Colonel Arnald Gabriel, legendary conductor emeritus of The U.S. Air Force Band, will lead the City Of Fairfax Band in commemorating the Air Force’s 70th anniversary and his own 21-year legacy as the Air Force Band’s longest serving leader. Guest soloist will be Olivia Johann, the City of Fairfax Band 2017 Young Artist Competition winner. The annual contest supports the development of standout Northern Virginia high school instrumentalists planning music careers. Be there for a special evening with a true American hero!
For tickets — http://www.fairfaxband.org
Conductor: Robert Pouliot, music director.
Host: Rich Kleinfeldt.
Guest Conductor: Col. Arnald Gabriel (USAF, ret.).
Guest Artist: Olivia Johann, Thomas Jefferson High School.
Notes on the musical program . . .
American Hero (Bruce Broughton, 1945 – ). Film and television composer Bruce Broughton has written several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, in addition to a number of instrumental solos and concert pieces for band, orchestra, and chamber ensembles. He is also a lecturer in composition at UCLA. American Hero was composed during the summer of 2000 and dedicated to Brigadier General Robert L. Scott Jr. (1908-2006), author of God Is My Co-Pilot, the story of Gen. Scott’s WW2 flying experiences. In musical terms, American Hero represents the qualities of courage, compassion, and nobility that are the hallmarks of all American heroes, young and old, no matter what walk of life they travel.
Sentimental Journey (music by Les Brown [1912-2001] & Ben Homer [1917-1975], words by Bud Greene [1897-1981].) Les Brown and His Band Of Renown had been performing the song, but were unable to record it because of a musicians’ strike. When the strike ended in 1945 the band recorded the tune and soon had themselves a top selling record – Doris Day’s first No. 1 hit. Because the song’s release coincided with the end of WW2 in Europe, it became the unofficial homecoming theme song for lots of returning veterans. The song describes someone about to take a train to a place they have a great emotional attachment for. It describes their mounting anticipation and they wonder why they ever roamed away. Les Brown himself wrote the concert band arrangement of the tune specially for Col. Arnald D. Gabriel, tonight’s guest conductor.
The Longest Day (Paul Anka, 1941 – ). The Longest Day is a 1962 epic WW2 war movie based on a 1959 book of the same title by author Cornelius Ryan, who dedicated the book to all the men of D-Day. The docudrama-style movie begins in the days leading up to D-Day, concentrating on events on both sides of the English Channel, such as the Allies waiting for a break in the poor weather and anticipating the reaction of the Axis forces defending northern France. The film pays particular attention to the decision by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander, to go ahead despite the initial bad-weather reports, as well as reports about the divisions within the German High Command as to where an invasion might happen or what the response to it should be. Paul Anka, who wrote the title song of The Longest Day, also played the part of a U.S. Army Ranger in the film.
Eagle Squadron March (Kenneth J. Alford). Kenneth J. Alford is the pseudonym of Major Fredrick Joseph Ricketts of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines (1881-1945). Ricketts lied about his age so he could join the band of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1895, playing cornet, violin, and euphonium. He continued in the army until 1927, when he was commissioned into the Royal Marines as a Director of Music. He retired in 1944 after nearly 50 years in uniform. Alford is known for his stately and dignified military marches, many of which he wrote during the approach of WW2 as his own best effort at helping in the war effort by celebrating, in music, those who were defending Great Britain. His last two marches were Army of the Nile (celebrating British victory over Mussolini’s forces in Africa) and Eagle Squadron, which commemorates the participation of 244 American airmen who volunteered to fly with the Royal Air Force before the USA was drawn into the war. The American units (Squadrons 71, 121, and 133 of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command) were the Eagle Squadrons, formed in September 1940. During their two years of service, before their members left the RAF and joined the USAAF, they destroyed 73½ German planes, at a cost of 77 American and five British killed in action. Alford’s Eagle Squadron March uses musical quotations from The Star Spangled Banner, Rule Britannia, and the Royal Air Force March Past, plus a passing reference to Wagner’s “Ring” operas.
Salute to the Armed Services. Besides being our bulwark of national defense, the American Armed Forces are part of America’s popular culture as well as the personal identity of the many Americans who served, and of their families. The special songs linked to each branch of the service are as identifiable as the distinctive uniforms of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Air Force. The U.S. Army’s official song, adapted from John Philip Sousa’s “Field Artillery March,” is titled “The Army Goes Rolling Along.” “Anchors Aweigh” the official march of the United States Navy, was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann, with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. Oldest of the service anthems is “The Marines’ Hymn,” with some versions of the lyrics said to date from the 19th century and a tune adapted from an 1867 French opera. “Semper Paratus” (Always Prepared), the Coast Guard anthem, was written in 1927 by USCG Captain Francis Saltus Van Boskerck. The U.S. Air Force song dates from 1938, when Robert MacArthur Crawford (the “Flying Baritone”) won a magazine contest for a musical composition that would become the official song of the U.S. Army Air Corps. In 1947, when the U.S. Air Force became a separate service, the song became the “Air Force Song.”
Honor With Dignity (Jari Villanueva, 1955 – ). Jari Villanueva is from Baltimore. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree in 1978 from Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory and a Master of Music degree in 1984 from Kent State University, Ohio. Jari Villanueva retired from the United States Air Force after 23 years of service with The United States Air Force Band, Washington DC. In the Air Force Band he was a trumpeter, bugler, assistant drum major, staff arranger, and music copyist. He is considered the country’s foremost expert on military bugle calls, particularly Taps, which is sounded at military funerals. He was the Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge of the Air Force Band’s State Funeral Plans and NCOIC of the command post at Andrews AFB which oversaw the arrival and departure ceremonies for the late Presidents Reagan and Ford. As a ceremonial trumpeter, Villanueva participated in well over 5,000 ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, and served as assistant drum major leading The USAF Ceremonial Brass in military funerals at Arlington in addition to being responsible for all the music performed by the USAF Bands for state funerals. His composition titled Honor With Dignity is dedicated to the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard, whose official motto, reflecting the solemnity of the unit’s mission, is “To Honor with Dignity.” The intermezzo (“break strain”) of the march makes musical reference to a number of U.S. Air Force marches and songs.
Glenn Miller In Concert (arranged by Wayne Scott). Alton Glenn Miller began a solid mid-western life in Clarinda, Iowa, in 1904. When he was 3, his family homesteaded in Tryon, Nebraska. A pump organ, played by his mother, would fill their sod house with music. Moving again, as a teen, to Missouri, Miller earned money to buy a trombone by milking cows. He attended two years of college at the University of Colorado, but his interest in the new dance band music led him to leave school and try his luck in Los Angeles. He found work in several groups, including Ben Pollack’s orchestra, touring alongside a clarinetist named Benny Goodman. When Pollack’s orchestra moved to New York, Miller left the group to successfully freelance in that city. In 1934, he helped Ray Noble organize an orchestra that gained popularity through its radio broadcasts. Four years later, he started the Glenn Miller Orchestra (really, the second band with that name). With engagements at summer resorts in New York and New Jersey, together with radio broadcasts, the orchestra started breaking attendance records at his engagements. Contributing to the special sound of his arrangements was the use of the clarinet as the lead instrument, harmonically supported by saxophones. His recording of “Tuxedo Junction” sold 115,000 copies in the first week of its release. He earned the first gold record ever awarded for “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Too old to be drafted, Miller volunteered for the Navy in 1942, but they could not use his services. Undaunted, Miller persuaded the Army to accept him “to put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy into their hearts.” He joined the Army Air Corps as a Captain, later rising to the rank of Major. During WW2, Miller’s band entertained more than a million troops. On the night of December 15, 1944, Miller embarked on a military flight to Paris to make arrangements for a Christmas broadcast to the troops. The flight took off in foggy weather and was lost over the English Channel. His disappearance adds poignance to the nostalgic warmth of his music’s lasting appeal. Glenn Miller In Concert features “Little Brown Jug,” “At Last,” “ Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” Pennsylvania Six Five Thousand,” and “Moonlight Serenade.”
Flight (Claude T. Smith, 1932-1987). Claude Smith, from Monroe City, Missouri, started playing trumpet in 5th grade. He kept it up all through school and college (Central Methodist College, Fayette MO) until the army drafted him during the Korean War. Finding all the army band trumpet sections full up, he auditioned instead on French horn and won a position with the 371st Army Band (Ft. Leavenworth KS). After army service, Smith completed undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas (Lawrence KS). He taught instrumental music in Nebraska and Missouri junior and senior high schools before going on to teach composition and conduct the orchestra at Southwest Missouri State University. In 1978, Smith started full-time as composer and consultant for music publishers. During his career, he composed over 120 works for band, chorus, orchestra, and smaller ensembles. As a clinician and guest conductor, he received numerous awards and honors, including election as president of the Missouri Music Educators Association. Claude T. Smith’s concert march titled Flight is the official march of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
Lord, Guard & Guide (The Men Who Fly), by Robert Jager (1939 – ). Robert Jager was born in Binghamton NY in 1939 and received his education at the University of Michigan. He served as staff arranger at the Armed Forces School of Music while a member of the United States Navy. In 2001 he retired as Professor of Music and Director of Theory & Composition at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville TN. Jager has over 65 published compositions for band, orchestra, and various chamber groupings, with more than 35 of those commissioned by such ensembles as the United States Marine Band and the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra. Jager’s composition titled Lord, Guard & Guide (The Men Who Fly) is a setting of the United States Air Force Hymn, whose lyrics are derived from a prayer by the poet Mary C.D. Hamilton:
Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In dark’ning storms or sunshine fair.
Thou who dost keep with tender might
The balanced birds in all their flight,
Thou of the tempered winds, be near,
That, having thee, they know no fear.
Control their minds with instinct fit
What time, adventuring, they quit
The firm security of land;
Grant steadfast eye and skilful hand.
Aloft in solitudes of space,
Uphold them with Thy saving grace.
O God, protect the men who fly
Through lonely ways beneath the sky.
Concerto in C for Oboe (attr. Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732-1809). The baroque period was nearing a close during Haydn’s childhood and by the time of his death the world of music was getting ready for the outburst of personal feelings known as romanticism. Between those two periods, Haydn played an enormous part in establishing the style of music called classical. His music inspired Mozart, Cherubini, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. (Haydn and Mozart were friends. They learned from each other and played chamber music together whenever they could get together in Vienna.) Haydn wrote an abundance of solo concertos, including 15 for piano, three for violin, two for horn, and two for cello, plus concertos for trumpet and flute. The Oboe Concerto in C, attributed to Haydn, is a classical era piece that may actually have been composed by one of Papa Haydn’s students or possibly one of his contemporaries, then later attributed to the master.
Kitty Hawk (John Cheetham, 1939 – ). John Cheetham, Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Missouri-Columbia, was born in Taos, New Mexico, in 1939. He holds bachelor and masters degrees from the University of New Mexico, as well as the Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the University of Washington. During his tenure at Missouri, Dr. Cheetham has written works for band, orchestra, and numerous chamber compositions. Over 20 of his compositions have been published and recorded. He has been the recipient of numerous commissions, including those from the Kentucky Derby Museum, Tennessee Tech University, Texas Tech University, The New Mexico Brass Quintet, and the Summit Brass. His concert march Kitty Hawk commemorates the place on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, chosen for its steady winds for lift and its beach sands for soft landings, where after four years of experiments Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first successful airplane flights in 1903. With courage and perseverance and wit, those self-taught engineers relied on teamwork and application of the scientific process. Their world-changing achievement is celebrated in John Cheetham’s lively concert march. (Biographical material by Foothill College Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California. Used by permission.)
Hymn to the Fallen (John Williams, 1932 – ).With Saving Private Ryan, John Williams has written a memorial for all the soldiers who sacrificed themselves on the altar of freedom in the Normandy Invasion of June 6, 1944. Pay particular attention to the cue titled Hymn to the Fallen, which never appears anywhere in the main text of the film, only at the end credit roll. It’s a piece of music and a testament to John Williams’s sensitivity and brilliance that, in my opinion, will stand the test of time and honor forever the fallen of this war and possibly all wars. In all of our 16 collaborations, Saving Private Ryan probably contains the least amount of score. Restraint was John Williams’s primary objective. He did not want to sentimentalize or create emotion from what already existed in raw form. Saving Private Ryan is furious and relentless, as are all wars, but where there is music, it is exactly where John Williams intends for us the chance to breathe and remember.(From the soundtrack album note by producer-director Steven Spielberg.)
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