4/19/2024, Emory Wind Ensemble

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Audience Information

The Schwartz Center welcomes members of Mu Phi Epsilon and a volunteer usher corps of about 40 members each year. Visit schwartz.emory.edu/volunteer or call 404.727.6640 for ushering opportunities.

The Schwartz Center is committed to providing performances and facilities accessible to all. Please direct accommodation requests to the Schwartz Center Box Office at 404.727.5050, or by email at boxoffice@emory.edu.

The Schwartz Center wishes to gratefully acknowledge the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.

Cover

Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague

2023 | 2024

MUSIC

Emory Wind Ensemble

Featuring works by student composers

Eli Parrish and Oluwasijibomi (Siji) Osunkoya

Michael Kobito, conductor

Friday, April 19, 2024, 8:00 p.m.

Emerson Concert Hall

Schwartz Center for Performing Arts

Program

I’ll Fly Away Eli Parrish (b. 2001)

Fifo Oluwasijibomi (Siji) Osunkoya (b. 2002)

AYO Katahj Copley (b. 1998)

Jug Blues and Fat Pickin’ Don Freund (b. 1947)

Shenandoah Omar Thomas (b. 1982)

Southern Harmony Donald Grantham (b. 1947)

Program Notes

I’ll Fly Away (2024)

I would like to dedicate this piece to my family: Amy, Will, Peggy, Jim, CP, Wendy, Woody, Susan, Sonny, and so many more. Each member of my family, along with my experiences associated with them, has influenced the development of this piece. From the bluegrass harmonies of the mandolin to the New Orleans Second Line style finale, this hymn’s evolution traces a geographical progression of my musical upbringing in the southeastern United States.

In I’ll Fly Away, the wind ensemble explores the genre-bending capabilities of the beloved southern hymn by the same name. The hymn’s origins can be traced back to the early 20th century when the tune was composed by shape-note and southern-gospel composer, Albert E. Brumley. I’ll Fly Away became a staple in the southern-gospel repertoire, gaining popularity through renditions and recordings by groups like the Selah Jubilee Singers.

Over the years, I’ll Fly Away has transcended its religious origins to become a cherished part of American pop culture, featured in countless films, television shows, and recordings. Drawing inspiration from the hymn’s origins, I hope to collage diverse harmonic colors and textures, inviting listeners on a journey through the rich cultural heritage of the American South. Just as the Selah Jubilee Singers infused I’ll Fly Away with their soul-stirring performances, the wind ensemble breathes new life into this beloved hymn. Just as the hymn itself transcends religious boundaries to become a cherished part of American pop culture, this composition celebrates the universal themes of hope, liberation, and spiritual transcendence embodied in I’ll Fly Away.

—Program note by Eli

Parrish

Fifo (2024)

Fifo, meaning “flight” in Yoruba, encapsulates the essence of movement and momentum. This composition embarks on a journey through the skies, where a battleship ascends amidst active conflict, symbolizing resilience and determination. From its opening notes, Fifo propels forward with a driving rhythmic figure, representing the relentless power of the battleship’s engines. This motif establishes the piece’s dynamic energy from the outset, setting the stage for a thrilling musical experience. The music begins with a flurry of woodwind runs, evoking

the image of the battleship’s ascent into the sky. As the piece unfolds, contrasting themes and motifs paint a vivid sonic landscape of conflict and triumph. Moments of turbulence are juxtaposed with passages of quiet reflection, offering a moment of calm before building towards a climactic ending that vividly captures the intensity and energy of the battleship’s flight, leaving listeners with a sense of awe and exhilaration.

—Program note by Oluwasijibomi (Siji) Osunkoya

AYO (2022)

Salutations.

Greetings.

Hello. Hi.

Hey. Yo. AYO.

These terms along with countless others have been used to greet people throughout history. However, the term “AYO” is different. Rooted from hip-hop and jazz cultures, AYO is built in the Black language. It’s used to tell when something is right, when something is wrong, when something is awesome, and when something is too sweet for words. Its use is seen with your closest people, your family, or people who know you best. It’s personal.

In short, “AYO” is a personal embrace that can represent life.

With this piece, I wanted to build the kind of embrace you would get from this one word while also honoring its beginnings—using hip-hop rhythms and colorful harmonies. By the end of the piece, we the listeners go from uncertainty to home; and with the uniqueness of the piece, we in turn celebrate not only a word like AYO but also celebrate life.

—Program note by Katahj Copley

Jug Blues and Fat Pickin’ (1986)

Jug Blues and Fat Pickin’ was written in 1986 and revised in 1990. Originally commissioned for the celebration of Tennessee’s “Homecoming ’86,” it is without peer in the wind band repertoire. Inspired by recordings of the Memphis Jug Band—the most recorded and perhaps most popular of the jug bands to spring up on Memphis’s Beale Street in the late 1920s— and bluegrass banjo pickin’, Freund’s composition is a unique musical offering that melds “blues elements” with minimalist technique.

The blues should howl, whine, and wail like a harmonica solo, with the same freedom and indulgence one might hear in an unaccompanied

blues improvisation. The entire blues must have an unmetered cadenzalike quality. The blues should never drag; the slowed-down sections must have great color and intensity of expression, whether sighing or wailing. The pickin’ doesn’t need to be too fast, but has to have the kind of easygoing, self-gratifying, clear-headed virtuosity that characterized great pickers. The performer should communicate a spirit of good, clean, exuberant fun.

—Program note by Don Freund

Shenandoah (2019)

Shenandoah is one of the most well-known and beloved Americana folk songs. Originally a river song detailing the lives and journeys of fur traders canoeing down the Missouri River, the symbolism of this culturally significant melody has been expanded to include its geographic namesake—an area of the eastern United States that encompasses West Virginia and a good portion of the western part of Virginia—and various parks, rivers, counties, and academic institutions found within.

Back in May 2018, after hearing a really lovely duo arrangement of Shenandoah while adjudicating a music competition in Minneapolis, I asked myself, after hearing so many versions of this iconic and historic song, how would I set it differently? I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and before I realized it, I had composed and assembled just about all of this arrangement in my head by assigning bass notes to the melody and filling in the harmony in my head afterward. I would intermittently check myself on the piano to make sure what I was imagining worked and ended up changing almost nothing at all from what I’d heard in my mind’s ear.

This arrangement recalls the beauty of Shenandoah Valley, not bathed in golden sunlight, but blanketed by low-hanging clouds and experiencing intermittent periods of heavy rainfall (created with a combination of percussion textures, generated both on instruments and from the body). There are a few musical moments where the sun attempts to pierce through the clouds, but ultimately the rains win out. This arrangement of Shenandoah is at times mysterious, somewhat ominous, constantly introspective, and deeply soulful.

—Program note by Omar Thomas

Southern Harmony (1998)

In 1835, William “Singin’ Billy” Walker’s songbook Southern Harmony was first published. This remarkable collection contains, according to its title page, “a choice collection of tunes, hymns, psalms, odes, and

anthems; selected from the most eminent authors in the United States.” In fact, few of the numbers in the book are identified as the work of a particular composer. Many are folk songs (provided with religious texts), others are traditional sacred tunes, while some are revival songs that were widely known and sung throughout the South. The book was immensely popular, selling an amazing 600,000 copies before the Civil War, and was commonly stocked “along with groceries and tobacco” in general stores across the American frontier. From 1884 until World War II, an annual all-day mass performance of selections from Southern Harmony, called the “Benton Big Singing,” was held on the Benton, Kentucky, courthouse lawn. The event drew participants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.

The music of Southern Harmony has a somewhat exotic sound to modern audiences. The tunes often use modal or pentatonic rather than major or minor scales. The harmony is even more out of the ordinary, employing chord positions, voice leading, and progressions that are far removed from the European music that dominated concert halls at the time. These harmonizations were dismissed as crude and primitive when they first appeared. Now they are regarded as inventive, unique, and powerfully representative of the American character.

In his use of several tunes from Southern Harmony, the composer has attempted to preserve the flavor of the original vocal works in a setting that fully realizes the potential of the wind ensemble and the individual character of each song.

Southern Harmony was commissioned by the Southeastern Conference of Band Directors.

—Program

Grantham

note by Donald

Student Composers

Eli Parrish, 22, has conducted his original compositions, contemporary chamber music premieres, and standard orchestral repertoire across the United States and Europe at venues such as the Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli and Cortile Palazzo Fodri (Cremona, Italy), Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, and the University of the South’s Guerry Hall (Sewanee, Tennessee). His works for symphony orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber, voice, and solo instruments explore the intersections of environmentalism, theatrics, and sound-to-color.

Parrish studies orchestral and wind ensemble conducting with Paul Bhasin and Michael Kobito. As a student conductor, he has premiered his original compositions with the United States Army Band Brass, collegiate instrumental faculty, and the Emory Wind Ensemble. While at Emory, Parrish has served as music director for the Emory Young People’s Concert Orchestra and founder, director, and president of the Emory Pep Band.

As a student of music composition at Emory, Parrish’s mentors have included Adam Mirza, Katherine Young, and Davor Vincze. Parrish frequently collaborates with fellow student composers in the Emory composition studio to curate showcases and workshops for contemporary acoustic and electronic music.

Parrish’s clarinet instructors include Atlanta Symphony Orchestra clarinetists Marci Gurnow (acting associate principal) and Laura Ardan (principal emeritus). He has served as principal clarinetist in the Emory University Symphony Orchestra and Emory Wind Ensemble in addition to various chamber ensembles.

Parrish recently attended the Darmstadt Summer Course, the Cremona Music Festival, and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.

In support of his 2024 capstone honors project, “The Unifying Principles of Performance and Compositional Intent,” featuring a selfconducted orchestra of more than 40 student musicians, Parrish was awarded the distinction of Highest Honors. He was also selected for the John and Mary Virginia Foncannon Conducting/Coaching Scholarship from the Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation. Other awards associated with this project include his fellowship as the 2023–2024 music scholar in the John H. Gordon Stipe Society and recipient of the Katherine Blumenthal Award.

Oluwasijibomi (Siji) Osunkoya, 22, is a senior at Emory University double majoring in neuroscience and behavioral biology and music composition on the pre-medical track. As a performer, he is currently the principal violist of the Emory University Symphony Orchestra and has studied viola performance under Yinzi Kong and Joseph Skerik. He has performed in Emory’s chamber music program for more than three years. Before attending Emory, Osunkoya performed in ensembles such as the Emory Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Georgia Music Educators Association All-State Orchestra, and the Gwinnett County Youth Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, he studies under Katherine Young. Osunkoya has had multiple works premiered through the Emory Composer’s Society and read by the Emory University Symphony Orchestra as well as the Vega Quartet. At Emory, he is involved in research at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and is in leadership roles in the Emory Orchestral Students Association, Music Advisory Board, and African Students Association.

Emory Wind Ensemble

The Emory Wind Ensemble (EWE) is a nationally recognized organization dedicated to performing wind literature of the highest caliber while nurturing individual artistic excellence within an ensemble setting. Membership is determined by audition each fall. Concert programming comprises a wide variety of styles, forms, and genres from several centuries of compositional practice, designed to provide comprehensive exposure to the masterpieces for winds and percussion from the Renaissance period through the modern era. A flexible instrumentation is employed with predominantly one player per part, giving students the opportunity to experience true wind ensemble performance practice. The EWE performs two concerts each semester, regularly participates in world premieres of new music, tours the United States and abroad, and is a national leader in the commissioning of new music, including works by Warren Benson, Steven Bryant, Stephen Paulus, Bruce Broughton, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, John Mackey, David Maslanka, Jonathan Newman, and many others. In 2017, the ensemble was showcased by the College Band Director’s National Association among its peer institutions

with a citation for musical excellence at the “Small Band Showcase,” presented at the Association’s National Conference in Kansas City.

The EWE’s recent collaborations include performances with the Emory University Chorus; the Emory Dance Company; Emory’s Mary Emerson Professor of Piano William Ransom; Chris Martin, principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic; Stuart Stephenson, principal trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Joe Alessi, principal trombone of the New York Philharmonic; Adam Frey, international euphonium solo artist; and Grammy Award–winning solo clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.

The EWE has performed concert tours of Munich, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Lucerne, Graz, Prague, Vienna, and Greece. Additionally, it has performed at the Georgia Music Educators Association (GMEA) State Convention in Savannah, Georgia; at the Southern Division College Band Directors National Association Conference (CBDNA); and for various events on Emory’s campus, including the inauguration of James Wagner as president of Emory University. Most recently, a brass ensemble made up of EWE members performed live during a national broadcast by the National Basketball Association. The EWE is recorded on the NAXOS and Centaur music labels.

Michael Kobito, conductor

Michael Kobito is a music educator, conductor, and trumpeter from Cartersville, Georgia. He serves as the conductor of the Emory Wind Ensemble and associate conductor of Tara Winds.

Prior to his appointment at Emory University, Kobito served as director of bands at Woodland High School in Cartersville. During his tenure as director, the band performed at multiple national events including the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Washington, D.C., the Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service Conference, the Southeastern United States Honor Band Festival, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, University of Georgia’s Janfest Honor Band Festival, and most recently in the 2023 London New Year’s Day Parade. He also taught AP Music Theory, where his students earned a 100 percent pass rate on the AP exam.

As a conductor and trumpeter, Kobito is an active musician, performing regularly around metro Atlanta in Tara Winds and the Georgia Brass Band. As a conductor of Tara Winds, the band was invited

to perform in France at the 2023 Festival des Anches d’Azur in La CroixValmer, and has been invited to perform at the 2024 GMEA In-Service Conference. Additionally, with these groups, Kobito has performed at multiple honor invitational events including the Midwest Clinic in Chicago and the North American Brass Band Competition in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He has served as a guest conductor for the Georgia Brass Band and has been the clinician for multiple honor bands around Georgia and the United States. He has been the recipient of the National Band Association Citation of Excellence for his work with the Woodland Band and Tara Winds on five occasions.

Kobito is a dedicated advocate for education, having served as an ambassador for educators in the state as the 2023 Georgia Teacher of the Year. He is an active keynote speaker, clinician, and panelist on topics around best education practices and pedagogy, teacher recruitment and retention, and the future of education.

Emory Wind Ensemble

Flute/Piccolo

Audrey Chen

Ivana Chen

Runyu Huang

Hannah Huang

Julia Nagel

Sophia Song

Tabitha Watson

Oboe

Zachary Kant

Sophia Kim

Ziang Zhang

Clarinet

Minjoo Kim

Andrew Mijacika

Ian Moon

Eli Parrish

Joe Van Duyn

Charlie Xhang

Bass Clarinet

Nicole Bring

Malachi Woofolk

Bassoon

Nicole McGill

French Horn

Vipul Bansal

Tess Enemark

Risden Harmon

Julianna Ughrin

Saxophone

Abigail Balson

Martin Lin

Wenhui Lu

Clayton Michaels

Rishie Srivastava

Trumpet

Tyler Edwards

Satya Thota

Austin Watkinson

John Zhang

Trombone

Timothy Brewer

Samit Patel

Bass Trombone

Ethan Hsuing

Tuba

Michael Amsel

Eric Juarez

Euphonium

Tyler Edwards

Allen Zhang

Percussion and Timpani

Eric Chen

Kaylor Garamella

James Grant

Aidan Neuser

Peter Rubin

Grace Schlett

Emmy Shi

Jack Xu

Mingyu Zhang

Sunny Zheng

Piano

Jasmine Liu

Harp

Brigid May

Department of Music Administration

Paul Bhasin, Interim Chair

Kristin Wendland, Director of Undergraduate Studies

Laura Emmery, Director of Undergraduate Research

Martha Shockey, Senior Secretary

Kathy Summers, Academic Department Administrator

Julia Hudgins, Academic Services Program Coordinator

Simone McGaw Evans, Program Coordinator

Music at Emory

The Department of Music at Emory University provides an exciting and innovative environment for developing knowledge and skills as a performer, composer, and scholar. Led by a faculty of more than 60 nationally and internationally recognized artists and researchers, our undergraduate and graduate students experience a rich diversity of performance and academic opportunities. Undergraduate students in our department earn a BA in music with a specialization in performance, composition, or research, many of whom simultaneously earn a second degree in another department. True to the spirit of Emory, a liberal arts college in the heart of a research university, our faculty and ensembles also welcome the participation of non-major students from across the Emory campus. Become a part of Music at Emory by giving to the Friends of Music. Your gift provides crucial support to all of our activities. To learn more, visit our website at music.emory.edu or call 404.727.6280.

Upcoming Emory Music Concerts

Many concerts at Emory are free to attend. Visit music.emory.edu or schwartz.emory.edu to view complete event information. If a ticket is required for attendance, prices are indicated in the listings below in the following order: Full price/Emory student price (unless otherwise noted as the price for all students).

Saturday, April 20, 5:00 p.m., Doowon Kim, violin, student recital, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free

Saturday, April 20, 8:00 p.m., StageWorks 2024, Performing Arts Studio, free

Sunday, April 21, 4:00 p.m., Meet Mr. Goffriller, the 320-Year-Old Cello!, ECMSA: Family Series, Carlos Museum, free

Sunday, April 21, 4:00 p.m., Emory Concerto and Aria Competition, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free

Tuesday, April 23, 8:00 p.m., Spring Composition Showcase, Performing Arts Studio, free

Thursday, April 25, 6:00 p.m., Jazz on the Quad, Emory Quadrangle, free

Friday, April 26, and Saturday, April 27, 8:00 p.m., Emory University Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus, featuring the 2024 Guest Composer Commission Winner, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, free

Saturday, April 27, noon, Taekyu Lee, piano, student recital, Performing Arts Studio, free

Sunday, April 28, noon, Kimiko Darcy, piano, student recital, Performing Arts Studio, free

Friday, May 3, noon, Dynamic Duo!, Julie Coucheron and William Ransom, ECMSA: Cooke Noontime Series, Carlos Museum, free, registration required

Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4, 8:00 p.m., A Cappella Soundscapes, Atlanta Master Chorale, Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall, $38/$10, tickets required

Music at Emory

Music at Emory brings together students, faculty, and world-class artists to create an exciting and innovative season of performances, lectures, workshops, and master classes. With more than 150 events each year across multiple Emory venues, audiences experience a wide variety of musical offerings.

We hope you enjoy sampling an assortment of work from our student ensembles, community youth ensembles, artists in residence, professional faculty, up-and-coming prodigies, and virtuosos from around the world.

music.emory.edu