Belmont University School of Music
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2025 7:30 PM
MCAFEE CONCERT HALL
Belmont University School of Music presents
Wind Ensemble
Dr. Barry Kraus, conductor Conni Ellisor, guest composer
Scherzo for X-Wings
Hymn
John Williams (b. 1932)
Trans. by Paul Lavender
Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970)
Trans. by John Boyd
Conni Ellisor (b. 1953)
World-Premiere Peformance
A deep reverberation fills with stars
John Mackey (b. 1973)
Dance of the Jesters
Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky from The Snow Maiden (1840-1893)
Trans. by Ray Cramer
Thank you to our graduating student, Duncan Blackstock, for his contribution to the Wind Ensemble
Diaspora
Program Notes
Scherzo for X-Wings (2015): When the American Film Institute released their listing of the top twenty-five film scores of all time in 2005, it included the titles Out of Africa, Sunset Boulevard, BenHur, Psycho, The Godfather, and Gone with the Wind. John Williams was responsible for three of those twenty-five selections, and at the very top was his unforgettable score to the original Star Wars movie On the heels of his work in the 1970s with Steven Spielberg that produced the blockbusters Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams signed on in 1977 to score a new “space western” written and directed by George Lucas. At that time, no one could have predicted the global popularity of this film and its successive chapters, nor could Williams have imagined the impact that his music for the movies would have both in the world of film and well beyond. Williams has scored dozens of themes for the seven films in the series, many of which have achieved world-wide recognition on a scale equal to some of the most popular classical music in history.
In 2015, The Force Awakens premiered in theaters, and the story takes place some thirty years after the conclusion of The Return of the Jedi. As old and new characters come together in the film, Williams’ score artfully weaves together familiar music from the original films with brand new themes and brilliantly highlights pivotal actions and relationships. In only two and a half minutes, Scherzo for X-Wings presents a flurry of technical and musical virtuosity, written to accompany a furious battle scene featuring the iconic aerial fighters of both the Resistance and the First Order. The current transcription for winds was premiered by the United States Marine Band on March 14, 2016. Whether an ardent fan of the Star Wars saga or simply an appreciative listener of film score music, we hope that you enjoy this musical dessert.
Program Notes courtesy of the United States Marine Band
Hymn (1947/1990): In November 1947, Ingolf Dahl played for his wife, Etta, the first few bars of a new solo piano work called Hymn By December 3, he had finished the piece and performed it in public on December 8 along with the last movement of his earlier piano suite, Toccata. Hymn and Toccata was a standard pairing in the solo piano repertoire for several years until pianist Ronald Tarr requested to play Hymn alone, regarding the work as a stronger single presentation than Toccata. The composer agreed, and Hymn became a self-standing work
Dahl, a Hamburg-born musician and conductor of Swedish descent, settled in southern California in 1938, fleeing Nazi oppression. Eventually, he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Southern California. At the time, other composers such as Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Krenek, and Milhaud had also found residence in the area. Dahl worked closely with Stravinsky as a musical assistant, arranging for piano the scores of the Danses concertantes and Scénes de ballet. Dahl, like his contemporary Hindemith, was fascinated by the problems of dissonant counterpoint and strove to connect the musical innovations of the twentieth century with the tonal and structural traditions of European classical music.
During his tenure at the University of Southern California, Dahl became associated with Michael Tilson Thomas. Then Dahl’s student in conducting, Thomas developed a passion for American music and has promoted the works of Ingolf Dahl and others such as Stravinsky, Copland, Ives, and Bernstein. Following the Dahl’s death in 1970, Thomas commissioned Lawrence Morton to create an orchestral version. In 1990, John Boyd completed the current orchestration of Hymn for wind ensemble.
Hymn is an example of the transition in Dahl’s career. The early dissonant polyphonic style influenced by German Expressionism eventually gave way to clearer textures, diatonic structures, and instrumental virtuosity. Hymn displays a complex interweaving of counterpoint in both lyrical and technical passages. Thematic material often features wide intervals, and melodic motives are based upon recurring rhythms and collections of pitches, all characteristics of Dahl’s compositional style.
Diaspora (2010/2025): Conni Ellisor is a stylistically diverse composer who resides in Nashville, Tennessee. She studied at the University of Denver and the Juilliard School in New York. As a violinist, she has played with the Denver Symphony, the Boulder Philharmonic, and the Nashville Chamber Orchestra where she served as assistant concertmaster. She is a top-call session violinist and arranger in the Nashville music industry. Ellisor blends genres of folk and ethnic music into classical idioms. Examples include Blackberry Winter for mountain dulcimer and strings, Whiskey Before Breakfast for strings and bluegrass band, and her 2010 work, Diaspora, premiered by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in 2011.
Diaspora defined as a scattering of seeds represents the slow dispersion of West-African music through the Caribbean and into North America. Ellisor states:
I immersed myself in all the Haitian history, literature and poetry I could find, particularly the writings of Edwidge Danticat and Paul Farmer. I learned that Haiti originated as a French slave colony, and that to operate the sugar plantations, hundreds of thousands of slaves were imported from Africa, many of whom were literally worked to death. I discovered field recordings of Haitian folk music chronicled by the ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1935: enchanting worksongs sung in the fields accompanied by layered polyrhythms made by hoes striking the soil, powerful call and response recordings of the pervasive African tradition of democratic participation, intricate and delicate percussion with ghostly overtones, jubilant exaltations of harmonies and rhythm that sound remarkably like big-band jazz. I learned that in Haitian culture, the drum represents the spiritual voice of God and therefore begins and ends every religious ceremony and because of that, the French ordered all the drums burned. The Haitians built new ones out of whatever they had on hand and so their drums took on unique qualities of indigenous trees of the region. I was inspired by the indomitable spirit that enabled the Haitians to throw off the shackles of slavery and become the first Latin American country to gain independence.
The current transcription of Diaspora was commissioned by a consortium of collegiate ensembles led by the Belmont University Wind Ensemble which gave the premiere performance.
A deep reverberation fills with stars (2022): John Mackey is perhaps one of the most performed composers of early 20th century wind band music. With a catalog of music ranging from middle school compositions to extended works for professional wind band, his music continues to hold immense popular appeal. Mackey studied at the Julliard School with John Corigliano and at the Cleveland Institute with Donald Erb. He composes full time under the name Osti Music.
A deep reverberation fills with starts was commissioned immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic a time during which large ensemble music was halted for fear of contagion. It was a trying time for many artists struggling to find validation in their work. Mackey states:
This is the most substantial piece I’ve written since the start of the pandemic. I’d written very little; it was basically impossible for me to motivate myself when concerts grinded to a halt. So
the idea with this one partially by design, but largely just because it happened to turn out this way once I started writing is that of emerging from darkness (“a deep reverberation”) with the return of some sense of normalcy, coinciding with at least for me some hope of an improvement of mental health.
A deep reverberation fills with stars unfolds in two parts. The first begins with a solitary handbell, symbolic of isolation. Rhythmic elements begin to surround the ring of the bells and develop into an ostinato underneath the contemplative melody which emerges slowly and strengthens in texture. The second half, contrasting the mood of part one, builds with crisp rhythmic patterns echoed through the ensemble. The melody expands and adds moments of dissonance representing uncertainty in direction. The culminating finale brings all elements together in a joyful and triumphal close.
Dance of the Jesters (1873/1997): Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote prolifically in many mediums. His opus includes six symphonies, orchestral suites and serenades, numerous concertos and chamber music, three ballets, and music for eleven operas. Tchaikovsky received musical training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and was often criticized by Russian composers for embracing Western musical idealogy when groups like the Mighty Five (Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov) sought to avoid Western influence and promote nationalistic ideals. Nonetheless, he became one of Russia’s first composers to achieve international acclaim, and his music became very popular in the United States. Dance of the Jesters is incidental music written for Alexander Ostrovsky’s fantasy play, The Snow Maiden (1873). The music is light and playful in nature and utilizes compact motives and melodic material. A rapid accelerando brings the work to a vivacious close.
Program Notes by Dr. Barry Kraus, School of Music Faculty
Flute
Brienna Duteau
Jake King
Mya Ploor**
Personnel
Music Business Townsend, MA
Classical Performance Chicago, IL
Multiple Woodwinds Sturgeon Bay, WI
Hannah Steele Audio Engineering Technology Mishawaka, IN
Brendan Wilson*
Oboe
Lily Chantler
Dillon Ellington
Amanda Rebstock*/**
Shawn Redmond**
Classical Performance Glasgow, KY
Music Education Clarksville, TN
Commercial Music Gallatin, TN
Classical Pedagogy and Performance Nashville, TN
Multiple Woodwinds Ellwood City, PA
Bassoon
Lucy Guthrie
Cayman Hogue
Emily Okamura*
Harrison Sampson*
Brooklyn Smith
Clarinet
Michelle Babyak*
Jojo Fisher
Morgan Franklin
Natalia Johnson
Heidi Linhart
Tommy Steele
Kylie Watson
Bass Clarinet
Chloe Schmidt
Alayna Lepore
Alto Saxophone
Jamie Heuser*
Camm Lary IV
Justin Whitaker
Tenor Saxophone
Ted Bielecke
Charles Greene
Baritone Saxophone
Dylan Ahrens
Trumpet
John Berns
Duncan Blackstock
Zachariah Govan
Jackson Henderson
Music Education Nashville, TN
Classical Performance Fernandina Beach, FL
Music Therapy Dallas, TX
Classical Performance Newport, TN
Music Education Pulaski, TN
Music Education Shorewood, IL
Commercial Performance Nashville, TN
Music Education Smyrna, TN
Music Business Columbia, MO
Audio Engineering Technology Grapevine, TX
Music with an Outside Minor San Antonio, TX
Psychology Ankeny, IA
Publishing Murfreesboro, TN
Music Education Skanee, MI
Commercial Music St. Charles, IL
Commercial Music Austin, TX
Music Education Antioch, TN
Commercial Music Woonsocket, RI
Entertainment Industry Studies Bowling Greene, KY
Composition and Music Theory Annandale, VA
Music Education Oconee, IL
Music Education The Villages, FL
Classical Performance Parkland, FL
Music Education Frisco, TX
Isabella Jones
Kristen Lester
Turner Avila
Luke Woody*
French Horn
Holden Cessna*
Grace Helton
Caroline Holmes
Ellie McClellan
Alli Voyles
Trombone
Dawson Fulcher
Caedmon Goettel
Jude Hasenpflug
Luke Myers*
Euphonium
Adam Chavez*
Annabelle Simmons
Tuba
Bryce Bobo
Music Education and Classical Performance Nashville, TN
Music Education Dallas, GA
Classical Performance Pittsburgh, PA
Classical Performance Sharpsburg, MD
Classical Performance Clearville, PA
Music Therapy Sarasota, FL
Music Education Plymouth, MA
Classical Performance Orem, UT
Music with an Outside Minor Franklin, TN
Composition Evansville, IN
Classical Performance Franklin, TN
Music with an Outside Minor Butler, PA
Music Education Omaha, NE
Commercial Performance Mount Pleasant, SC
Audio Engineering Technology Mascoutah, IL
Audio Engineering Technology Lucas, TX
Hudson Butler* Music Education Nashville, TN
Percussion
Cole Counihan
Rebecca Dillon**
Peter Drescher
Braxton Hill
Classical Performance Naperville, IL
Commercial Performance and Pedagogy Round Rock, TX
Classical Performance Spring Hill, TN
Classical Performance Opelika, AL
Matthew Oliver Composition Opelika, AL
Gramm Raedeke*
Joshua Wingard
Classical Performance St. Louis, MO
Classical Performance Flintstone, GA
Harp
Audrey Smith
Handbells
Ella Markwald
Piano
Sebastian Gomelsky
String Bass
Rylan Stone
Classical Performance Cincinnati, OH
Composition & Music Theory Milwaukee, WI
Classical Performance Shreveport, LA
Classical Performance Signal Mountain, TN
*Principal **School of Music Graduate Student
Upcoming Concerts and Events
Saxophone Masterclass and Performance: Alex Hahn Friday, November 21, 9:00 a.m. Harton Recital Hall
Camerata
Monday, November 24, 7:30 p.m. McAfee Concert Hall
Faculty Brass Monday, December 1, 7:30 p.m. McAfee Concert Hall
Graduate Hooding & Reception Friday, December 12, 12:00 p.m. McAfee Concert Hall
For more information on upcoming concerts and events, please visit www.belmont.edu/cmpa or “like” Belmont University School of Music on Facebook.
