Santa Rosa Junior College Chamber Music Series: Concert

Sunday @ 4:00 pm

Santa Rosa, CA

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Santa Rosa Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Program:

Splinter

Composer Marc Mellits’ music contains driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations, which might seem difficult to capture with just five instruments. In the case of his first work for reed quintet–formed in short miniatures like almost all of Mellits‘ music–the listener experiences repetitious motives which, through subtle harmonic changes, create elongated phrases and broader musical structures. Even among the identical openings of movements 1 and 6 (as well as a few bars of directly transplanted content in movements 5 and 8), the listener gets a broader sense of the greater architecture in the work, even as motives continue to drive, repeat, and subtlety evolve. Mellits‘ musical upbringing was varied, including rock and electronic music influences, which became a part of his musical instincts early on and make a thrilling contribution to his classical compositions today.

Rites for the Afterlife

After Akropolis and two other reed quintets chose Stacy Garrop as winner of the 2018 Barlow Prize for music composition, she was granted the Barlow Endowment’s prestigious prize to compose her first reed quintet, Rites for the Afterlife. It was the first time the Endowment chose the reed quintet to award this prize for a new composition. Stacy chose for her subject matter the Egyptian’s beliefs about the afterlife. The piece follows the soul into and through the afterlife, including the spells and enchantments contained in The Book of the Dead, the funery barque which tows the soul through the Netherworld, its arrival in the Hall of Judgement to be weighed against a feather from Maat—the goddess of truth—and its final resting place at the field of reeds where it is united with family members, harvesting plentiful crops along the Nile under a brilliant blue sky forever. Rites for the Afterlife was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment on behalf of the Akropolis Reed Quintet, Calefax Reed Quintet, and Brigham Young University reed quintet.

Homage to Paradise Valley

Paradise Valley was the business district of Black Bottom, a densely-populated African American neighborhood in Detroit. It was displaced during the mid-century urban renewal, most notably by highway projects. This became the subject of Jeff Scott’s first reed quintet after he and Akropolis visited the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, while Jeff’s quintet, Imani Winds, was passing through Detroit on tour. Homage to Paradise Valley utilizes Jeff’s diverse musical background as a jazz and studio musician in New York City. This work is made possible through the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Fund. One can learn more about this part of Detroit’s history by visiting the Detroit Historical Society website at detroithistorical.org.

An American In Paris

In this classic, George Gershwin’s An American In Paris, Gershwin aimed to create one of his more serious works despite his natural affinity for frivolity. He consulted Ravel about this conundrum, who wisely instructed that if Gershwin was making more money than Ravel (which he was), he shouldn’t change how he writes his music. He sought advice from Nadia Boulanger, the great teacher of Aaron Copland and others. She also wisely suggested to Gershwin try to be no one but Gershwin. And so, using complex motivic development which is constantly modulating and changing form, Gershwin manages to create his most accessible, but simultaneously most complex piece of music. The continually repeating and evolving motives make for a challenging but thrilling performance which Akropolis is delighted to bring to the stage.