December 2, 2021
7:30 p.m.
Whitehead Auditorium
Valdosta State University
There is a place for everyone who wants to make music at Valdosta State University. The band program is home to our outstanding Wind Ensemble, the 38th edition of the Valdosta State University Blazin' Brigade Marching Band, and the famed Hot Shots basketball pep band.
Wind Ensemble is the premier band at Valdosta State University and is comprised of undergraduate and graduate musicians.
Wind Ensemble performs a diverse repertoire of the highest caliber from chamber works to large ensemble pieces emphasizing a strong commitment to new music and standard repertoire. Wind Ensemble is conducted by Benjamin Harper, Director of Bands.
Tonight's performance includes Armenian Dances, Part I, by Alfred Reed, a standard work by a composer who contributed in great quantity to the band repertoire; O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen, originally written for choir, is transcribed beautifully for brass choir and is conducted by graduate conductor Thetheus White; and Concerto Scion by Kevin Walczyk, featuring VSU associate professor of clarinet Peter Geldrich.
Armenian Dances, Parts I and II, constitute a four-movement suite for concert band or wind ensemble based on authentic Armenian folk songs from the collected works of Gomidas Vartabed (1869-1935), the founder of Armenian classical music.
Part I, containing the first movement of this suite (the remaining three movements constituting Part II), is an extended symphonic rhapsody built upon five different songs, which were first researched and arranged by Vartabed:
- “Tzirani Tzar” (“The Apricot Tree”)
- “Gakavi Yerk” (“Partridge’s Song”)
- “Hoy, Nazam Eem” (“Hoy, My Nazan”)
- “Alagyaz,” a village in the Aragatsotn Province of Armenia
- “Gna, Gna” (“Go, Go”)
Part I of Armenian Dances was completed in the summer of 1972 and first performed by Dr. Harry Begian (to whom the work is dedicated) and the University of Illinois Symphonic Band on January 10, 1973, at the CBDNA Convention in Urbana, Illinois.
Composer Alfred Reed (1921-2005) was born in New York City. He studied composition at the Juilliard School with Vittorio Giannini after a tour in the US Air Force during World War II. He was later a staff arranger for NBC in the 1950s and a professor of music at the University of Miami from 1966 to 1993. He is remembered today as a distinguished educator, conductor, and composer. His impact was the greatest in the wind band world, where he left behind more than 100 frequently performed works. He was particularly popular in Japan, where he developed a close relationship with the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, and where many of his works are required literature for all bands.
In 1572, Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548–1611) published his first book of motets. It included what has become one of the canonical settings of O Magnum Mysterium. A leading figure of sacred music in his native Spain during the Counter-Reformation, Victoria wrote this piece early in his career, when he was a singer and organist in Rome. It’s even possible that he studied with Palestrina, the Renaissance master who dominated Roman sacred music at the time. The Spaniard’s brief four-part setting of the prayer—one of his most treasured motets, which he later used as the basis for a mass—has inspired many successors, including Morten Lauridsen.
The chant text O Magnum Mysterium was compiled more than a thousand years ago. This prayer-poem, which is associated with the Matins for Christmas Day, has inspired an array of composers across the centuries from both inside and outside the Church. The words of O Magnum Mysterium praise the Virgin Mary and her role as a humble human being who gives birth to Jesus, the incarnation of the divine.
O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, iacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Iesum Christum. Alleluia!
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger!
Blessed is the virgin, whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
In 1994, when Los Angeles Master Chorale co-founder Marshall Rutter asked Lauridsen to write a piece for the upcoming Christmas concert, the respected but not yet widely known composer agreed at once. He immediately sensed that the two-dozen-word text of O Magnum Mysterium was what he wanted to set. The result turned out to have deeply personal connections. Rutter had commissioned O Magnum Mysterium as a gift for his wife, the Master Chorale’s former president and CEO Terry Knowles, since the couple would be celebrating their second wedding anniversary.
- Rhapsody
- Reverie
- Xtoles
Concerto Scion was composed for clarinetist Joseph LeBlanc of the “President's Own” United States Marine Band and commissioned by a consortium of 18 university wind ensembles led by Dr. Paul Popiel and the University of Kansas Wind Ensemble.
The work's title, which can be defined as progeny, child, descendant, heir, or grafted, was selected since the two primary building blocks for the work's pitch materials are derived from the names of the composer's two adopted children: Gabriel and Sophia. The work attempts to musically capture the incessant energy, creativity, and capricious nature of these two children.
Pitch materials for the concerto are generated from the children’s names. The opening three-note motive, which comes from Sophia's name, is present throughout all three movements and, along with the “Gabriel” and “Sophia” pitch matrices, serve as the concerto’s unifying factor.
A native of Portland Oregon, Kevin Walczyk received a Bachelor of Arts in Education degree from Pacific Lutheran University in 1987 and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of North Texas where he was the recipient of the Hexter Prize for outstanding graduate student. Walczyk’s principal composition instructors have included Larry Austin, Jacob Avshalomov, Thomas Clark, Martin Mailman, and Cindy McTee. As an accomplished jazz arranger and composer, Walczyk refined his craft with prominent jazz arrangers Tom Kubis and Frank Mantooth, and served as arranger for the renowned University of North Texas One O’clock Lab Band (1988-89).
Walczyk is Professor of music at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon where he teaches composition, orchestration, jazz arranging, and film scoring/media production.
Walczyk’s recent composition honors include nominations for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music composition (2011) and the Grawemeyer Award (2012) and election into the American Bandmasters Association. His recent prizes include the 9th annual Raymond & Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize (2012) and the 2012 Big East Conference Band Director’s Association Composition Contest. For his commitment to composing for the wind ensemble, Walczyk was elected to membership of the American Bandmasters Association in 2017.
Peter M Geldrich is Associate Professor of Clarinet at Valdosta State University and serves as principal clarinet of the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra in the Kay Jennett Chair. Dr. Geldrich began his clarinet studies with Robert Renino in New York at the age of ten. Since then, he has studied with renowned orchestral clarinetists Loren Kitt, Mitchell Estrin, and Karl Leister, of the National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic respectively. In addition to his role with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Geldrich plays principal clarinet in the Albany Symphony Orchestra (GA). He frequently performs with Sinfonia Gulf Coast and the Punta Gorda (FL) Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as guest principal clarinet with the Orquesta Sinfonica UANL in Monterrey, Mexico. As a featured soloist, Dr. Geldrich has appeared with the Montclair Symphony Orchestra (NJ), the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra, the VSU Wind Ensemble, the VSU Faculty Jazz Ensemble, and the Carolina Master Chorale.
Dr. Geldrich has performed in various regional, national, and international conferences including the International Clarinet Association’s Clarinetfest, the International Double Reed Society Conference, the World Alliance of Symphonic Band Ensembles International Conference, the National Flute Association’s Convention, the Music By Women Festival, the Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, and the Alabama MTNA Conference.
Dr. Geldrich received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of South Carolina where he studied with Joseph Eller. He received the Master of Music degree in clarinet performance from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Music in clarinet performance from the University of Maryland.