Jacksonville University Chamber Ensembles
Dr. Marguerite Richardson, faculty coordinator
W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Quartet No. 1in G minor, K. 478: I. Allegro
Yelena Sakara, violin, Ian Rodgers, viola, Brendan Kohler, violoncello & Jackson Merrill, piano
Dr. Shannon Lockwood, faculty coach
Ervin Monroe
Brian Boru's March (Traditional Irish Tune)
Ernesto Lecuona
Malaguena (arr. by Ann Cameron Pearce)
JU Flute Ensemble
Evan Brown, Paige Dyjack, Anne McKennon, Kimberly Trumbull, Delisa Youngblood & Les Roettges
Les Roettges, faculty coach
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
The Old Castle (From Pictures at an Exhibition, arr. By Rik Pfenninger)
Bob Mintzer (b. 1953)
Swingin' (from Three Pieces for Saxophone Quartet)
JU Saxophone Quartet
Joshua Gaudino, alto saxophone, Sarah Lee, alto and soprano saxophone, Daniel Powell, tenor saxophone & Ian Vargas, baritone saxophone
Prof. John Ricci, faculty coach
Eric Ewazen (b. 1954)
Colchester Fantasy: III. The Dragoon - IV. The Red Lion
JU Honors Brass Quintet
Triston Hanson, Ben Tino,Trumpets, Michael Ryan, Horn, Erik Blomgren, Trombone & Cody Wheaton, Tuba
Prof. Christopher Creswell, faculty coach
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
String Quintet No. 2 in G major, op. 77: I. Allegro con fuoco - II. Scherzo (Allegro vivace)
JU Honors String Quintet
Edward Latimer, Joseph Schmidt, violins, Mamie Lue Small, viola & Tim Stephen, violoncello; Anna Thompson, string bass
Dr. Marguerite Richardson, faculty coach
Jacksonville University is a comprehensive, private university with more than 70 respected academic programs that attract nearly 3,000 students from all over Florida, across the nation, and around the world. Working closely with a distinguished faculty of professional performing artists and researchers, students can focus and refine their skills while deepening an appreciation for the musical arts. Music students at Jacksonville University may pursue a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Bachelor of Music (B.M.), Bachelor of Music Education (B.M.E.), or a Bachelor of Science (B.S.).
The Chamber Music Program at Jacksonville University includes a wide variety of players and instrumental combinations. Each student group is coached on a weekly basis by a faculty member, in addition to student-run rehearsals during the week. The Division of Music presents three chamber recitals during the course of the academic year featuring these groups. Among the chamber groups are three Honors Ensembles (String Quartet, Woodwind Quintet and Brass Quintet), which provide the students selected to participate in them with full-tuition scholarships.
ABOUT THE FACULTY COACHES
Dr. Shannon Lockwood (B.M. Summa cum laude, U. of Denver; M.M. and D.M.A., University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music) is a member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and an Adjunct Applied Instructor (violoncello) at JU. Formerly principal cellist of the Richmond Indiana Symphony Orchestra, Dr. Lockwood is an avid performer as soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician throughout the United States, England and France.
Ohio native Les Roettges (B.M., New England Conservatory; M.M., Juilliard) has been principal flute for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra since 1986 and for the Eastern Music Festival since 2002. He also appears on PBS as a member of Gerard Schwarz’s Emmy-winning All-Star Orchestra project. Among numerous appearances around the country, Les has performed locally for the Amelia Island Chamber Festival and the Saint Augustine Festival, and with the San Marco Chamber Music Society.
JU's Director of Jazz Studies and Artist in Residence John Ricci (B.M., U. of Tennessee at Knoxville; M.M., FSU) has been a performer, jazz educator, composer and clinician in the North Florida area for over eleven years. Among his many awards he received a Downbeat Magazine award in 1995, and won the jazz song category of the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards in 2009. John has performed with a myriad of top recording artists and as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Pops Orchestra. Festival appearances have included the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, the Savannah Jazz Festival and the Knoxville Jazz Festival, and he and his quartet were invited to headline the Inaugural Jacksonville Jazz Series.
Christopher Creswell (B.M. in Trombone Performance, UNF; M.M. in Jazz Studies, Manhattan School of Music) has been Artist in Residence and Director of Athletic Bands at Jacksonville University since 2012. Chris has performed and recorded with many of today’s top pop and jazz artists, including Mariah Carey, John Pizzarelli, Will Smith and Arturo Sandovale, and remains active as a trombonist in the Jacksonville music scene performing at festivals, corporate events, and with various jazz and chamber ensembles. He also has composed numerous original compositions and arrangements for jazz ensemble, including a commission for the 2008 Jacksonville Jazz Festival.
PROGRAM NOTES by Edward Lein, Music Librarian
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. Written in 1785, Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1, KV 478, is the earliest masterpiece for a surprisingly rare performance ensemble combining piano with string trio—Haydn wrote nothing for piano quartet and Beethoven never returned to the medium after three very early Piano Quartets, WoO 36 (coincidentally also written in 1785 when Beethoven was only 14). Mozart was originally commissioned to write a set of three quartets suitable for amateur musicians, but the publisher canceled the order for the last two quartets because the first one was too difficult for amateurs, and he feared the new quartets would be unlikely to return a profit. Nonetheless, this Quartet is one of Mozart’s finest creations, and the great Czech Romantic Nationalist composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) borrowed the opening theme for the finale of his String Quintet, Op. 1. Always strapped for cash, Mozart luckily got to keep the advance payment from the commission, but even with the commission canceled Mozart found the instrumentation artistically rewarding, enough so that he returned to it 9 months later, producing his Piano Quartet No. 2, KV 493.
Ervin Monroe was principal flute of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for over 40 years, and has been heard on more symphonic radio broadcasts than any other American principal flutist. He has numerous solo and chamber music recordings, and has performed with such renowned artists as the late Jean-Pierre Rampal. Formerly president of the National Flute Association, Monroe founded The Flutist Quarterly and was the flute professor at Wayne State University for more than three decades; he also has served as musical director of several orchestras in Michigan. Among Monroe's numerous published arrangements and original compositions, his Brian Boru's March is based on a catchy Celtic tune named for the medieval Irish King who founded the O'Brien dynasty.
With such lasting hits as Andalucia and Siboney, Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963) is perhaps the most famous Cuban composer and pianist of the 20th Century, and his influence among Latin American composers has been compared with George Gershwin's in the U.S. Many of his 600+ compositions were written for theatrical and film productions, and his Always in My Heart was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song in 1942 (losing to Irving Berlin's White Christmas). Originally composed as part of Suite Andalucia for solo piano in 1924, Malagueña is likely Lecuona's most famous composition, with recordings and performances by innumerable jazz and pop artists, as well as marching bands and drum corps. As a performer, Ann Cameron Pierce (b. 1949) specializes in contrabass flute. Like many of her 79 flute choir arrangements and compositions, Pierce's 2012 arrangement of Malagueña received special recognition from the National Flute Association’s Newly Published Music Competition.
Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) was among "The Five" leading composers of the Russian Romantic Nationalist movement of the late 19th Century. Along with Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui, and their mentor Mily Balakirev, this "Mighty Handful" formed a group of young composers who strove to create forms and melodies born of Russian folk music rather than Germanic symphonic traditions. In addition to Boris Godunov (1874), the quintessential Russian opera, and the tone poem Night on Bald Mountain (1867-80, edited and orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886), Mussorgsky is most remembered for his Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). Originally for piano solo, Ravel's famous orchestral version of the suite became an instant classic in 1922, and his version of The Old Castle caused quite a stir when he assigned the principal melody to saxophone, previously considered almost exclusively as a jazz instrument. Rik Pfenninger, a Professor of Music at Plymouth State University (New Hampshire) specializing in jazz studies and music technology, goes a step further in his 1998 arrangement, eliminating the need for either piano or orchestra!
Equally active as composer, arranger and educator, saxophonist Bob Mitzer (b. 1953) tours with the Yellowjackets and his own quartet and big band, and is guest conductor and soloist with large and small bands all over the world. At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Mitzer teaches jazz composition, saxophone and directs the Thornton Jazz Orchestra. He also gives workshops around the world, has authored books on a variety of musical subjects, and plays on countless recordings every year. His compositions and arrangements include works for big bands, concert bands, orchestra and saxophone quartets. Swingin' is the first of Mitzer's Three Pieces For Saxophone Quartet (2006), commissioned by Frank Masseo and The New Jersey Saxophone Quartet.
Since 1980, Ohio-born Eric Ewazen (b. 1954) has been a composition professor at The Juilliard School, where he received both his M.M. and D.M.A. degrees after having received his B.M. from the Eastman School of Music. Among others, his principle teachers included Modernist composers Milton Babbitt and Joseph Schwantner, but Ewazen's post-Modern style is more closely aligned with Copland's populism and Barber's neo-romanticism. The recipient of numerous composition prizes and prestigious international commissions, Dr. Ewazen has been lecturer for the New York Philharmonic's Musical Encounters Series, Vice-President of the League of Composers--International Society of Contemporary Music, and Composer-In-Residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York City. His four-movement Colchester Fantasy dates from 1987 and has been recorded by the American Brass Quintet.
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) is an immensely popular Czech composer who fused melodic and rhythmic elements of Bohemian folk music with classical symphonic forms. As his international reputation flourished, Dvořák was invited to New York City to become the director of the National Conservatory of Music from 1892 to 1895, during which time he wrote the famous New World Symphony. What is now known as the String Quintet No. 2 in G major, op. 77 first appeared as Dvořák's opus 18 in March 1875, originally a five-movement work with which he won a chamber music competition in Prague. This was just two months after the 34-year old composer had won an even greater prize: a stipend for composing from the Austrian government. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was one of the three jurors who unanimously recommended the virtually unknown Czech for the stipend, and Brahms also helped Dvořák secure a publishing deal with Simrock, a leading music publishing house. In preparing the Quintet for its 1888 publication, among a few minor changes Dvořák removed his original second-movement, which was published separately as the Nocturne for Strings, op. 40. It's said Dvořák wasn't happy that Simrock changed the Quintet's opus number from 18 to 77 because he didn't want his early efforts confused with the works of his maturity. Even so, when it was composed Dvořák had already moved away from his early "Wagnerisms" in favor of the more folksy style that has made him perhaps the most popular of all the composers called "Romantic Nationalists," regardless of nationality.
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