Program Notes

WIND ENSEMBLE

Waltz No. 2 (adapted from Publisher’s Notes)

Originally misidentified as the “lost” Suite for Jazz Orchestra, No. 2, Shostakovich's Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra is notable for the addition of saxophones, accordion and guitar to the typical symphony orchestra instrumentation. The appealing second waltz is in a light classical style and has found its way into a wide range of television and film scores. This is fitting, since the Waltz No. 2 was composed from cues Shostakovich wrote for a 1955 war romance film entitled The First Echelon.

Of Endless Miles and Empty Rafts (Composer’s notes)

Throughout time and regardless of origin, immigrants have shown a spiritual courage and resolve to survive that has found countless families suffering perilous journeys in search of safety. Many have been lost along the way. As a child of Cuban parents who fled oppression (leaving much behind to build a new life), my respect and empathy for all immigrants runs deep. Although my parents’ (still traumatic) exoduses were not by sea, several family members’ and friends’ journeys were. Throughout my life I have heard stories of near losses and rafts washing ashore, empty. I still recall the feelings since childhood - wondering who they were and what happened to them.

This piece is in no way intended as a contemporary statement but rather as an empathetic look at humanity’s struggles to protect innocent families throughout history, and a tribute to my own ancestors’ courage. Many of us are descendants of immigrants at some point in our deep histories, regardless of era or origin. During my 30 years as a public school teacher in Miami, I had countless (precious) students who suffered trauma from the dangers of their immigrant journey, and so this original composition honors displaced souls from all eras and walks of life, irrespective of hemisphere who have fled homes in search of safety for themselves and their children. The piece is written using two authentic Afro-Cuban forms: Guaguancó and Son-Montuno. In this work, many authentic patterns are woven into the fabric of the winds as well.

Shenandoah (Composer’s Notes)

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 of 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 afterwards. 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.

Galop (from University of North Texas Wind Symphony)

Galop from “The Limpid Stream” (1935) was originally written by Shostakovich for his third ballet, The Limpid Stream, a story about a group of ballet dancers who are sent to provide entertainment to a new Soviet collective farm in Kuban, known as The Limpid Stream. After complicated amorous intrigues, it turns out the country-folk have more to teach those from the city than the other way around. The Limpid Stream was by far the most popular of Shostakovich’s ballets. Its deliberately simple-minded melodies, banal harmonies, straightforward rhythms, and garish colors had the work playing successfully in both Leningrad and Moscow from June 1935 through February 1936.

However, The Limpid Stream and, by implication, its suite were condemned in Pravda in an editorial in early February 1936. Of the three ballets, The Limpid Stream was punished most grotesquely by the Soviet government - the co-librettist, Adrian Piotrovsky, was sent to a gulag and never heard from again, and the creative career of its choreographer, Fedor Lopukhov, was all but terminated. Fortunately, Shostakovich was able to salvage some of the music from the ballet and the suite in the first four ballet suites he and his friend Levon Atovmyan compiled in 1949-1953. Galop from "The Limpid Stream" became the sixth movement of the Ballet Suite No. 3.