LYS Spring Concert 2024

Violins
Evelyn Chen
Yaikah Jow
Ethan Liu
Sruthi Maheshkumar
Siddarth Rajasekhakan
Mia Vinod

Cello
Viviana Jurkovich
Peyton Kani
Jasper Kuester
William Quinlan

Harp
Jasper Kuester

Shimmering with joyful enthusiasm, the energetic opening ensemble figures shine through to the very end. A flowing melody dances on top of a pulsing accompaniment as the piece surges forward, transitioning to a majestic, yet haunting, statement. Returning to the cheerful theme, the piece reprises the introduction material with glistening notes and an exhilarating conclusion. Uplifting and inspiring!

Journey to a land of elven magic, windswept plains, and mystical forests in Legend of the Dragon Chasers by Chris Thomas. The music takes the audience on a fantastical journey, exploring a variety of musical textures and landscapes. Broad, cinematic melodies shift between driving, adventurous rhythms and romantic, legato passages that weave an exciting tale.

This very creative settings of the extremely popular Taiwanese folk song has b een designed to help the student orchestra develop a sensitive and lyrical sty le. Accompanied by lush, modern-sounding harmonies, the simple, yet beautiful, melody is passed from section to section, and even used canonically. With sol os for violin and cello, Spring Breezes also features an important accompanime nt part for harp or piano.

Like the underscore of an international spy movie, this piece promises drama from the opening bar. The evocative harmonies, plus tight moving lines and syncopated rhythms, immediately catch the ear. Pulsating eighth-note patterns drive the piece all the way through to the spirited conclusion.

Flute
Lyra Klinger

Alto Sax
Damian Fuentez
Finn Trekoske Houghton
Charles Jow

Trumpet
Eva Fuhr
Alex Dayal
Betty Kuester
Traivs Plaster

Baritone
Denver Lindsay

Trombone
Ace DiMarco

Tuba
Henry Brooks
Betty Kuester

Percussion
Carson Palmer
Connar Haakenson

Jay Bocook's "Shackelford Banks" is a compelling musical homage to one of North Carolina's most enchanting locales. Through his vivid orchestration and emotive melodies, Bocook not only paints a picture of Shackelford Banks' scenic landscapes and legendary horses but also invites audiences to contemplate the broader themes of nature, survival, and freedom. As you listen to this piece, let the music transport you to the windswept shores of Shackelford Banks, where the wild horses run free, and the tales of yore echo in the salty air.

Down by the Salley Gardens was a poem written by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1889 as "An Old Song Re-Sung, an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself.”

Down by the Salley Gardens
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.

In a field by the river
my love and I did meet
She passed the Salley Gardens
With little snow-white feet
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish
With her would not agree

The haunting melody of this traditional Irish folk song is treated here in a warm and colorful setting. The instrumentation is varied and a wealth of musical elements are provided through creative harmonizations and carefully placed key changes.

Maurits Cornels Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists, known for playing with architecture, perspective, and impossible spaces. Born in the Netherlands, he traveled to Italy and Spain early in his career, and was fascinated by the mosaic tilings of the Alhambra Castle and the Mezquita of Cordoba. During his lifetime, Escher made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and more than 2000 drawings and sketches. In addition to his work as a graphic artist, he illustrated books and designed carpets, banknotes, stamps, and murals. His art continues to amaze and wonder millions of people around the world.

ESCHER SKETCHES for Solo Tuba & Concert Band interprets Escher's preferred techniques in three movements: TESSELLATIONS, RELATIVITIES, & METAMORPHOSES.

Flute
Alexander Schreurs
Ellie Littmann
Angela Tran

Oboe
Ronja King
Jacob Carrillo

Clarinet
Kennah Brackett
Oliver Sitja Sichel
Jolie Roturier

Horn
Joseph Lee
Calvin Ahrens

Trumpet
Henry Staats
Connor Lindsay
Gabriel Thorson

Trombone
Owen Simon

Timpani/Percussion
Abby Gabbard

Piano
Sona Karande
Vincent Stone

Violin I
Jesse Arnt
Isabella Zak
Faith Horn
Adam Wegner
Ana Van Dusen
Evan Green

Violin II
Josephine Pelster
Emily Payne
Lucas Menza
Amin Benmellah
Vincent Stone
Bella Gabbard

Viola
Finn Wootton
Micah Marshall

Cello
Altas Momier
Kayla Uemura
Ryan Larson
Arthur Woodworth

Bass
Drew Moore

Soloist: Ellie Littmann

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (born Jan. 4, 1710, Jesi, Italy—died March 16, 1736, Pozzuoli) Italian composer whose intermezzo La serva padrona (“The Maid Turned Mistress”) was one of the most celebrated stage works of the 18th century.

His family name was Draghi, but, having moved to Jesi from Pergola, the family was called Pergolesi, meaning “of Pergola.” Sometime after 1720 he attended the Conservatorio dei Poveri at Naples, where he earned a high reputation as a violinist. In 1732 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the prince of Stigliano at Naples and produced a Neapolitan opera buffa, Lo frate ’nnammorato, and a mass (probably his Mass in D). Both were well received. In 1733 his opera seria Il prigionier superbo was produced. But it was the comic intermezzo La serva padrona, inserted between the acts of Il prigionier superbo, that achieved success. In 1734 Pergolesi was appointed deputy maestro di cappella of Naples, and in May he went to Rome to direct the performance of his Mass in F. His subsequent operas met with only occasional success. His health began to fail, and in 1736 he left Naples for the Franciscan monastery at Pozzuoli, near Naples, where he finished his last work, the celebrated Stabat Mater. He died in extreme poverty at age 26 and was buried at the cathedral at Pozzuoli.

When Pergolesi died, his fame had scarcely spread beyond Rome and Naples, but later in the century it grew enormously. The success of La serva padrona was largely posthumous, and it reached its peak after its performance in Paris in 1752. There it led to la guerre des bouffons (“the war of the buffoons”), with musical forgers vying to produce spurious works of Pergolesi, leaving some uncertainty about the authenticity of works attributed to him. Some of the works credited to Pergolesi by Igor Stravinsky in arrangements he made for his ballet Pulcinella (1920) are among those of doubtful authenticity.

Pergolesi’s serious style is best illustrated in his Stabat Mater and in his masses, which demonstrate his ability to handle large choral and instrumental forces. His gift of comic characterization is best shown in the classic La serva padrona.

Source: Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, January 1). Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi

Soloist: Faith Horn

Anatoly Komorowski, born on November 7, 1909, in the Russian Federation, was a highly accomplished musician who made significant contributions to the world of music during his lifetime. With a bachelor's degree in violin performance from the renowned Rachmaninov School of Music, Komorowski's talent and dedication propelled him to study composition at the Moscow Conservatory under the guidance of Vissarion Yakovlevich Schebalin.

Throughout his career, Komorowski held various positions as a musical director, composer, conductor, and prominent violinist in theaters and music institutions across Russia. His work spanned different genres and styles, leaving a lasting impact on the music landscape.

Soloist: Henry Staats

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and outstanding virtuoso pianist during the period of transition from Classical to Romantic musical styles.

Hummel studied at an early age with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, at whose house in Vienna he lived for two years. Later, accompanied by his father, he toured Bohemia, Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and England for four years as a child-prodigy pianist. In England he studied a year with Muzio Clementi. Returning to Vienna in 1793, he took instruction from J.G. Albrechtsberger, Joseph Haydn (whom he had met in London), and Antonio Salieri. From 1804 to 1811 he was chapelmaster to the Esterházy family (a post formerly held by Haydn). After further successes as a pianist, conductor, and teacher, he became chapelmaster at Weimar (1818).

Hummel’s most important compositions are his piano works, consisting of trios, sonatas, rondos, and six concerti, all elegant in style and virtuosic in their melodic writing and ornamentation. Fluent, clear in texture, and well suited to the light Viennese piano action of his day, these works nevertheless lack the emotional depth and coherence evident in the works of Hummel’s great contemporary rival, Ludwig van Beethoven, with whom he maintained an uneasy friendship. (He was a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral.) Hummel also composed nine operas, three masses, a mandolin concerto, and chamber works, notably the Septet in D Minor. He made innovations in fingering methods, published in his Klavierschule (“Piano School”) in 1828.

Source: Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, November 10). Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johann-Nepomuk-Hummel

I Introduction and the Lion’s March

II Hens and Roosters

III Wild Donkeys (Swift Animals)

IV Tortoises

V The Elephant

VI Kangaroos

VII Aquarium

VIII Personages with long Ears

IX The Cuckoo in the Deep Woods

X Aviary

XI Pianists

XII Fossils

XIII The Swan

XIV Finale

The Carnival of the Animals is a humorous musical suite of fourteen movements, including "The Swan", by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. The work, about 25 minutes in duration, was written for private performance by two pianos and chamber ensemble; Saint-Saëns prohibited public performance of the work during his lifetime, feeling that its frivolity would damage his standing as a serious composer. The suite was published in 1922, the year after his death. A public performance in the same year was greeted with enthusiasm, and the work has remained among his most popular. In addition to the original version for chamber ensemble, the suite is frequently performed with a full orchestral complement of strings.

Following a disastrous concert tour of Germany in 1885–86, Saint-Saëns withdrew to a small Austrian village, where he composed The Carnival of the Animals in February 1886. From the beginning he regarded the work as a piece of fun. On 9 February 1886 he wrote to his publishers Durand in Paris that he was composing a work for the coming Shrove Tuesday, and confessing that he knew he should be working on his Third Symphony, but that this work was "such fun" ("... mais c'est si amusant!"). He had apparently intended to write the work for his students at the École Niedermeyer de Paris, but it was first performed at a private concert given by the cellist Charles Lebouc on 3 March 1886.

Saint-Saëns specified in his will that the work should be published posthumously. Following his death in December 1921 it was published by Durand in Paris in April 1922; the first public performance was given on 25 February 1922 by the Concerts Colonne, conducted by Gabriel Pierné. It was rapturously received. Le Figaro reported:

We cannot describe the cries of admiring joy let loose by an enthusiastic public. In the immense oeuvre of Camille Saint-Saëns, The Carnival of the Animals is certainly one of his magnificent masterpieces. From the first note to the last it is an uninterrupted outpouring of a spirit of the highest and noblest comedy. In every bar, at every point, there are unexpected and irresistible finds. Themes, whimsical ideas, instrumentation compete with buffoonery, grace and science. ... When he likes to joke, the master never forgets that he is the master.

The Carnival of the Animals has since become one of Saint-Saëns's best-known works, played in the original version for eleven instruments, or more often with the full string section of an orchestra. Frequently a glockenspiel substitutes for the rare glass harmonica.

Source: Wikipedia