International Passport 05•22•22
Hands Across the Sea, by John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932), the composer who would become known as “The March King,” began his career in the U.S. Marine Band at age 13, serving as an apprentice. He became leader of the Marine Band at age 26 and served in that position for 12 years, when he resigned to form his own band. Sousa had the ability to lead and conduct talented musicians, and he also developed a flair for writing marches. By the time of his death at age 78, he had composed 136 marches, along with a variety of other works. He wrote “Hands Across the Sea” in 1899, in part to bolster the United States’ role in maintaining world peace after the Spanish-American War of the previous year. Sousa prefaced the score to this idealistic work with a quotation from an English diplomat, John Hookham Frere: “A sudden thought strikes me—let us swear an eternal friendship.” The march is addressed “to no particular nation, but to all of America’s friends abroad.”
Children’s March: “Over the Hills and Far Away,” by Percy Aldridge Grainger (ed. R. Mark Rogers)
Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961) was born in Australia and began studying piano at an early age. He came to the United States at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted in the army band; he became a U.S. citizen in 1918. Grainger wrote “Children’s March” between 1916 and 1919, and he utilized several features unusual for music of the era: the prominent use of piano and two four-part vocal passages for band members to sing. The piece also is unusual in that it uses entirely original material, rather than the folk melodies on which so many of Grainger’s compositions are based. The march was first performed by the renowned Goldman Band in 1919. It was dedicated to “my playmate beyond the hills,” perhaps a reference to Karen Holton, a Scandinavian woman with whom Grainger corresponded for eight years.
Catch Me If You Can: Feature for Alto Sax and Concert Band, by John Williams (arr. Jay Bocook)
John Williams (b. 1932) was born in New York and moved to Los Angeles with his family at age 16; after graduating from high school, he attended UCLA and began studying composition. Williams moved to New York to attend the Juilliard School, but he later returned to Los Angeles to score music for film and television. During his celebrated career, Williams has composed the music and served as the music director for 80-plus films. The movie Catch Me If You Can, released in 2002, tells the true story of a skilled forger and con man from the 1960s who is pursued and finally caught by the FBI. This film marked the twentieth collaboration between John Williams and director Steven Spielberg. Jay Bocook’s (b. 1953) arrangement of the movie’s musical themes features not only an alto saxophone soloist but also a wide variety of percussion.
Jacob Welch, alto saxophone | Winner of the 2022 Earl C. Benson Concerto Competition
Festal Scenes, by Yasuhide Ito
Yasuhide Ito (b. 1960) studied piano as child, and his first work for band was published while he was still in high school. The Japanese composer made his American debut in 1987 with the U.S. premiere of “Festal Scenes,” composed the previous year. Ito conducted the orchestra performing the work at a joint convention between the American Band Association and the Japanese Band Association. The piece is based on four Japanese folk songs from the Aomori Prefecture, the northern region that is home to the famous Nebuta Festival. Ito has said that he “was inspired to write ‘Festal Scenes’ after receiving a letter from a wandering philosophical friend in Shanghai, who said, ‘Everything seems like Paradise blooming all together. Life is a festival, indeed.’” Ito is a celebrated composer and pianist and has toured with the famed Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra.
Danzon No. 2, by Arturo Márquez (trans. Oliver Nickel)
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950) was born in Álamos, a town in the Sonoran Desert in northwestern Mexico. His father was a violinist and mariachi and introduced him to traditional Mexican waltzes, polkas, and other music. When Márquez was 12, the family migrated to Los Angeles, and the youth began to play violin and compose. He returned to Sonora in 1967 and three years later entered the Mexican Music Conservatory. He went on to study in Paris after receiving a scholarship from the French government and then in the United States at the California Institute of Arts after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship. In 1993, during a trip to the Veracruz region of Mexico, Márquez became intrigued with the movements and rhythms of ballroom dancing and was inspired to compose a series of Danzones: pieces that fuse elements of dance music from Veracruz and Cuba. The most popular of the pieces is “Danzón No. 2,” commissioned in 1994 by the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The success of the Danzones brought Márquez international recognition and established him as one of the most significant Mexican composers of his time.
Of Our New Day Begun, by Omar Thomas
Omar Thomas (b. 1984) was born in Brooklyn, New York. After studying music education at James Madison University, he moved to Boston in 2006 to pursue a master of music in jazz composition degree at the New England Conservatory of Music. He has taught at the Berklee College of Music and Johns Hopkins University, and he currently is an assistant professor of composition and jazz studies at The University of Texas at Austin. As a composer and arranger, Thomas has created music in both jazz and classical styles, and his works have been performed by a wide range of instrumental and choral groups, as well as many popular vocalists. Thomas wrote “Of Our New Day Begun” to honor the nine individuals killed in a shooting on June 17, 2015, at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The composition is “anchored” by James and John Johnson’s enduring song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and incorporates elements of blues music and black worship traditions. Thomas has stated that in writing the piece, he embraced both his pain and anger and his recognition of the grace and forgiveness demonstrated by the victims’ families.
Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, by John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932) became a member of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine in Washington, DC, in April 1922, and he quickly was named the first honorary director of the Almas Temple Shrine Band. He was asked to compose a march that saluted Shriners, but he dedicated the piece specifically to the Almas Temple and Imperial Council. The march was premiered in June 1923 at the Shriners’ national convention in Washington, DC, by a band of 6,200—the largest group Sousa ever had conducted. “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” is one of the few Sousa marches in which the
first strain is in the minor mode.
Program notes by Sue Freese
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