The Americans — (musical composers of the USA, not the Soviet spy TV show).

The City Of Fairfax Band, Robert Pouliot music director

Saturday, May 19, 2018 | 7:30 pm
Fairfax High School Auditorium, Fairfax VA
Featuring the Fairfax Saxophone Quartet

Presenting an evening of all-American music by Aaron Copland, Paul Creston, Alfred Reed, John Phlilp Sousa, and John Williams, plus a tribute to Stephen Foster featuring the Fairfax Saxophone Quartet. Adding to the celebration is the presentation of the winner of the 2018 City of Fairfax Band Young Artist Competition in performance with the band.

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Tuba Concerto (Edward Gregson, 1945 – ). Edward Gregson was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, in 1945. He is a composer of international standing whose music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded worldwide. He has written orchestral, chamber, instrumental, and choral music, as well as major contributions to the wind and brass repertoire. He has also written music for the theatre, film, and television. Gregson has completed commissions for orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, and Hallé orchestras. However, it is his concertos for various instruments that form the backbone of his orchestral output: for horn (1971), tuba (1976), trumpet (1983), trombone (1979), clarinet (1994), piano (1997), violin (2000), saxophone (2006), cello (2007), and flute (2013). Gregson’s Tuba Concerto was commissioned by the Besses o’ th’ Barn Band with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. It was written for, and is dedicated to, John Fletcher, who gave the first performance in Middleton Civic Hall, near Manchester, on 24 April, 1976, with Besses o’ th’ Barn Band conducted by the composer. The première was was recorded by BBC Television for an Omnibusprogramme with André Previn as presenter. The concerto exists in three versions: with brass band (1976), orchestra (1978) and wind band (1984). The Tuba Concerto has established itself as one of the main works in the solo tuba repertoire. It has been performed and broadcast in over 40 countries all over the world. There are currently six commercial recordings of the concerto in its various versions. (Note adapted from edwardgregson.com)

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El Camino Real (Alfred Reed, 1921-2005). Literally translated as “The Royal Road” or “The King’s Highway,” El Camino Real was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the 581^stAir Force Band (AFRES) and its Commander, Lt. Col. Ray E. Toler. Composed during the latter half of 1984 and completed in early 1985, it bears the subtitle: A Latin Fantasy. The music is based on a series of chord progressions common to countless generations of Spanish flamenco guitarists, whose fiery style and brilliant playing have captivated millions of music lovers throughout the world. These progressions and the resulting key relationships have become practically synonymous with what we feel to be the true Spanish idiom. Together with the folk melodies they have underscored, in part derived by a procedure known to musicians as the “melodizing of harmony,” they have created a vast body of what most people would consider authentic Spanish music. The first section of the music is based upon the dance form known as the Jota, while the second, contrasting section is derived from the Fandango, here altered considerably in both time and tempo from its usual form. Overall, the music follows a traditional three-part pattern: fast-slow-fast. Alfred Reed was born on Manhattan Island in New York City on January 25, 1921. His formal music training began at the age of 10, when he studied trumpet. As a teenager, he played with small hotel combos in the Catskill Mountains. His interests shifted from performing to arranging and composition. In 1938, he started working in the Radio Workshop in New York as a staff composer/arranger and assistant conductor. With the onset of World War II, he enlisted and was assigned to the 529^thArmy Air Corps Band. During his 3½years of service, he produced nearly 100 compositions and arrangements for band. After his discharge, Reed enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music and studied composition with Vittorio Giannini. In 1953, he enrolled at Baylor University, serving as conductor of the Symphony Orchestra while he earned a Bachelor of Music degree (1955). A year later, he received his Master of Music degree. His interest in the development of educational music led him to serve as executive editor of Hansen Publishing from 1955 to 1966. He left that position to become a professor of music at the University of Miami, where he served until his retirement in 1993. After retirement, he continued to compose and made numerous appearances as guest conductor in many nations, most notably in Japan. At the age of 84, on September 17, 2005, Alfred Reed passed away after a short illness. (Program note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California — http://www.fswinds.org)

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The March From “1941″(John Williams, 1932- ). What happens when a top movie director combines epic-film special effects with a Three Stooges plotline? If the director is Steven Spielberg and the1979 headline actors are Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi and Slim Pickens, the answer is “1941” – and Spielberg had to know that even if his war comedy flopped, it would be a light-hearted flop, along the lines of Used Cars and Animal House. Plus, there was some snappy music, including the title march by John Williams. The band transcription is by Paul Lavender.

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Divertimento for Band (Vincent Persichetti, 1915-1987). Persichetti’s musical and artistic talent emerged in his early youth. He first publicly performed music he that he composed himself at age 14. While still in his teens, Persichetti was paying for his own education by accompanying and performing, taking on the roles of church organist, orchestral player, and radio station pianist. He also attended art school and remained an avid sculptor all his life. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1936 from Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, he was immediately offered a teaching position. By age 20, Persichetti was simultaneously head of the theory and composition department at Combs, a conducting major at the Curtis Institute, and a student of piano and composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory. He earned a master’s degree in 1941 and a doctorate in 1945 from the Conservatory, as well as a conducting diploma from Curtis. In 1941, while still a student, Persichetti headed the theory and composition department as well as the department of postgraduate study at Philadelphia Conservatory. In 1947, William Schuman offered him a professorship at Juilliard. While at Juilliard School of Music, Persichetti devoted himself to the wind band movement and led other prominent composers to write wind band music. Each of the six movements of Persichetti’s Divertimento for Bandcovers a completely different mood and style. Agitated woodwind figures and aggressive brass polychords in the first and last movements contrast with the delicate and lyrical inner movements. It has been said that Persichetti’s use of instruments makes the reeds the movers, the brass the pointers, and the percussion the connectors and high-lighters. The opening “Prologue” is driving and electric, while the “Song” (Mvt. 2) demonstrates Persichetti’s lyricism as he weaves together two simple and attractive melodies. In the “Dance” (Mvt. 3) the woodwinds the melody around and about a solo trumpet passage. The pesanteopening of the “Burlesque” (Mvt. 4) suddenly changes to brightlywith no change in tempo, but a complete change in the texture. The beauty of the “Soliloquy” (Mvt. 5) belongs to the solo cornet. The percussion entrance of the concluding “March” returns the pace to that of the original opening as the brass and woodwind choirs sound over the punctuation and timbre of the percussion section.(Note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California – fswinds.org)

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The Rifle Regiment (John Philip Sousa, 1954-1932). Sousa composed The Rifle Regimentin 1886. It is one of several compositions he sold outright to Harry Coleman, a Philadelphia publisher, for $35.00 a title. An article by Frederick Fennell explains that “Sousa discovered very early in his life as a composer that what he had to offer through his marches was a music that people really wanted to hear and sometimes to dance to and for which they were ready to pay; these were to remain inseparable touchstones to success throughout his life. Once his marches in their basic pattern had established him as the March King, he chose to reign in this realm only, in spite of his long interest and initial success in musical theater. . . . From the outset of his career as a composer of memorable marches he obviously lived up to his later specifications for the writing of something ‘as free from padding as a marble statue.’ Our Flirtations was followed chronologically by Sound Off(1885), The Gladiator(1886), and The Rifle Regiment(1886), three of his very best achievements. Each of these continued to reveal a composer with something to say that was worth ‘marching’ to.” The title of the march refers to the The Third Infantry, known “The Old Guard.”

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Legend (Paul Creston, 1906-1985). Paul Creston’s American name was self-fabricated (he was christened Giuseppe Guttivergi), but his emotionally generous music hints at his Italian heritage. During his childhood, Creston visited Sicily with his mother where he was exposed to the folk songs and dances of the Sicilian peasants, an experience that awakened his love of music. Upon his return to the USA, he persuaded his parents to let him begin music lessons. They said OK. The precocious Creston quickly surpassed the abilities of his teacher and by age 14 he began to chart his own path. In 1934 he became organist at St. Malachy’s Church, New York City. He had no formal training in music theory, teaching himself composition by studying musical scores and by reading. Yet after leaving St. Malachy’s in 1967, he taught at Central Washington State College until his retirement in 1975. He was also active as a conductor and lecturer, excelling as a teacher, and publishing books about rhythm and harmony despite being almost entirely self-taught. Creston was a prolific composer for the concert hall, radio, and television, and wrote a dozen or more compositions for concert band including Legend (1942), which was written for Edwin Franko Goldman and premiered by the Goldman Band in New York City. Creston stated that he strove “to incorporate all that is good from earliest times to the present day. . . . I make no special effort to be American: I conscientiously work to be my true self, which is Italian by parentage, American by birth and cosmopolitan by choice.” (Note adapted from classical.net)

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An Outdoor Overture (Aaron Copland, 1900-1990). After studying with Rubin Goldmark, Aaron Copland went to Paris in 1921 to study with Nadia Boulanger. Returning in 1924, he sought a style “that could speak of universal things in a vernacular of American speech rhythms,” simplifying the chords and freshening the melodic language. Copland’s ballet and theater scores (Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Rodeo) and his orchestral and recital repertory (El Salon Mexico, Lincoln Portrait, Fanfare for the Common Man, Quiet City) awaken visions of the beauty and grandeur of America and of it heroes and workers. Campaigning in the 1930s for American music to be written for American youth, the director of the New York High School of Music & Art commissioned Aaron Copland to write a single-movement piece, “optimistic in tone, that would appeal to the adolescent youth of this country.” Copland was so taken with the idea that he took a month off from work on Billy The Kid to write An Outdoor Overture, which premiered in 1938. For the Goldman Band, Copland completed the concert band version in 1941. Critics characterized the piece as “kid stuff,” but were chastised by composer Elliott Carter who said Copland’s Outdoor Overture “contains some of his finest and most personal music. Its opening is as lofty and beautiful as any passage that has been written by a contemporary composer.” (Note adapted from Foothill Symphonic Winds, Los Altos Hills, California – fswinds.org)

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Stephen Foster Revisited (Bill Holcombe, 1924-2010). While studying composition at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941, Bill Holcombe was also a pupil of Harold Bennett, then the piccolo player of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to his extensive training in writing music, Holcombe majored in flute at Julliard. After WW2, he returned to Penn, working his way through college by playing in big bands and doing big-band arranging. After graduating from Penn (with high honors), Holcombe went to New York City to get in on the radio station musical staff and recording scene. While studying with Dick Jacobs and Sy Oliver, he was introduced to Tommy Dorsey, who hired him as a utility reed player and staff arranger. After a year with the Tommy Dorsey Band, Holcombe returned to New York, taking a six-month position with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. Following that, he was immediately hired to play first flute and woodwind doubles for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at WMGM, their New York radio station. In the late 1950s, Bill Holcombe wrote the music for several film scores. Throughout the 1960s, he wrote recording arrangements for 101 Strings during the day and played Broadway musicals at night. Stephen Foster Revisited was commissioned by and dedicated to the Empire Saxophone Quartet of Ithaca, New York. The piece was premiered by the Binghamton (New York) Pops Orchestra on May 11, 1991.

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