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Cal Poly Humboldt Wind Ensemble and Jazz Orchestra

Fulkerson Recital Hall

The Cal Poly Humboldt Department of Dance, Music and Theatre presents “Wind Ensemble and Jazz Orchestra” Join us Saturday, October 19th 7:30pm at the Fulkerson Recital Hall at Cal Poly Humboldt. Tickets are $15 General, $5 for Children and Free for Cal Poly Humboldt students with ID. To purchase tickets, visit tickets.humboldt.edu/calpolyhumboldt-presents and click the gold navigation button labeled Dance, Music & Theatre.
The Wind Ensemble will begin the evenings program. The Ensemble is Directed by Chris Cox. The ensemble will perform Overture in Bb by Caesar Giovannini. Overture in B-flat is a spirited composition written in a contemporary manner and in one tempo throughout. The opening sounds are those of energetic brass fanfares answered by legato woodwind passages. This is followed by a brief developmental section ending in transitional material which leads to the first thematic statement.
Next on the program is Entry March of the Boyers by Johan Halvorsen. From the 10th through the 17th centuries, the Boyars were the highest ranking members of the Bulgarian, Romanian, Russian, and Ukrainian aristocracy, second only to the ruling princes. Halvorsen’s Entry March of the Boyars depicts the ceremonial entrance of these aristocrats in a theatrical setting. A solo clarinet introduces the regal theme, and more instruments are added to represent the approach of the entourage. Woodwind ornamentation complements the brass fanfares. Halvorsen was living in Bergen, Norway, in 1895 when he was offered a teaching position in Bucharest, Romania. While searching in an encyclopedia for information about Romania, he became interested in the boyars (privileged aristocracy) and decided to write a march in their memory. Encouraged by Edvard Grieg, he wrote out all of the parts in one night and premiered the work the next day with his theater orchestra.
Paris Sketches is composed by Martin Ellerby. Ellerby on the composition, “This is my personal tribute to a city I love, and each movement pays homage to some part of the French capital and to other composers who lived, worked or passed through it—rather as did Maurice Ravel in his own tribute to the work of an earlier master in Le Tombeau de Couperin. Running like a unifying thread through the whole score is the idea of bells—a prominent feature of Paris life. [The first movement is] Saint-Germain-des-Prés: The Latin Quarter famous for artistic associations and bohemian lifestyle. This is a dawn tableau haunted by the shade of Ravel: the city awakens with the ever-present sense of morning bells. [The Second] Pigalle: The Soho of Paris, this is a burlesque with scenes cast in the mold of a balletic scherzo—humorous in a kind of “Stravinsky-meets-Prokofiev” way. It’s episodic, but everything is based on the harmonic figuration of the opening. The bells here are car horns and police sirens!
The ensemble will then perform Johan de Meij’s Symphony No. 1: The Lord of the Rings, based on the trilogy of the same name by J.R.R. Tolkien. “The symphony consists of five separate movements, each illustrating a personage or an important episode from the book. ‘V. HOBBITS’, the fifth movement, expresses the carefree and optimistic character of the Hobbits in a happy folk dance; the hymn that follows emanates the determination and noblesse of the hobbit folk. The symphony does not end on an exuberant note, but is concluded peacefully and resigned, in keeping with the symbolic mood of the last chapter, The Grey Havens, in which Frodo and Gandalf sail away in a white ship and disappear slowly beyond the horizon.”—Program Note by Johan de Meij
Kaleidoscope Eyes is a visual effect—creating mirages, splashes of colors, and moments of confusion. In the composition Kaleidoscope Eyes, the composer Katahj Copely took the visual concept and created rhythm and color changes within the wind band. The piece begins with a marimba ostinato that is the anchor of the entire piece as we travel through moments of rhythmic displacement as we add and remove different voices of the ensemble. Through this piece are moments of epic and colorful events that fill the ensemble until the final moments where it’s a splash page of sound and rhythm.
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Under the direction of Dan Aldag, the Jazz Orchestra will be preforming a wide range of pieces, from jazz standards to more contemporary compositions. The Jazz Orchestra portion of the program opens with Moten Swing. Written by Bennie and Buster Moten and first recorded by Bennie Moten and his Kansas City Orchestra in 1932. After Moten died of a botched tonsillectomy in 1935, his band morphed into the first Count Basie Orchestra. That band rerecorded “Moten Swing” in 1940. In the mid 1950s, Basie commissioned new arrangements of many of tunes his band recorded in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Ernie Wilkins wrote the version of Moten Swing the orchestra will be performing. Moten Swing will feature solos by John Gerving, piano; True Laboissoniere, tenor sax, and Angelo Bernardi, trumpet.
Breathing was composed by Fred Sturm shortly before his death in 2014. Sturm was an outstanding composer, arranger and educator who taught at the Eastman School of Music and Lawrence University. After Sturm’s death, his former student David Springfield arranged Breathing for jazz orchestra.
Cottontail was composed by Duke Ellington and recorded by his orchestra in 1940. It was designed as a showcase for Ellington’s new tenor saxophone soloist, Ben Webster. Ou performance will feature tenor saxophonist Mathias Severn. Cottontail will also include short solos by John Petricca, trumpet; Danyelle Allen, bari sax, and John Gerving, piano
Joost at the Roost was composed by baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. The title refers to the Royal Roost, a chicken restaurant turned jazz club on Broadway in New York City in the late 1940s and early 1950s, where many of the leading modernist jazz musicians of the era played. The Thornhill Orchestra included not only the expected saxes, trumpets, trombones, and rhythm section but, at various times, a number of different instruments usually heard in European classical music. This particular piece includes clarinet and French horns. The Thornhill Orchestra never recorded Joost at the Roost, so Mulligan then arranged it for the Miles Davis Nonet (better known as the Birth of the Cool Band) but they didn’t record it either. Mulligan later added it to the repertoire of his Concert Jazz Band, and they might have performed it live, but also never recorded it. The only known recording was made years after Mulligan’s death by the Dutch Jazz Orchestra for an album of previously unrecorded Mulligan and Gil Evans arrangements. Our performance will include solos by Mathias Severn, tenor sax; Ricardo Paredes, clarinet; True Laboissonniere, tenor sax; and Dylan Westfall, guitar.
The Good Trouble Suite was composed by Matt Wilson and arranged for big band by Jeff Lederer. The suite is in three movements. The first, “RBG”, is dedicated to the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and features solos by Ricardo Paredes, alto sax; Evan Jackson, bass trombone; and Luke Faulder, alto sax. The second movement, “Walk With The Wind”, takes its title from the memoir of the late civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis, called “Walking with the Wind”, and is dedicated to Congressman Lewis. It features a solo by Gavin Kingsley, 2drums. The final movement, “Good Trouble” draws its title from Lewis’s famous quote, “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” It will feature solos by Raymond Endert, trombone; Mathias Severn, tenor sax; and Lily Storseth, trombone. This will be the first live performance of the big band arrangement the Orchestra is performing.

DATES/TIMES

WHERE

• Fulkerson Recital Hall

PRICE

• $15
• $5 Children
• Free Cal Poly Students with ID