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Cal Poly Humboldt Wind Ensemble and Jazz Orchestra

Fulkerson Recital Hall

The Department of Dance, Music, and Theatre at Cal Poly Humboldt presents: Jazz Orchestra and Wind Ensemble. Every semester, the Jazz Orchestra and Wind Ensemble join to play an evening of music. The first half of the performance will feature the Wind Ensemble who will perform many pieces including several dances from A West Side Story. The Jazz Orchestra will close out the second half of the evening performing standards from Count Basie’s Orchestra and Duke Ellington, among others. Join us Saturday, February 25th at 8:00 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall. Concert tickets are $10 General, $5 Children, and free for Cal Poly Humboldt students with ID. Tickets may be purchased at the door or in advance at centerarts.humboldt.edu. From the “All Events” drop down menu select “School of Dance, Music, and Theatre” and select your event. At press time, the wearing of facemasks is not mandatory, but it is strongly encouraged.

The program opens with the Wind Ensemble performing Valdres. “Johannes Hanssen began writing this march, Valdres, in 1901; it was not completed until 1904. Following its premiere, during an open-air concert in Oslo, the composer (who was playing trumpet in the band) heard only two people applaud—his two best friends. He then arranged the work for the Orchestra of the National Theater, but Johan Halvorsen, the conductor (and also a composer), turned it down. Later he sold the march to a publisher for 25 kroner (about five dollars). From this inauspicious beginning, Valdres March has become known in almost every country where these are brass or wind bands. The title has both geographic and musical connotations. Valdres is a beautiful region between Oslo and Bergen. The first three measures contain the old signature fanfare for the Valdres Battalion, an ancient melody formerly played on the lur (or lure)— in this instance a straight wooden ‘trumpet’ which was long enough to play the same partials played on a modern bugle.”—Program Notes for Band
The Wind Ensemble will also be playing Cajun Folk Songs by Frank Ticheli. “Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, a group of early French colonists who began settling in Acadia (now Nova Scotia) around 1604. In 1755 they were driven out by the British, eventually resettling in South Louisiana. Today there are nearly a million French-speaking descendants of the Acadians living in Louisiana and parts of Texas, preserving many of the customs, traditions, stories, and songs of their ancestors. La Belle et le Capitaine tells the story of a young girl who feigns death to avoid being seduced by a captain. Its Dorian melody is remarkably free, shifting back and forth between duple and triple meters. In this arrangement the melody is stated three times. The third time an original countermelody is added in flutes, oboe, clarinet, and trumpet. Belle is about a man who goes away to Texas only to receive word of his sweetheart’s illness, forcing him to return to Louisiana. Finding her unconscious upon his return, he pawns his horse to try to save her, to no avail. Cajun Folk Songs is composed as a tribute to the people of the old Cajun folksong culture with hopes that their contributions will not be forgotten.” —Program Notes from composer Frank Ticheli
A very exciting moment in the program will be the world premiere of an exciting piece by California composer Michael Kibbe, Pulsar, opus 279 “This piece is dedicated to the memory of my beloved son, Victor Lloyd Kibbe 1970–2019,” says Kibbe. “Although dedicated to Victor’s memory, this piece is not really about him, or inspired by him. The piece was partially written in 2019, and completed a few months after his death. After an ambiguous opening of rather nebulous tonality (floating in space perhaps?) Pulsar becomes all about rhythm and forward-driving pulse. It was composed with this Humboldt concert band in mind, and tries to show off the variety of colors available to an ensemble of all wind and percussion instruments.

The first half of the program concludes with Four Dances from West Side Story “West Side Story was Bernstein’s greatest popular success. Characterized as an America Romeo and Juliet, the work is noted for its ‘extraordinary dance sequences, melodic characterization, musical continuity, cohesive plot construction, and excellent orchestration.’ With a romantic setting against a background of social and racial and ethnic strife, Bernstein’s music reflects the countless emotions which permeate Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics. From a basic mood of studied nonchalance and defiance by the juvenile set, the music at times becomes devout and tender or, in contrasting sections, dynamic in intensity.”—Program Notes for Band

The second half of the evening’s program features performances by the Jazz Orchestra. Some highlights of the Jazz Orchestra’s program include Corner Pocket, a classic from the library of the Count Basie Orchestra. “It was composed by the Basie band’s long-time guitarist Freddie Green, arranged by saxophonist Ernie Wilkins, and was first recorded by Basie in 1955 for his album April In Paris. One of the trumpet soloists on that recording, Thad Jones, also wrote music for the Basie band. In the early 1960s, Jones wrote an entire album’s worth of music for Basie, but Basie rejected it because he thought Jones’s harmonic language was too complex. He advised Jones to start his own band, which he soon did with drummer Mel Lewis. In 1966, the band began performing at the famed Village Vanguard in New York City every Monday night and one of the rejected tunes Jones wrote for Basie, “Big Dipper”, was played at their very first gig. The Jazz Orchestra will perform that with featured solos by pianist Matthew Seno, trumpeter Andrew Henderson, and tenor saxophonist Ricardo Paredes,” says band leader Dan Aldag. “Isfahan was composed by Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s longtime musical partner, for Strayhorn and Ellington’s Far East Suite, an album-length suite of pieces that was misnamed by Ellington’s record company. The individual parts of the suite are Ellington and Strayhorn’s musical impressions of the Ellington band’s 1963 State Department-sponsored tour of the Middle East and South Asia. Isfahan is a city in Iran, and Strayhorn wrote his piece of the same name to feature Ellington’s long-time alto saxophone star Johnny Hodges. The Jazz Orchestra performance will feature our lead alto player, Rebekka Lopez. We’ll close our half of the program with Hoe Down, Oliver Nelson’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek depiction of a country dance, first recorded in a small-group version for Nelson’s landmark album Blues and the Abstract Truth and then arranged for big band by Nelson a year later.”

DATES/TIMES

WHERE

• Fulkerson Recital Hall

PRICE

• $10
• $5 Children
• Free Cal Poly Students with ID