THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF MUSIC
Presents THE UNIVERSITY
WIND ENSEMBLE
Patrick Dunnigan, Music Director and Conductor
Drew Hardy-Moore, Graduate Associate Conductor
Michael Tignor, Graduate Associate Conductor with faculty artist
Michelle Stebleton, Horn
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Seven-thirty in the Evening Ruby Diamond Concert Hall
Live: wfsu.org/fsumusic
PROGRAM
Fission (2024) John Mackey (b. 1973)
Shared Spaces (2022) Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
Sure-Fire (2022) Catherine Likhuta
I. The Spark (b. 1981)
II. Lament in the Ashes
III. Firecracker
Michelle Stebleton, horn
INTERMISSION
Home Away From Home (2019)
Michael Tignor, graduate associate conductor
Elegy (1971)
Drew Hardy-Moore, graduate associate conductor
Dionysiaques, Op. 62 (1913)
Catherine Likhuta (b. 1981)
John Barnes Chance (1932–1972)
Florent Schmitt (1870–1958)
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.
Patrick Dunnigan is Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the Florida State University College of Music in Tallahassee. A member of the FSU faculty since 1991, Dunnigan is the principal conductor and music director of the University Wind Ensemble. His other teaching duties include undergraduate conducting courses and instrumental music methods. As Director of Bands, he oversees all aspects of the FSU band program which includes five concert bands, a chamber music program, graduate teaching program, and athletic pep bands.
A nationally recognized guest conductor, adjudicator, and clinician, Dunnigan has published numerous articles on conducting, instrumental music methodology, and research in leading journals including The Instrumentalist, Music Educators Journal, Bulletin for the Council for Research in Music Education, and the Journal of Band Research. His textbook, Marching Band Techniques, is published by The Instrumentalist Company and has become a leading college textbook of marching band methodology. His transcriptions and arrangements for concert band are performed regularly by major university, community, and professional wind bands including the Dallas Wind Symphony. He has presented clinic sessions for the Midwest Clinic, the Music Educators National Conference, the Florida Bandmasters Association, the College Band Directors National Association, the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and many others.
Dunnigan received the Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education degree from the University of Texas at Austin, the Master of Music in Conducting degree from Northwestern University, and the Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Kentucky. He is an active member of the College Band Directors National Association, Music Educators National Conference, Florida Music Educators Association, National Band Association, Florida Bandmasters Association, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity. He is also an honorary member of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, Kappa Kappa Psi, and Tau Beta Sigma, and received the Friend of the Arts award from Sigma Alpha Iota.
Dunnigan received the prestigious FSU Teaching Award in both 2003 and 2012. In 2006, he was elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association. He served as National President of the College Band Directors National Association from 2015 to 2017.
ABOUT THE FEATURED SOLOIST
Michelle Stebleton is Professor of Horn and member of the Florida State Brass Quintet and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. Since coming to FSU in 1990, she has been awarded the Teaching Incentive Program Award, an Undergraduate Teaching Award, and several large research grants. Through these grants she recorded two compact discs available on MSR Classics: The Horn Works of Paul Basler and MirrorImage at the Opera, a recording of her horn duo with Lisa Bontrager. The Florida State Brass Quintet’s CD Strophes of the Night and Dawn is available through Crystal Records.
Stebleton, a Holton-Leblanc Artist Clinician, is a six-time prize winner in various divisions of the American Horn Competition. She has traveled to 26 countries as a chamber artist and clinician and performs regularly as a soloist and clinician in Paraguay, The Czech Republic, and under the baton of Philipe Entremont in the bi-annual Music Festival Orchestra in the Dominican Republic.
At FSU Stebleton maintains a horn studio of about 30 students. She offers daily Fundamentals Class, weekly Studio Classes, and Horn Choir. In addition, she teaches the Horn component of Solo Brass Literature. Actively performing, she is regularly featured at the International Horn Society Symposiums and Southeast Horn Workshops. She currently serves as on the Advisory Council of the International Horn Society.
Stebleton received B.M. and M.M. degrees from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Louis J. Stout and Lowell Greer. She holds a diploma from the Prague Mozart Academy.
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Mackey: Fission
John Mackey is one of the most prolific wind band composers of the twenty-first century, having written more than forty works for wind band in the last twenty years. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1995, and a Masters of Music degree from the Juilliard School in 1997. He has received commissions from numerous professional organizations, including the American Bandmasters Association, the Dallas Wind Symphony, the New York City Ballet, and the BBC Singers.
Fission is a high-energy concert band adaptation of John Mackey’s contribution to Carolina Crown’s 2024 production, Promethean. Drawing inspiration from the explosive release of energy in nuclear fission, the music mirrors that concept through sudden bursts of motion, rapid changes in texture, and relentless momentum.
Premiered by the United States Air Force Band of the West at the 2024 Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, Fission launches forward with bold impact and rhythmic intensity—making it a fitting and electrifying opener for tonight’s program.
Cuong: Shared Spaces
Viet Cuong’s music has been described as “alluring” and “stirring” (The New York Times), “irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “exhilarating” (Chicago Tribune). His works have been performed on six continents by leading ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Alarm Will Sound, Sō Percussion, and major military and collegiate wind ensembles across the United States.
A composer known for his imagination and stylistic range, Cuong frequently blends the whimsical with the profound, often finding new expressive possibilities through unexpected instrumental pairings and textures. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is Composer-in-Residence with the Pacific Symphony.
Shared Spaces was commissioned by Dr. Eric Laprade and Dr. Colleen Sears for the Wind Ensemble of The College of New Jersey as part of The Artivism Project: Life After Loss. In this deeply personal work, composer Viet Cuong offers a musical response to grief and healing. As Cuong writes, “My goal in writing this piece was to convey some part of my own experience with loss in such a way that might resonate with others.”
The work asks performers to create a sense of togetherness through sound: nearly every note is crossfaded between players, requiring a continuous handoff of tone and breath. These passing moments form gentle, overlapping harmonies that serve as the foundation of the piece. The result is a fragile, evolving sonic landscape—a sanctuary for collective healing and shared expression.
Likhuta: Sure-Fire
Sure-Fire is a concerto for horn and wind symphony by Ukrainian-Australian composer Catherine Likhuta. Commissioned by an international consortium led by Lanette López Compton and Oklahoma State University, the piece reflects Likhuta’s deep connection to both horn and wind band. It marks her 10th work for band and 25th featuring horn— an instrument she has celebrated through long-standing friendships with soloists and conductors around the world.
While the piece is virtuosic and demanding, it is written to showcase the soloist with confidence and brilliance. Centered around the elemental theme of fire, Sure-Fire was also inspired by the devastating 2019–20 bushfires in Australia, which claimed over a billion animals. Likhuta describes the piece as both a celebration of horn and band and a lament, offering performers and listeners a space to grieve and reflect through music that is alternately fierce, lyrical, and explosive.
Likhuta’s music is known for its emotional intensity, rhythmic complexity, and incorporation of Ukrainian folk elements. Her works have been performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Midwest Clinic, and the International Horn Symposium, and commissioned by major ensembles and soloists worldwide.
Tonight’s soloist, Professor Michelle Stebleton, is a longtime member of the FSU College of Music faculty, where she teaches horn, performs with the Florida State Brass Quintet and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, and actively mentors the next generation of horn players. An internationally respected artist and educator, she has performed and taught in over two dozen countries and remains a vital presence in the global horn community and here at Florida State University.
Likhuta: Home Away From Home
Following the virtuosic character of Sure-Fire, Home Away From Home offers a more intimate, reflective side of Catherine Likhuta’s compositional voice. While still full of rhythmic energy and emotional nuance, this work reaches inward—exploring themes of memory, transition, and belonging.
The music is inspired by Likhuta’s own experience of living between three places—Ukraine, the United States, and Australia—all of which she considers home. Written during a return visit to Ithaca, New York, the piece carries the emotional weight of joyful reunions, distant memories, and a renewed sense of place. Woven into this personal reflection is a broader story: the emotional arc of young adults—such as college freshmen—leaving one home behind to find another.
The opening bursts with excitement, like the rush of a plane taking off into new territory— thrilling, a little uncertain, but full of potential. A quieter, melancholic section follows, capturing the complex feelings of revisiting spaces once shared with loved ones. Likhuta describes this as a moment that cannot be put into words, but one that music can express. From there, the music builds with determination toward a spirited climax, drawing on the drive and rhythmic flair of Ukrainian folk traditions. The return of earlier themes, now infused with confidence and optimism, leads to a playful, unexpected waltz before the work closes gently—still journeying, but grounded in something deeply personal.
As with so much of Likhuta’s music, Home Away From Home speaks to both heart and mind, offering performers and listeners a space to reflect on what it means to belong—to people, to places, and to memory itself.
Chance: Elegy
Elegy is a single-movement work composed in memory of a student from the West Genesee Senior High School Band who passed away unexpectedly. Commissioned as a tribute, the piece is deeply reflective—centered around a five-note motif first introduced by the low woodwinds. From these quiet beginnings, the music slowly builds, rising through layers of texture to a bold and expressive horn statement that grows to a powerful climax.
A striking brass fanfare follows, intertwined with the theme in the woodwinds, but this energy is cut short—echoing the suddenness of loss. The work closes as it began, in fragmented whispers of the original motif.
Tragically, Elegy was among the final compositions of John Barnes Chance, who died later that same year at the age of 39. Though his career was brief, Chance left a lasting impact on the wind band repertoire through works such as Incantation and Dance and Variations on a Korean Folk Song. Elegy stands not only as a memorial for the student who inspired it but also as a poignant reflection on the composer’s own untimely passing—a quiet, powerful monument to lives and legacies interrupted too soon.
Schmitt: Dionysiaques
Composed in 1913 for the 100-member Garde Républicaine Band of Paris, Dionysiaques takes its name from the ancient Greek Dionysia—festivals celebrating Dionysus, god of wine, fertility, and ecstasy. Florent Schmitt’s music captures the spirit of these rituals in vivid detail, drawing listeners into a world of sensuous textures, frenzied dance, and unrestrained celebration.
Schmitt’s use of short, chromatic bursts and shifting tempi creates a sense of unpredictability—mirroring the chaotic energy of a festival intoxicated by wine and revelry. A series of jaunty, march-like themes propel the piece forward, punctuated by dramatic shifts in momentum, daring leaps, and explosive climaxes. Just when the celebration seems to subside, Schmitt unleashes a final, exhilarating outburst.
Though Schmitt was a French composer influenced by Debussy’s impressionism, Dionysiaques also reflects the harmonic richness of German Romanticism and the bold rhythmic drive of contemporaries like Ravel and Stravinsky. Due to the outbreak of World War I, its premiere was delayed until 1925, but since the mid-20th century it has earned a lasting place in the wind band repertoire.
Demanding for both performers and conductors, Dionysiaques is a tour de force of color, complexity, and controlled chaos. It remains one of the earliest and most ambitious examples of wind band literature written by a major European composer.
Patrick Dunnigan, Conductor
Drew Hardy-Moore, Graduate Associate Conductor
Michael Tignor, Graduate Associate Conductor
Piccolo
Kathryn Lang
Flute
Cameron McGill*
Alex Kotsonis
Lexi Smith
Sarah Kimbro
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Haley O’Neill
Lorin Zamer
Bassoon
Timothy Schwindt*
Zach Martin
Susanna Campbell (+Contra)
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Daniel Gonzalez
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Dawson Huynh*
Reymon Contrera*
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Nicholas Mackley
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Eric Olmsted
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Elizabeth Kennedy
Bass Clarinet
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Eric Olmsted
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Jennifer Fuentes, alto
Micah Mazzella, tenor
Caleb Wolf, baritone
Parker Button, bass
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Bob Kerr*
Joshua Puente*
Katherine Brinkman
Sharavan Duvvuri
Alisyn Jones
Max McLaughlin
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Emma Brockman*
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David Pinero
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Aaron Hernandez
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Rebecca Edmiston
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Jordan Brown
Cole Martin
Will Mccoy
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* Principal
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