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The Illinois State University School of Music
Music has played a significant role at Illinois State University throughout is history. The School of Music enrolls more than 300 students, who study with a dedicated teaching faculty of 43 that includes world-class performers, published scholars, and leading educators. Undergraduate programs lead to degrees in music education, performance, music therapy, arts technology, theory, and composition as well as specialization in music business and music theatre. The graduate program offers a Master of Music Education and also three sequences in the Master of Music: performance, music therapy, and theory/composition.
High academic and performance standards are expected of all music students. Instrumental performance opportunities include the Wind Symphony, Symphonic Winds, Symphonic Band, University Band, the Big Red Marching Machine, Athletic Pep Bands, Jazz Ensembles, a large, highly active chamber ensemble program, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Guitar Ensemble, and West African Drumming and Dance Ensemble. For vocalists, a chamber opera plus an opera are produced each year, and performing organizations include the Madrigal Singers, Concert Choir, University Choir, Encore, Civic Chorale, and Treble Choir. The School of Music calendar features more than 200 solo and ensemble performances annually.
Stephen K. Steele is in his fifteenth year as Director of Bands at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He is responsible for the administration of all band activities. Dr. Steele also teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, Wind Literature, and Music Education courses.
Under his direction, the Wind Symphony has performed for state, regional and national conventions, including the 1990 and the 1993 and 2001 College band Directors National Association. Illinois State University Bands have also performed in the Macy's Day Parade and traveled twice to England and Ireland.
Before moving to Illinois in the fall of 1987, Dr. Steele was the Marching Band Director and Assistant Director of Bands at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He also spent thirteen years as a high school band director in California, Oregon and Arizona.
Dr. Steele ahs served as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor in Canada and throughout the United States.
Dr. Steele is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, National Band Association, College Band Directors National Association, American School Band Directors Association, Phi Mu alpha, Pi Kappa Lambda, and holds honorary memberships in Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma.
Parable for Band, op. 121
Born in Philadelphia, Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987) began his musical life at age five, first studying organ, double bass, tuba, theory and composition. By the age of 11, he was paying for his own musical education and by age 14 his first composition was published. Persichetti composed for nearly every musical medium with more than 120 of his works being published. He poured his talents into the advancement of literature for wind band, providing performers and concertgoers with a repertoire of unparalleled excellence.
Parable IX, op. 121 was composed in 1972 as the ninth in a series of twenty-five Parables written for various solo instruments and ensembles. Parable IX dramatically embodies its definition: "short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle." In Parable IX, Persichetti explores the duality of lyrical as well as angular; amiable as well as angry; and, at its most basic level, portrays the conflict that continues in every individual between good and evil. The "gracious and gritty" clashes in the work embody elements of quarrel and challenge in a masterful way. this major opus is a compendium of musical colorings demanding virtuoso technique from all players. Characteristic of Persichetti's tyle, Parable IX makes wide use of bitonality, percussive interjections, extreme timbral changes, widespread layering of instrumental colors, simultaneity, and "dots of sound."
Minton's Playhouse
Mr. James Syler (born 1961) was raised in New York and Flordia and began his musical studies at an early age. His interests and education have been equally divided between classical and jazz forms. His awards include the 1993 Arnald D. Gabriel Composition Award, sponsored by the United States Air Force Band. He was also the winner of the 1993 National Band Association Composition Contest. In 1992 he was awarded an artist residency at the Hambridge Center for the Arts in Georgia. Mr. Syler's works have been performed by over 80 wind ensembles in the United States.
"In the early 1940's there was a nightclub at 210 W. 118th Street in New York called Minton's Playhouse. The weekly jam sessions and after hours experimenting that went on there, and at other clubs, played an important part in the development of bebop, and consequently marks the beginning of modern jazz. In honor of the 50 year mark of this form of jazz this work looks to the past, and at the same time, to the present. Using a sort of hybrid eclecticism Minton's Playhouse is a jazz based concert work employing bop lines ala Charlie Parker and a jazz ballad of my own writing, in a concerto grosso setting for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble. The music attempts to express what might have gone through the minds of those great musicians as they played a standard ballad in the last set of the evening. Their thoughts must have been filled with anticipation of experimenting with new ideas to forge out a new music."
Note by composer
Lagan Love: An Ancient Ulster Air for Symphonic Band
The music of Luigi Zaninelli (born 1932) is known to performers and audiences around the world for works that excite the senses and stimulates the mind. Following high school, he was brought to he Curtis Institute of Music by Gian-Carlo Menotti. At age 19, he was sent to Italy by the Curtis Institute to study composition with the legendary Rosario Scalero (the teacher of Samuel Barber and Menotti). During his career, Mr. Zaninelli has served as composer-in-residence at the University of Calgary and the Banff School of Fine Arts. Since 1973, he has been the composer in residence at The University of southern Mississippi. With more than 300 published works to his credit, Mr. Zaninelli has been commissioned to compose for all mediums, including opera, ballet, chamber music, orchestra, band, chorus, and solo sons. He also has composed several movie and television scores.
"While in Dublin, Ireland, for the world premiere of my Five American Gospel Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, I heard a melody of such extraordinary beauty that I felt compelled to set it. Is haunting mystical melancholy was unlike anything I had ever heard. It continues to beguile me."
Note by composer
Symphony No. 5
David Maslanka (born 1943) 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 has served on the faculties of various universities and colleges and presently resides in Missoula, Montana. The works of David Maslanka have become especially well known, spanning many performance mediums including wind band, small ensemble works, chamber, orchestral and choral pieces.
"The 371 Four-Part Chorales by J.S. Bach have become a focal point for my study and meditation. These Chorales are the models for counterpoint and harmonic movement used by every beginning music theory student. I had my first encounter with them as a freshman at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1961. Ten years ago I returned to singing and playing them as a daily warm-up for my composing time. Since then the Chorales have become a deep well for me, a huge access to dream space. The feeling is one of opening an unmarked door in a nondescript building, and being suddenly thrust into a different world. The Chorales are those mysterious doors to other worlds.
In the many years of my composing, I have been drawn as if magnetically to the themes of loss, grief, and transformation. They have been personal issues for me, but all along the way they have touched something deeper as well. Folk music is powerful - and I include the Chorales in the Folk tradition - because the same melodic impulse, touched and shaped by generations of hearts, minds, and souls, moves beyond individual experience, and opens a path for the deepest of all connections.
In 1975 I had the idea to compose a Mass using the texts of the Latin Ordinary. It took me nearly 20 years of personal and musical development to fell ready to do this, and the Mass was composed in 1994-95. I am not a Catholic nor even a practicing Christian, yet the Mass text was like a beacon, forecasting a long working-out process that would allow me to be clear enough to actually write the piece. From my current perspective it appears that much of my work prior to 1994 was a prelude to the Mass, and the pieces since, largely a reflection on the Mass.
Symphony No. 5 is no exception. It has been composed around three well-known Chorale melodies: "Durch Adams Fall" (Through Adam's Fall) in the first movement, "O Lamm Gottes, Unschuldig" (O Lamb of God, Without Blame) in the second, and "Christ Lag in Todesbanden" (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death) in the third and fourth. The third is a meditation on the theme of "Christ entombed", and the fourth is a full-blown fantasia on the "Christ Lag" melody. Much of the music of this Symphony is urgent and insistent. I have used the words "aggravated," "angry," and "overwhelming" by way of description. But for all its blunt and assertive force, the Symphony is not tragic. It is filled with a bright and hopeful energy. The music does not try to illustrate the story of the Mass, but rather continually speaks to the theme of transformation - the transformation of tears into power, and the victory of life over death."
Note by the composer
Special Thanks to:
Jeff Harrison, Recording Engineer
Shawn Billo, Program Design
Matt Maslanka, Cover Design
Stephen K. Steele, Producer
Elizabeth Martinez, Director of Bands, West Mesquite High School
The recordings for this compact disc were made in the West Mesquite High School Auditorum. The Zaninelli is from a February 21, 2001 performance. The Persichetti Syler and Maslanka are from recording sessions held on February 22 and 23, 2001.
PROGRAM SELECTIONS
Illinois State University Wind Symphony
Stephen K. Steele, Conductor
Parable for Band, op. 121 (1972)
Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)
Minton's Playhouse (1994)
James Syler (born 1961)
Saxophone Quartet
Rebecca Culp
Joshua Masterman
Roberto Quinones
Mark Mowakowski
Lagan Love: An Ancient Ulster Air for Symphonic Band (1999)
Luigi Zaninelli (born 1932)
Symphony No. 5 (2000)
David Maslanka (born 1943)
Moderate
Moderate
Slow (Anthony Hernandez, euphonium soloist)
Moderate
WIND SYMPHONY PERSONNEL
Piccolo
Annie D'Amico
Jaimie Quiram
Jamie Schwendinger
Flute
*Annie D'Amico
BM Music Therapy, Villa Park
Megan Lomonof
BME, Oak Lawn
Christa Ruesink
BME, Alsip
Jaimie Quiram
Public Relations, Hudson
Jamie Schwendinger
MM Performance, Freeport
LeighAnn Singer
BME, Ottawa
Oboe
*Casandra Anderson
BM Performance, Tinley Park
Joy Fisher
Mass Comm., River Forest
Patrick McGuire
BME, Round Lake Heights
English Horn
Joy Fisher
E-flat Clarinet
Ryan Krapf
BME, Monee
B-flat clarinet
Joshua Anderson
BME, Farmington
Jennifer Bland
BME, Normal
*Sally Friedrich
BME/BM Performance, Joilet
Stacie Powell
BME, Danville
Nicole Schneider
International Business, Lemont
Ivory Sebastion
BME/BM Performance, Aurora
Stephanie Simpson
BME, Chicago
Carly Stone
Gen. Studies, Ottawa
Alto Clarinet
Jennifer Sims
Bass Clarinet
Christina Isaacs
Accounting, Bloomington
Jennifer Sims
Marketing, East Moline
*Erik Tomlin
BME, Aurora
E-flat Contra Bass Clarinet
Christina Isaacs
B-flat Contra Bass Clarinet
Christina Isaacs
Bassoon
*Stephanie Fink
Elemntary Education, Canton
Gina Pehike
BME, Montgomery
Contra Bassoon
Rebecca Culp
Alto Saxophone
Rebecca Culp
BM Theory/Composition, Tinley Park
*Joshua Masterman
BM Performance, Orego
Tenor Saxophone
Roberto Quinones
BM Performance, Chicago
Baritone Saxophone
Mark Nowakowski
BM Theory/Composition/Arts Technology, Hickory Hills
Horn
Peter Dahlstrom
MM Performance, Columbus, Ohio
Keri Herron
Elmentary Education, Silvis
Elizabeth Lenz
Business Administration, Lemont
Christopher Render
MM Conductin, Houston, Texas
*Tom Weber
Bm Perfopmance, Olney
Piccolo Trumpet
Kelly Watkins
Trumpet
Gregory Allen
MM Performance, Portland, Oregon
Benjamin T. Clark
BM Performance, Pekin
Brain Denny
MM Therapy, Pilesgrove, New Jersey
Jennifer Meyer
MM Performance, Buffalo, New York
Anna Melissa Reed
BME, Normal
*Kelly Watkins
MM Performance/Music Therapy, Henderson, Texas
Flugelhorn
Kelly Watkins
Trombone
Dan Maslowski
BA/BS Music, Mokena
Scott Silder
BME, Naperville
*Angela Slaughter
MM Performance, Morrow, Georgia
Bass Trombone
Joel Matter
BME, Batavia
Euphonium
*Anthony Hernandez
BME, East Moline
Michael McDermott
BME, East Moline
Tuba
*Brian Farber
BS Music, Glen Ellen
Chris Vivio
BME, Naperville
Piano
Narong Prangcharoen
MM Theory/Composition, Bangkok, Thailand
String Bass
Grant Souder
BME, Normal
Percussion
Jaimie Abney
BME, Spring Valley
Andres Bautista
BME, Skokie
William Cuthbert
BM Performance, Elkhart, Indiana
David Dunbar
MM Conducting/Music Education, El Paso, Texas
*Jeff Matter
BM Therapy/Theory/Composition, Batavia
Ethan Smith
BS Music/BA Visual Arts, Park Ridge
*denotes principal player
Wind and Percussion Faculty
Stephen K. Steele
Director of Bands
René Rosas
Assistant Director of Bands
Kimberly Risinger
Flute
Judith Dicker
Oboe
Aris Chavez
Clarinet
Michael Dicker
Bassoon
Jim Boitos
Saxophone
Amy Gilreath
Trumpet
Steve Parsons
Trombone
Joe Neisler
Horn
Jeffrey Graves
Tuba/Euphonium
David Collier
Percussion
Band Department Staff
Connie Bryant
Administrative Asst.
David Dunbar
Graduate Asst.
Christopher Render
Graduate Asst.
Kelly Watkins
Graduate Asst.
(c) 2002 ALBANY RECORDS
ALBANY RECORDS U.S.
915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207
Tel: 518.436.8814: Fax: 518.436.0643
ALBANY RECORDS U.K.
Box 12, Warton, Carnforth, Lancashire LA5 9PD
Tel: 01524 735873 FAX: 01524 736448
WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL.
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