Pacific Orchestras
Michael Alexander, guest conductor
Brittany Trotter, flute
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
7:30 pm
Faye Spanos Concert Hall
Dances from Estancia, op. 8a (1941)
Los trabajores agrícolas (The Farm Workers)
Danza del trigo (The Wheat Dance)
Los peones de hacienda (The Cattle Men)
Danza final (Malambo)
Movements (2021)
Loop It
Love It
Think It
Move It
blue cathedral (1999)
Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, "Afro-American" (1930)
Longing (Moderato assai)
Sorrow (Adagio)
Humor (Animato)
Aspiration (Lento, con risluzione)
Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983)
View
Simon (b. 1986)
Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962)
William Grant Still (1895–1978)
Carlos
Brittany Trotter, flute Pause
PROGRAM NOTES
Ginastera: Dances from Estancia, op. 8a
Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera is acknowledged for his successful blending of indigenous music with the more rigorous elements of European art music. Over a career extending over more than half a century, Ginastera would eventually leave behind the folk idiom and write in more contemporary styles, even adopting the twelve-tone system in his later scores. His most frequently played works, not surprisingly, are from the earlier period of his career, and they are reminiscent of the “folkloric” music of other composers who mined the riches of Latin American source material. Ginastera’s Estancia, written in 1941 on a commission from American Ballet Caravan, was intended as a “ballet in one act and five scenes based on Argentine country life,” originally including spoken and sung elements. Because of problems on the part of Ballet Caravan, the ballet itself went unperformed until 1952, but a suite of four dances from the score was introduced at the venerable Teatro Coloacuten in Buenos Aires in 1943.
—adapted from Dennis Bade
Simon: Movements
Carlos Simon, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, is a composer whose music ranges from concert music for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism. Simon is the composerin-residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the inaugural Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer Chair, and was nominated for a 2023 Grammy award for his album Requiem for the Enslaved. Simon earned his doctorate degree at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty and Evan Chambers. He was also a recipient of the 2021 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization to recognize extraordinary classical Black and Latinx musicians, and was named a Sundance/Time Warner Composer Fellow for his work for film and moving image.
This work, premiered in 2022, is the second American solo flute concerto by a Black composer. In a time of cultural and civil change, this piece helps in creating a more diverse and inclusive environment for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) musicians, and a richer repertoire for the orchestral community.
—adapted from Carlos Simon
Higdon: blue cathedral
Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed figures in contemporary classical music, receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto, a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Concerto and a 2020 Grammy for her Harp Concerto. In 2018, Higdon received the prestigious Nemmers Prize, awarded to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Most recently, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Higdon enjoys several hundred performances a year of her works, and blue cathedral is today’s most performed contemporary orchestral work, with more than 700 performances worldwide. Her works have been recorded on more than sixty albums. Higdon’s first opera, Cold Mountain, won the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere and the opera recording was nominated for two Grammy awards. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press. Blue…like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals…a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression…serving as a symbolic doorway in to and out of this world. Blue represents all potential and the progression of journeys. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky. Because the walls would be transparent, I saw the image of clouds and blueness permeating from the outside of this church. In my mind's eye the listener would enter from the back of the sanctuary, floating along the corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, moving in a contemplative stance. The stainedglass windows’ figures would start moving with song, singing a heavenly music. The listener would float down the aisle, slowly moving upward at first and then progressing at a quicker pace, rising towards an immense ceiling which would open to the sky…as this journey progressed, the speed of the traveler would increase, rushing forward and upward. I wanted to create the sensation of contemplation and quiet peace at the beginning, moving towards the feeling of celebration and ecstatic expansion of the soul, all the while singing along with that heavenly music.
These were my thoughts when The Curtis Institute of Music commissioned me to write a work to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Curtis is a house of knowledge—a place to reach towards that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. I began writing this piece at a unique juncture in my life and found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the
amazing journeys that we all make in our lives, crossing paths with so many individuals singularly and collectively, learning and growing each step of the way. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the group…our inner travels and the places our souls carry us, the lessons we learn, and the growth we experience. In tribute to my brother, I feature solos for the clarinet (the instrument he played) and the flute (the instrument I play). Because I am the older sibling, it is the flute that appears first in this dialog. At the end of the work, the two instruments continue their dialogue, but it is the flute that drops out and the clarinet that continues on in the upward progressing journey. This is a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing and of that song called life.
—Jennifer Higdon
Still: Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major, “Afro-American”
Still’s Afro-American symphony is not only his most famous work, but one of the most popular American symphonies of all time. When he began sketching it in 1924, he had recently finished playing in the pit orchestra for Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle’s Shuffle Along, the musical comedy that launched the careers of Josephine Baker and Florence Mills and, according to Langston Hughes, inaugurated the Harlem Renaissance. Still pursued other projects in the meantime but took up the symphony in earnest several years later. “It was not until the Depression struck,” he explained, “that I went jobless long enough to let the Symphony take shape. In 1930, I rented a room in a quiet building not far from my home in New York and began to work.” And he was inspired: the symphony was finished in two months.
Still had adopted central tenets of the Harlem Renaissance by this time, most notably philosopher (and friend) Alain Locke’s concept of the new African-American as an individual who would vindicate blackness from racist stereotypes and reclaim it from white exploitation. Still’s use of the blues as the symphony’s unifying element manifested his engagement with this idea. While working with W.C. Handy in Memphis in 1916, he decided that “the Blues were not immoral or trivial, as some people wanted to believe, but instead an expression of the hopes and yearnings of a lowly people, wanting a better life.” Musicologist Jon Michael Spencer has argued that Still’s symphonic treatment of the blues allowed him to “demonstrate the inherent dignity” of black folk music as an act of racial vindication, not to critique it as inferior.
—Douglas Shadle
Since being named the seventh chancellor of UW-Green Bay in May of 2020, Michael Alexander has overseen enrollment growth of 17.4% at the institution. He initiated six strategic priorities to support the future of the university, which have led to advancements in support of UW-Green Bay’s access mission. UW-Green Bay overhauled its advising and career services to support student success and was the first university in Wisconsin to establish a direct admission program. The university has also dramatically grown its Division of Continuing Education to the second largest in Wisconsin and increased certificate and non-credit offerings to provide more options for learning beyond traditional degree programs.
Alexander came to UW-Green Bay in 2019 having previously served as director of the School of Music at the University of Northern Colorado since 2015. He was also director of orchestras and interim director of the School of Music at Kennesaw State University, and conductor of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra 2004–2015. During his time with the Georgia Symphony, he began the Georgia Youth Symphony Orchestra program, which engaged more than 400 students from the region each year in music education. He has degrees from the University of Georgia, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison.
Prize-winning flutist Brittany Trotter leads a diverse career as an educator, soloist, and collaborator. She joined the faculty of University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music in Stockton, in the fall of 2021. Trotter previously served on the faculties of Dickinson College, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and Duquesne University. She is program chair of the Mid-Atlantic Flute convention, competition coordinator for the NFA’s Junior Soloist Competition, and serves on the development committee of the Umoja Flute Institute, NFA’s career and artistic development committee, and publicity chair for the Flute New Music Consortium.
Trotter has been awarded first prize in numerous national and regional competitions including the Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition in woodwinds in the states of West Virginia (2017, 2016), Wyoming (2015, 2014), and Mississippi (2009). She has also competed as a semi-finalist in the 2017 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Trotter has performed in the flute sections of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, and Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, among others. Equally versed in postclassical contemporary and experimental music as well as electro-acoustic music and interdisciplinary works, she has performed and premiered new works with Pittsburgh based new music ensemble, Alia Musica.
PACIFIC ENSEMBLES
The Pacific Orchestras perform an inclusive range of contemporary and historically significant works. The ensemble provides performers with a variety of sizes and settings to explore an exciting range of repertoire. Pacific faculty, students, and guest artists perform with the ensemble as concerto and aria soloists and as guest conductors. Participation in the ensemble is open to all Pacific students by audition.
Violin 1
Jamie Lue, concertmaster
Lizzie Mendoza
Ann Miller††
Christopher Thant
Raffaella Wong
Violin 2
Emma Young, principal
Carissa Lee
Alizon Lopez
Julianna Ramirez
Violas
Erick Sariles, principal
Sam Tse‡‡
Igor Veligan††
Cellos
Hasina Torres, principal
Jane Damon
Jordan Hendrickson
Hope Lee
Jiangshuo Ma
Nicholas Trobaugh
Benedict Ventura
Basses
Julianna Meneses, principal
Victor Camacho
Andrew Mell††
Angel Sosa ‡‡
Flutes
Riko Hirata*
Ethan Williams †**
Jasmine Valentine
Oboes
Jayden Laumeister†
Emily Zamudio *‡**
Alice Cho
English Horn
Walker Austin
Clarinets
Vanessa Lopez*†**
Abigail Miller‡
Edmund Bascon
Joseph Schwarz
Andrew Seaver
Bassoons
Nadege Tenorio†‡
Jordan Wier***
Jess Vreeland
Horns
Don Parker*
Skylar Warren†‡**
Marcelo Contreras
Jas Lopez
Trumpets
Parker Deems*‡
Alayna Ontai†
Kamron Qasimi**
Trombones
Miguel Palma‡
Radley Rutledge***
Matthew Young
Tuba
Seth Morris
Percussion
Hunter Campbell
Ryan Eads
Casey Kim
Matthew Kulm
Robert McCarl
Peter Norman
Harp
Jacquelyn Venter‡‡
Piano
Michelle Han
*principal, Higdon †principal, Ginastera ‡principal, Simon **principal, Still ††faculty member ‡‡community member
PACIFIC ENSEMBLES
Faculty Coaches
Brittany Trotter, flute
Patricia Shands, clarinet
Kyle Bruckmann, oboe, English horn
Nicolasa Kuster, bassoon
Sadie Glass, horn
Leonard Ott, trumpet
Bruce Chrisp, low brass
Jonathan Latta, timpani, percussion
Ann Miller, violin
Igor Veligan, viola
Vicky Wang, cello
Kathryn Schulmeister, bass
Jonathan Latta, ensembles program director
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