Marshall University

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Publication Date

Winter 3-6-2010

Year of Release

2010

Note(s)

Dr. Stephen Lawson, horn

David Patrick, Josh Perry-Parrish, baritone

Alanna Cushing, Mark Smith, piano

Saxophone Quartet:

Jason Mitchell, soprano saxophone

Sarah Vorac, alto saxophone

David Hamilton, tenor saxophone

Zack Merritt, baritone saxophone

Composers and Program Notes:

Ian Dicke

The music of American-born composer and singer/songwriter Ian Dicke (b. 1982) includes works for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, and electronic media. Heralded by the San Francisco Classical Voice as "colorful, well-designed, and deftly scored," Ian's music draws inspiration from his experiences of playing in pop, rock, and experimental groups.

Ian's works have been presented by many ensembles and festivals around the world, including the ISCM World New Music Days, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop, the University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, The San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra conducted by Brad Lubman, Redshift Ensemble, Music X, Indiana State University's Music Now recital series, Capital M, Gamma-UT, Vox Novus, and the SCI National Conference. In 2007, Ian was awarded a MetLife Creative Connections grant from the Meet the Composer Foundation.

Ian holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is currently a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin. Ian's past teachers include David

Conte, Dan Becker, Bright Sheng, and Michael Daugherty. For more information on works in progress, upcoming performances, commissioning, and score rentals, please visit www.iandicke.com.

GET RICH QUICK (2009) for piano and electronics

Dear Friend,

In less than one year, I've been able to amass a personal net

worth of over one million dollars. And I did so using a unique

formula that's been proven successful week after week-month

after month with no signs of slowing down.

I know this sounds crazy-but it's not.

This formula is not a scheme or a scam ... and this has nothing to

do with anything you'd be ashamed to be involved in. I'm not

misleading you in any way. The claims I'm making are factual

and they are all based on my personal experience.

Just pay those bills when-it comes in!

Brendan Faegre (b. 1:985) is currently studying composition with Don Freund while enrolled in the Master of Music program at Indiana University, where he previously studied composition with Claude Baker and Michael Gandolfi. A native of Portland, Oregon, he graduated cum laude from the University of Puget Sound in 2007 with a degree in music and a minor in philosophy. There he studied composition with Robert Hutchinson and percussion with Amy Putnam. Brendan's most recent honors include his Tihai rece1vmg a 2009 BMI Student Composer Award, being named the 2009 ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Fellow for study at Bowdoin International Music, and his The Circular Ruins receiving 1st prize in the Beethoven Club 2009 Student Composition Contest. Brendan's life journey thus far has taken him through the roles of tabla disciple of Pandit Ramdas Palsule; private instructor of percussion, music theory, and composition; jazz ensemble coach; radio host; professional jazz drummer and symphonic percussionist; lecturer on Hindustani Classical music; Alaskan carpenter; and now composition student and Associate Instructor of Music Theory at Indiana University. This versatile background has equipped him with many compositional tools to use while crafting his works. Fascinated by analogies between music and other artistic disciplines (carpentry included), Brendan is always pursuing a more diverse tool-belt, currently so through studying the Norwegian language. For more information, please visit www.brendanfaegre.com.

The Immortals is a musical setting of a poem written by Harry Haller, the main character of Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf. To me, this poem is an eloquent and artistic summary of the solution to Haller's spiritual struggles, and presents a view of life that I personally find very appealing. In this view, the Immortals-the supreme and ideal forms of being-simply view all of humanity through a lens of humor and detachment. Instead of promoting a lifelong struggle, this view suggests a passive acceptance of the horrible and contradictory, yet inevitable, features of human life.

I particularly enjoy the analogy implied by the poem: just as we humans become lost in the world of a tragic play or movie, only to emerge from the theater and regain our daily concerns, so do the Immortals become momentarily engrossed in the details and actions of our lives, only to snap back into their own reality, where they are reminded that the drama of the earth is "but as a show." Ultimately, the only human act they truly value is that of creating art; after all, they did write the poem.

In setting the poem, I tried to generally follow the natural rhythms and inflections of the spoken text, in order to make the words more coherent and the musical line well suited to the English language. I also strove to follow and embellish upon the form of the poem, as established by its content, in order to enhance the power and make more clear the meaning I found in the poem.

THE IMMORTALS

Ever reeking from the vales of earth

Ascends to us life's fevered surge,

Wealth's excess, the rage of dearth,

Smoke of death-meals on the gallows verge;

Greed without end, spasmodic lust;

Murderers' hands, usurers' hands, hands of prayer;

Exhales in foetid breath the human swarm

Whipped on by fear and lust, blood raw, blood warm,

Breathing blessedness and savage heats,

Eating itself and spewing what it eats,

Hatching war and lovely art,

Decking out with idiot craze

Bawdy houses while they blaze,

Through the childish fair-time mart

Weltering to its own decay

In the glare of pleasure's way,

Rising for each new-born and then

Sinking for each to dust again.

But we above you ever more residing

In the ether's star translumined ice

Know not day nor night nor time's dividing,

Wear nor age nor sex for our device.

All your sins and anguish self-affrighting,

Your murders and lascivious delighting

Are to us but as a show

Like the suns that circling go

Let the longest day be day and night;

On your frenzied life we spy,

And refresh ourselves thereafter

With the stars in order fleeing;

Our breath is winter in our sight

Fawns the dragon of the sky;

Cool and unchanging is our eternal being,

Cool and star bright is our eternal laughter. - Hermann Hesse

Josh Perry-Parrish is a doctoral candidate in music composition at the University of Maryland. He co-directs The Experimental Music Performance Organization (TEMPO) at the University of Maryland, and he is the conductor of Maryland Cantabile and the Worship Ministry Leader for the Columbia (Maryland) Church of Christ. As a vocalist, he has served as cantor and staff singer at several Washington-area churches and has performed regularly in the Bach Cantata Series at UMD. His compositions have most recently been commissioned by the Maryland State Boychoir, Kronos Quartet, the University of Maryland Chamber Singers (of which he is a member), and the College of Notre Dame concert choir.

Nativity in a Time of Revolution explores common elements in the familiar story of Christ's birth and in stories of the birth of a country, the United States of America, as told in selected writings of the country's beloved Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin. Contiguous scenes from the King James Bible's Gospel of Luke are punctuated by texts drawn from two memoirs and a letter by Dr. Franklin, along with one letter written to him. These Revolutionary reflections on war, suffering, and (ultimately) faith highlight the uncertainty and fear that, in my reading, pervade the Nativity story and give meaning to the unsettling hope, the frightening revolution, toward which it leads.

Paul David Thomas

Paul is a DMA teaching fellow at the University of North Texas. Paul's acoustic and electronic music has been presented throughout the United States and Europe including Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, NACUSA Texas Conference, OWU/NOW Festival, Most Significant Bytes Festival, Threshold Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electric Pacific, Chamber Music in Grantham with the Mendelssohn Piano Trio, Western Illinois New Music Festival, Delta State University New Music Ensemble, New Music Hartford, Soundcrawl: Nashville, Greater Denton Arts Council, Música Viva Festival Soundwalk (Lisbon, Portugal), Electroacoustic Juke Joint, American Composers Forum/Los Angeles Chapter, and the Consetvatorio Luigi Cherubini (Florence, Italy). Originally from northeastern Ohio, Paul received degrees in composition from Cedarville University and Bowling Green State University and has studied composition with Marilyn Shrude, Elainie Lillios, Mikel Kuehn, Cindy McTee, Andrew May, David Bithell, and Joseph Klein and piano with John Mortensen. Paul is also an active accompanist and associate director of music at Trinity United Methodist Church in Denton, TX – all of which helps support his composing habit.

Combustible

The pitch material for this piece is derived from a six-notes scale. The form of the piece was inspired by Elliott Carter’s second and third string quartets. Throughout the piece, the two upper voices dialogue and argue with the two lower voices and vice versa. The beginning of the piece is an all-out brawl between the four instruments. The tenor and baritone sax then share a cadenza-like section where they slow down the tempo. Following a section where all the parts share in friendly conversation, the soprano and alto saxophone begin to squabble in their own cadenza section. The final section is similar in intensity to the first but the instrumental pairing are more rapid and diverse. Like any conversation, there is a moment of uncomfortable silence before the piece ends in a flourish.

Note

Smith Recital Hall

Keywords

recitals, student composers, new music

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Fine Arts | Music | Music Performance

Marshall University Music Department Presents the 2010 SCI National Student Conference: Concert Five

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