New Music from Bowling Green Vol. II

 

 

The Composer's Voice

 

 

 

New Music From

 

Bowling Green

 

 

 

 

 

Bowling Green Philharmonia

 

 

 

Emily Freeman Brown

 

conductor

 

Kevin Schempf

 

clarinet

 

 

 

David Heuser
Cauldron

 

Donald Crockett
Roethke Preludes

 

Stephen Albert
Wind Canticles

 

Bernard Rands
...body and shadow...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Heuser

 

David Heuser's (b. 1966) music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. He has also won various awards, grants and commissions including an ASCAP Young Composer Award, five ASCAP Standard Awards, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, and the Delius Composition Contest Chamber Music Award.

 

Mr. Heuser's degrees are from Eastman and Indiana University and his composition teachers have included Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, David Liptak, Warren Benson, Frederick Fox and Don Freund, as well as Jeffrey Hass in electronic music.

 

A native of New Jersey, Mr. Heuser currently resides in San Antonio, where he is a faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He has also taught at West Chester University, Temple University, and Indiana University. His music is published by Non Sequitur Music.

 

Cauldron (1995)

 

Cauldron was commissioned and premiered by the New York Youth Symphony. In it, the composer strove for a lively, rhythmic quality, and to provide a high level of enjoyment for the young performers. At the same time, the title connotes darkness, a quality that pervades most of Heuser's music. The piece divides into three sections (A-B-Á), with the “A” sections generally active and loud, focussing on fragments of melody and short threefold repetitions of chords. In contrast, the quieter B section features longer legato lines played by solo wind instruments. These, however, are eventually fragmented, and gradually pile up on each other in a crescendo of activity.

 

Donald Crockett

 

Donald Crockett was born in Pasadena, California in 1951. He is Professor of Composition and Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he joined the faculty in 1981. From 1991-1997 he was composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Commissions have come from such artists and ensembles as the Kronos Quartet, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Stanford String Quartet, PittsburghNew Music Ensemble, and Core Ensemble, among others. Mr. Crockett has been recognized with awards and prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Music Center, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, BMI, Composers Inc., the Aaron Copland Fund, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. His work, Celestial Mechanics, placed second in the 1991 Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards and he has twice been the winner of the Kenneth Davenport National Competition for Orchestra Works. Active as a conductor of new music, Mr. Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble Xtet, the University of Southern California Contemporary Music Ensemble and as a guest conductor with ensembles and orchestras around the United States. Recordings of his music appear on the CRI, Laurel, Orion and Pro Arte/Fanfare labels. His music is published by MMB Music, St. Louis.

 

Roethke Preludes (1994)

 

Roethke Preludes was commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and given its premiere performances in February 1995. It comprises six short movements, with the entire piece taking a little over a quarter of an hour. The movements range in length from under two minutes to about four minutes, and explore a wide variety of mood and orchestral color. Each prelude takes as a point of departure a fragment from the writings of the 20th-century American poet Theodore Roethke. These fragments, which I gleaned from reading many of Roethke's poems and notebook entries, are strongly evocative to me, and the music grew directly out of them. For example, the violins are almost literally “tethered” to the high register (“another moon”) while the rest of the orchestra tries hard to reach them. The “shepherd of slow forms” is the time-honored musical structure known as the chaconne, in which a repeated chord progression is the vehicle for additive variation. In “Straw for the Fire” clumps of notes (exclusively from the C major scale) are thrown in fugally, beginning with solo piccolo, which is a musical straw if there ever was one. Roethke Preludes also features the percussion section in an important and structural way. The timpani play a fairly important part throughout, and each movement has its own particular “percussion color,” which is often expressed in pairs of instruments.

 

Stephen Albert

 

Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winning composer Stephen Albert, whose tragic death in 1992 stunned the music world, was recognized in his lifetime for a body of work at once powerful, dramatic, colorful and deeply emotive. He won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for his symphony RiverRun and from 1985 to 1988 served as composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony. Albert received commissions from the Chicago, National, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Seattle symphonies, as well as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress. Among his other awards and honors were two MacDowell Colony Fellowships, a Huntington Hartford Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Rome Prizes and grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation and the Alice M. Ditson Foundation. From 1988 to the time of his death, he was professor of composition at Juilliard. He had taught in the Lima public schools under a Ford foundation grant as composer-in-residence, and at the Philadelphia Musical Academy, Stanford University and Smith College.

 

Wind Canticle (1992)

 

Albert's gift for writing vocal music is also reflected in his last concerto, the sweetly lyrical Wind Canticle for clarinet and orchestra, tailor-made for soloist David Shifrin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Cast in an extended sonata form, this work tellingly combines the clarinet's richly timbred, low “chalumeau” register with Albert's typically dark tonal palette. Its spacious melodies, transparent orchestra textures, and coda of rare delicacy help create the mood of an impressionistic tone poem. (from the Stephen Albert retrospective booklet published by G. Schirmer, pg. 15.)

 

Bernard Rands

 

Bernard Rands is considered one of the world's most renowned composers. He has been acclaimed as a major figure in contemporary music with more than 90 works for a wide range of genres, including large choral and symphonic compositions, chamber music, music theatre pieces and instrumental solos. An active conductor, his works are performed regularly throughout the world by leading orchestras and at major music festivals. Among his many commissions are ones for the New York Philharmonic's 100th anniversary; the centenary of Carnegie Hall; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Philadelphia Orchestra; and a cello concerto for the Boston Symphony and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in honor of his 70th birthday. In addition to the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, he has been honored with a Friedheim Award; major prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from the Guggenheim, Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations; and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has served as professor of music at Harvard since 1988 and a member of the faculty as well as composer-in-residence at the Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood. Born in Sheffield, England, he attended the University of Wales where he studied music and English literature. He subsequently studied composition in Italy with Luigi Dallapiccola, Bruno Maderna and Luciana Berio, and later in the United States at Princeton and the University of Illinois. He has served on the faculty of the University of California at San Diego, where he established the SONAR new music ensemble. He is also a founding artistic director of the Contemporary Music Festival at the California Institute of the Arts.

 

“…body and shadow…” (1988)

 

This work, like several others by Rands, takes its title from an early poem of Samuel Beckett in the group of four poems “Dieppe.” Over several years Rands has explored the musical implications of poetic text-fragments, resulting in the compositions “…in the receding mist…” for flute, harp and string trio; “…among the voices…” for mixed chamber chorus and harp; “…where the murmers die…” for large orchestra; “…requiem…” for large chorus and orchestra; and “…body and shadow…”

 

“…body and shadow…” was composed in 1988 in response to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was first performed by that orchestra in 1989 under Seiji Ozawa. It is, in effect, a concerto for orchestra in that over the course of the work's two movements, each section of the orchestra is featured and is gradually reduced in size until the principals of each section remain as soloists. The first movement begins with an extended timpani solo that provides the material for the entire work. The second movement is characterized by the juxtaposition of an extended, mellifluous melody and “fantasy” elaborations of it.

 

(Program notes edited by Carol Hess from materials provided by the composers.)

 

Kevin W. Schempf

 

Kevin W. Schempf, an assistant professor of clarinet, joined the Bowling Green State University faculty in 1999. He is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy and holds bachelor's and master's degrees with the performer's certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Prior to his appointment at BGSU, he had previously taught on the faculties of Connecticut College and Wesleyan University, and had performed as principal clarinet with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. In addition, Schempf is a former member of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and the United States Coast Guard Band, and has played with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the Skaneateles Festival and the Society of New Music. His chamber music activities include performances with the New London Contemporary Players, Chamber Music Plus, the Wall Street Chamber Players and the New World Consort. He has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, playing E-flat clarinet on The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7. Schempf is also a member of the resident faculty wind quintet, the Venti da Camera.

 

Emily Freeman Brown

 

Emily Freeman Brown, who holds the distinction of being the first woman to receive a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the prestigious Eastman School of Music, currently serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Bowling Green Philharmonia and Opera Theater at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She serves as a guest conductor with the Toledo Symphony, and was the Music Director of the Perrysburg (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2000. From 1987 to 1989, she was Associate Conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia and Conductor for the Eastman Opera Theater. In 1988, Ms. Brown was a winner of the internationally acclaimed Affiliate Artists' Conductor's Program. Ms. Brown has been engaged by orchestras throughout the United States, Europe and South America, as well as various festivals. Some of her American appearances include the Rochester Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the Eastman Virtuosi. In Santiago, Chile, she led the National Symphony of Chile and the Bartók Ensemble. Additionally, she has conducted at the American Festival of the Arts in Houston, the Interlochen Arts Festival and the Chautauqua Institution.

 

With the Bowling Green Philharmonia, Ms. Brown has recorded for Albany Records, and with separate projects on the Opus One label. A published author, her articles have appeared in the BACH Journal and the Journal of the Conductors Guild.

 

Emily Freeman Brown studied conducting and cello at the Royal College of Music in London, England, where she was a two-time winner of the Sir Adrian Boult Conducting Prize. Her major teachers have included Leonard Slatkin, Herbert Blomstedt, Franco Ferrara, and David Effron.

 

The Bowling Green Philharmonia

 

The Bowling Green Philharmonia was founded in 1918 by decree of the university president at Bowling Green State University. At that time, a combined student/faculty ensemble of fewer than 20 musicians, he declared that it should “furnish suitable music for many college functions.”

 

It has grown considerably since then under the direction of many distinguished conductors. They include Merrill C. McEwen (1922-23, 1931-32 and 1934-40), Seymour Benstock (1955-61), Harry Kruger (1961-66), Charles Gigante (1966-69), Emil Raab (1969-81), Grzegorz Nowak (1982-85), Robert Spano (1985-1989).

 

In the last several years the Philharmonia, with conductor Emily Freeman Brown, has established a wider reputation through performances at the Bowling Green New Music and Art Festival. Work of composers such as John Adams, Gunther Schuller, John Corigliano and Joan Tower have been performed under their guidance. The works on this recording were first performed at this festival and recorded during the fall months of 1997, 1999 and 2000. They are all world premiere recordings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bowling Green Philharmonia

 

(listed alphabetically)

 

Violin I

 

Jennifer Ball

 

Emily Batts

 

Denise Blostein

 

Deborah Cosner

 

Lilit Danielian*

 

Gabriel Feurdean*

 

Laura Heck

 

Andrew Hire

 

Meghann Lay

 

Hye Sun lee

 

Sarah Long

 

Amy McQuattie

 

Shelly Miller

 

Christina Muresan*

 

Aurelian Oprea*

 

Eric Siebenaler

 

Dana Tolan

 

Vanessa Vari

 

Adam Vaubel
Na You

 

Violin II

 

Emily Batts

 

Lisa Berringer

 

Denise Blostein

 

Catherine Calko

 

Vasile Chintoan*

 

Kyle DeLong

 

Jennifer DeVane

 

Mark Dorosheff*

 

Shandi Freed

 

Melanie Kaboy

 

Rachel Lauber*

 

Sarah Long

 

Naomi Marko

 

Catherine Misamore

 

Annie Myatt

 

Kyle Nagy

 

Phillip Pagal

 

Justin Payne

 

Kasha Plapp

 

Lindsey Ruehl

 

Nikolas Russo

 

Karen Sankovich

 

Vanessa Vari

 

Richard Wolford

 

Viola

 

Mandy Beatty

 

Michelle Bettler

 

Jessica Birdsong

 

Rachel Brigance

 

Rachel Brigance

 

Amy Davis

 

Rachel Ferrell

 

Lacey Gaulke

 

Christopher Hisey

 

Brooke Kirian

 

Erica Manto

 

Jaclyn Martin

 

Leah McDonald

 

Megan McLaughlin

 

Joanna Myers*

 

Candace Sampson

 

Kelly Simmons

 

Marshall Simmons

 

Nicole Solomonoff*

 

Melinda Stevens

 

Alison Szumigala

 

Laura Uzzel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cello

 

Mike Davis

 

Kelly Dietrich

 

Josh Evans

 

Caroline Fidler

 

Shalunda Fincher*

 

Sara Gunter

 

Stephanie Haas

 

Elizabeth Hamaker

 

Lisa Heinrich

 

Sara Hutchinson

 

Rachael Kouns

 

Crysal Kravanya

 

Damen Martin

 

Christopher

 

Stenstrom*

 

Rebecca Tindell

 

Andrea Vitullo

 

Laura Waligorski

 

Double Bass

 

Julia Dennis

 

Doug Everhart*

 

Katie Falcon

 

David Goodman

 

Jason Gahler

 

Ryan Lindahl

 

Jeremy Maloney

 

Nathan McDonald

 

Bill Nichols

 

Sara Reid

 

Jom Rohrer

 

Emily Rupp*

 

James Ryan*

 

Demmy Steinmetz

 

Amanda Taylor William Valichnac

 

 

 

 

 

Flute

 

Jessica Brown

 

Bridgett Crocker

 

Elizabeth Farney

 

Stephanie Getz

 

Yukoko Ishihara

 

Christy Jensik

 

Christina Kelsh

 

Kirsten Kinnear

 

Simone Madden-

 

Grey*

 

Rebecca Meier

 

Melissa Dawn Pear*

 

Grigor Poghosyan

 

Qiao Zhang

 

Piccolo

 

Stephanie Getz

 

Christina Kelsh

 

Melissa Dawn Pear

 

Alto Flute

 

Stephanie Getz

 

Christy Jensik

 

Oboe

 

Molly Braker

 

Ben Carithers*

 

Justin Hummer

 

Dathan Matesick

 

Kathy Schulak*

 

Kirsten Speyer

 

Amy Unruh

 

Taryn West

 

Adam Zygmunt

 

English Horn

 

Kathy Schulak

 

Taryn West

 

Adam Zygmunt

 

 

 

Clarinet

 

Kurt Doles

 

Rachel Gorden

 

Mercer

 

Heather Gozdan*

 

Vicky Hudec

 

Jeanne Lucas*

 

Kevin Nutini

 

Teri Oaks

 

Dustin Ruffell

 

Libby Sermersheim*

 

James Stephens

 

Pamela Thayer

 

E Flat Clarinet

 

Teri Oaks

 

Bass Clarinet

 

Kurt Doles

 

Bassoon

 

Barbara Anderson

 

Daniel Cousino

 

Jason Dorsten*

 

Chris Ewald

 

Courtney Johnson*

 

Robert Samels

 

Heather Secora

 

Contrabassoon

 

Daniel Cousino

 

Chris Ewald

 

Horn

 

Brian Christman

 

Kirsten Detrick

 

Jennifer Glick

 

Lesley Hancock

 

Michele Kalo*

 

Ed Meckes

 

Kelly Norris*

 

Ryan Nowlin

 

Horn (cont'd.)

 

Liz Reese

 

Jenna Weakland

 

Heather White

 

Christina Wilson*

 

Trumpet

 

Kristi Daley

 

Janson Kozina

 

David Larking*

 

Christos Loizides

 

Mark Nixon*

 

Amy Reed

 

William Takacs*

 

Jake Walburn

 

David Wisler*

 

Brad Zimmerman

 

Trombone

 

Michael Bowen*

 

Steven Durr

 

Jerrod Fry

 

Rick George

 

Garret Kirk

 

Troy Marsh

 

Chad Winders

 

Bass Trombone

 

Brian Brookhart*

 

Jeff Gray*

 

 

 

 

 

Tuba

 

Scott Christophel*

 

Peter Cole*

 

Brett Nichols*

 

Timpani

 

Rick Herrick*

 

Scott Thomas*

 

Jason Dooley*

 

Percussion

 

Kevin Clyde

 

Jason Dooley*

 

Matt Harder

 

Shawn Hart*

 

Rick Herrick

 

Tom Jansen

 

Chris Jaquin

 

Eric Knoltnow

 

Bill Patterson

 

Michael Vercelli*

 

Bernie Wells

 

Piano/Celeste

 

Ruthanne Fulton*

 

Erin Bonski*

 

Harp

 

Julie Buzzelli*‡

 

Megan Davis

 

Emily Dorsch*

 

Alice Moore

 

Kari Williams*

 

Graduate Conducting Assistants

 

Oz Koren

 

Iowna Sowinska

 

Christopher Hisey

 

Stacy Penson

 

Orchestra Librarian

 

Amy Davis

 

Amy McQuattie

 

* Section Leader for one or more works

 

‡ faculty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgements

 

Special acknowledgement goes to Interim Dean Richard Kennell, the staff of the College of Musical Arts and the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music. This CD is dedicated to the memory of Dorothy Bryan who created the beautiful painting used as cover art. She will be missed. We would also like to acknowledge Professor Richard Cornell who provided us with recordings of lectures given by Stephen Albert at Boston University. Excerpts from these have been used to create his introductory remarks.

 

Producers: Emily Freeman Brown, Russell Schmidt

 

Recording Engineer: Mark Bunce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Voice of the Composer

 

New Music From Bowling Green, Volume II

 

The Bowling Green Philharmonia

 

Emily Freeman Brown, conductor

 

1 David Heuser comments…[:50]

 

2 Cauldron [6:47]

 

3 Donald Crockett comments…[1:14]

 

Roethke Preludes (1994)

 

4 Tethered to Another Moon [2:41]

 

5 Making Music With His Bones [3:10]

 

6 Arches of Air [2:11]

 

7 The Principality of Tears [3:35]

 

8 Shepherd of Slow Forms [3:00]

 

9 Straw for the Fire [2:05]

 

10 Stephen Albert comments…[1:51]

 

11 Wind Canticle (1992) [13:47]

 

Kevin Schempf, clarinet

 

12 Bernard Rands comments…[1:31]

 

“…body and shadow…”

 

13 I. [10:12]

 

14 II. Legatissimo: tranquillo e misterioso [12:15]

 

Total Time = 65:15

 

 

 

World premiere recordings. The recording of “…body and shadow…” is taken from a live performance.

 

This CD contains introductory tracks by each composer preceding his piece. The remarks of Stephen Albert were extracted from a lecture given at Boston University.