NEC Symphonic Winds + William Drury: Martino, Gounod, Firsova, Liu, Maconchy

Bruno Martino (arr. Dave Rivello) | Estate

soloists:
Sam Childs, tenor saxophone
George Maclaurin, piano
Daniel Mayer, double bass
Caleb Montague, drums

Charles Gounod | Petite Symphonie for Wind Instruments

Adagio et allegretto
Andante cantabile
Scherzo
Finale

Elena Firsova | Three Portraits, op. 153 (2022)

World Premiere - composed for William Drury

Lea
Untrue
Europa

Elena Firsova

Elena Firsova was born in Leningrad into a family of physicists. She made her first attempts at composition at the age of twelve, and began her formal studies in 1966 at music college in Moscow and continued from 1970 to 1975 at the Moscow Conservatoire where her teachers were Alexander Pirumov (composition) and Yury Kholopov (analysis).
        In 1975 she established contact of a crucial importance with Edison Denisov, one of the leading figures of Soviet contemporary music. Her music was first featured outside the Soviet Union in 1979.
        Earthly Life, one of many works by Firsova setting the verse of Osip Mandelstam, was commissioned by the BBC and premiered by Penelope Walmsley-Clarke and the Nash Ensemble. The work established Firsova's reputation in the UK and has led to two further Mandelstam cantatas written for the Nash Ensemble: Forest Walks (1987) and Before the Thunderstorm (1994).
       Firsova's music has been included in Soviet seasons at the Bath Festival in 1987, the Almeida Festival in 1989, the South Bank Centre's Russian Spring Festival in 1991, and the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Music of Today series in 2001. Recent orchestral works include Augury commissioned by the BBC Proms for the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis, and Cassandra written for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and recorded on BIS Records. Recent chamber works have included the latest in her series of ten string quartets written for the Britten, Danish, Smith and Brodsky Quartets.
        Elena Firsova was married to the composer Dmitri Smirnov (1948–2020). Since they took up residence in the UK in 1991 they have become increasingly active in the British musical scene, combing composing with teaching.

INTERMISSION

Da-Yu Liu '24 DMA | The Torment of a Flower (rev. 2021)

World premiere

Program note

Composed originally in 2018 for choral ensemble, this work draws its inspiration from a traditional Taiwanese Hokkien melody “The Torment of a Flower” (雨夜花) published in 1934. Lyrics written by Chiu Thiam-ōng (周添旺) and original melody written by Teng Yu-hsien (鄧雨賢), the song employs the metaphor of petals enduring the ceaseless torrents and gusts of a tempestuous night:

Rainy night flower, rainy night flower,
Succumbed by the storm and fell to the ground.
No one understood my never-ending sorrow.
A flower withered is gone forever.

The flower withered, the flower withered.
Who could come to look after?
Ruthless storm had stepped upon my future.
The blossom is in the dirt, what could I do?

The rain is ruthless, the rain is ruthless.
It cares not about my future,
It doesn’t look after my soft heart,
Cause my future to shine no light.

The rain is falling, the rain is falling,
Drowning me in the pool of suffering.
It tears me apart like leaves severed from the branches,
Yet no one shall ever see.

Shortly following the completion of this work, my grandparents passed away. This deepened the personal significance of the text and music in the work. Hopefully, the music serves as a sanctuary where souls may find repose. The piece was revised for wind octet in 2021.                                                                              
– Da-Yu Liu

Elizabeth Maconchy | Music for Woodwind and Brass (1965)

Program note

Music for Woodwinds and Brass was conceived to make use of the architecture of the church, with the trombones processing up the aisle and the horns entering from the Lady Chapel. Liturgical, thematic material is stated by the trombones and trumpets in a gently moving 5/4, interspersed with trumpets building to a climax. Out of this are suspended pianissimo chords from the horns, slowly moving under expressive wind and trumpet solos. The third section is a fleet scherzando with a central lyrical meno mosso, leading into and providing a counter-subject to a restatement of the first theme before the final elegiac code.

NEC Symphonic Winds

Flute
Isabel Evernham
Anna Ridenour
JouYing Ting
Nina Tsai

Oboe
Yuhsi Chang
Robert Diaz
Corinne Foley
Rebecca Mack
Victoria Solis Alvarado
Clarinet
Sarah Cho
Evan Chu
Xianyi Ji
Adlemi A. Zambrano

Bassoon
Yerin Choi
Seth Goldman
Wilson Lu
Carson Meritt

French horn
Elijah Barclift
Mattias Bengtsson
Graham Lovely
Mauricio Martinez
Xiaoran Xu

Trumpet
Maxwell DeForest
Sebastián Haros
Matthew Mihalko
Justin Park
Alexandra Richmond
Cody York

Trombone
Becca Bertekap
Devin Drinin
Jaehan Kim
Allie Klaire Ledbetter

Bass Trombone
Ki Yoon Park
Shin Tanaka

Tuba
Masaru Lin
Hayden Silvester

Timpani
Ngaieng Lai

Bass
Brian Choy

Harp
Shaylen Joos
 

Wind Ensemble Graduate Assistants
Weizhe Bai
Rachel Brake