Rep Revisited

The Cleveland Winds are proud to present "Rep Revisited" to celebrate the end of their 10th season of amazing performances! We are pleased to share the stage with the Bands from Mentor High School. Please join us in Waetjen Auditorium on the campus of Cleveland State University on Sunday, April 7 at 7 pm.

The Winds will repeat repertoire from our previous concerts, including Kathryn Salfelder's Cathedrals, Darius Milhaud's Suite Française, Frank Ticheli's Blue Shades, and Gustav Holst's First Suite in E-Flat.

If you cannot join us downtown, you can enjoy the concert live via the Internet at https://livestream.com/CSUMusic/RepRevisited.

The First Ten Seasons

The Cleveland Winds have had a remarkable first ten seasons. The premiere concert was on November Monday, November 8, 2009, and featured repertoire by Giannini, Milhaud, Schoenberg, Hesketh, and Welcher. In the interim, we have shared concerts with many wonderful groups, community ensembles like the Cleveland Pops Orchestra Chorus, the Patriots Band, the University Heights Concert Bands, student groups like ensembles from the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphonies, Lakota West High School, and Mentor High School, along with university-level groups like the CSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the University Circle Wind Ensemble.

We have performed with many prominent guest performers and conductors, like Shachar Israel, David Childs, Glen Adsit, Shanti Simon, Eric Rombach-Kendall, Steve Davis, Joseph Parisi, and Tim Reynish. We've performed live on WCLV, for music educators at the Ohio Music Education Association Professional Development Conference in Cleveland and at Severance Hall for the Northeast Ohio Band Invitational. Most recently, we recorded Adam Gorb's Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Ensemble and Marco Pütz' Dance Sequence for a CD: Volume 12 of Tim Reynish's International Repertoire Series.

The Next 10 Seasons

I originally formed the Cleveland Winds so that many of the amazing local musicians would have an opportunity to get together informally to play and perform the very best wind band repertoire, which is often out of the reach of casual players. The performers of the Cleveland Winds are highly-dedicated volunteer professional artists. Their musical generosity is as humbling as their performing abilities. I would dare to say that they are one of the very best 'community' bands in the country. That was the consensus of the judges when the ensemble was awarded the American Prize in Wind Band Performance--community division in 2015.

But, the best is yet to come. The ensemble is on the verge of achieving non-profit status with the IRS, which will open up a new world of opportunities, including commissioning new works for wind band, bringing in more world-class soloists and guest conductors, performing in new venues (perhaps even out-of-state), and, most importantly, reaching out to a new generation of potential future members of the Cleveland Winds.

In the short term, we could use just a little financial help to start down the path toward these goals. All are welcome to attend our concerts for free, and we even offer up the performances on the web for the rest of the world to hear. We're asking, however, if you could spare a few dollars--ranging from what you would pay for a cup of coffee and up to what you might pay to take your family to the movies.

Our goal is to raise $5000 by November 2019 to fund a large celebration at the beginning of our 10th Anniversary Season. We would like to invite back some of our favorite guest artists to share in that celebration but bringing them here is not inexpensive.

Could you help us reach that goal by sending us a few dollars via https://www.gofundme.com/clevelandwindlaunch -- whatever you think tonight's concert or the next might be worth to you. We thank you in advance, and we'll look forward to performing for you--either live here in this hall or via the Internet--in November.

Program Notes

Kathryn Salfelder – Cathedrals

Cathedrals is a fantasy on Gabrieli’s from “Sacrae Symphoniae,” which dates from 1597. Written for St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, the canzon was scored for two brass choirs, each comprised of two trumpets and two trombones. The choirs were stationed in opposite balconies of the church according to the antiphonal principal of (It. ‘broken choirs’), which forms the basis of much of Gabrieli’s writing. Cathedrals is an adventure in ‘neo-renaissance’ music, in its seating arrangement, antiphonal qualities, 16th-century counterpoint, and canonic textures. Its form is structured on the golden ratio (1: .618), which is commonly found not only in nature and art but also in the motets and masses of Renaissance composers such as Palestrina and Lassus. The golden section (m. 141), the area surrounding the golden section (mm. 114-177), and it's series of extrapolated subdivisions have audible characteristics, often evidenced by cadences, changes in texture, or juxtaposition of ideas.

The work is a synthesis of the old and the new, evoking the mystery and allure of Gabrieli’s spatial music, intertwined with a rich color palette, modal harmonies, and textures of woodwinds and percussion. For more detailed information on the golden section and the exact proportions in, please visit the composer’s website: www.kathrynsalfelder.com.

Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987) is fast gaining national recognition as a rising wind band composer. Recent awards include the 2008 ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, presentation of at the Virginia CBDNA Symposium 34 for New Band Music, an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, first place in the Charles B. Olsen Composition Competition, and participation in the 2006 National Band Association Young Composer Mentor Project.

Ms. Salfelder currently studies composition at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she was selected as the winning score in the 2008 New England Conservatory Honors Ensemble Competition. A student of Michael Gandolfi, she is the recipient of annual merit awards from the New England Conservatory, the Elks National Foundation and the Carpe Diem Foundation of Illinois.

An accomplished performer, Ms. Salfelder is the pianist for the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble and has appeared on New England Conservatory’s Composer’s Series and Tuesday Night New Music concerts. She serves as associate conductor and rehearsal pianist for the Fiddlehead Theatre Company (Norwood, Massachusetts), has twice appeared as soloist with the North Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and was the winner of the 2003 and 2001 Andrew George De Grado Solo Piano Competitions.
Ms. Salfelder is a member of ASCAP and the National Band Association and serves as Show Staff for the United States Scholastic Band Association.

Program note from publisher, Boosey & Hawkes

Darius Milhaud – Suite Française

Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) was a prolific French composer and teacher. He was a member of the famous Les Six (also known as the Groupe des Six, which included Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre) and is considered one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. Many of his compositions are particularly noted for jazz influences, as well as the use of polytonality.

In 1945, Milhaud composed the Suite Francaise, his first extended work for winds, on a commission from the publisher, Leeds Music Corporation, as part of a “contemplated series of original works for band by outstanding contemporary composers.” The same year as its commission and composition, Suite Francaise was given its first performance by the Goldman Band. The work was so well received that Milhaud was asked to re-score it for orchestra. The premiere of the orchestral version of the piece was performed by the New York Philharmonic.

The piece is presented in five sections: Normandy, Brittany, Ile-de-France, Alsace-Lorraine, and Provence. Each of these titles represents different French provinces in which American and Allied armies fought together alongside the French underground for the liberation of France.

Of the piece, Milhaud stated, "I used some folk tunes of the provinces. I wanted the young Americans to hear the popular melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought to defeat the German invaders who in less than seventy years have brought war, destruction, cruelty, torture, and murder, three times, to the peaceful and democratic people of France."

Blue Shades - Frank Ticheli

"Four years, and several compositions later, I finally took the opportunity to realize that need by composing Blue Shades. As its title suggests, the work alludes to the Blues, and a jazz feeling is prevalent -- however, it is in not literally a Blues piece. There is not a single 12-bar blues progression to be found, and except for a few isolated sections, the eighth-note is not swung.

"The work, however, is heavily influenced by the Blues: "Blue notes" (flatted 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths) are used constantly; Blues harmonies, rhythms, and melodic idioms pervade the work; and many "shades of blue" are depicted, from bright blue, to dark, to dirty, to hot blue.

"At times, Blue Shades burlesques some of the clichés from the Big Band era, not as a mockery of those conventions, but as a tribute. A slow and quiet middle section recalls the atmosphere of a dark, smoky blues haunt. An extended clarinet solo played near the end recalls Benny Goodman's hot playing style, and ushers in a series of "wailing" brass chords recalling the train whistle effects commonly used during that era."

Blue Shades was commissioned by a consortium of thirty university, community, and high school concert bands under the auspices of the Worldwide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund.

Program Note by Frank Ticheli

Gustav Holst - First Suite in E-Flat

The year 2019 marks the 110th anniversary of the First Suite in E-flat by Gustav Holst, now considered one of the masterworks and cornerstones of the band literature. Although completed in 1909, the suite didn’t receive its official premiere until 11 years later on June 23rd, 1920, by an ensemble of 165 musicians at the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall. However, the work was originally conceived to be performed by ensembles significantly smaller than the one at Kneller Hall.

There are three movements in the suite: Chaconne, Intermezzo, and March. Holst writes, “As each movement is founded on the same phrase, it is requested that the suite be played right through without a break.” The Chaconne begins with a ground bass reminiscent of those written by Henry Purcell or William Byrd. The Intermezzo is light and brisk and features soloistic passages for the cornet, oboe, and clarinet. Holst prominently displays the agility and sensitivity of the wind band through transparent textures and passages where the melody and accompaniment are woven into a variety of instrumental settings. The March begins suddenly. It consists of two themes, the first of which, performed by brass choir and percussion, is a march light in character. The second theme is dominated by the woodwinds and is composed of a long, lyrical line reminiscent of the original Chaconne melody. The movement concludes with both themes intertwining as the band crescendos to a climax.

Program Note by Esmail Khalili.