker(1892)

I.SpanishDance(Chocolate)

II.ArabianDance(Coffee)

III.ChineseDance(Tea)

IV.DanceoftheSugarPlumFairy

V.RussianDance(Trepak)

Winter(1998)

I.Rubatoeespressivo

II.Espressivoemoltorubato

III.Espressivoemoltorubato

KevinMcKee

(b.1980)

BertAppermont

(b.1973)

FranzSchubert

(1797-1828)

PyotrTchaikovsky

(1840-1893)

DavidSnow

(b.1954)

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-Intermission-

RECITAL 1 PROGRAM NOTES

February 7th, 2021 Christopher Hernacki

A Winter’s Night 2011

Kevin McKee (b. 1980)

Kevin McKee, an American composer, was born in Yreka, a little mountain town in the northern part of California. His entry into the music world was at the beckoning of his father, a high school music teacher in Yreka, who urged him to pick up the trumpet. He went on to study trumpet performance, earning a BM from Sacramento State University and a MM from the University of Maryland. McKee performs in the DC area and is the second trumpet player for the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon, a position he has had since 2009.

Because of getting his introduction into music and his career as a performer on the trumpet, McKee focuses his compositional output on that of brass chamber music. His first big composition and commercial success was that of Escape for brass quintet, a piece that came about from an encounter with Anthony DiLorenzo at the 2006 MMCK chamber music festival in Japan. Kevin McKee’s compositional style reflects that of contemporary romanticism and commercial film music. Perhaps this is no surprise given that Anthony DiLorenzo, an Emmy Award winning film composer, helped McKee get his start into composition. His style is also shaped by his intention of writing music that isn’t too melodically elusive or harmonically challenging for non-musicians to listen to, understand, and enjoy — the musical story is of the utmost importance.

Kevin McKee wrote A Winter’s Night as a musical birthday card to his father. He says this about the piece: “He started me on my musical journey and has remained my greatest mentor. As we are both lovers of long walks in the snow I was intrigued by the idea of setting one to music and trying to capture the mystery and magic of a snowy winter's night.” Due to the success of the work, McKee adapted the work for flugelhorn (or trumpet) and piano on commission from Dr. Anne McNamara, the Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Campbellsville University.

The piece has three major sections to it. After a short and shimmery introduction, as indicated by the tremolos in the piano, the first section states the melody in a very rhapsodic style in the key of A minor. Melody extensions and countermelodies continue this until a resting point where the trombone and piano have a unison rhythm cadence. It then enters a developmental section that alternates between low and brooding piano lines and interjections from the trombone. This grows and swells over into the third section, which is a much more turbulent

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rendition of the original melody, now in Bb minor. The energy of this section dissipates into a memory or dreamlike statement of the main theme. As indicated in the score, this ending is characterized as being “like a music box”.

Colors for Trombone and Piano — III. Blue 1998

Bert Appermont (b. 1973)

Bert Appermont is a Belgian composer who was born in Bilzen, a city on the East side of the country near the border with The Netherlands. He studied music at the Lemmens Institute in Leaven, earning a double Master of Music certificate. Appermont then went on to further his accomplishments in music education and conducting from the Bournemouth Media School in England, where he received a master degree in Music Design for Film & Television. Having a background that spans both art and commercial music, his compositional output includes musicals, symphonies, an opera, an oratorium, hundreds of works for wind band, choir, and orchestra, as well as over 45 hours of tv and film productions. In 2006, Appermont won the first prize in the composition contest of Torrevieja, Spain for his work Fantasia per la Vita e la Morte.

Appermont’s compositional style has all the markings of a great film composer: a variability in character or style that shifts to match a particular desired affect, an accessibility that speaks to the untrained ear, a grounding in solid melodic writing, and the ability to employ effective harmonic textures to the melodic content. Not only does he work and write for professional ensembles, he also writes pieces that have been performed by many high school and college ensembles, providing the music education world with both substantive and accessible works.

Bert Appermont wrote this piece especially for the Belgian trombonist Ben Haemhouts beginning on December 29, 1998 and was later finished in 1999. He has this to say about the piece: “The starting point of Colors is bipartite. On the one hand I wanted to create a solo piece based upon the colors yellow, blue, red and green. I wanted to express the characteristics, associations and emotions related to these colors in a subtle manner. This way, every movement was named after a color: 1) Yellow: inspiring and stimulating, (also: wisdom and light) 2) Rood: dynamic, passionate developing into dramatic, furious and fighting (also: courage and will-power) 3) Blue: melancholic, dreamy and introvert (also: truth and peace) 4) Green: hopeful and full of expectation (also: balanced power and harmony) A second important source of inspiration was the death of an uncle who was a trombone player in his free time. The heavy struggle that this man went through at the end of his life might be symbolized in the second movement of the

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concerto, which sounds like a battle at the end of this movement. The unity in the piece is reached by the use of a three tone motif (c-d-g) which constantly returns in various ways throughout the composition and which is the basis of every important theme. Finally I tried to use the coloristic pallet of the trombone in the best possible way, making use of the complete range of the instrument and the different timbres of the instrument.”

The third movement, Blue, is presented in three sections as a traditional ABA form (in the manner of a D.S. al coda). The A section of begins with a gentle arpeggiation of the piano. The trombone enters with a transposed version of the three tone motif (Ab-Bb-Eb in this case) that Appermont says represents the unity of the piece. This motif is subsequently expanded two additional times. The energy then churns as the motion of each part increases until the motif returns again to close out the phrase. The middle sections starts when the trombone reaches its Bb destination and an 8-bar piano interlude begins. The energy ramps up into an explosion of expression as the trombone reenters in the upper register. The energy somewhat abruptly stops and returns back to the three-note motif. A short pause precedes the last A section, where the end has a more prolonged final cadence.

Selections from Winterreise 1828

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Franz Schubert was an Austrian composer who lived at the turn of the 19th century. Born in a suburb of Vienna, Schubert began studying music at an early age, getting violin lessons from his father and piano lessons from his brother. He was recognized very early for his musical aptitude and growth and even surpassed the performing abilities of his family members. He eventually went to study at the Stadtkonvikt school under Antonio Salieri, where his compositional ability grew tremendously. Despite his gift for writing and performing and the attention he received because of it, he often worked as a schoolteacher as a means of getting by. Eventually Schubert was admitted into the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, a musical society in Vienna with great influence over the musical goings-on both popularly and financially, as a musical performer and his performing and compositional life flourished. Unfortunately, this flourishing moment was cut short years later due to an illness that ultimately claimed his life.

Schubert wrote a substantial amount of musical works, including over 600 vocal works, several symphonies, sacred music, operas, and a large body of piano and chamber music. He passed away early into his career at the age of 31 and, like many composers of his era, the appreciation for him and his music grew exponentially over time. Today, he is often listed as being among the greatest composers of Western classical music. As would be appropriate of similar composers of his time, Schubert’s musical style and sound world existed between the late

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Classical and early Romantic periods. In particular, his late lieder have a simplistic romanticism matched with a strong sense of text painting. This combination is what makes works like Winterreise appear more like a dramatic operetta than a collection of songs, as well as appeal to the story-listening audience.

Winterreise, a song cycle for piano and voice that sets 24 poems of Wilhelm Müller to music, is one of the last compositions that Schubert wrote in his life. Originally scored for tenor, it is often transposed for other voice types, something that Schubert himself set precedent for. The work is composed in two parts and there is a history of ordering the poems/songs in a variety of ways depending on whether or not the performer intends to have it reflect Müller’s final ordering in his book Poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn-player, or have it reflect Schubert’s ordering. Schubert’s ordering has to with the timeline of when he discovered Müller’s poems. He discovered the first set of twelve via an almanac published in Leipzig under the title Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Müller. Die Winterreise. In 12 Liedern. He then set these twelve poems to music before discovering the other twelve. The order reflects this, where the second set of twelve songs in the cycle are those that Schubert discovered after having set the first twelve already.

In performance of Winterreise, the piano and the voice act as both one and the same individual; the role of the piano is often used as a means to mirror the emotional state of the poet/singer. For instance, in Der Lindenbaum, the piano introduces each stanza/verse of the singer and the key area of each of those introductions, as well as the radical change to the third stanza/verse, are clear indicators of the emotional content present behind the words that have yet to be spoken. The cycle explores grief over a lost love, which progressively (at least in Schubert’s ordering) to a more general sense of despair and resignation of a cold and empty life. The love of the singer/storyteller/poet is last mentioned halfway through the cycle. Images of winter are consistently used as a reflection of the feelings of isolation.

The text and translations are listed in the subsequent pages. The text is by Wilhelm Müller and the English translation is done by Richard Wigmore.

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Gute Nacht

Fremd bin ich eingezogen, Fremd zieh’ ich wieder aus. Der Mai war mir gewogen Mit manchem Blumenstrauss. Das Mädchen sprach von Liebe, Die Mutter gar von Eh’ – Nun ist die Welt so trübe, Der Weg gehüllt in Schnee.

Ich kann zu meiner Reisen Nicht wählen mit der Zeit: Muss selbst den Weg mir weisen In dieser Dunkelheit. Es zieht ein Mondenschatten Als mein Gefährte mit, Und auf den weissen Matten Such’ ich des Wildes Tritt.

Was soll ich länger weilen, Dass man mich trieb’ hinaus? Lass irre Hunde heulen Vor ihres Herren Haus! Die Liebe liebt das Wandern, Gott hat sie so gemacht – Von einem zu dem andern – Fein Liebchen, gute Nacht.

Will dich im Traum nicht stören, Wär’ Schad’ um deine Ruh’, Sollst meinen Tritt nicht hören – Sacht, sacht die Türe zu! Schreib’ im Vorübergehen An’s Tor dir gute Nacht, Damit du mögest sehen, An dich hab’ ich gedacht.

Good Night

I arrived a stranger, a stranger I depart. May blessed me with many a bouquet of flowers. The girl spoke of love, her mother even of marriage; now the world is so desolate, the path concealed beneath snow.

I cannot choose the time for my journey; I must find my own way in this darkness. A shadow thrown by the moon is my companion; and on the white meadows I seek the tracks of deer.

Why should I tarry longer and be driven out? Let stray dogs howl before their master’s house. Love delights in wandering – God made it so – from one to another. Beloved, good night!

I will not disturb you as you dream, it would be a shame to spoil your rest. You shall not hear my footsteps; softly, softly the door is closed. As I pass I write ‘Good night’ on your gate, so that you might see that I thought of you.

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Der Lindenbaum

Am Brunnen vor dem Tore, Da steht ein Lindenbaum; Ich träumt’ in seinem Schatten So manchen süssen Traum.

Ich schnitt in seine Rinde So manches liebe Wort; Es zog in Freud’ und Leide Zu ihm mich immer fort.

Ich musst’ auch heute wandern Vorbei in tiefer Nacht, Da hab’ ich noch im Dunkel Die Augen zugemacht.

Und seine Zweige rauschten, Als riefen sie mir zu: Komm her zu mir, Geselle, Hier findst du deine Ruh’!

Die kalten Winde bliesen Mir grad’ in’s Angesicht, Der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe, Ich wendete mich nicht.

Nun bin ich manche Stunde Enfernt von jenem Ort, Und immer hör’ ich’s rauschen: Du fändest Ruhe dort!

The Linden Tree

By the well, before the gate, stands a linden tree; in its shade I dreamt many a sweet dream.

In its bark I carved many a word of love; in joy and sorrow I was ever drawn to it.

Today, too, I had to walk past it at dead of night; even in the darkness I closed my eyes.

And its branches rustled as if they were calling to me: ‘Come to me, friend, here you will find rest.’

The cold wind blew straight into my face, my hat flew from my head; I did not turn back.

Now I am many hours’ journey from that place; yet I still hear the rustling: ‘There you would find rest.’

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Wasserflut

Manche Trän’ aus meinen Augen Ist gefallen in den Schnee: Seine kalten Flocken saugen Durstig ein das heisse Weh.

Wenn die Gräser sprossen wollen, Weht daher ein lauer Wind, Und das Eis zerspringt in Schollen, Und der weiche Schnee zerrinnt.

Schnee, du weisst von meinem Sehnen; Sag’, wohin doch geht dein Lauf? Folge nach nur meinen Tränen, Nimmt dich bald das Bächlein auf.

Wirst mit ihm die Stadt durchziehen, Muntre Strassen ein und aus; Fühlst du meine Tränen glühen, Da ist meiner Liebsten Haus.

Flood

Many a tear has fallen from my eyes into the snow; its cold flakes eagerly suck in my burning grief.

When the grass is about to shoot forth, a mild breeze blows; the ice breaks up into pieces and the soft snow melts away.

Snow, you know of my longing; tell me, where does your path lead? If you but follow my tears the brook will soon absorb you.

With it you will flow through the town, in and out of bustling streets; when you feel my tears glow, there will be my sweetheart’s house.

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Auf dem Flusse

Der du so lustig rauschtest, Du heller, wilder Fluss, Wie still bist du geworden, Gibst keinen Scheidegruss.

Mit harter, starrer Rinde Hast du dich überdeckt, Liegst kalt und unbeweglich Im Sande ausgestreckt.

In deine Decke grab’ ich Mit einem spitzen Stein Den Namen meiner Liebsten Und Stund’ und Tag hinein:

Den Tag des ersten Grusses, Den Tag, an dem ich ging, Um Nam’ und Zahlen windet Sich ein zerbrochner Ring.

Mein Herz, in diesem Bache Erkennst du nun dein Bild? Ob’s unter seiner Rinde Wohl auch so reissend schwillt?

On the River

You who rippled so merrily, clear, boisterous river, how still you have become; you give no parting greeting.

With a hard, rigid crust you have covered yourself; you lie cold and motionless, stretched out in the sand.

On your surface I carve with a sharp stone the name of my beloved, the hour and the day.

The day of our first greeting, the date I departed. Around name and figures a broken ring is entwined.

My heart, do you now recognise your image in this brook? Is there not beneath its crust likewise a seething torrent?

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Frühlingstraum

Ich träumte von bunten Blumen, So wie sie wohl blühen im Mai, Ich träumte von grünen Wiesen, Von lustigem Vogelgeschrei.

Und als die Hähne krähten, Da ward mein Auge wach; Da war es kalt und finster, Es schrieen die Raben vom Dach.

Doch an den Fensterscheiben Wer malte die Blätter da? Ihr lacht wohl über den Träumer, Der Blumen im Winter sah?

Ich träumte von Lieb’ um Liebe, Von einer schönen Maid, Von Herzen und von Küssen, Von Wonne und Seligkeit.

Und als die Hähne krähten, Da ward mein Herze wach; Nun sitz’ ich hier alleine Und denke dem Traume nach.

Die Augen schliess’ ich wieder, Noch schlägt das Herz so warm. Wann grünt ihr Blätter am Fenster? Wann halt’ ich mein Liebchen, im Arm?

Dream of Spring

I dreamt of bright flowers that blossom in May; I dreamt of green meadows and merry bird-calls.

And when the cocks crowed my eyes awoke: it was cold and dark, ravens cawed from the roof.

But there, on the window panes, who had painted the leaves? Are you laughing at the dreamer who saw flowers in winter?

I dreamt of mutual love, of a lovely maiden, of embracing and kissing, of joy and rapture.

And when the cocks crowed my heart awoke; now I sit here alone and reflect upon my dream.

I close my eyes again, my heart still beats so warmly. Leaves on my window, when will you turn green? When shall I hold my love in my arms?

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Selections from The Nutcracker 1892

Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Pyotr Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. Although he was gifted in music, he began his career as a civil servant. Formal education in music did not exist until later in his life. When this did become a possibility via the opening of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovsky entered study there and eventually graduated from the program in 1865. His musical prowess brought him great success, but also mixed favor from other Russian composers of the time. Despite his career success, his personal life was often marred with struggles. The most notable is the generally historically agreed upon fact of Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality and how his personal life’s shortcomings, which include a failed marriage that led him to live abroad for the better part of a year, plagued his well-being. Amidst this, we got some of his most potent, influential, and long-lasting works.

Although Tchaikovsky’s style can be described as quintessentially Russian, his time at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory shaped his compositional world to elevate the nationalist Russian style of his time into something special. Although there was a disconnect between the Russian nationalist approach and that of Western-oriented teaching, something that ate away at Tchaikovsky’s confidence, it enabled him to stand apart from The Five, a group of Russian composers whose goal was to create a national identity of Russian music, and gain great acclaim for his works. His style is marked with wonderfully clear and affective melodies, a balanced sense of harmony and style, and, as is especially true for his ballets, a sense of European pastiche.

Tchaikovsky can easily be considered one of the most widely performed in the Western classical tradition, even if only for this piece, The Nutcracker. It is an internationally celebrated ballet that continues to receive annual performances from orchestras and ballet companies to this day. The story is an adaptation from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”. Although it currently receives much admiration today, it was initially a commercial failure. A suite of music from The Nutcracker was then put together by Tchaikovsky in order to salvage the music from the production, which did end up being a success.

The music of these selections follows Clara and the Prince, who just fought off the Mouse King, as they travel to the Land of Sweets. In honor of Clara saving the Prince, a celebration of sweets from around the world is held. These sweets, including chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, and candy canes from Russia. These selections are intended to each have several musical characteristic markers of the cultures they represent - Chocolate having a great rhythmic flair, Coffee having chromaticism indicative of Arabian musical scales, Tea having a flute-heavy melody, and the Trepak having many of the calling cards of Russian folk music as

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told composed by a classical composer (i.e. high rhythmic energy, repetition as a means of melodic and structural development, and a low-voice driven melody - as it appears in the B section - among others). The celebration ends with a dance by the Sugar Plum Fairy. This selection has a magical quality in its original presentation due to two main factors: the use of the celeste, an instrument that Tchaikovsky had recently learned the existence of, and the slipping chromaticism of the melody with the rising contour of the offbeats in the accompaniment.

The selections are ordered in this performance as a means to achieve a more effective musical flow and are not representative of the traditionally performed order in the ballet, although there is a history of conductors and choreographers changing the order of certain musical numbers to better enhance a particular production’s script.

Winter 1998

David Snow (b. 1954)

David Snow is an American composer, born in 1954 in Providence, Rhode Island. He began his musical studies in composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Samuel Adler, Warren Benson, and Joseph Schwantner. He also studied with other notable composers, namely Jacob Druckman while at the Yale School of Music, and Arthur Berger and Martin Boykan while at Brandeis University. Snow has composed a wide range of works, including dozens of various chamber music pieces, keyboard, large ensembles, vocal music, electronic, and audio fixed media. He also works outside of the realm of music, making sculptures, art installations, and performance art. His works have earned him many awards, fellowships, residencies, and commissions from organizations such as BMI, the ASCAP Foundation, the National Association of Composers/USA, the College Band Directors Association, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

His musical style combines a sense of Neo-classicism with the lush harmonies and chordal extensions afforded by contemporary and jazz idioms. While some of his works are very experimental in nature, others, like this one, are very rich with musical history. Moments of his writing are reminiscent of the lineage of the Paris Conservatory (i.e. Jacques Castérède and Eugène Bozza), contain the charm and wit of a composer like Francis Poulenc, have the lush textures plus rhythmic interest of Igor Stravinsky’s early Ballet Russes career (i.e. Firebird and Petrushka), and the jazz ballad playing of Bill Evans. Winter is one such work that balances these sound worlds.

Winter is a work originally composed for trumpet and piano. Snow has this to say about the piece: “Winter was composed in 1998 at the request of trumpeter Chris Gekker, a friend and

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colleague with whom my association goes back 40 years to our undergraduate days at the Eastman School of Music. I used the opportunity to fashion a musical memorial to pianist Wendy Maraniss, a gifted and sensitive musician I had the privilege of knowing during my studies at the Yale School of Music, who was tragically killed in an automobile accident in 1997. The title reflects the elegiac mood of the work, denoting as it does the period of the year during which life rests in a state of quiescence before the season of rebirth and renewal that follows. In its formal structure, Winter comes as close to a classical sonata as any work I ever composed, while its melodic and harmonic vocabulary pays homage to popular and neo-classical traditions of mid-20th century American music.”

All three movements are designated to be performed attacca. The first movement begins with an extensive piano introduction that generates much of the thematic material of entire piece. The fanfare that follows in the solo instrument engages a call and response with the piano. The piano harmonies here are markedly dense with lush upper extensions. Halfway through the movement, the piano settles into a very steady rhythmic pulsing, which serves as a background for which the solo instrument to soar above, while still maintaining the conversation that was started earlier with the piano. The end of the first movement swells to a peak and spills over into a Debussy-esque cloud of sound.

The second movement begins with a very light-hearted piano interlude whose sound world exists somewhere between that of Vince Guaraldi and that of George Winston. The subtle bluesy phrasing and language offer a good deal of motion into a rather abrupt muted fanfare. When the fanfare finishes, it’s as if nothing ever happened, returning back to the bluesy vibes of before. Now the solo instrument joins in on the atmosphere the piano has been setting up to this moment. The fanfare rhythms become more pronounced until a clash brings the piano to reminisce about the melody it started the movement with. Here, the conversation between the instruments comes back, marked with moments of bright fanfares. This all seems to fall apart at the end as the piano introduces the first moment of strong dissonance with the established key area, bleeding into the affect of the melody, stated in minor.

The last movement returns to the same music introduced at the beginning of the second movement, now in a more hopeful place, but then settles into the melancholic, steady, rhythmic pulsing present in the first movement. Here the solo instrument takes the lead with fluid and melismatic lines with jazzy undertones. Once done, the rhythm picks up for a somewhat lamenting conversation, which gets subsequently brighter and more cheerful with each iteration. This halts with a big outburst outlining some expressive open fifths. The movement then moves into a series of variations on a theme, accented with a very driving rhythm in the piano. Intensity only builds from here to the end with areas punctuated with low jabs in the piano left hand. The piece ends with a glorious explosion of harmony, rhythm, and sound.

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RECITAL 2 PROGRAM: REFLECTIONS

ChristopherHernacki,TromboneLingLo,Piano

Saturday,March27th,2021,3:00pmSUNYPotsdam,CraneSchoolofMusic,SnellTheater

https://www.potsdam.edu/academics/crane-school-music/crane-school-music-live-concert

TheOldBuryingGround:BookI(2003)

I.AndPassFromHenceAway

II.OhSayGrimDeath

III.ABarSoPure

IV.OhDropOnMyGrave

V.ThyPeacefulReign

inFinitemorning(2009)

CommentsbyComputers(2015,rev.2021)

I.MulberryAlexa

II.HalfaMillion

III.EvenMoreShocking

IV.Attractive

V.Good,HealthyFun

VI.ThatBigVan

VII.TheWindowsill

VIII.MissLulu

ReFlectionsontheMississippi(2013)

I.Mist

II.Fury

III.Prayer

IV.Steamboat

EvanChambers

(b.1963)

JoelPuckett

(b.1977)

GalaFlagello

(b.1994)

MichaelDaugherty

(b.1954)

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TromboneEditionWorldPremiere

-Intermission-

RECITAL 2 PROGRAM NOTES

March 27th, 2021 Christopher Hernacki

The Old Burying Ground: Book I 2003

Evan Chambers (b. 1963)

Evan Chambers was born in Alexandria, Louisiana and is a Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. His compositions have been performed by numerous symphony orchestras, including the Cincinnati, Kansas City, Memphis, New Hampshire, and Albany Symphonies. He has won several prizes and awards, including first prize in the Cincinnati Symphony Competition and the Walter Beeler Prize by Ithaca College in 1998. Evan Chambers has been recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Luigi Russolo Competition, Vienna Modern Masters, NACUSA, and the American Composers Forum. His composition teachers include William Albright, Leslie Bassett, Nicholas Thorne, and Marilyn Shrude, with studies in electronic music with George Wilson and Burton Beerman. In addition to his composition career, Evan Chambers also performs solo and chamber music, even appearing as a soloist in Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra.

At one point in his life, Evan Chambers came across Irish folk music via the NPR show The Thistle and Shamrock and that experience was so profound that it would go on to shape his career forever forward. In Irish folk music, he found the sense community and the musical genre’s understanding that perfection was not a primary goal or directive to be exhilarating and liberating compared to his experience with Western classical music. It was then where he started to combine the two genres and his music took on new vitality. Many of Chambers’ works combine elements from multiple genres.

Evan Chambers enjoys walking in cemeteries as they provide an ideal place to meditate upon how lives appear and disappear in the world. The gravestones offer an opportunity to reflect upon and confront a central truth to humanity: death is inevitable. Chambers once visited The Old Burying Ground, a cemetery located in Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire in 1998 and was particularly taken with the epitaphs. The composer has this to say as a reflection on that visit: “In order to read the stones one must sometimes lie flat on the graves. Stern exhortations about the brevity of our lives and tender statements of loss take on an urgent meaning when you encounter them face down on top of someone’s final resting place… I had a teacher who insisted that to sing for someone didn't mean to sing while someone listened, but rather to sing for them, to take their place in song. It’s my hope we can do the same as listeners, and imagine ourselves standing

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for those whose who speak in these songs, since putting oneself in someone else's place is the essence of compassion.”

The Old Burying Ground: Book I borrows from the various folk music traditions in the United States and overseas, which include Irish traditional music, American folk song, Sacred Harp singing, and Albanian Polyphony, in addition to European classical music. Many of the movements are marked with various grace notes in the score to denote folk inflection (scoops, bends, falls, etc.) that are difficult to notate in the traditional manner that would be appropriate in Western classical music. “And Pass from Hence Away” and “Oh Say Grim Death” are largely treated like a recitation/recitative, somewhat akin to a preacher’s words with musical punctuations from the piano. The first of these two has a slower more somber affect while the latter of the two has a more forceful and resolute tone, containing more complex rhythmic configurations of the melody and accompaniment. “A Bar So Pure” is a tender moment that reflects on the loss of a life just begun. Much of this movement is unison rhythm between the two voices.

“Oh Drop On My Grave” begins with a recitation/recitative that slowly builds energy. After this brief introduction, the movement launches into a beautiful dance of coloristic writing in the piano with an evolving melody in the voice. This melody in the solo voice begins with a simple call, but it unfolds and develops more and more each repetition. “Thy Peaceful Reign” ends the cycle with a heavy and haunting a song. The piano alternates between two chords regularly throughout the vast majority of this movement. For the first half, these chords consist only of open 4ths and 5ths, but in such a way that depicts both pained anguish and hollowness. When the emotions rise halfway through the piece, the chords finally change. The piece ends with just the piano, expanding both lower and higher as if disappearing to both the Earth below and Heaven above.

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Text The original texts are taken from the Old Burying Ground, a cemetery located in Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire.

I. AND PASS FROM HENCE AWAY IN MEMORY OF MR. JOHN WOOD

WHO DIED JULY 5 1799 AGED 55 YEARS

THERE IS A SONG WHICH DOTH BELONG TO ALL THE HUMAN RACE

CONCERNING DEATH WHO STEALS THE BREATH & BLASTS A COMELY FACE

COME LISTEN ALL UNTO MY CALL WHICH I DO MAKE TODAY

FOR YOU MUST DIE AS WELL AS I & PASS FROM HENCE AWAY.

II. OH SAY GRIM DEATH HERE IS ENTERED THE LAST RE-

MAINS OF ISAAC A. SPOF FORD SON OF DEACON ELEAZAR

& MRS. MARY SPOFFORD, A BRAND PLUCKED FROM

THE ASHES OF REV. LABAN AINSWORTH’S HOUSE.

13 FEB 1788 AE8

OH SAY, GRIM DEATH WHY THUS DESTROY THE PARENT’S HOPES, THEIR FONDEST JOY

CEASE, MAN, TO ASK THE HIDDEN CAUSE

GOD’S WILL IS DONE - REVERE HIS LAWS

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III. A BAR SO PURE IN MEMORY OF OLIVER BACON

SON OF LIEU. OLIVER & MRS. REBECCA BACON

WHO WAS KILLED BY LIGHTNING

JULY 2ND 1801 AGED 8 YRS & 7 MONTHS

IN BLOOMING YOUTH ONE MOMENT STOOD THE NEXT CALLED TO THE BAR OF GOD

THINK READER CAN THY HEART ENDURE A SUMMONS TO A BAR SO PURE

IV. OH DROP ON MY GRAVE ABEL SPAULDING JR DIED JUNE 11

1805 AGE 46

OH DROP ON MY GRAVE, AS YE PASS IT NO TEAR

BUT REJOICE FOR THE FREED ONE, WHOSE FEATHERS LIE HERE

V. THY PEACEFUL REIGN AARON SPOFFORD DIED AUG 28 1888 AE 22

BEST FRIEND THO TORN FROM MY EMBRACE THY GOD HATH BID THEE COME

THOU’ST LEFT A BROTHER’S FEARFUL FACE & GONE TO HEAVE THY HOME

YES: THOU’ST LEFT A WORLD OF TOIL & PAIN

AND ENTERED ON THY PEACEFUL REIGN.

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infinite morning 2009

Joel Puckett (b. 1977)

Joel Puckett is an American composer, born in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the Chair of Music Theory, Ear Training, and Piano Skills at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Having held positions previously with Shenandoah University and Towson University, he also served as composer-in-residence for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. Joel attended Shenandoah Conservatory for his undergraduate degree in composition, where he studied with Will Averitt and Thomas Albert. He later completed his academic work at the University of Michigan with both a Masters of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts where his teachers included Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, and Bright Sheng.

Joel Puckett’s music has been recognized by organizations such as the American Composers Forum, BMI, Chorus America, National Public Radio, and the American Bandmasters Association for its excellence. His music is often characterized by its emotional energy and commitment. He melds tradition with innovation into a unique charismatic language. Some of his works are often written as reflections of personal events of his life, as is done with Shadow of Sirius and in this piece.

infinite morning is about beginnings and the hope that they bring of new possibilities. Joel Puckett writes the following in the score: “I love beginnings. I don’t know why, but it has always been for me that the first line of a book is far more satisfying than the last. I dive into these first lines filled with the hope that I might be reading something life changing or at least reading something old in a new and meaningful way. Full of hope, full of the endless promos that only a new day can bring. Unadulterated optimism for the cyclic renewal of morning.” The initial sketches of this piece were written when Joel Puckett and his wife were expecting their first child. The pregnancy, unfortunately, ended with a miscarriage and the mourning that followed shaped how the ending of this piece came to be.

This piece is written in two large sections. The first section begins with a series of lush, tone row arpeggiations. In between these arpeggiations are very long and lyrical phrases in the solo voice that feature a good degree of expressive portamenti. The sense of time is very loose at the beginning as there are no consistent rhythms to ground oneself to. Eventually, the tone rows rhythmicize and form a moving accompaniment as the piece picks up energy. Both parts intensify in a steady build into a loud climax. At this point the music returns back to the beginning material. An extensive unaccompanied section bridges into the second large section of the piece. This second section is marked by constant sixteenth notes in the piano until almost the very end. This ostinato in the upper range of the piano with occasional low chords rolling in the lower range floats along as the solo voice performs a broad, folksong-like melody. The piece

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ends with a big crescendo in the piano as the solo dies out, leaving several low Cs to be hammered out into the otherwise silence of the space.

Comments by Computers 2015, revised 2021

Gala Flagello (b. 1994)

Gala Flagello is an American composer based out of the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. She is also the Festival Director and co-founder of the nonprofit contemporary music festival Connecticut Summerfest and currently serves as the Composer in Residence at Promenade Opera Project in Boston, Massachusetts. Gala holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree from The Hartt School, a Master of Music in Composition degree from the University of Michigan, and, at the time of this recital, is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Michigan. Her major composition teachers include Michael Daugherty, Kristin Kuster, Erik Santos, Evan Chambers, and Robert Carl.

Gala sees the great potential for music to be used as a vehicle for social change, allowing for the possibility to engage with topics such as environmental advocacy, gender equity, and mental health and thusly actively seeks out opportunities to do so with her own work. In January of 2021, she participated in the Georgia Run-Off Commissioning Project, raising funds for the senate campaigns of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. She was also recently a part of Latitude 49’s Bagatelles Project in support of the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts. Gala is a two-time collaborator of DAMET Percussion, writing Precious Metals and Fragile Goods for Natural Beauty, a multimedia touring show that aims to demonstrate humans’ impact on our environment. She and DAMET founder, Danielle Gonzalez, also co-host the podcast Music & Mindset, a bi-weekly series addressing mental health for musicians in the categories of mind, body, and spirit.

Gala writes the following about the piece in 2015: “The text for Comments by Computers was taken from the comments sections of websites and blogs, where spam bots had left the most “human” sentences their algorithms could produce. These comments each took on their own unique character: honest, poetic, joyful, pleading. The comments’ use as lyrics led to these mezzo-soprano and piano miniatures, so that each “writer” might have their own distinct, musical voice.”

The version being performed for this recital for trombone and piano was adapted at my request. Because performing the work on trombone loses the ability for the text to come through during performance, it is suggested to recite the movement’s text as it originally appears before playing each movement.

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“Mulberry Alexa” flirts with the line between dreamy and distressed with alternating moments of gentle, flowing passages and sharp interruptions. The movement ends with a solitary call, as if the request was never heard. “Half a Million” follows a suspicious observation marked by a very dry, rhythmic dialogue between the solo and the piano. A few outbursts emerge, but the movement ends similar to how it began. “Even More Shocking” has the solo part perform unaccompanied in a short, lyrical, tongue-in-cheek phrase. “Attractive” has the feel of a light-hearted waltz that has a few loose screws in it with sections of the beat missing throughout. “Good, Healthy Fun” centers around the feeling of nostalgia and harkens to the sound world of the English folk song akin to the Six Studies in English Folk Song by Ralph Vaughan Williams that many low brass players are familiar with. “That Big Van” is ominous and frenzied with a constant barrage of sixteenth notes in a steady accelerando after the opening flurries. “The Windowsill” is a beautiful and sincere conversation of mostly one, as if closed off behind the windowsill. “Miss Lulu” closes out the cycle with a bouncy and cheerful song that features mostly dancing and lyrical tonal passages with a few exclamations with clusters of sound.

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Text The text below is exactly as it appeared in the comments sections of the websites and blogs from which it was collected for this song cycle.

Mulberry Alexa Mulberry Alexa oversized oak Alexa mulberry bags mulberry bags Alexa.

Half a Million Half the pages are missing. What’s the matter? Isn’t half a million enough for you?

Even More Shocking Even more shocking is that this is the greatest number of women that have ever held this position at this time.

Attractive Attractive component of content. It’s toilsome to note illuminating and explicit information.

Good, Healthy Fun I wish you had a picture of the boy going in for the seeds. There is nothing quite like good, healthy fun!

That Big Van They’ll try to escape in that big van, so we need to shut them down.

The Windowsill End up with the indistinguishable satisfaction therefore teh latter are able to be daunting by helping, the windowsill. Love you shouldn’t happen. For logic behind why authorities.

Miss Lulu I don’t know about that, Miss Lulu! And after all, yours was a fainting couch, wasn’t it? I should have stretched out on my cot! Maybe if I had looked comfy on it, somebody would have bought it! Tee hee hee. –Tiffany

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Reflections on the Mississippi 2013

Michael Daugherty (b. 1954)

Michael Daugherty is a multiple Grammy Award-winning composer born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and is internationally recognized as one of the ten most performed American composers of concert music, according to the League of American Orchestras. He teaches music composition at the University of Michigan, a position he has held since 1991, and is a frequent guest of professional orchestras, festivals, universities, and conservatories around the world. Michael Daugherty studied composition with many notable composers of the 20th century, including Pierre Boulez, Jacob Druckman, Earle Brown, Bernard Rands, Roger Reynolds, and György Ligeti.

Michael Daugherty’s music is rich with cultural and political allusions, using elements or musical quotations from many popular styles, including jazz, funk, rock, and folk. He combines colliding tonalities and blocks of sound with melodies that can be eloquent and stirring to create an iconic sound with boundless imagination and fearless structure.

Reflections on the Mississippi was composed in memory of Michael’s father, Willis Daugherty, as a musical reflection on family trips to the Mississippi River as a child. In July and October of 2012, he took two trips to the Mississippi River from McGregor, Iowa to Hannibal, Missouri. On these trips Michael Daugherty explored small towns, took photographs, and discovered some of the local wildlife havens via local boat owners and guides. The sounds, sights, and experiences led to the emotional framework of this piece.

The first movement, “Mist”, is a reflection on the sunrise as seen and heard through a misty haze over the Mississippi River. It begins with a mystical melody that slowly ascends with each iteration. An ostinato moves the piece into a dark second theme, but not for long. A brief cadenza, the likes of which appear quite frequently throughout the entire work, sets up a return to the opening melody, part of which is accompanied by the ostinato established earlier. The second movement, “Fury”, begins attacca from the first movement and is a recollection of the turmoil of the Mississippi River in the fiction of William Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury, and in the history of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The music of this movement features a very agile and active melody that darts around with dissonant harmonies and various polyrhythms.

“Prayer”, the third movement, is a meditation on the calm mood of the river viewed from a high vista as sunset turns to night. This movement features a very lyrical and soulful melody with allusions to the opening melody from the first movement. The accompaniment often rings in the bells like the echo of distant church bells. The last movement, “Steamboat” is about the colorful tales from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. The music is representative of the

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various gambling steamboats present between Missouri and New Orleans. The solo voice is designed to evoke the role of the Zydeco and Second line music of New Orleans. Boundless energy and syncopation permeate throughout. The melody of the first movement returns several times to propel the piece to its exciting and virtuosic conclusion.

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RECITAL 3 PROGRAM: PERSPECTIVES

ChristopherHernacki,TromboneWednesday,June16th,2021,7:30pm

VideoPremierePresentationonYouTubehttps://youtu.be/ZOAk6RXujjQ

SångtillLotta(1990)

Stereograms(1991)

No.1:DedicatedtoJamesPankow

No.3:DedicatedtoGeorgeRoberts

No.14:DedicatedtoTommyPederson

Canzone(1628/2001)

SoundtrackforTromboneandOrchestra(2017)

PicturesatanExhibition(1874/2014)

ContrapunctusIX(ca.1740-1746/1959)

KantoXKalos:APokémonMedley(2021)

JanSandstrom(b.1954)

DavidWilliamBrubeck(b.1966)

GirolamoFrescobaldi(1583-1643)

Arr.byEddyKoopman

BrianSadler(b.1982)

ModestMussorgsky(1839-1881)

Arr.byAlvanDerBeek(b.1973)

andStevenSharpNelson(b.1977)

JohannSebastianBach(1685-1750)

Arr.byJohnGlasel(1930-2011)

JunichiMasuda(b.1968)

andShotaKageyama(b.1982)

Arr.byChristopherHernacki(b.1988)

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AccompanimentviaJorgePianoYouTubeChannel

AccompanimentavailableviaThePianoGuys

PerformedbythePotsdamBrassQuintet

BrianneBordenandJamesMadeja,Trumpets;

LaurenBecker,Horn;CharlesGuy,Tuba

WorldPremiere

RECITAL 3 PROGRAM NOTES

June 16th, 2021 Christopher Hernacki

Sång till Lotta 1990

Jan Sandström (b. 1954)

Jan Sandström is a Swedish composer whose name is fairly well known amongst the international trombone community. He was born in Vilhelmina in Lapland on January 25th, 1954, and grew up in Stockholm. He began his musical studies in counterpoint in Stockholm with Valdemar Söderholm, then to University School of Music in Piteå from 1974 to 1976, and finally back to Stockholm where he attended the Royal Academy of Music there, studying music theory and composition with Gunnar Bucht, Brian Ferneyhough, and Pär Lindgren. In 1982, he joined the new music of the young and expanding University School of Music in Piteå, teaching composition and music theory and eventually he was appointed professor of composition at the University in 1989.

Having begun his musical career as a chorister, Sandström has a large part of his compositional output in vocal music. His style of writing in this manner can be characterized as forming a link between an inner, gentle world with the emotional abstract. He was influenced early on by various concepts, including, but not limited to, minimalism, Eastern philosophy, and serialism. In terms of musical works for trombone, the work that put his name on the map is his Motorbike Concerto for trombone and orchestra, written for trombone soloist Christian Lindberg. It is one of the most spread Swedish orchestra works of all time, with over 600 performances since its premiere.

The composer has this to say about Sång till Lotta (1990):

“At the time my Motorbike Concerto began its global tour, a very close friend's daughter Lotta, then a little girl, started to play trombone. I told her that I would write a concerto for her too as I did for Christian, when she was a little older - and if she then continued playing the instrument. I did not compose a concerto, but this piece to her birthday, for her to play and for her father to accompany. Lotta did not continue playing trombone, but dedicated her life to other important matters, and is now working for UN in the States and other countries.”

The piece opens with a simple pulsing of a “sus” chord by the piano (a type of chord that contains notes outside the primary triad) in a steady rhythm. This motive is present throughout

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the vast majority of this work. The trombone enters in the third bar with a melody that repeats the note F several times before leaping up to another note. This repeats a few times, reaching higher with each instance. The upper notes that are leaped to often resolve into a suspension, adding color to the downbeat of the measure before returning back the familiar F. The melody moves into a more stepwise line, but the goal of a suspended note on the downbeat always seems to be the objective. As the melody develops, it briefly enters the key of Db major, after having been in Bb major up to this point. The piano then takes over the melody that the trombone opened up with. As the trombone and piano begin trading back and forth, it enters into the key of G major. Via the same mechanism that took the harmony from Bb to Db, the piece shifts from G major to Bb, but that same mechanism is again used to go again from Bb to Db. Eventually we settle back to Bb for the remainder of the melody and the coda. The coda is marked by a slowing of the tempo all the way to the very end.

Stereograms — No. 1: Dedicated to James Pankow — No. 3: Dedicated to George Roberts — No. 14: Dedicated to Tommy Pederson

David William Brubeck (b. 1966)

1991

Dr. David William Brubeck serves as Professor of Music at Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus, where he coordinates the chamber music program and teaches trombone. He also teaches courses in Music Theory and Jazz. As a performer Brubeck plays regularly with the Miami City Ballet Orchestra-Opus One, Orchestra Miami, Duo Brubeck, and The Brubeck Brass. He has published numerous compositions and arrangements, scholarly articles, a basic theory text, and a method for trombone. Brubeck’s compositional style is reflective of the various genres and musical groups/artists that he grew up with and was exposed to throughout his career. Being a chameleon of sorts, he easily writes in the styles of other composers and genres, while also crafting his own unique voice when performing.

Brubeck has this to say about his Stereograms:

“You may recognize the term stereo gram as a modern day reference to three-dimensional images such as those contained in the recent ‘Magic Eye’ series. Just as visual stereo grams present several images within a single image, these aural stereograms imply two, three, or sometimes four separate parts within a single melodic line. On occasion a single melodic line is employed for contrast. Stereograms 1-20, and 21-30 are original compositions… The ‘implied homophony,’ or accompanying yourself, used in

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Stereograms has become most familiar to the general public through the work of vocalist Bobby McFerrin. Here, the technique is applied to the bass trombone and may be adapted to tenor trombone with ‘f’ attachment, euphonium, and bassoon… Excellent as etudes, encores, or arranged into ‘ad hoc’ suites for performance, the Stereogram technique seems particularly well-suited to the capabilities and varied roles of the bass trombone, and have garnered praise from a variety of prominent bass trombonists.”

The first selection of Stereograms on this program is No. 1: Dedicated to James Pankow, trombonist, arranger, and composer with the jazz-rock group Chicago. Pankow has written numerous hit songs, including: Colour My World, Make Me Smile, Just You ’N’ Me, and Old Days. Chicago’s popularity and Pankow’s unique style of trombone playing, along with his talents as a songwriter, arranger, and improviser make him a defining icon in the popular music idiom of that era. Many of the Stereograms explore jazz, blues, and other popular American idioms; this selection is evocative of funk. The piece begins by establishing the funk groove that will hold throughout most of the tune. Once the groove is established, Brubeck tasks the player with playing the melody and groove in interlocking simultaneity. The form is in a large ABA structure, where the B section has a brief moment of improvisation.

The next selection in this ad hoc suite is No. 3: Dedicated to George Roberts, “Mr. Bass Trombone,” former bass trombonist with Gene Krupa, Stan Kenton, and performed on numerous Hollywood recording sessions. George’s tone is often emulated as an ideal sound for the bass trombone. His solo recordings, innovation, and general impact on the instrument are unequalled. Many bass trombonists attribute George Roberts as being one of their leading inspirations in music; I am no exception to that. This selection features a beautiful melody — legato and rubato throughout. It is presented in an AA’ form where the melody of the first half is repeated down the octave, with a few changes, for the second half.

The last selection is No. 14: Dedicated to Tommy Pederson, trombonist, recording artist, composer, and arranger. A true advocate of the bass trombone, Pederson’s prodigious output includes various duets and solos for bass trombone. His compositions always had a light-hearted nature to their approach and, in what is most often the case, in naming convention. Many bass trombone players are familiar with his set of 10 duets for two bass trombones that have names like “Hippo in the Cabbage Patch” and “The Walrus Ordered Waffles”. Brubeck captures this light-heartedness in a latin groove that feels like a little jaunt around town on a breezy, sunny weekend. It has some moments where the rhythm is drawn out into a hemiola, but most everything fits within the established groove. The overall form is AABA’, where the B section explores two smaller sections. The final A’ section has the melody modulating up by half step with each 4-bar phrase, which eventually condenses into every two bars, ending with a chromatic line that drifts downward until we arrive back at the home key for the final four bar tag.

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Canzone 1628/2001

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) Arr. by Eddy Koopman

Girolamo Frescobaldi was an Italian composer during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. His works influenced the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach and Henry Purcell, among many others. While some some critics were eager to discredit some of his choral works, few could argue with his instrumental prowess, especially with regards to his keyboard works. Frescobaldi often rewrote and revised many of his works, most of which is attributed to his sense of ongoing interest in perfecting his pieces and his craft.

Eddy Koopman is a composer and producer, whose primary occupation is as principal percussionist with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, an ensemble in the Netherlands dedicated to challenging the boundaries of symphonic pop and jazz. As a member there, he regularly performs jazz, pop, world music, and film scores as a means of diversifying the symphonic tradition. In addition, Koopman works as a freelance musician with leading national and international bands and orchestras. As a composer and arranger, he has written and recorded music for a number of TV shows as well as written several works for members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Metropole Orchestra. This selection is one of those pieces written for Ben van Dijk, bass trombonist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

The source material of this piece, as well as the name, comes from one of the many canzoni that Girolamo Frescobaldi wrote. This particular one is Canzon quinta detta la Tromboncina, F 8.06a, from the Il Primo Libro delle Canzoni, a set of instrumental ensemble canzonas published in two editions. As one reviewer of the work remarks, “Imagine that Frescobaldi would have written his music on a planet still to be discovered”. Koopman does away with some of Frescobaldi’s traditional tempo indications in favor of maintaining a consistent beat to match the modern style of the accompaniment.

The piece opens with a very spacey, otherworldly sound that eventually coalesces around some vocal samples and the hint of a drum beat. A synthesized Baroque organ enters with the original Frescobaldi melody, quickly answered by the bass trombone. While the melodic content from the bass trombone never strays off of the original Frescobaldi part, the accompaniment moves from the Baroque organ to a funk bass and synth pop background. The third voice to enter is a violin to play a counterpoint melody. A synth choir enters when the rhythm of the violin and bass trombone between to unify. Everything drops out at this point except for the organ and bass trombone. The solo voice plays some noticeably more technical material that ends in a big flourish that sets up the hip-hop-esque drum beat and the return of the other instruments. This style continues until a cadence leads to a gigue. The instrumentation here shifts to a more traditional sounding renaissance ensemble. When the gigue is up, the more popular-idiom sound

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world comes back and remains in place until the end of the arrangement. The final cadence is emphasized by a triplet snare drum pattern, performed in a militaristic manner. The only other section that has new material added to it, aside from the very beginning, is the last measure. This last bit, in what would have been just a held-out chord, is now a one measure quasi-Irish folk ditty. The accompanimental recording features Sarah Koch on violin and Eddy Koopman on percussion and synthesizers.

Soundtrack for Trombone and Orchestra 2017

Brian Sadler (b. 1982)

Brian Sadler is a Musician First Class and a trombonist and arranger in the US Navy Fleet Bands. In his 15 years of service in the Navy, he has composed and arranged hundreds of pieces for concert band, brass ensemble, brass quintet, woodwind quintet, jazz big band, marching band, and solo works. For a brief time, Sadler studied composition formally at Arizona State University, but he, as he describes it, “didn’t like the atonal world they were introducing”. He has received multiple awards for his writing, including the Excellence in Composition Award from the 2008 International Brass Music Festival (for his composition Action Brass), the 2008 and 2015 Dallas Winds Brass Fanfare Contest (for Action Fanfare and Unveiling, respectively), and 2nd place winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs’ 2011 US Armed Forces Composition Contest (for A Global Force for Good).

Sadler’s compositional approach can best be described as practical and effectual. Having not enjoyed the atonal direction his formal compositional took him, he instead focused on practical training, where experience, grounded in ensemble performance, is always at the forefront. As he says, “I learn what works and what doesn’t, and I move on”. Being heavily influenced by film music, and subsequently interested in entering the field after retiring from his military career, his voice has a function behind the notes.

Soundtrack for Trombone and Orchestra was written in 2017 as a commission by Joshua Mize for a doctoral recital of his at the University of Southern Mississippi. The composition is with digital MP3 accompaniment, allowing the solo trombonist to perform with an exciting orchestra backing track with influence from the film music industry. It is different from many other solos plus fixed media productions in that it is tonal and driven with real orchestra sounds instead of more esoteric, avant-garde, or abstract accompaniments. The style of the work itself is drawn from such film composers as Steve Jablonsky (Transformers), John Williams (Star Wars, Indiana Jones), and John Debney (Zarathustra, Iron Man 2). This particular version being performed is a low octave version created for tuba or bass trombone.

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The piece is in a large 3 part structure with a brief cadenza acting as the boundary between sections 1 and 2. The sections follow a typical fast-slow-fast template, with clearly identifiable tempo changes leading from one section to the next. The sound textures used in the fixed-media accompaniment also yield to the typical textures of the fast-slow-fast template to match an active/technical-lyrical-active/technical format. The first section is very much characterized by the “ticking clock” in the background, driving this sense of looking inside Tim Burton’s Cuckoo Clock, but with more a more realistic, quasi Avengers-esque setting instead of the animation style of Tim Burton. The opening introduction establishes much of the melodic material, as well as harmonic motion, for the first section. The electric guitar states the main theme, which is later stated by the solo trombone after the initial entrance of the solo instrument. The middle of the first section explores multiple arpeggiations and variations on the opening trombone motif. Section 1 ends with a multiple-tongued version of the opening harmonic structure, leading into the cadenza, which is further built upon that same harmonic structure of a minor triad expanding to a first inversion lowered VI major triad through a 5-6 motion in the uppermost voice.

The second section uses a heavily used chord progression among film and commercial composers: Cm-Ab-Eb-Bb/Cm-Ab-Fm-G. These chords are pervasive in pop music as well, and due to their effectiveness and ubiquity, they remain effective in settings like this. The melody in the trombone makes extensive use of suspension/retardation on the downbeats in a syncopated rhythm over the chord progression, often keeping the same choice of notes as the chords change underneath. The section all starts in C minor, and then after a brief interlude, the key changes to D minor with a heightened level of energy from the accompaniment and more activity in the solo part. A brief pause separates the end of this section with the beginning of the final section. This last section of the piece is separated into two parts, the first of which is an intermediary tempo and the second a significantly faster tempo. The intermediary section has the same accented downbeat as the very beginning of the entire work, but this time with a string motor rhythm on a singular pitch. The trombone enters softly, but with huge swells that match the brass of the accompaniment track. The next faster part of this third section is a frantic outburst of energy, with many fanfare rhythms that often create impact points in irregular locations in the otherwise steady meter. The melody of the slow section returns in this final part, but now played at near double speed. After this, a large flourish of arpeggios and active writing has the work end with fire and flash.

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Pictures at an Exhibition 1874/2014

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Arr. by Al van Der Beek (b. 1973)

and Steven Sharp Nelson (b. 1977)

Modest Mussorgsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period and a member of “The Five”, a group of prominent Russian composers who worked together to create distinctly Russian style of classical music. Although his musical output can seem impressive because of the lasting effect of some of his works, he worked outside of the music profession as his main source of income, working for the military before eventually landing a menial office job for the government. The pieces that have lasted though, made a significant impact on future composers, most notably Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, and caused others to be inspired to orchestrate his works.

Pictures at an Exhibition is one of Mussorgsky’s most famous compositions, mainly due to Ravel’s orchestration, although the piano purists might argue otherwise. It is a huge, multi-movement work that explores a musical rendering of the visual arts, inspired by the experience of visiting a memorial art gallery of works by his dear friend, artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann, who had recently passed. Each tableau is often preceded by or followed by a Promenade. This Promenade undergoes significant variations to give a sense of the condition of the viewer as they progress from one section of the art gallery to the next. Although titled Pictures at an Exhibition, this particular arrangement being performed deals only with the “Promenade” material presented at the very opening of Mussorgsky’s work.

The Piano Guys is an innovative group that helped shape what would eventually become the officially recognized genre that is “classical crossover”. The four individuals, producer/videographer Paul Anderson, pianist/songwriter Jon Schmidt, cellist/songwriter Steven Sharp Nelson, and music producer/songwriter Al van der Beek, create classical influenced instrumental music in videos, often showcasing spectacular locations around the world. Many arrangements also blend popular music and popular styles with Western classical music and Western classical styles to create a sound unique to them. As they describe well, the mission of the group “will always be to produce music videos that inspire, uplift, and make the world a better place. If we can make a positive impact in even one person’s life it has all been worth it to us.”

The piece opens with a piano introduction, where an ostinato begins and from the ostinato emerges the opening Promenade motif in the key of Bb. The style and presentation is in a sort of new age, zen, minimalist, pop modality, where the aesthetics of the moment are more important than melodic development. The solo instrument gently fades in to provide a sustained, lyrical line as a balance to the piano. At a natural resting spot, the next phrase introduces some pizzicato arpeggios in the backing track to propel into the where the solo voice eventually picks up the

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back end of the Promenade melody. When the melody is set to start again from the beginning, the energy is heightened via thundering repetition of notes from the background cello and piano parts. When the energy wanes, we enter a movement of uncertainty as the key shifts to minor in a manner not dissimilar to what would happen in a development section of a work in sonata form. This continues until the energy overflows into the final major statement of the melody in Db major with soaring lines in the solo voice and lush harmonies in the backing track. The arrangement ends with a heavy hemiola in the background, a soft remnant of the melody performed as if it were a fond memory, and a swell to a ringing, final chord.

Contrapunctus IX ca. 1740-1746/1959

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Arr. by John Glasel (1930-2011)

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer in the Baroque period known for his instrumental compositions, vocal music, and contributions to the organ/keyboard world. He is generally regarded as one of the best composers of the Western classical music tradition and whose music serves as a great inspiration to so many musicians, classical or non-classical alike. He was mostly known in his lifetime for being a church organist and court composer; as such he wrote many liturgical works, like the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor, but his output was not limited to only sacred content, like the Goldberg Variations and the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Throughout his life, Bach learned to skillfully employ the use of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and form. Many of his works explore the use of canon and fugue, several of which have been adapted or arranged for more modern instrument combinations to appreciate the craft of his writing. In addition, Bach’s chorale writing is often used as warm-up tuning, phrasing, ensemble-developing exercises by many brass groups and brass pedagogues.

John Glasel was an American trumpet player and arranger. He began his studies at the Yale School of Music in the 1950s, played in the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, but would eventually shift into performance primarily with jazz musicians. Glasel served as band leaders to Jazz Session and Jazz Unlimited, worked with artists like Gil Evans and the Glenn Miller tribute band, and contributed to many session recordings of popular music of the era.

Contrapunctus IX is a double fugue, meaning that it has two dependent subjects that develop throughout the course of the work. It starts off with a statement by the second trumpet of the initial subject (a subject unique to this Contrapunctus) that begins with an octave leap followed by a winding scale downward and around in the span of that octave leap. The statements of the first subject work their way to first trumpet, trombone, and then horn. As the

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horn enters with the initial subject statement, the first trumpet begins the first statement of the subject that the entirety of The Art of the Fugue is structured around. The following statement shifts the key center away from C minor and its fugal key areas of the minor dominant and into the relative major of Eb with another combined subject statements between the second trumpet, trombone, and tuba. This interplay continues for much of the arrangement, allowing each solo voice to state the subjects in isolation as other members continue to develop and offer well-crafted counterpoint lines to supplement the harmonic placement of the subject statements, as well as compliment the register of which voice is presenting the statement. The arrangement culminates with a final statement of both subjects in simultaneity and a slowdown into a rich tonic major chord.

Kanto X Kalos: A Pokémon Medley 2021

Junichi Masuda (b. 1968) and Shota Kageyama (b. 1982)

Arr. by Christopher Hernacki (b. 1988)

Junichi Masuda is a Japanese video game composer, director, designer, producer, and programmer. He is most known for his abundant contributions to the Pokémon franchise, a popular video game series developed by the company Game Freak, from the series’ very beginning. Being the sole composer responsible for the first title, Masuda is still involved with the current games being released, but his role has shifted to include more direction and production roles.

Masuda began his musical journey as a trombonist in high school where he discovered classical music and was entranced by prominent works like Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. He also listens to a lot of techno, a genre whose influence can be heard in the heavy left-hand pulse writing in many of the battle sequences in the Pokémon series. Masuda views the music of the Mario franchise as some of the most effective examples of video game music in the canon.

Shota Kageyama is also a Japanese video game composer and arranger who was brought into the Pokémon series, but later in its history, entering when the Generation IV remakes of HeartGold and SoulSilver were being produced. While now an independent composer and no longer an employee of Game Freak, he occasionally works together with Game Freak’s current teams on other Pokémon entries to the series.

This arrangement was written as a collaborative effort with the Michigan Youth Trombone Ensemble’s Spring 2020 concert as a means of giving the ensemble choice in programming some of the music. As director for the ensemble at the time, I took suggestions on what music the

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students would like to play and then had them vote on their favorite. Music from the Pokémon series was the resounding winner and so an arrangement began. The concert, unfortunately, did not happen due to the Covid-19 pandemic and so the arrangement has not had a chance to be performed. Since then, the arrangement has been revised for this particular program. The music contained within this medley comes solely from the Generation I Kanto region games of Red/Blue/Green/Yellow and the Generation VI Kalos region games of X/Y.

The piece begins with the classic opening battle sequence and title screen music from the Red/Blue games (Red/Green as it was released in Japan). Several of the chords are extended beyond the original to create a more dense and intense character. After the title screen music comes the Pokémon center theme, which has been fairly consistent across every entry in the Pokémon series. This features a muted, bouncy, oom-pah background and the melody in the bass trombone. There is a bit of humor included in the first trombone part through a repetition of the pitch G for the duration of the melody loop. The Pokémon center theme goes directly into Route 15 from X/Y, which features a highly articulate and rhythmic background and a sustained and syncopated melody in octaves. A repeated eighth note passage transitions into the gym battle music from Red/Blue.

This gym battle music is highly intense with a bouncy bass line and strong interjections of octaves and parallel fifths in the intro part of the song. When the main melody begins, a frantic hemiola sixteenth note middle-ground line begins and alternates between two different trombone parts. The contrast between the singing melody, the frantic sixteenths, and the intense bass part creates a great degree of energy and drive to simulate the high stakes of the representative battle taking place. The sixteenths and block chords carry a frenzy of sound until the tempo drops by more than half into the victory road theme from Red/Blue. The victory road theme is characterized by a heavy, slow pulsing motif in the lowest voices in parallel fifths, creating an intense, gritty sound. The last section of the piece features the champion battle from X/Y. This section has a repeated descending melody that occurs in a 3/4 meter, juxtaposed in the 4/4 meter of the actual section, that additionally alternates between the key areas of A major and B major. The oom-pah bass line that was frequently used in the first several generations of battle music, is in full force here. Energy builds to alternating octave lines from high to low. After a modulation to C#, the energy builds consistently until a release at the very end in a bVI-bVII-I progression embellished with trills in the upper parts and a final, ringing A major chord.

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