PROGRAM NOTES

FRANCISCO PEREZ
Ephemera

Dr. Francisco Perez is a percussionist, composer, and educator from Pflugerville, TX.Francisco Perez wrote Ephemera following a two-year hiatus from composing any original percussion music. Inspired by the grit of his students at Lamar University over the eventful 2020-21 school year, Perez refers to this piece as “deeply meaningful.” The word “ephemera” is defined as “things that exist or are enjoyed for only a short time” – things that are fleeting, momentary. This piece features energetic, blazing-fast rhythmic figures and runs in a tonal harmonic language.

CHUCK RICOTTA
Sofapilla

Since 2002, Chuck Ricotta has served as the Percussion Instructor and Arranger for the Michigan Marching Band. He has previously served on the percussion staffs of the Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps and the Penn State University Indoor Drumline. In addition to his work with the Michigan Marching Band, Chuck currently serves as the principal percussionist for the Flint Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, Chuck has performed with numerous orchestras including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Michigan Opera Theatre, the Ann Arbor Symphony, and the New World Symphony. 

Sofapilla is a large percussion ensemble piece that requires a strong sense of groove. Because of the rhythmic variety within individual parts, players must be aware of how their rhythms fit into their fellow performer's rhythms so that the overall groove is solid. 

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
March for Military Band

Beethoven was a German composer and pianist who is one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music. His musical talents were clear from a very young age and he was taught very intensely by his father before taking lessons from Christian Gottlob Neefe. Under Neefe, he published his very first works for keyboard, and after several years of study, Beethoven began teaching students of his own. At age twenty-one he moved from his hometown, Bonn, to Vienna where he studied composition under Haydn and gained his reputation as a virtuosic pianist. 

Beethoven’s first major orchestral works and string quartets appeared in 1800–1801, just as his hearing began to decline. Though increasingly affected, he continued composing in silence about his condition for years. In 1802, he poured his despair into the Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter to his brothers that reveals his fear of isolation and the loss of his musical life. Yet even as his hearing worsened, Beethoven produced some of his most revolutionary works, including his Third and Fifth Symphonies, which reshaped the course of classical music.

Around this same early period—before his hearing loss became complete—Beethoven also wrote lighter, more occasional pieces such as his marches for Military Band. Composed while he was still active in public life, the march reflects the ceremonial and patriotic musical style popular in Vienna at the time.

FRANK TICHELI
Simple Gifts

Frank Ticheli has been a leading voice in American concert band music since the 1990s, composing in a wide range of styles. Growing up Louisiana and Texas, he draws on influences such as New Orleans jazz, Southern folk music, and the expressive possibilities of the wind ensemble.

Ticheli is especially known for his transparent orchestration, favoring clear textures and pure instrumental colors rather than constant full ensemble sound. He believes leaner writing encourages greater confidence and sensitivity in young musicians.

Composed in 2002, Simple Gifts: Four Shaker Songs sets traditional melodies from the Shaker community, a religious group devoted to simple living and worship through song and dance. Ticheli sought to preserve the simple, straightforward beauty of these folk songs.

The first movement, “In Yonder Valley,” is based on the oldest surviving Shaker song whose text and music are a celebration of nature. The second movement, “Dance,” draws from an 1830s melody, while the third, “Here Take This Lovely Flower,” is a lullaby reflecting the Shakers’ ideal of childlike simplicity.

JAMES CURNOW
Fanfare And Flourishes

James Curnow is an American composer who has taught instrumental music and received numerous awards for teaching and composition. Curnow has been commissioned to write over 400 works for concert band, brass band, orchestra, and choir, and his total published

works now number well over 800. Based on Marc-Antoine Charpentier's (1634-1704) "Te Deum", Fanfare and Flourishes for a Festive Occasion was commissioned for the 1991 European Brass Band Championships held in Rotterdam, Holland and has since become a staple of the concert band repertoire.

SOON HEE NEWBOLD
Celtic Roots & The Iliad

Newbold is a contemporary American composer, conductor, and violinist. Born in South Korea and raised in the United States, she began studying piano and violin at an early age and later pursued music and science at James Madison University. Her compositions often draw on global musical traditions, cinematic styles, and storytelling elements.

Celtic Roots starts with a slow introduction that evokes ancient chant, but it quickly moves into a call-and-response form. A solo violin starts a galloping jig, which is then taken up by the full orchestra. The soloist then calls out a reel, and the orchestra picks up the tune, accelerating to a celebratory finish.

Newbold’s The Iliad musically tells the tale – originally an epic poem attributed to Homer – of the Trojan War and one of its main characters, the legendary Achilles. The story centers around themes of glory, pride, fate, and wrath. This cinematic work depicts danger and heroics – an opening fanfare gives way to a dark battle scene, then moves toward a victorious ending.

BEDŘICH SMETANA
Themes from The Moldau

Smetana was a Czech composer who has long been regarded as the father of Czech music in his home country of Bohemia (now known as the Czech Republic, at that time Czech lands included Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia). A gifted musician and composer in childhood, the first performance of his music was when he was only 6 years of age. Though he was completely deaf by age 50, Smetana continued composing for the rest of his life.

In 1872, Smetana composed a musical story of Czech history, legends, and landscapes, as a tribute to his country, titled Má vlast (“My Homeland”). The Vltava ("The Moldau") movement – arguably Smetana’s most famous orchestra composition – depicts the Moldau River as it runs down the mountains, over the Czech countryside, and through Prague. Based on memories of his own visits to the river and imagining all of the stories that took place on the river’s banks, Smetana used different instrument families to represent white water rapids, hunters chasing deer through the woods, a wedding polka, and even imagined mermaids.

ROLANDO GÓMEZ
Nocturno Isleño

Gómez is a Miami-born composer, tresero, and music educator whose work bridges Cuban, Jazz, Classical, and European Modernist traditions. A classically trained cellist turned tresero, Gómez writes chamber, vocal, and electronic works that often combine Afro-Cuban rhythmic language with experimental structural approaches. His music reflects a transnational aesthetic rooted in diasporic memory and contemporary practice. A defining thread in Gómez’s creative life is the Cuban tres, a traditional string instrument central to his heritage.

As an educator, Gómez is committed to making musical traditions accessible and culturally meaningful. Whether through performance, education, or community-building, Gómez’s work bridges artistic traditions and forges new musical futures grounded in memory and innovation.

Nocturno Isleño is a nocturne for string orchestra, with a strong Cuban influence. Inspired by the rich musical heritage of Cuba, Nocturno Isleño draws from the rhythmic language of popular Cuban genres, notably the bolero and the danzón. The composition also weaves in elements of folkloric music, creating a harmonious blend that reflects the vibrant musical culture found on the enchanting Cuban isle.

WILLIAM OWENS
Hopak!

Owens is a native of Gary, Indiana and a 1985 graduate of VanderCook College of Music in Chicago. A seasoned music educator, Owens is active as a composer, conductor, and clinician throughout the United States and Canada. Owens has written nearly 200 commissioned and published works for concert band and string orchestra.

The origins of the Hopak dance date back to the 16th century in the territory now known as the Ukraine. Originally a male-dominated domain, it would later be adopted by solo dancers, couples, and mixed dance groups. Largely improvised and physically demanding, this popular dance is known for high leaps, squatting kicks, and swift turns. The Ukrainian word "hopak" literally means to hop or jump.

A fiery introduction quickly sets the pace for this energetic work. The main dance melody is heard shortly thereafter, evolving as it passes through the various sections of the ensemble. The dance suddenly slows, only to gradually quicken back to the original lively mood. The music then continues to hasten to the wonderfully frantic finish.

JOHANNES BRAHMS
Academic Festival Overture

Brahms was raised a performer. He learned violin, cello, and began studying piano seriously at age seven. However, he was especially interested in composing despite his parents’ early disapproval. He wrote several chamber works in his early years and focused on sonatas and concertos rather than large orchestral works. Brahms was his own biggest critic; he destroyed many of his early pieces and reworked compositions to a degree that others found to be overly academic.

In 1879, the University of Breslau (then Prussia, now Poland) awarded an honorary doctorate to Brahms, who by this time in his life was recognized as a preeminent composer. Rather than send the expected letter of thanks, he instead crafted his Academic Festival Overture (more accurately translated as “overture in a festive style”) to express his gratitude. Known for his seriousness – Brahms historically frowned upon humor in music – it is surprising that he chose to structure this work around a collection of traditional student drinking songs, all of which the university audience of the time would have recognized. While he quoted many tunes not of his making, the weaving of them into a cohesive concert masterpiece is all Brahms.

AARON COPLAND
“Variations on a Shaker Melody” from Appalachian Spring

Copland was an American composer and conductor who was widely regarded as one of the most important figures in Twentieth-Century music. He is particularly known for his contributions to American classical music and his incorporation of folk melodies into his compositions. Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York and began studying music at a young age. He eventually studied in France with renowned composer Nadia Boulanger, who had a significant impact on his style. Copland's early works were influenced by jazz and modernist composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg, but he eventually developed a more accessible and populist style that reflected his interest in American folk music.

Copland received numerous awards and honors throughout his career, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His music continues to be celebrated for its uniquely American sound and its ability to capture the spirit of the country.

Variations on a Shaker Theme is one of Aaron Copland’s most introspective and luminous works. It is derived from themes used in his ballet "Appalachian Spring” and has been arranged for a variety of different ensembles. The piece is based on the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” which is presented first in a hushed, almost fragile statement. Rather than treating the tune with overt virtuosity, Copland unfolds a series of variations that grow gradually in color, texture, and emotional weight. Each variation explores a different facet of the melody—sometimes spare and transparent, sometimes warm and expansive—while preserving its essential simplicity. The music builds toward a broad, glowing climax before gently receding, ending with a sense of quiet acceptance. Throughout the work, Copland’s signature clarity of orchestration and open harmonic language transform a humble spiritual song into a meditation on stillness, dignity, and inner strength.

SAMUEL BARBER
Music for a Scene from Shelley, op. 7

Barber was one of America’s most significant 20th-century composers. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and built a career balancing orchestral, vocal, chamber, and operatic works. Known for his melodic gift and emotional directness, Barber became especially celebrated for Adagio for Strings (1936) and won two Pulitzer Prizes during his career.

Music for a Scene from Shelley, Op. 7 (1933) is an early orchestral tone poem by Samuel Barber, composed when he was still in his early twenties but already demonstrating his gift for expressive, atmospheric writing. Barber completed the piece during a summer visit to Italy in 1933, where the serene views of Lake Lugano and the Swiss Alps from Cadegliano—where he was staying with fellow composer and lifelong partner Gian Carlo Menotti—inspired him. Although the work’s title and emotional charge are drawn from lines in Act II, Scene 5 of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound—in which the goddess Panthea invites her sister Asia to listen to “voices in the air”—the music does not depict specific events so much as evoke a mood of poetic mystery and yearning.

Scored for large orchestra, the piece opens with a haunting four-note descending motif set against a murmuring orchestral backdrop. Rather than developing this motif in a traditional thematic sense, Barber repeats it through shifting textures and timbres, allowing small changes in color and dynamics to build an emotional trajectory. New material enters and leads the music toward a dramatic, almost visceral climax before it gently subsides, leaving a lingering sense of unresolved introspection. This approach—rich in Romantic lyricism but shaped by a modern sensitivity to orchestral color and atmosphere—reflects Barber’s broader aesthetic: rooted in traditional harmony and expressive line while avoiding the more radical experimental trends of his contemporaries.

The work premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York on March 24, 1935, performed by the New York Philharmonic–Symphony Orchestra under Werner Janssen. Though never as widely known as Barber’s later Adagio for Strings, Music for a Scene from Shelley brought early recognition to its young composer: in 1935 Barber was awarded the American Academy in Rome’s prestigious Prix de Rome and a Pulitzer travelling fellowship (shared with his Sonata for Cello and Piano), honors that enabled him to return to Italy to compose his First Symphony.

RICHARD WAGNER
Overture to Rienzi

Born in Leipzig, Germany, Wagner grew up immersed in the arts, especially theater. Though he began his career writing relatively conventional operas, he soon developed bold, revolutionary ideas that would reshape the genre entirely. Wagner believed opera should be a "total work of art" (Gesamtkunstwerk)—a fusion of music, poetry, staging, and visual art. He wrote both the librettos and music for his operas, crafting vast mythological and philosophical worlds. In his later years, Richard Wagner dismissed his five-act opera, Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes, as a “youthful sin.”

Completed in 1840 when the composer was 27 years old, Rienzi stands in stark contrast with Wagner’s mature work. It was elaborately conceived as Grand Opera in the French tradition. Wagner’s megalomaniacal intention was “to outdo all previous examples with sumptuous extravagance.” The premiere in Dresden on October 20, 1842 lasted over six hours with breaks and included a 40 minute long ballet. The story is based on a novel by the English writer, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Later critics called the libretto, written by Wagner, “wordy and convoluted”.

Perhaps as a result of its unwieldy dimensions, Rienzi is rarely performed as a full opera. Yet, its powerfully dramatic Overture lives on in the concert hall. The Overture begins with a single, mystical trumpet call which foreshadows the battle calls of Act 3. Gradually, the other instrumental voices seem to awaken from a dream. Suddenly, the music finds a way forward with a noble theme which returns in Act V as Rienzi’s prayer, Allmächt’ger Vater (“Almighty Father”). The Overture concludes with a rousing military march from Act III. At moments, the influence of Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) is evident. Ultimately, the Rienzi Overture is a thrilling orchestral tour de force.

WILLIAM GRANT STILL
Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American”)

William Grant Still was a towering figure in American music and a pioneering voice in 20th-century classical composition. Born in Woodville, Mississippi, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Still showed early musical promise, studying violin as a youth and teaching himself to play many orchestral instruments. He pursued formal studies at Wilberforce University and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with influential teachers including George Whitefield Chadwick and later Edgard Varèse. Over the course of his career, Still composed nearly two hundred works across a wide range of genres—five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and numerous choral, chamber, and solo pieces—blending classical traditions with the rhythms and inflections of blues, jazz, spirituals, and other American idioms. His Afro-American Symphony (1930) not only became one of the most widely performed American symphonies of its day but also helped establish his voice as a defining contributor to an authentically American sound.

Still broke significant racial barriers in American musical life, earning the informal title “Dean of African-American Composers.” He was the first African-American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, the first to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera, and the first to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, marking historic milestones in the classical world. Throughout his life he remained an ardent advocate for the performance of works by American composers and a mentor to younger generations of musicians. Honors throughout his lifetime and posthumously—Guggenheim Fellowships, honorary doctorates from numerous institutions, and cultural monuments in his name—reflect the lasting impact of his music and his role as a trailblazer whose work continues to inspire audiences and artists alike. 

The “Afro-American Symphony”, also known as Symphony No. 1 "Afro-American" and Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major was composed in 1930. The first symphony written by an African American and performed for a United States audience by a leading orchestra. It was premiered in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and later published in 1935.It is a symphonic piece for full orchestra. It combines a fairly traditional symphonic form with blues progressions and rhythms that were characteristic of popular African-American music at the time. This combination expressed Still's integration of black culture into the classical forms. Still used quotes from four poems by early 20th-century African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar as epigraphs for each symphonic movement. 

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, op. 33

Saint-Saëns was a French composer, pianist, and organist whose long career spanned the Romantic era into the early 20th century. A musical prodigy, he gave his first public performance at age ten and was admired for his technical skill and elegant style. Saint-Saëns composed in nearly every genre—symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and opera—and is perhaps best known for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, and his Organ Symphony. 

Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33—composed in 1872 for the French cellist and instrument maker Auguste Tolbecque—remains one of the most beloved and innovative works in the cello repertoire. Rather than adopting the traditional three-movement concerto format, Saint-Saëns crafted a single, continuous span of music containing three interlinked sections, allowing thematic ideas to flow seamlessly and cyclically throughout the piece. The work launches boldly with an immediate solo entrance from the cello against an energetic orchestral backdrop, demanding both virtuosic flair and expressive depth from the soloist. Melody and momentum grow organically through lyrical episodes and rhythmic vitality, showcasing the cello in its full expressive range while preserving clarity of form and orchestral balance. Celebrated for its dramatic coherence and radiant Romantic sound world, the concerto has long been admired by audiences and cellists alike. In this performance, we have created an ending for the first movement.

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, op. 47

Shostakovich was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who rose to popularity during Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship. He was a vitally important composer not only during his time but still today, leaving behind several coded messages and political thoughts in his compositions. Shostakovich was involved in music nearly all his life, beginning piano lessons with his mother at age nine and composing at age twelve. At thirteen, he was accepted into the Petrograd Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition. His career took off once he graduated at age nineteen, and as he rose to prominence, Stalin kept a watchful eye on him.

Stalin understood the power of music—its impact on people and its political usefulness. He censured many artists and composers and threatened the lives of those who created work that he claimed did not conform to the Socialist Realism movement. Shostakovich fell in and out of Stalin’s favor several times for writing music that was considered too complex for the masses to understand. Remarkably, the composer managed to remain safe by issuing public apologies and writing compositions with hidden double meanings. By writing within Stalin’s expectation for unifying propaganda, Shostakovich was able to express the experience of the suffering and the bitter humor of the people within the Soviet Union while avoiding censorship. 

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 occupies a unique and complex place in 20th-century music history. Premiered in 1937 to thunderous acclaim, the work was publicly celebrated as the composer’s return to favor after harsh official criticism of his earlier music. At the time, the symphony was widely interpreted as a story of triumph through struggle—a narrative consistent with Soviet artistic expectations and one that helped restore Shostakovich’s standing.

Later revelations, however, complicate that reading. Rather than offering genuine victory, the symphony’s powerful finale can be heard as deeply ambiguous, even grim. What sounds on the surface like exultation may instead suggest enforced celebration—music driven forward by relentless rhythms and blazing brass, not joy. From this perspective, the Fifth Symphony becomes not a statement of ideological redemption, but a profound expression of human suffering, resilience, and quiet defiance, shaped by compassion rather than propaganda.