¡Viva la Musica! 05•21•2023
Program
Amparito Roca, by Jaime Texidor
Jaime Texidor (1884–1957) was a Spanish musician, conductor, composer, and publisher. After studying composition and conducting, the young man joined the army as a musician and spent 13 years as a saxophonist and conductor. He later taught piano and violin and directed several municipal bands in cities across Spain. He composed “Amparito Roca” in 1925 while residing in Carlet, and he named the piece after one of his 12-year-old piano students. Texidor was a prolific composer, completing more than 500 works across a range of genres, and he published many of them himself. “Amparito Roca” is not only his most well-known composition but also one of the most recognized pieces of Spanish music worldwide.
La Fiesta Mexicana | Mvmt. 3: Carnival, by H. Owen Reed
Herbert Owen Reed (1910–2014) studied piano as a child. Despite his teacher’s attempts to interest him in the classics, he was drawn to the tunes on his family’s player piano and to the popular music of the 1920s. Reed went on to study musical composition in college, ultimately earning a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, and he was on the faculty of Michigan State University for 37 years, retiring in 1976. Much of Reed’s study focused on the traditional music of North America, and in many of his compositions, he blended elements of Mexican, Native American, Anglo American, and African American music with contemporary idioms. He composed La Fiesta Mexicana in 1949 after spending six months in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship with the purpose of writing the first symphony for band. In composing this “folk song symphony,” Reed used authentic music from the Mexican provinces of Chapala, Jalisco, and Guadalajara, along with themes from Aztec dances and Gregorian chants. The third movement, “Carnival,” reflects the entertainment of the Mexican Fiesta for both young and old — the itinerant circus, the market, the bullfight, the town band, and the cantinas with their band of mariachis.
Lola Flores, Paso Doble, by Alfred Sadel and Terig Tucci (arr. John Krance)
The paso doble, or pasodoble, is a Latin ballroom dance. The term “paso doble” means “double step” or “two-step” in Spanish—as the briskly paced paso doble music accompanied the fast steps of a military march. The dance also has connections to bullfighting. Fast-paced paso doble music originally served as an introductory theme for Spanish bullfighters entering the ring. The movements of the matador and the bull inspired the dance, according to Spanish legend.
John Krance’s classic 1966 arrangement is a distinctive and important work for band. In arranging “Lola Flores” for concert band, Krance said, “I have attempted to capture, expand, and project all of these dramatic qualities embodying today’s television, recording, and film sound.”
Morceau Symphonique, by Alexandre Guilmant (arr. Wesley Shepard)
Felix Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911) was a French organist and composer. He was a student of his father and became an organist and teacher in his place of birth, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. In 1871 he was appointed as organist of la Trinité church in Paris, a position that he held for 25 years. He gave concerts in Europe as well as in the USA. In addition to his reputation as a virtuoso organist, Guilmant was an accomplished and extremely prolific composer, particularly for the organ. He wrote chamber music, vocal music, a sinfonia cantata (“Ariane”) as well a lyric scene (“Bathsheba”).
Although Guilmant wrote few works for instruments other than the organ, they have not been entirely neglected. The “Morceau Symphonique” is one of the most frequently performed trombone solos, enjoying longstanding popularity among both professional and advanced student trombonists. The lyrical melody is a wonderful showcase for low brass players.
Arlo Hollander, trombone | Winner of the 2023 Earl C. Benson Concerto Competition
Intermission
Don Ricardo, by Gabriel Musella (percussion by Rick Rodriguez)
Gabriel Musella (b. 1963) is an American composer and educator. A native of Corpus Christi, Texas, he taught in the Texas public schools for 30 years before becoming UIL Assistant Music Director in Austin. Musella is an active adjudicator, clinician, and composer, and his works have been performed worldwide by community, university, and high school concert bands, orchestras, and chamber ensembles. “Don Ricardo,” published in 2006, was commissioned by the Spring High School Band of Spring, Texas. Like several other pieces in today’s concert, it is a pasodoble in the Spanish tradition.
Gallito, by Santiago Lope (ed. Roy J. Weger)
Santiago Lope Gonzalo (1871–1906), a Spanish composer, wrote 40 or so pieces during his short life, including a series of pasodobles. “Gallito” is the most often performed of Lope’s pasodobles and is dedicated to Fernando Gómez Ojeda, a talented young matador who was killed during a bullfight.
Conga del Fuego Nuevo, by Arturo Márquez (trans. Oliver Nickel)
Arturo Márquez (b. 1950) was born in northwestern Mexico and introduced to traditional Mexican music by his father and grandfather, both folk musicians. 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 success of the Danzones brought Márquez international recognition and established him as one of the most significant Mexican composers of his time. “Conga del Fuego Nuevo,” composed in 2005, has been translated as “Conga of New Fire,” and its pulsating rhythms are representative of the conga, a Cuban carnival dance.
Danza Final from Estancia Dances, by Alberto Ginastera (arr. David John)
Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983) was an Argentinian composer best known for his ballets. In 1940, he was commissioned by the American Ballet Caravan to write Estancia, which told the story of a young boy from the city who struggles to adapt to life on a ranch. (Estancia is the Argentine word for ranch.) The ballet company disbanded before the ballet was performed, so Ginastera reworked four of the scenes into an orchestral suite. In the last scene, “Danza Final” (“Final Dance”), Argentinian gauchos (cowboys) compete in a frenetic dance to prove their masculinity.
Program notes by Sue Hinton and Sue Freese
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