Cleveland Winds In Concert, November 7, 2011, 7:30 PM
The Cleveland Winds, under the direction of Birch Browning, begins its third season with a concert on November 7, 2011 at 7:30 PM in Waetjen Auditorium on the campus of Cleveland State University. The repertoire for the concert will include Edward Gregson’s Celebration, Dennis Nygren’s setting of Victor Babin’s Hillandale Waltzes for clarinet and wind ensemble, featuring soloist Bobby Davis, and Walter Hartley’s Concerto for 23 Winds. Joining us for this concert will be the CSU Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Prof. Howard Meeker.
Read a preview of the concert at ClevelandClassical.com.
Program Notes
Celebration was commissioned by the Royal Liverpool philharmonic Society to mark its 150th anniversary. Edward Gregson writes:
I was particularly pleased to receive the invitation to write this piece, as it gave me an opportunity to compose a work which would celebrate not just the birthday of a great orchestra, but the skills of a fine group of players, allow them to demonstrate both their virtuosity and their capacity for sustained, sensitive playing. It seemed appropriate to make it a sort of miniature Concerto for Orchestra (albeit with the strings), and desipte its brevity I have highlighted each departmet of the ensemble in turn before bringing them together at the end.
It opens with a fanfare (announced by three spatially separated trumpets and tubular bells), essentially exuberant music which plays an important part later on. This leads into the second section, basically scherzo-like but with an expressive central passage. Instruments are introduced in the order: flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons. A brief tutti ushers in a simple chorale, marked molto sostenuto. The development follows, often highly charged rhythmically, and using material from the first two sections plus a new idea heard on trumpets. The music rises to a climax which moves directly into a reprise of the chorale, in combination with the opening fanfare, to bring the work to a trimphant conclusion.
Russian-born Victor Babin is best known in the United States as a duo-pianist with wife Vitya Vronsky, and as Director of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1961 – 1972. The Hillandale Waltzes for clarinet and piano was composed towards the end of World War II. The piece was arranged and edited by Dennis Nygren in the summer and fall of 1990, and premiered on December 4, 1990 by the Kent State University Wind Ensemble conducted by Wayne Gorder, with the arranger as soloist. Prof. Nygren has served as the professor of clarinet at KSU since 1983.
Walter Hartley (b.1927) wrote his Concerto for Twenty-three Winds in 1957 for the Eastman Wind Ensemble. He sent the following comments to conductor Frederick Fennell:
The work is in four movements roughly corresponding to those of the classical symphony or sonata in form, but it is textually more related to the style of the Baroque concert, being essentially a large chamber work in which different soloists and groups of soloists play in contrast with each other and with the group as a whole. The color contrasts between instruments and choirs of instruments are sometimes simultaneous, sometimes antiphonal; both homophony and polyphony are freely used…The first and last movements make the most use of the full ensemble; the second, a Scherzo, features the brass instruments, the slow third movement, the woodwinds. The harmonic style is freely tonal throughout. There is a certain three-note motif (ascending G-A-D) which is heard harmonically at the beginning and dominates the melodic material of the last three movements.
Our Soloist
Robert Davis, Clarinet, from Shaker Heights, Ohio, received his Master’s of Music in Voice at Cleveland State University as a student of Professor Elizabeth Unis Chesko. Robert received his BM from the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of Linnea Nereim, Bass Clarinet, The Cleveland Orchestra, and his Artist Diploma as a student of Ronald deKant, from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music. He also had additional studies with Franklin Cohen, Principal Clarinet, The Cleveland Orchestra. By the age of 19, Robert was performing as an extra musician with The Cleveland Orchestra. He has also performed with the Canton, Akron, and Youngstown Symphonies and in past summers has been a member of the Ashlawn Opera Orchestra (Virginia). He was also the former Principal Clarinet of the Opera in the Ozarks Orchestra (Arkansas). Robert is currently performing with the Lakeside Symphony (Ohio) in the summer. Robert has attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Sarasota Music Festival. He performs with the Gateway Chamber Players in Clarksville, TN. With the Gateway Chamber Players, he recorded Mozart’s Gran Partita for Summit Records (release date- March 2010). He has received awards from the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) and the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL). After returning from graduate school in late 2003, Robert began studying voice. He has sung in master classes for Robert Page and Garnett Bruce (director) has performed at Alice Tulley Hall in New York City as a member of the Duffy Liturgical Singers. He was a member of the Cleveland Opera Chorus and performed in the opera, Turandot. He made his solo opera debut as the Sailor in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneus. He continued with the world premiere of Mozart/El-Dabh, King of Egypt, as Gastone in Verdi‘s La Traviata, and Borsa in Verdi’s Rigoletto, all with Opera Circle. Robert is currently Director of Bands at The Cleveland School of the Arts.
Directions and Tickets
The concert will be in Waetjen Auditorium on the campus of Cleveland State University. Directions to campus can be found here. Patrons will be able to park in the main garage, now called Central Garage, that is accessible from East 21st Street via Chester Avenue. Parking is free provided that you mention to the attendant that you will be attending the CSU Wind Ensemble concert. This concert is free and open to the public, but donations to the Cleveland Winds will be gladly accepted.
