Metropolitan State University of Denver
Faculty Artist Series
Adam Snider, tuba
Thursday, March 2, 2023
7.30pm, King Center Recital Hall
Rev. E.L. Knight (2007) Douglas McRay Daniels
Lyric Étude No. 3 (2020) Ryan M. Hare
Walk Around You (2018) Ian Dicke
locomotive reverie (2020) Hope Salmonson
DeAunn Davis, horn
— intermission —
Four Pieces Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450-1517)
transc. Kenneth Singleton
I. Allegro
II. Moderato
III. Allegro moderato
IV. Allegro
Personalities (2018) Barbara York
I. Quirky
II. Romantic
III. Sassy
IV. Solitary
V. Brilliant
Triangles (1978) John Stevens
The Breezy Three
DeAunn Davis, horn
Joseph Martin, trombone
Adam Snider, tuba
Douglas McRay Daniels is the chair of the Gann Academy Arts Department, music director for the Bentley University Chamber Orchestra and the Fall River Symphony Orchestra, associate conductor of the Waltham Philharmonic Orchestra. Among his many accomplishments, Daniels is the founder and artistic director of the popular 3rd Sundays @ 3 Chamber Music Series. This televised chamber music series highlighted chamber groups throughout the Greater Boston Area and across the country.
In 2014, he was a finalist for the post of music director for the Arlington, Lincoln-Sudbury and Reading Symphony Orchestras. His past posts have included: assistant conductor of the Heartland Philharmonic Orchestra in Omaha, NE; the Marlborough Symphony Orchestra (now known as Metrowest Symphony) in Marlborough, MA; Sinfonia conductor at Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH and the conductor of the Honors Orchestra at Nashoba Youth Orchestras. His Boston area guest conducting appointments have included the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, Boston Invitational Trombone Ensemble and Quincy Symphony Orchestra. In 2014 he was invited to work with the Berlin Sinfonietta in Berlin Germany and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra in Zlin and Kromeriz, Czech Republic. Also a composer, Daniels’ Rev. E.L. Knight for solo Tuba was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Tubist, Michael Roylance, during the 2007 & 2013 Tanglewood season.
Guided by a belief that music is “common ground” that bridges differences of humanity; Ray is particularly interested in engaging young (new) audiences. He makes his home in Medford, MA with his wife, Kikuyu and their daughter Zoë.
Photo: Stuart Murtland
Ryan M. Hare, composer and bassoonist, was born in Reno, Nevada in 1970, and now lives in Pullman, Washington. He earned tenure and the rank of full Professor at Washington State University, where he taught composition, bassoon, and music theory from 2003 until 2020, when he decided to take a voluntary early retirement in order to focus his attention on composing.
Ryan’s music has been performed at a large variety of venues and festivals, in as diverse locations as Tokyo, Japan, and Darmstadt, Germany, as well as Southeast Asia and China. Commissioners include Fred Korman, longtime former principal oboist of the Oregon Symphony, and the Washington Music Teachers Association, who awarded Ryan "Washington State Composer of the Year" in 2012. Further commissions have come from the Walla Walla Symphony, Mid-Columbia Symphony, Washington Idaho Symphony, Common Tone Arts, Affinity Chamber Players, the University of Idaho Vandaleers Concert Choir, and the Lake Forest College Orchestra, among others. His music has been championed by numerous other well-known performers and ensembles around the world, with notable recognition from New Music USA, Artist Trust, and the American Prize. In addition, a number of Ryan's compositions are published by TrevCo Music Publishing and ALEA Publishing.
Much of the subject matter of Ryan Hare's music is drawn from nature; recurrent themes include the deep mysteries of the cosmos and the extraordinary beauty of the state of Washington—as originating from a gloriously violent and volcanic past. He finds delight in the outdoors, physics, and astronomy, both in pursuit of hobbies such as hiking, photography, and bicycling, and also as a source of musical inspiration. He has often found creative respite in bicycling all over the beautiful region of southeast Washington known as the Palouse.
Inspired by the multiplicity of styles found in art music of the twenty-first century, Ryan sees no essential contradiction between serialism, the avant-garde, minimalism, and the vernacular, but rather embraces the rich potential for all of it to be synthesized into something beautiful, compelling, and unexpected.
Before earning the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition in 2000 at the University of Washington, Ryan M. Hare earned a Master of Music degree in Composition at Ithaca College, and a Bachelor of Arts degree with an emphasis in composition at Oregon State University. Ryan's principal teachers in composition include Joël-François Durand, Diane Thome, Richard Karpen, Greg Woodward, and Ron Jeffers. Additional composition studies were also undertaken with Shulamit Ran and Jacob Druckman, both visiting professors at Ithaca College, and Brian Ferneyhough and Paul-Heinz Dittrich at the 1996 Ferienkurse für neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany. His primary bassoon teachers include Arthur Grossman, Lee Goodhew, and Mike Curtis, with additional studies in audition preparation with Seth Krimsky.
Photo: Elisa Ferrari
Ian Dicke is a composer inspired by social-political culture and music technology. Praised for his “refreshingly well-structured” (Feast of Music) and “uncommonly memorable” (Sequenza 21) catalogue of works, Dicke’s music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles and soloists around the world, including the New World Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Paul Dresher Ensemble, pianist Vicky Chow, The MATA Festival, ISCM World New Music Days, and the Atlantic Coast Center Band Director’s Association. Dicke has received grants, awards, and recognition from the Hellman Foundation, Barlow Endowment, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, New Music USA, New York Youth Symphony, ASCAP, and BMI, among others. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to research interactive musical interfaces and environments in Stockholm, Sweden and has served as an artist in residence at various institutions, including MacDowell and Atlantic Center for the Arts.
In addition to his creative activities as a composer, Dicke runs Novel Music, a software company that specializes in unique and intuitive instruments designed to encourage happy accidents and inspire new musical ideas.
He is also the founder and curator of the Outpost Concert Series which connects Riverside, California’s musical culture with groundbreaking artists across the national contemporary music landscape. Dicke currently serves as an Associate Professor of Composition at the University of California, Riverside.
Photo: Chloe Mantrom
Composer Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre artistic voice and an emphasis on establishing musical community. Her approach embodies ideas of musical joy, placing equal emphasis on elegant composition and camaraderie onstage. She weaves accessible musical language and contemporary approaches to musicking, seeking meaningful collaborative experiences. Through her interactive compositions, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage.
An import from unceded Mi'kmaq territory (Halifax), Hope is spreading her wings on Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands (Vancouver). After receiving her BMUS with Distinction from Mount Allison University, her graduate studies at the University of British Columbia have seen her studying with Drs. T. Patrick Carrabré and Jennifer Butler. She is already sparking relationships in the Pacific Northwest, composing for small and large ensembles in the Vancouver area.
However, she has never forgotten her Atlantic home and continues to strengthen connections across the land. She's written for classical ensembles, a street brass band, and various points in between. Participating in the Lunenburg Academy of Music, the Wildflower Composers Festival and as Composer-in-Residence at the 2021 UNB Contemporary Music Festival, she's had no shortage of musical adventures.
Amid this, Hope continues to explore music in all its facets. In addition to performing her own works, she is active as a wind band tubist, chorister and recreational jazz drummer. She seeks to uplift underrepresented composers in all facets of her practice. This has led her to work with the Tuba-Euphonium Social Justice Initiative as Resource Manager. Outside of music, Hope is an avid board & video game fan, and enjoys sharing good food with her loved ones.
Heinrich Isaac was a Franco-Flemish (or a South Netherlandish) composer of the Renaissance. The Latin name-form ‘Henricus’, adopted here, is found in many documents and musical sources. Isaac was a prominent member of a group of Franco-Flemish musicians, including Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht, Pierre de La Rue, Alexander Agricola and others, who achieved international fame in the decades around 1500, influencing the Italian and European Renaissance. He is regarded as one of the most significant contemporaries of Josquin Desprez, and had an especially large influence on the subsequent development of music in Germany.
Isaac was one of the most prolific composers of his time. He composed a wide variety of music, including masses, motets, German and Italian songs and instrumental music. Among his works are about 40 Mass Ordinaries, half cyclic (in the Netherlandish tradition), half based on liturgically appropriate plainsong melodies (in the German tradition); almost 100 cycles of the Proper of the Mass (following Germanic liturgical custom; most published posthumously in the 3-volume Choralis constantinus); over fifty independent motets; and nearly 100 secular songs, including French chansons, a few Italian frottole, and a large number of German Tenorlieder.
Adapted from https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Isaac-Heinrich.htm
Canadian-American composer and lyricist Barbara York was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on February 23, 1949 and passed away on November 6, 2020 at her home, in Pittsburg, KS. She contributed over 40 works involving tuba/euphonium ranging from concerti, sonatas, solos, duets, and chamber works. Many of these works were commissions from individuals at their request, and many of those were reflective of deaths, celebrations, or memorialization of moments, routines, and even American art. Top artists such as Tim Buzbee, Matthew Brown, John Manning, and Stephanie Frye-Clark have recorded her works.
Barbara was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Tuba Euphonium Association in May of 2021 at the Virtual Tuba Euphonium Conference (VTEC).
John Stevens is an American composer, arranger, tubist, and brass pedagogue. For many years he was a freelance performer in New York City and was the original tuba soloist in some 500 performances of Barnum on Broadway. In 1985 he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, where he served as professor of tuba/euphonium, a member of the Wisconsin Brass Quintet and Director of the School.
Stevens' compositions include several major works for the tuba, including Power, Moondance, Dances, Manhattan Suite, Triumph of the Demon Gods, and a euphonium concerto and sonata. His compositional style ranges from rock and jazz to modern through-composed music. In 1997 he was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to write a tuba concerto, entitled Journey.
In 2008, Professor Stevens received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, the highest honor in his field. In retirement, he is now focusing on composing and is the conductor of the acclaimed, Wisconsin based brass ensemble, The Isthmus Brass.
Adapted from https://www.windrep.org/John_D._Stevens