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David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did graduate work in composition at Michigan State University with H. Owen Reed.
Maslanka's works for winds and percussion have become especially well-known. They include among others A Child's Garden of Dreams for Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Concerto for Piano, Winds and Percussion, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Symphonies, Mass for chorus, boys chorus, soloists, wind ensemble and organ, and the two Wind quintets. Percussion works include Variations on Lost Love and My Lady White for solo marimba, and the three ensemble works on the present disc. In addition he has written a wide variety of chamber, orchestral, and choral pieces.
David Maslanka's compositions are published by Carl Fischer, Inc., Kjos Music company, Marimba Productions, Inc., the North American Saxophone Alliance, and OU Percussion Press, and have been recorded on Albany, Cambria, CRI, Mark, Novisse and Klavier labels. He has served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough College of the City University of New York. He now lives in Missoula, Montana. David Maslanka is a member of ASCAP.
Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion
It was with great pleasure that I wrote Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion for my friend Bob Hohner and his wonderful CMU Percussion Ensemble. Montana Music is in three slow movements. They are nocturnal, lunar, inward pieces, dedicated to the spirit of the Earth which speaks with a particular power in the mountains of my adopted western Montana. Each movement embodies a large, simple ABA form. This reference to Classical form gives an objective frame to a music which is otherwise intensely personal and impassioned. Vibraphone is often the center of attention in this music. Its evocative bell-like character may be thought of as a motif in the whole work.
Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble
From the dictionary, "Arcadia" means a pastoral district of ancient Greece, or any place of rural peace and simplicity. It refers as well the mythic land of human origin. The title Arcadia II has a double intent: it is the second piece of mine with the title Arcadia, and it is a musical prayer for the well-being of Earth and a return to an attitude of reverence for the Earth.
The Concerto uses a traditional concerto form: faster outer movements surrounding a slow middle movement. The outer movements are both in sonata form (exposition of themes, development, recapitulation), and the middle movement has the feel of an extended song.
The first movement arises from darkness. I remember standing in a New Hampshire meadow on a summer evening. One by one the fire flies lit up until the darkening field was alive with their activity. The tiny opening bell sounds of this movement are the fire flies. Out of this grows a mournful bitter-sweet music which rises to a high intensity and then fades.
The second movement is a nature meditation. It comes directly from my walks in Inwood Hill Park in upper Manhattan. This hundred-acre wood is the last "wild" parkland in New York City. Though faint and crowded on all sides by urban noise, the voices of nature can still be heard in these woods. They suggested a music in which the human presence (the solo marimba) communes with the sounds of wind, birds, the rustling of small things, the flow of water - all represented in the ensemble.
The last movement is infused with a spirit of playfulness, light, and simple joy in the glories of nature. There is an assertive opening theme, a serene and pastoral second theme, an extended development which rises to moments of epiphany (wind and glittering sunlight in the rustling leaves), a cadenza, and a recapitulation with the second theme coming first.
The title Crown of Thorns is an obvious reference to Christ's crown of thorns, but the name first came to me as a possible title for a piece from seeing a plant called "Crown of Thorns" at the New York Botanical Gardens. This is a rambling, thorny desert plant from the Middle East, with small green leaves, and small, very simple and pretty red flowers. The rambling, interweaving, vine-like stems suggested music to me.
As I meditated on the words "crown of thorns," and on the plant, and on the idea of a work for keyboard percussion ensemble, the following image arose:
The seven-starred halo is the crown of thorns transcended. It is the crown of highest spiritual power arrived at through the greatest depth of suffering. The imagery is Christian, but the experience transcends religion, and is universal. The music is at times sober and reflective, but is, for the most part, filled with the joy and energy of liberation.
Crown of Thorns was commissioned and premiered by the University of Oklahoma Percussion Ensemble, Richard C. Gipson, conductor.
Robert Hohner, Professor of Music, holds B.M. and M.M. degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, New York, where he studied timpani and percussion with Fred D. Hinger. He also studied with Alan Abel at Glassboro State College and for many years studied privately with Joe Morello. He has been timpanist/percussionist with the National Orchestra of New York and the Dartmouth Symphony at the Dartmouth Congregation of the Arts. He has performed extensively in the greater New York area with a number of symphony and opera orchestras including the Bolshoi Opera while on tour from Russia. While in Michigan, he has performed as a percussionist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and timpanist with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. He is a very active soloist, performing a wide variety of literature such as Andrzes Panufnik's Concerto for Timpani, Percussion and Strings with Salvatore Rabbio of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Buddy Rich's West Side Story arrangement with the CMU Jazz Lab 1 at the Midwestern Conference. He is an active freelance musician and a recording artist for the Digital Music Products Label. Discography includes Different Strokes, Lift-off, The Gamut and soon to be released World Music Tour. Mr. Hohner is past president of the Michigan Percussive Arts Society and a member of the National PAS Percussion Ensemble Committee. He is an active adjudicator and clinician. He has been presented honorary memberships in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity and the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association. Robert Hohner is a Yamaha Artist and a Sabian Artist.
Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion, and Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble are published in the Carl Fischer Facsimile Edition (CFFE), Carl Fischer, Inc., 62 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003. Crown of Thorns is published by OU Percussion Press, University of Oklahoma School of Music, 560 Parrington Oval, Norman, OK 73019.
Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion was premiered December, 1993 at the MidWest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, Chicago, Illinois and was recorded May, 1994 at Presbyterian Hall, Heritage Center for the Performing Arts, Alma College, Alma, Michigan. Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble was premiered January, 1988 at the Midwestern Convention, Ann Arbor, Michigan and was recorded April, 1988, Orchestra Hall, Detroit, Michigan. Crown of Thorns was performed by the CMU Percussion Ensemble in January, 1995 at the Second National Symposium, National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, Chicago, Illinois and recorded March, 1995 at Presbyterian Hall, Heritage Center for the Performing Arts, Alma College, Alma, Michigan. Jeff Harrison was the recording engineer for Montana Music and Crown of Thorns. Ken Bell was the recording engineer for Arcadia II. Editing by Jeff Harrison, Harrison Digital Productions. 670 Amherst Road, Granby, Massachusetts 01033.
Photo of David Maslanka: Alain Deroulette
The Percussion Music of David Maslanka
Central Michigan University Percussion Ensemble
Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion
John Hill · Mike Hovnanian · Seth Kilbourn · Tom Kozumplik · James Leslie · Jason Lewis Michelle Martin · Scott Vernon · Lorne Watson · David Zerbe
Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba & Percussion Ensemble
I. = ca 80-84 (9:50) II. = ca 52 (10:10)
Todd Johnson, soloist · James Armstrong · Jill Ball · Douglas Corella · Jon Johnson
Bradley Lowman · Ronald Taylor · David Zerbe
John Gage ·Jennifer King · Rebecca Kolinski · Tom Kozumplik · Michelle Martin
Jason Scott · Lorne Watson · Jeff White · Tobie Wilkinson
All works recorded in the presence of the composer.
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