Monday, March 23, 2009

4/08/2009 @ 6:15 p.m.: UNF Clarinet Choir


Clarinet ensemble, chamber music and solo performances from the studio of Dr. Guy Yehuda, director of Woodwind Studies at the University of North Florida

Solos and Chamber Music
PIAZZOLLA
Tango Etude no. 3
  • Stephanie Stone, clarinet
    STRAVINSKY
    Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet
  • Elizabeth Felsted, clarinet
    BUECHE
    Fugue for Clarinet Trio
  • Stephanie Stone, Jessica Abbott & Elizabeth Felsted, B-flat clarinets
    FARKAS
    Ancient Hungarian Dances from the 17th Century
        I. Intrada - II. Lassu - III. Lapockas Tanc - IV. Ugros
  • Edward Gedult von Jungenfeld - E-Flat Clarinet
  • Jessica Abbott - B-Flat Clarinet
  • Elizabeth Felsted - B-Flat Clarinet
  • Michael Emmert - Bass Clarinet
    Clarinet Choir
    ROSSINI / PALMER
    An Italian in Algiers : Sinfonia
    FRACKENPOHL
    Clarinet Rag
    DEBUSSY / HOWLAND
    Petite Suite : Ballet
    MOZART / CAILLIET
    The Marriage of Figaro : Overture

    E-Flat Clarinet
  • Edward Gedult von Jungenfeld
    B-Flat Clarinet
  • Philip Lipton
  • Stephanie Stone
  • Elizabeth Felsted
  • Sara Herreros
  • Jessica Abbott
  • Stephanie Nunn
  • Michael Emmert
  • Tavia Sullens
  • Markis Hernandez
    Alto clarinet
  • Michael Emmert
  • Edward Gedult von Jungenfeld
    Bass Clarinet
  • Stefano di Bella
    Contrabass Clarinet
  • Luis Palacios

    Program Notes by Ed Lein, Music Librarian
    ©2009, E. Lein


    Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992) pretty much single-handedly transformed his homeland's national dance, the tango, into a new style aptly called nuevo tango ("new tango"), by infusing the traditional dance form with characteristics of jazz, and incorporating contrapuntal techniques and formal elements adapted from his classical studies. It is estimated that Piazzolla composed over 3,000 pieces, and recorded about 500 of them himself! His six Études tanguistiques ("Tango Studies"), composed in 1987 are originally for flute, and have also become popular in a transcription for solo violin. The 3rd Étude is a florid virtuoso piece with quickly shifting textures that sometimes give the impression that more than one instrument is playing!

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    Russian-born Igor Stravinsky (1182-1971) is included among the Time 100, Time magazine's list of the most influential people of the 20th Century. Stravinsky shot to international fame with his early ballets, The Firebird (1910), and Petrushka (1911), and his revolutionary The Rite of Spring (1913) ushered in Modernism and forever changed the way composers regarded rhythmic structures. Stravinsky moved his family to Switzerland soon after The Firebird premiered in Paris and he developed an artistic partnership with Swiss philanthropist Werner Reinhart (1884-1951), who provided Stravinsky with financial backing for another revolutionary work, The Soldier's Tale (1918). Reinhart was himself an amateur clarinetist, and in gratitude Stravinsky composed for him the Three Pieces for Clarinet (1918, published 1919). The first movement, "always soft and very tranquil," is contemplative and exploits the instruments low register; the 2nd is written without barlines and is improvisatory in character; and the 3rd movement rather recalls the dance styles (i.e., Ragtime and Tango) used in The Soldier's Tale.

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    Only sparse information is available about Gregory A. Bueche (d.1977), but he was band director and became head of the Music Department at Colorado State University in the late 1930s, was elected to the American Bandmasters Association in 1949, and remained musically active at least into the 1960s. As one might expect, as a composer and arranger he apparently concentrated on works for band and band instruments, but his works also include Heritage for chorus with orchestra or organ, written for the 1964 Centennial Celebration in Fort Collins, Colorado. His Fugue was written to help fill the demand for chamber music for woodwind instruments, and may also be performed by 2 clarinets and bassoon.

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    Ferenc Farkas (1905-2000) was a leading Hungarian composer and teacher of the generation between Bartók and Ligeti, and the latter was one of his students. Farkas's studies included a stint with Respighi in Rome, and at the beginning of his career he wrote music for Scandinavian films before returning to Hungary to teach. He was a prolific composer with a catalog of over 700 compositions in a wide variety of styles and genres, including operas and many songs and choral works on texts in at least 15 different languages. His melodic writing typically is diatonic and often influenced by Hungarian folk music, but on occasion he also experimented with twelve-tone technique. Farkas's Ancient Hungarian Dances remain faithful to the tonal characteristics of the original 17th-century sources, and in addition to these arrangements for clarinets they are also frequently performed by wind quintet.

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    By 1829, when Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) retired after the premiere of his 39th opera, Guillaume Tell, he had become the most popular composer in the history of music for the stage, and his Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, 1816) retains its place as one of the most frequently staged Italian operas. Many of his opera overtures likewise remain concert favorites, including the Sinfonia to the comic opera, L'italiana in Algeri (An Italian in Algiers, 1813), written when the composer was only 21. This arrangement for clarinet choir is by Harold G. Palmer, an American clarinetist, band director, and music educator who is often sited as a key figure in ushering in the "golden age" of the clarinet choir, beginning in the 1950s.

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    New Jersey native Arthur Frackenpohl (b. 1924), whose composition teachers included Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger, has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. From 1949 until his retirement in 1985, he was a member of the faculty at Crane School of Music at the State University of New York in Potsdam, and in addition to publishing over 250 instrumental and choral compositions and arrangements he authored a popular college textbook on piano harmonization. His chamber music for wind instruments are among his best-selling works.

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    Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a quintessentially French composer, pianist and music critic whose own revolutionary music ushered in many of the stylistic changes of the 20th Century. Debussy is usually identified as the chief proponent of musical “impressionism,” but he did not approve of that label himself. The Ballet is the fourth and final movement of Debussy's Petite Suite (1889), originally for piano, 4-hands. This arrangement is by Russell Howland (1908-1995), who was a professor of woodwinds at the University of Michigan before moving to the state college in Fresno, California, in 1948, where he earned inclusion in the California Music Educators Association's Hall of Fame in 1975.

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    Austrian-born Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), unquestionably one of the greatest composers in history, began his career touring Europe as a 6-year-old piano prodigy, and he absorbed and mastered all the contemporary musical trends he was exposed to along the way. He wrote more than 600 works, including 22 operas and over three dozen symphonies, plus numerous concertos, chamber works, piano pieces, and choral works. Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786), is a cornerstone of the operatic repertoire, and its famous Overture is frequently performed as a stand-alone concert piece. Arranger Lucien Cailliet (1897-1985) was born in France but moved to the United States in 1918, and became a clarinetist and staff arranger for the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. Upon completing his doctoral studies in 1937, Cailliet (often misspelled "Caillet") joined the faculty of the University of Southern California for seven years, after which he devoted time to composing and arranging scores for nearly 50 films. Cailliet's arrangements of orchestral music for wind ensembles are highly regarded and frequently performed.

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  • Friday, March 20, 2009

    4/28/2009 @ 6:15 p.m.: enhakē


    2008 First Prize Winner, 3rd International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition

    Join the Tallahassee-based quartet for an exceptional evening of lively chamber music!

    Wonkak Kim, clarinet
    M. Brent Williams, violin/viola
    Jayoung Kim, violoncello
    Eun-Hee Park, piano

    PROGRAM SELECTIONS
  • JOHN MACKEY: Breakdown Tango
  • PETER SCHICKELE: Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano
            1. Moderato, flowing
            2. Fast, driving
            3. Slow, elegiac
            4. Quite fast, dancing
  • ASTOR PIAZZOLLA: Oblivión
  • OLIVIER MESSIAEN: Quatuor pour la fin du temps
            1. Liturgie de cristal ("Liturgy of crystal")
            2. Vocalise, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps ("Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of time")
            6. Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes ("Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets")
            7. Fouillis d'arcs-en-ciel, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps ("Tangle of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of time")


    enhakē is an emerging classical chamber ensemble comprised of members from South Korea and the United States. Drawing its name from the Seminole (Creek) word for "sound" or "call," enhakē (pronounced in-HA-kee) is committed to bringing sublime chamber music to its audience with a sincere respect and love for the score.

    Since its inception in 2007 at Florida State University, enhakē has quickly established itself by performing and participating in the most prestigious competitions throughout the United States. In 2008 enhakē was awarded first prize at the 3rd International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition (Boston, Massachusetts) and a Judges’ Special Recognition Prize at the Plowman Chamber Music Competition (Columbia, Missouri). The same year, enhakē made its Carnegie Hall (New York City) debut featuring John Mackey’s Breakdown Tango to critical acclaim at Weill Recital Hall. The group is also a recipient of the University Musical Association Award and Academic Conference Grants at FSU. enhakē was featured in the 2008 OK Mozart Festival Showcase Series (Bartlesville, Oklahoma) and has given Guest Artist Recitals as well as master classes at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City University and Valdosta State University (Georgia). In 2008 Fall, the group appeared in An Evening of Music and Dance in collaboration with the Tallahassee Ballet Company.
    Read an April 16, 2009, article about enhakē at FSUNews.com

    Listen to enhakē perform American Chamber Music, including Peter Schickele's QUARTET, on YouTube.com

    Plus: BREAKDOWN TANGO and OBLIVION

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    Meet the Performers


    Jayoung Kim, a native of South Korea, is a doctoral candidate in cello performance at Florida State University (Tallahassee), where she studies with Gregory Sauer, and where she has served as principal cellist with the Florida State Symphony. She earned her BM degree from Ewha University in Seoul, receiving the Ewha Honor Scholarship, and performed as soloist and principal cellist with the Ewha University Orchestra. Ms. Kim received her MM degree from the Eastman School of Music, studying under Alan Harris. As a member of Trio dell’arte, she was invited to participate in the Young-San Artist Series, and also has attended the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, and theTexas Music Festival in Houston. She has performed in master classes with Andres Diaz, Edward Aaron, Thomas Landschoot and Lynn Harrell.

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    Described as a “tour de force” by Classical Voice of North Carolina, clarinetist Wonkak Kim consistently dazzles with playing that is “virtuosic and stirring” (Journal de Morges, Switzerland). The Korean native began studying clarinet at age fifteen, and since has concertized throughout the United States, South Korea and Europe, and has appeared as soloist with nearly a dozen orchestras, including recent performances with the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic and the Central Florida Symphony. A prizewinner of numerous national and international competitions, Mr. Kim has appeared in Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Constitution Hall. His major teachers have been Donald Oehler and Frank Kowalsky.

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    Eun-Hee Park is pursuing a Doctoral degree in FSU’s Accompanying/Chamber Music program under the tutelage of Carolyn Bridger. Ms. Park received her MM degree with high honors at Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University and her BA degree at Mesa State College (Colorado) where she was graduated summa cum laude, and she also has participated in the Corsi Internazionali di Musica (University of Urhino, Italy). She has competed internationally and received numerous scholarships and awards both in Korea and the United States, including winner of Young Artists Competition OK, and a special prize for performance of contemporary music at the Competition Internationale in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ) She has played in master classes for Margo Garrett, David Koreyaar, Renato Premezzi, Daniel Epstein, Daniel Pollack, Robert Marler, Tanya Bannister, Peter Miyamoto and the Merling Trio.

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    M. Brent Williams joined the faculty of Valdosta State University in the fall of 2008, where he also serves as principal second violin of the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra and performs with the faculty string quartet. He is completing his DMA in violin performance at FSU, while also earning the Music of the Americas graduate certificate. He received his MM from FSU as a teaching assistant/assistant to the director of the chamber music program, and he earned is BMA from the University of Oklahoma, where he received the Doris Bratton Scholar Award, Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Award, and OU Scholars Award. Mr. Williams is the assistant concertmaster of Tallahassee Symphony and Sinfonia Gulf Coast Orchestra (Destin, Florida). His principal teachers include Beth Newdome, Dr. Gary Kosloski, Byron Tauchi, Michael Ma, Dr. Janna Lower, Wayne Crouse, Eliot Chapo, and Chris Wu.

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    Program Notes, by Ed Lein, Music Librarian
    ©2009, E. Lein--please acknowledge when quoting



    Ohio-born composer John Mackey (b.1973) is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music (BFA) and the Juilliard School (MM), where he studied compostion with Donald Erb and John Corigliano respectively. He has received numerous commissions and awards and his works enjoy frequent international performances, including the recent presentation of his Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra by Charlotte Mabrey with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Mackey was Music Director of the Parsons Dance Company from 1999-2003, and Breakdown Tango (aka, Dementia) was composed in 2000 to fill a commission for the company -- the corresponding ballet is called Promenade. About the piece the composer observes: "This work (called 'darkly dramatic' by the New York Times, and 'an appealing, and at times wonderfully trashy piece' by The Clarinet Magazine), has a virtuostic beginning and ending, with a peculiar tango sandwiched in the middle." Breakdown Tango provides the source material for an orchestral work called Redline Tango, and its wind ensemble version won both the 2004 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize and the 2005 ABA/Ostwald Award from the American Bandmasters Association.

    GO HERE to listen to Breakdown Tango on the composer's website.


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    Composer Peter Schickele (b. 1935) is best known as the Grammy® Award-winning satirist responsible for the hilarious fictional composer, P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742?), which he created during the mid-1960s at about the same time he left his teaching position at the Juilliard School. But in addition to his humorous parodies Schickele has a varied catalog of original orchestral works and chamber music, and he has composed for stage, television and film, including the soundtrack for the 1972 science fiction film, Silent Running. The Quartet (composed 1979-1982, published 1984) has become a concert favorite, and its intricate, playful, and sometimes jazzy style showcases the performers technical mastery while never failing to delight audiences.

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    Argentine composer Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992) pretty much single-handedly transformed his homeland's national dance, the tango, into a new style aptly called nuevo tango ("new tango"), by infusing the traditional dance form with characteristics of jazz, and incorporating contrapuntal techniques and formal elements adapted from his classical studies. It is estimated that Piazzolla wrote over 3,000 pieces, and recorded about 500 of them himself! Piazzolla included Oblivión in his soundtrack score composed for Marco Bellocchio's 1984 film, Enrico IV ("Henry IV"), and it is one of Piazzolla's more traditional (i.e., less jazzy and/or Bartókian) tangos, and one which has become among his most frequently performed and recorded pieces, in varying instrumental arrangements.

    GO HERE to watch a piano trio performance of Oblivión (played by the Esterhazy Trio) at YouTube.com.

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    Among the most significant composers of the 20th Century, France’s Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was also a noted organist, music theorist, and extremely influential teacher. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1919 (at age 11), was organist at Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris from 1931 to 1978, and joined the faculty of the Paris Conservatory in 1941. Just prior to this latter appointment, Messiaen, who had been serving in the French army's medical auxiliary, was imprisoned in a concentration camp when the Germans occupied France in 1940, and it was while he was a prisoner that he composed and first performed his best-known work, Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the End of Time"). The instrumentation was determined by the players who were available (also prisoners), and Messiaen, a devout Roman Catholic, states in the score that the work is directly inspired by passages from the Biblical Book of Revelation:
    And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire, and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by him that liveth for ever and ever that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.
    Of its eight movements, the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th use the full quartet, while the others use one to three instruments from the ensemble. Like most of Messian's works, the Quartet is rhythmically complex, and the melodies and harmonies make use of non-traditional scales which deliberately avoid definite tonal centers. Messiaen considered himself as much an ornithologist as a musician, and birdsong often plays a key role in his music, as in the first movement which includes imitations of blackbirds (in the clarinet) and nightingales (in the violin). The unison instruments in the 6th movement are meant to imitate gongs and trumpets, and the movement illustrates the composer's fascination with augmented and diminishing rhythmic patterns. The 2nd and 7th movements share thematic materials, and the rainbows that Messiaen describes as accompanying the angel were more than mere fancy for the composer--he had a benign neurological condition called synaesthesia which caused him to experience colors when he heard music.

    Listen at Youtube.com to the 1st movement; 2nd movement; 6th movement; 7th movement

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  • 4/15/2009 @ 6:15 p.m.: UNF String Ensemble


    Under the direction of Dr. Simon Shiao, University of North Florida students will present music for piano trio and string orchestra. Additionally, Dr. Nick Curry's UNF Cello Choir will perform music for four cellos.

    PROGRAM SELECTIONS
    SMETANA: Piano Trio in G minor, op. 15
        Allegro ma non agitato -- Presto
    SCHUBERT: Marche militaire, D.733
    GOLTERMANN: Romance, op. 119, no. 1
    HETFIELD-ULRICH/TOPPINEN: Nothing Else Matters
    MAHLER: Adagietto (from Symphony no. 5)
    BLOCH: Concerto Grosso no. 1 for strings with piano obbligato
        I. Prelude -- IV. Fugue

    THE PLAYERS
    Harp
  • Linda Schlipf
    Piano
  • Ai Sugisaki
    1st Violin
  • Jordan Mixson
  • Jennifer Warzynski
  • Olivia Harrell
  • Chrissy Dan
    2nd Violin
  • Jeremy Davis
  • Sarah Hartley
  • Yap Chua
  • Brent Gregory
    Viola
  • Leah Kogut
  • David Rowan
  • Monica Lapierre
    Cello
  • Brittany Maroney
  • Ariadna Perez
  • Anna Wilson
  • Nate Edwards
    String Bass
  • Jesse Kidd
  • Javier Arguello


    PROGRAM NOTES by Ed Lein, Music Librarian



    Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), recognized as the first composer to borrow characteristics from the folk music of his Czech homeland into original works, was a leading figure in the Czech Nationalist movement after Austria granted Bohemia political autonomy in 1860. Smetana was instrumental in founding the first theater where operas and plays were presented in the Czech language in 1862, and where his own enduringly popular comic opera, The Bartered Bride, was first produced in 1866. In 1874, over the course of just a few months the composer became completely deaf, but he continued to compose, and that same year he completed his best known work, The Moldau, one of six tone poems collectively called Má Vlast (“My Country”). Tragically, between 1854-1856 three of Smetana’s four daughters died, and his beautiful and moving Piano Trio, op. 15 (1855, rev 1857), was written in memory of his 4 1/2-year-old Bedřiška who had died in 1854 of scarlet fever. Although Smetana uses a descending chromatic motive representative of death in all three movements, the second movement provides a playful and tender portrait full of dancing rhythms. The final movement begins with the death motive and it returns near the end in a funeral march, but ultimately the composer presents a loving remembrance that transcends death.

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    In addition to numerous symphonies, chamber works, masses, and piano music, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) composed over 600 songs in his short life, and has remained unsurpassed in his ability to marry poetry with music. Although his music was regularly performed in private concerts for Vienna’s musical elite and his genius was touted by no less than Beethoven, Schubert was never able to secure a publisher for the bulk of his masterworks so he depended on his devoted circle of friends for maintaining his finances. After his death (probably from medicinal mercury poisoning) Schubert’s wish to be buried next to Beethoven was honored. Originally for piano, 4-hands, Schubert’s three Marches militaires, Op. 51 (D.733), have been published in numerous arrangements ranging from organ solo to percussion ensemble, and the first one (in D major) ranks among the composer’s most popular works.

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    German composer Georg Eduard Goltermann (1824-1898) began his career touring Europe as a cello soloist before settling in Frankfurt am Main in 1853 as deputy music director at the municipal theater, ultimately becoming its Kapellmeister in 1874. Goltermann (sometimes spelled without the final “n”) composed five cello concertos, and although public performances of any of them are now rare, his fourth concerto remains a popular teaching vehicle for cello students. There is not a great deal of original music composed for cello quartet, so the Romance and Serenade that comprise Goltermann’s Op. 119 have fared better than many of his works.

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    James Hetfield (b. 1963) is the main song writer, vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Metallica, the American heavy metal band he co-founded in 1981 with Danish drummer Lars Ulrich (b. 1963), and the ballad Nothing Else Matters was originally released in 1991 on their self-titled album, Metallica (aka, the Black Album). When Hetfield wrote the song he at first considered it too personal to release, but Ulrich convinced him otherwise and it has become an audience favorite and is still featured regularly in the band’s live performances. Finnish cellist, arranger and award-winning composer Eicca Toppinen (b.1975) is a founding member of Apocalyptica, a heavy metal (but classically trained) cello quartet which began its career covering Metallica songs in Helsinki’s Teatro Heavy Metal club in 1993. Their first CD, released in 1996, features covers of Metallica songs, and their 1998 CD, Inquisition Symphony, includes this version of Nothing Else Matters.
    Watch Apocalyptica's music video of Nothing Else Matters on youtube.

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    Like Smetana, Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was born in Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), and like Schubert he achieved his greatest successes in Vienna. For Mahler, though, it was more for his conducting rather than composing that he gained international fame, and during the last years of his life he accepted principal conducting appointments at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and to the New York Philharmonic. When Mahler died at age 50 from a blood infection he still had not received full acceptance from the Viennese musical establishment as a composer, but now he is regarded as the last great Viennese symphonist, joining the ranks of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Brahms. The elegiac Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 (1901-1902) is probably the best-known of his symphonic compositions, owing largely to its inclusion in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film, Death in Venice. But even before the film it was popular as a stand-alone concert piece, and it was played at the memorial service for Robert Kennedy in 1968.

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    Swiss-born composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was educated and began his teaching career in Europe, but he moved to America in 1916 and became a U.S. citizen in 1924. His teaching posts included directorships at the Cleveland Institute of Music (which he helped found in 1920), and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and his students included Roger Sessions, George Antheil, Douglas Moore, Quincy Porter, Randall Thompson, and Leon Kirchner. Although Bloch's diverse (but essentially Romantic) output includes some works which adapt atonality and serialism into his own style, his most widely-known works are those which draw inspiration from his Jewish heritage, such as Schelomo, for cello and orchestra (1916). While Neoclassicism was still a relatively new trend, Bloch wrote the Prelude to his four-movement Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1924-1925) to settle an argument with his students by demonstrating that it was indeed possible to create exciting new works using "olden" techniques and performance ensembles - when they performed it the students readily conceded that Bloch was right! The concluding Fugue likewise breathes new life into an antique formal procedure, and the Concerto Grosso No. 1 remains a favorite of student ensembles and is one of Bloch's most frequently performed works.
    Watch Bloch's Prelude performed on youtube.

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    Simon Shiao, a versatile performer who has appeared at Carnegie Hall as a recitalist and with both string quartet and orchestra, has played concerts around the world and on broadcasts of CNN's Science and Technology program and Public Radio's Live on WGBH. He has performed as soloist and co-concertmaster with Miami’s New World Symphony, and currently performs with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in Wyoming. At UNF he teaches violin and viola and is Director of Orchestral Studies, and he is the chair of the solo competition for the Florida Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. Dr. Shiao holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and Masters and Doctoral degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

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    Atlanta native Nick Curry is the recently-appointed Cello Professor at the University of North Florida. Prior to moving to Jacksonville, Dr. Curry was the Professor of Cello at the University of South Dakota and the cellist in USD’s Rawlins Piano Trio. Nick received his Bachelor of Music degree from Vanderbilt, where he received the Jean Keller Heard Award for Excellence in string playing. While earning his Masters and Doctoral degrees at Northwestern University, Dr. Curry appeared as soloist with the Northwestern Philharmonic Orchestra and won the Northwestern Chamber Music Competition. Dr. Curry has played concerts in Taiwan and all over the United States, and in 2006 he performed as a soloist on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, where he played the King Amati cello.

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