The Thomas C. Duffy

Yale Concert Band

Spring Concert

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director

Friday, April 14, 2023 7:30 pm

Woolsey Hall, Yale University

Director of Bands and Professor of Music Thomas C. Duffy celebrated his 40 th year at Yale in 2022. As a special gift, Yale Bands alumni and friends mounted a fundraising campaign to honor him by naming an annual concert after him. Beginning with this evening’s concert, the Band’s annual April concert will be titled “The Thomas C.

Program

TICHELI BLACKSHAW

SAN MIGUEL ed. Fennell

MAZONE TYZIK

Postcard (1991)

Peace Dancer (2017)

La Oreja de Oro (1984)

Shut Out (2022)

Brian Coffill, guest conductor

Riffs (2009)

Makana Medeiros YSM ’23, drum set

~ intermission ~

COPLEY

Serenade for Wind Nonet (2019)

I. Slow

II. Dance

III. Waltz

IV. Dance

SANTOS

The Seer (2019)

Albert R. Lee, tenor

I. Lonely Nocturne (Langston Hughes, 1942)

II. Circles (Hughes, 1946)

III. Beale Street (Hughes, 1947)

IV. Final Sonnet to Orpheus (Rainer Maria Rilke, 1923)

V. Not What Was (Hughes, 1965)

VI. Call to Creation (Hughes, 1931)

VII. Fire (Hughes, 1926)

VIII. Moan (Hughes, 1926)

IX. Island (Hughes, 1950)

Tonight’s Music

Postcard (1991)

FRANK TICHELI (b. 1958)

“Postcard was commissioned by my friend, colleague, and former mentor, H. Robert Reynolds, in memory of his mother, Ethel Virginia Curry. He requested that I compose not an elegy commemorating her death, but a short energetic piece celebrating her life. In response, I have composed this brief “postcard” as a musical reflection of her character—vibrant, whimsical, succinct.

“It is cast in an ABA’ form. The primary theme, first heard in the flute and clarinet and used in the outer sections, is a palindrome—that is, it sounds the same played forwards or backwards. This theme honors a long-standing tradition in the Reynolds family of giving palindromic names (such as Hannah and Anna) to their children. H. Robert Reynolds’ first name is Harrah. The theme’s symmetry is often broken, sometimes being elongated, other times being abruptly cut off by unexpected events.

“The B section is based on a five-note series derived from the name Ethel: E (E natural) T (te in the solfeggio system, B flat) H (in the German system, B natural) E (E-flat this time) L (la in the solfeggio system, A natural). The development of this motive can be likened to a journey through a series of constantly changing landscapes.

“The A’ section is articulated by the return of the main melody. This section is not identical to the A section but is close enough in spirit to it to give the effect of a large-scale palindrome surrounding the smaller ones.” – Frank Ticheli

Peace Dancer (2017)

JODIE BLACKSHAW (b. 1971)

“Peace Dancer is inspired by the Australian First Nations text of the same name by Roy Henry Vickers (Squamish Nation). In the words of the author:

“‘The story Peace Dancer is about a song and dance that is thousands of years old originating from the time of the flood. Songs have been composed for different Chiefs up and down the Pacific Northwest coast. The Chief who is chosen to do this sacred dance is recognized as a healer in each community, and the songs and dances are a reminder of the great flood and how the people lost their way and their love for all things in creation. During the dance there is a time when the dancer shakes the eagle down from their headdress to remind the people of the flood.’

“While this text affords many music-making opportunities, the composer chose to focus on one moment: ‘We have really lost our way; we have not taught our children love and respect.’

“This is achieved by dividing this short piece into ‘moments’ of meditation, awakening, realization, and humility. It takes you, the audience, on an emotional journey, similar to realizing you have been in the wrong; maybe you have been unkind or acted in a way that does not become you. Once you realize the consequences of your actions, remorse and the understanding that there is a need to move forward with grace and humility follows. Thus is the lesson of Peace Dancer.’ ” –

Jodie Blackshaw

La Oreja de Oro

MARIANO SAN MIGUEL (1879–1935)

(ed. Frederick Fennell) (1984)

Mariano San Miguel drew extensively on the popular musical traditions of his native Spain in his many compositions for band and orchestra. La Oreja de Oro is a pasodoble torero, or bullfighter two-step, with the fanfares, trumpet solo lines, and ornamentation expected in the musical accompaniment to Spain’s most popular traditional sport. The title means “ear of gold” and refers to one of the most prized rewards for a bullfighter: the ear of the bull.

Shut Out (2022)

TYLER MAZONE (b. 1998)

Tyler Mazone is a deaf composer. He says of his piece:

“Shut Out is a piece about the experience of being a disabled person and not quite fitting into society. The repeating structures throughout represent society with disabled people being the melodic and harmonic ideas that wash over and around these structures.

“The piece is cast in three distinct sections, each showing a range of emotions that I and my disabled friends, colleagues, and family feel every day. Shut Out starts off with ponderous music which is the exposition of the burden that we feel every day having to fit into a society that really isn’t built for us. A faster section is ushered in, representing the daily charades that have to be played with society with factors such as ableism, intersectionality, barriers to accessibility, and even socioeconomics. This comes to a climax which leads into an optimistic statement about what society could be like if we worked harder to be more inclusive and accessible. This dream is then yanked out by a sudden ending that sounds like a door being shut in someone’s face.

“Obviously, being shut out is not an experience that is exclusive to disabled people. People affected by things like racial injustice, various stigmas such as xenophobia and homophobia, ableism, and poverty all feel this way. I simply wrote the piece from my lens as a disabled person, but I hope that others who have been shut out of society can connect with this piece, as society could not exist without so many of those that are excluded.”

Riffs (2009)

JEFF TYZIK (b. 1951)

Riffs is a one-movement composition in three sections, which include a fast swing, a heavy medium swing, and an Afro-Cuban finale that turns the wind ensemble into a huge jazz ensemble with the jazz drum soloist leading the way. There is an optional cadenza where the soloist can choose to work out a call-and-response section with the percussionists.

This work was premiered by Michael Burritt and the Eastman Wind Ensemble conducted by Mark Scatterday at the Chicago Midwest Clinic in December 2009.

Serenade for Wind Nonet (2019)

KATAHJ COPLEY (b. 1998)

“This is a piece originally seen as an anti-serenade. I wanted to write about the idea of a relationship going bad. However, I took that idea and decided to go a different route. Instead of this being a piece for the love of someone or the breakup of someone...this is the growth of a person from heartache. The first movement is written from the perspective of someone out of a relationship, hence the rather somber beginning; however, the movement shifts into a change of mood for the person—a more hopeful mood. The second movement is a quirky encounter between two people—they are both shy and don’t know what the future holds for them. The third movement is a scene for a first date for the couple. The final movement begins with the clarinet and is rather slow, however as the movement progresses, it gets faster and louder until the end. This movement represents the pacing of the couple so that they finally admit their love for one another.” – Katahj Copley

The Seer (2019)

ERIK SANTOS

“A ‘Seer’ is one who, through supernatural insight, can see what the future holds, and see through to unseen truths.

“Who is the seer? What does the seer see?

“‘…I’m sitting here in the center of my house this quiet morning. Through the windows, in the outer corners of my eyes, I can see full moon setting on my left and new sun rising on my right. Both gloriously happening now, however, I can only see one or the other if I turn my head. Can’t see both simultaneously. I sit here trying to sum it all up, and see it all at once, but I can’t. There’s a lesson here somewhere in between. The difference between sleeping dreams and waking dreams is difficult to explain…’

“This musical mandala weaves together many disparate strands of creative inspiration i.e., the work of Langston Hughes and Rainer Maria Rilke, Nina Simone, Howlin’ Wolf, Killing Joke, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Rod Serling, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the stories of Parsifal, and Ulysses. As much as possible, I let the subconscious lead, as my conscious mind struggled to render dream dictation into a linear language that might resonate with another. In this liminal state, in between both and neither, the answers lie.” – Erik Santos

Text for The Seer

Lonely Nocturne (Langston Hughes, 1942)

When dawn lights the sky

And day and night meet, I climb my stairs high

Above the grey street. I lift my window

To look at the sky

Where moon kisses star

Goodbye.

When dawn lights the sky

I seek my lonely room. The halls as I go by Echo like a tomb.

And I wonder why

As I take out my key, There is nobody there But me —

When dawn lights the sky.

Wake Up! (Clockwork)

Circles (Hughes, 1946)

The circles spin round

And the circles spin round

And meet in their own tail.

Seasons come, seasons go, The years build their bars

Till we’re in jail.

Like a squirrel in a cage —

For the jail is round — We sometimes find Ourselves upside down.

Beale Street (Hughes, 1947)

The dream is vague

And all confused

With dice and women

And jazz and booze. The dream is vague, Without a name, Yet warm and wavering

And sharp as flame. The loss

Of the dream

Leaves nothing

The same.

Final Sonnet to Orpheus (Rainer Maria Rilke, 1923)

Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen, f ühle, wie dein Atem noch den Raum vermehrt. Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle laß dich läuten. Das, was an dir zehrt, wird ein Starkes über dieser Nahrung. Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein. Was ist deine leidendste Erfahrung?

Ist dir Trinken bitter, werde Wein. Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne, ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn. Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß, zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne. Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin.

Wake Up! (Chaos)

Not What Was (Hughes, 1965)

By then the poetry is written and the wild rose of the world blooms to last so short a time before its petals fall. The air is music and its melody a spiral until it widens beyond the tip of time and so is lost to poetry and the rose — belongs instead to vastness beyond form, to universe that nothing can contain, to unexplored space which sends no answers back to fill the vase unfilled or spread in lines upon another page — that anyhow was never written because the thought could not escape the place in which it bloomed before the rose had gone

Call to Creation (Hughes, 1931)

Listen!

All you beauty-makers, Give up beauty for a moment.

Look at harshness, look at pain, Look at life again.

. . . (text omitted)

Listen!

Futile beauty-makers —

Work for a awhile with the pattern-breakers!

Come for a march with the new-world-makers: Let beauty be!

Fire (Hughes, 1926)

Fire,

Fire, Lord!

Fire gonna burn ma soul!

I ain’t been good, I ain’t been clean —

I been stinkin’, low-down, mean.

Fire,

Fire, Lord!

Fire gonna burn ma soul!

Tell me, brother, Do you believe

If you wanta go to heaben

Got to moan an’ grieve?

Fire,

Fire, Lord!

Fire gonna burn ma soul! . . . (text omitted)

Fire, Fire, Lord!

Fire gonna burn ma soul!

I means Fire, Lord!

Fire gonna burn ma soul!

Moan (Hughes, 1926)

I’m deep in trouble, Nobody to understand, Lord, Lord!

Deep in trouble, Nobody to understand, Lord, Lord!

Gonna pray to ma Jesus, Ask him to gimme His hand. Ma Lord!

I’m moanin’, moanin’, Nobody cares just why.

No Lord!

Moanin’, moanin’, Feels like I could die.

O, Lord!

Sho, there must be peace, Ma Jesus, Somewhere in yo’ sky. Yes, Lord!

Island 1 (Hughes, 1950)

Wave of sorrow, Do not drown me now:

I see the island

Still ahead somehow.

I see the island

And its sands are fair:

Wave of sorrow, Take me there.