THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC Presents
THE UNIVERSITY WIND ORCHESTRA Rodney Dorsey, Director Michael Tignor, Graduate Conducting Associate with
Matthew Hightower, Tuba
Wednesday, November 15, 2023 Seven-thirty in the Evening Ruby Diamond Concert Hall Live: wfsu.org/fsumusic
ng i t r o p p u S e Arts th
850-894-8700
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Tom Buchanan, owner
PROGRAM An Outdoor Overture (1938/1948)
Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
Deep River (2021)
Benjamin Horne (b. 1995)
Reflections on the Mississippi (2013/2015) I. Mist II. Fury III. Prayer IV. Steamboat
Michael Daugherty (b. 1954)
Matthew Hightower, tuba INTERMISSION La flor más linda (2019)
Gilda Lyons (b. 1975) Michael Tignor, graduate conducting associate
Solar Testimonies (2021) I. Dreams and Traditiions II. Collegial High-Jinks III. …and they asked, How Long? IV. …and by the word of their testimony
James Lee III (b. 1975)
Please refrain from talking, entering, or exiting while performers are playing. Food and drink are prohibited in all concert halls. Please turn off cell phones and all other electronic devices. Please refrain from putting feet on seats and seat backs. Children who become disruptive should be taken out of the performance hall so they do not disturb the musicians and other audience members.
ABOUT THE MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR
Dr. Rodney Dorsey is Professor of Music at the Florida State University College of Music where he conducts the FSU Wind Orchestra and guides the graduate wind conducting program. Dorsey comes to FSU from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he conducted the IU Wind Ensemble and taught graduate conducting courses. Prior to his tenure at the Jacobs School, Dorsey served on the faculties of the University of Oregon, University of Michigan, DePaul University and Northwestern University. He also gained extensive experience teaching in the public schools of Florida and Georgia. Dorsey studied conducting with Mallory Thompson, John P. Paynter, and James Croft. He was a clarinet student of Fred Ormand and Frank Kowalsky. During his conducting career, Dorsey has led performances at several prominent events including the American Bandmasters Association Convention, College Band Directors National Conference North/Northwest Regional Conference, and the Bands of America National Festival. He is active as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in the United States. International engagements include Hungary, Canada, and Bulgaria. Dorsey’s commitment to community has been demonstrated by his participation on the board of directors for Music for All and the Midwest Clinic. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Clinic. Other professional memberships include the College Band Directors National Association, National Association for Music Education, Florida Bandmasters Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, Tau Beta Sigma (honorary), Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Dorsey is also an elected member of the American Bandmasters Association. Most recently Dorsey was named a Yamaha Master Educator.
ABOUT THE FEATURED SOLOIST
An award-winning teacher, performer, and composer, Matt Hightower is the Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the Florida State University College of Music and principal tuba with the Tallahassee Symphony. Prior to his appointment at Florida State, Hightower held similar positions at the University of Kentucky and Texas A&M University-Kingsville. An avid chamber musician, Hightower was tubist with the Corpus Christi, Kingsville, and University of Kentucky Brass Quintets. He has also performed with the Emerald Brass Quintet, Lexington Philharmonic Brass Quintet, the Mirari Brass Quintet, the Atlas Tuba Quartet, Backburner Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, and Concert:Nova. Some of his credits as a large ensemble performer include appearances with the Bloomington Camerata Orchestra, The Columbus (IN) Symphony, The Evansville Philharmonic, The Iceland Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Ballet, The Jackson Symphony, the Lexington Philharmonic, the Tallahassee Symphony, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Bach Festival, the WCIT World Orchestra in Yerevan, Armenia, and David Baker’s 20th Century Bebop Band. Hightower, a product of entrepreneurship, firmly believes in the importance of 21stcentury musicians who acquire and maintain a diverse set of skills. As such, Hightower’s career embodies every aspect of the music process from composing and arranging to recording and performing. Hightower’s debut album, Re(in)spiration, released in 2019, was a finalist for the 2021 ITEA Roger Bobo Award for Excellence in Recording. According to the International Tuba Euphonium Association Journal, “Re(in)spiration illustrates Hightower’s outstanding skills as a performer and artist” and “showcases [his] total control of the horn, concrete fundamentals, and musical sincerity.” He can also be heard on the University of Texas Wind Ensemble’s Wine Dark Sea, Society of Composers, Inc.’s Flare: Vol 32, the University of Kentucky Faculty Brass Quintet’s New Music for Brass Quintet, and the University of Kentucky Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble’s Blue Thunder, amongst others. Hightower himself has been the recipient of several awards, including the 2010 KMEA Intercollegiate Composition Contest, the 2021 ITEA Winston Morris Award for Tuba Ensemble Composition, and the 2023 ITEA Harvey Philips Award for Excellence in Composition for tuba in a solo role. Many of his arrangements and original works are published through Potenza Music and Absolute Brass Publishing. He is also a composer for Fannin Musical Productions, where he arranges and composes music for high school marching bands across the United States.
Hightower is also a dedicated educator whose students have won prizes at the Leonard Falcone Competition, Macauley Chamber Music Competition, and various regional and International Tuba-Euphonium Conferences including the inaugural ITEA Collegiate Ensembles Competitive Showcase Competition in 2023. As an active member of the International Tuba Euphonium Association, Hightower has performed and adjudicated at several regional and international ITEA events and hosted the 2022 Midwest Regional Conference at the University of Kentucky. Hightower earned the BM in music education from Murray State University, the MM in tuba performance from Indiana University, and the DMA from the University of Texas at Austin. His primary instructors were Ray Conklin, Daniel Perantoni, and Charles Villarrubia, with additional instruction in the field of composition from Mike D’Ambrosio, John Fannin, and P.Q. Phan.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM Copland: An Outdoor Overture Aaron Copland is commonly referred to as the “Dean of American Composers.” In 1917, Copland began his composition studies with Rubin Goldmark, and he described Goldmark as somone who “spared the floundering that so many musicians have suffered through incompetent teaching.” However, he also noted that his teacher did not care for the “advanced musical idioms of the day.” He then went to France and studied with Nadia Boulanger, whom Copland wrote was a “teacher with such openness of mind, while at the same time she held firm ideas of right and wrong in musical matters.” Upon his return to the United States, he found his desire to compose in the modernist style was a financially unwise decision, and instead composed in a style similar to the idea of Gebrauchsmusik (music for use) which inspired many of his later works. Copland composed An Outdoor Overture for an entirely indoor occasion: a concert by the orchestra of the High School of Music and Art in New York City on December 16, 1938. The school’s conductor, Alexander Richter, was in the process of launching a campaign to foster the writing of “American music for American youth,” and the composer found the invitation to write such a work “irresistible” (all the more, perhaps, because his music was undergoing a stylistic change). An Outdoor Overture was a milestone in confirming this change, since it was written for young people to play, and the vague criterion of accessibility therefore mattered more to Copland than it had before. This change proved crucial, of course, as the works of this period, including Appalachian Spring and Rodeo, and culminating in the Third Symphony of 1946, have remained his best-loved, mostperformed scores. This band arrangement was made by Copland himself at his publisher’s suggestion several years after its composition. The “outdoor” in the title stems from the
style of spacious chordal writing, implying that very high and very low sonorities are present throughout. Horne: Deep River Benjamin Horne earned the master’s degree from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and the bachelor’s from the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University (GA) with degrees in music education, music performance, and a certificate in music composition. Horne’s works and arrangements have received many honors and have been performed around the world, including at the Latzsch Trombone Festival in Germany, as well as performances at other events such as the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference and the International Trombone Festival. Horne has collaborated on works with several renowned classical artists such as Demondrae Thurman and Charles Vernon. Deep River is an African-American spiritual, popularized by Henry Burleigh in his 1916 collection Jubilee Songs of the USA. The song was first mentioned in print in 1867, when it was published in the first edition of The Story of the Jubilee Singers: With Their Songs, by J. B. T. Marsh. By 1917, when Burleigh completed the last of his several influential arrangements, the song had become very popular in recitals. It has been called “perhaps the best known and best-loved spiritual.” Burleigh’s low baritone voice as well as renditions by singers such as Paul Robeson are the motivation for this version’s use of solo tuba for the song’s initial presentation. The piece begins with solo voices, evocative of short testimonies, leading into the song. The low voice of the tuba then leads us in with the first verse as others join in. At the conclusion of the lyric “peace,” an alto saxophone solo “crosses” us over into a new place where the song starts again, but livelier, featuring the entire saxophone section. Daugherty: Reflections on the Mississippi Michael Daugherty has received recognition as one of the ten most performed American composers of concert music according to the League of American Orchestras. The sixtime GRAMMY winner is the son of a rock drummer and a mother who encouraged him to pursue the arts. Daugherty studied composition in Paris with both Pierre Boulez at IRCAM and Betsy Jolas at the Paris Conservatory. He won the prestigious Ostwald Award for his piece Raise the Roof for Timpani and Symphonic Band. Daugherty currently serves as the Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan. Reflections on the Mississippi (2013) for tuba and orchestra was commissioned by the Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance. The world premiere was given by the Temple University Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Luis Biava, with Carol Jantsch, solo tuba, at Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in March 2013. The piece was written in memory of Daugherty’s father and is a reflection on family trips they would take to the Mississippi River near McGregor, Iowa. The first movement, Mist, reflects
on the sunrise as seen and heard through a misty haze over the Great River. The second movement, Fury, recalls the turmoil of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury as well as the history of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The movement consists of dissonant harmonies and turbulent polyrhythms. The third movement, Prayer, overlooks the water as far as one can see as the sunset turns into a clear, starry night. The final movement, Steamboat, consists of lively music following the gambling steamboats as they make their way to New Orleans. The tuba soloist leads the “Second Line” of syncopated rhythms that propel the concerto to its virtuosic conclusion. The band version of Reflections on the Mississippi was commissioned by the University of Michigan Symphony Band and premiered in 2015 under the direction of Michael Haithcock. Lyons: La flor más linda Gilda Lyons is an American composer, vocalist, and visual artist. Lyons holds degrees in music composition, vocal performance, and visual arts from Bard College, as well as the master’s and PhD degrees in composition from the University of Pittsburgh and SUNY Stony Brook, respectively. She has primarily composed works for opera, choir, and chamber ensembles. La flor más linda is her first of two compositions for winds. La flor más linda was written in response to the protests in Nicaragua against the Ortega government. Lyons says of the piece: With arms outstretched through sound, sonic images I associate with Nicaragua are slammed together: the Basílica bells that toll freely during the Festival of San Sebastián; the pito and chischiles of the dance of the Toro Huaco, for which stand in flute and maracas; the firecrackers that announce celebration; scaler gestures that conjure the strong wind that blows through Diriamba, my mother’s home town; fragments from de la Cruz Mena’s Los Amores de Abraham, a tune my grandfather and his brothers played in their ensemble Marimba Diriangén; and a single gesture from Godoy’s Nicaragua, Nicaragüita. Despite an impulse to center on vibrant imagery, celebratory sound mutates into the sinister, and song becomes lament. Estamos con la gente de Nicaragua, siempre. Viva Nicaragua libre. The piece was written for Glen Adsit, Edward Cumming, and the Foot in the Door Ensemble. It premiered at the College Band Directors National Association National Convention in February 2019.
Lee: Solar Testimonies James Lee III was exposed to music from an early age as a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. His faith provided an early window into his creativity and has served as an important inspiration for his music. Lee composes in every medium, ranging from orchestral and band works to chamber ensemble, sacred choral and vocal pieces, and works for solo piano. His compositions have been premiered by some of the country’s leading symphony orchestras, including those in Philadelphia, Memphis, and Indianapolis. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Composition and Theory at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Solar Testimonies is inspired by various aspects of the history of UNCG (University of North Carolina Greensboro), its student traditions, and various elements of the civil rights movement in Greensboro. The symphony is organized in four movements, which include the titles Dreams and Traditions, Collegial High-Jinks, and they asked, How Long?, and by the word of their testimony. The piece was commissioned and premiered by the University of North Carolina Greensboro Wind Ensemble in February 2019, under the direction of Kevin Giraldi.
Wind Orchestra Personnel Rodney Dorsey, Director Michael Tignor, Graduate Conducting Associate Picolo Clarinet Kaitlyn Calcagino Dave Scott Anne Glerum Flute Travis Irizzary Pamela Bereuter Andrew Prawat Adeline Belova Audrey Rancourt Paige Douglas Sadie Murray Sarah Kimbro Reymon Contrera Jesse Rigby Oboe Nic Kanipe Bass Clarinet Abby Kothera Brad Pilcher Andrew Swift Saxophone Bassoon Jason Shimer, alto/soprano Robert Alexander Collin Bankovic, alto Cailin McGarry Ethan Horn, tenor Carson Long Evan Blitzer, baritone
Horn Tommy Langston Clare Otteson Luis Oquendo Tarre Nelson
E-flat Clarinet Hannah Faircloth
Euphonium Jonah Zimmerman Luke Heinrich
Trumpet Vito Bell Benjamin Dubbert Vance Garven Thana Rangsiyawaranon Thum Rangsiyawaranon Schelvin Robinson Trombone Will Roberts Christian Estades Grant Keel, bass
Tuba Mike Anderson Sebastian Bravo Levi Vickers Percussion Ryan Boehme Jacob Dell Miranda Hughes Jackson Kowalczyk Will Vasquez Darci Wright Piano Fernando Garcia Harp Lauren Barfield String Bass Alex Lunday
2023–2024 CONCERT SEASON FALL November 19, 2023 Elijah Felix Mendelssohn
UNITY 17 January 28, 2024 Sounds of Cinema Celebrating Tallahassee’s Bicentennial
SPRING April 28, 2024 Lord Nelson Mass Joseph Haydn
TICKETS: TCCHORUS.ORG OR 850-597-0603 All performances in Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, Florida State University Funded in part by
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