SENIOR COMPOSITION RECITAL
Alayna Ontai Performers are listed inside the program. Saturday, March 28, 2026 5 pm Faye Spanos Concert Hall
71ST PERFORMANCE OF 2025–26 ACADEMIC YEAR
MARCH 28, 2026, 5 PM TEDxUoPacific Trailblazer Theme (2025)
Alayna Ontai (b. 2004)
2′
Fixed media
6′
Motus (2026) Pete Norman, Rei Vindiola, and Snowden Snyder, percussion
6′
Shifting Tides (2025) Ethan Williams, flute Gabriel Jarata, oboe Tommy Galvin, clarinet Lily Walters, horn Enrique Valdez, bassoon
3′
Aeris (2023) Alayna Ontai and Amalia Silva, trumpets Ciera Alkhoury, horn Radley Rutledge, trombone Seth Morris, tuba
Pause
MARCH 28, 2026, 5 PM 2′
The Last Resort (2024) Fixed media
Limitless (2026)
9′
Riko Hirata and Ethan Williams, flutes Emily Zamudio and Gabriel Jarata, oboes Enrique Valdez, bassoon Edmund Bascon, Audrey Ewing, and Adrian Rodriguez Mandujano, clarinets Andrew Seaver, bass clarinet Antrell Gulley, soprano saxophone Tommy Galvin, alto saxophone Marcus Rudes, tenor saxophone Ray Cruz, baritone saxophone Kamron Qasimi, Parker Deems, and Alejandro Villalobos, trumpets Ciera Alkhoury, Lily Walters, Marcelo Contreras, and Don Parker, horns Radley Rutledge and Bronson Burfield, trombones Matthew Young, bass trombone Seth Morris, tuba Casey Kim, Hunter Campbell, Robert McCarl, Snowden Snyder, and Pete Norman, percussion
PROGRAM NOTES This recital is presented as a degree requirement for a Bachelor of Music in music composition. Alayna Ontai is a senior music composition major at University of the Pacific studying music composition with Dr. Andrew Conklin and trumpet with Dr. Alia Kuhnert. At Pacific, Ontai has written music for chamber ensembles, large ensembles, and also produced fixed media. In February of 2024, her wind ensemble piece Radiance was premiered by the Pacific Wind Bands. Currently, she is also ensemble librarian for the Pacific Brass Society and conductor for the Pacific Repertoire Orchestra. As a trumpet player, Ontai has performed with Pacific Wind Bands, Pacific Orchestras, Pacific Jazz Ensemble, Pacific Pep Band, and Pacific Brass Quintet. She has also performed with various organizations outside of the university.
PROGRAM NOTES Program notes by the composer TEDxUoPacific Trailblazer Theme Commissioned for the 2025 TED talk series hosted at Pacific, the Trailblazer Theme musically encompasses what it means to be a trailblazer. The theme was played at the TEDxUoPacific event on April 12, 2025 and was also featured in the marketing videos created to promote the event. The piece was designed to feel empowering and reflect ideas of discovery, motivating the audience to trail-blaze their own paths. Motus Written for University of the Pacific's percussion ensemble, Motus is an unpitched percussion trio, exploring rhythm in an environment without emphasis on pitch. "Motus" is the Latin root for the word motion, which perfectly describes the piece. Throughout the work, the energy ebbs and flows, always staying in constant motion. The piece was originally written as an experiment with rhythm itself, looking into different ways of interlocking small rhythmic concepts to create a larger rhythmic phrase. Starting simple, the piece progresses steadily into more complex interlocking ideas, and eventually finds its way into an asymmetrical meter before moving into a grand, energetic, and exciting finale. The official premiere of Motus will be on April 7, 2026 at the Pacific Percussion Ensemble concert. Shifting Tides Inspired by the sea, Shifting Tides explores musical motion in relation to the motion of life. Similarly to life, the tide is unpredictable, and comes in waves. This flow is reflected musically in the swells and movement across the ensemble. The opening statement is representative of the tide as it washes ashore before receding back out to sea and reoccurs throughout the piece. Subtle and bold elements occur to create moments that are gentle and others that are powerful, and truly manifest the turning of the tides. Aeris Aeris is a short brass quintet written in multiple styles. "Aeris" translates from Latin to mean air. Air, like the piece, is in continuous motion and moves at different speeds. Aeris consists of two separate themes with variations. The piece starts with a slow opening theme carried by the horn, that pushes into a quicker section with a waltz feel. Following the introduction of the new theme, it moves into the first variation of the second theme. In this variation, and throughout the rest of the piece, there is an alternating rhythmic motion that moves between groups of two and three. This motion continues until finally slowing down and concluding with a callback to the beginning of the piece.
PROGRAM NOTES The Last Resort Created for a summer music workshop focusing on video game music, The Last Resort is a theme for a fictional video game. The capstone project for the workshop was to create theme music for one of three fictional video games. Students were presented with images, a game synopsis, and reference tracks for each of these examples and were able to choose from three different game genres. The Last Resort was written for a futuristic action game, where the main character is fighting off alien robots in the streets of a dystopian Detroit. The track combines live instruments with synthesized sounds to create a soundscape that captures the heroism, action, and intensity that the game promotes. Limitless In my time at Pacific, I have had the privilege of performing in many different ensembles and playing an extremely wide variety of music. Along with performing works, I have had amazing opportunities to work with the composers of some of these pieces and learn about their creative process as well as why the music they write speaks to them. When I began brainstorming what I wanted to do for my capstone project, I knew I wanted to work with a large ensemble and capture elements of some of my favorite pieces that I have performed in the past four years. Limitless began in the summer of 2025 when I was experimenting with an idea for a percussion ensemble piece. I soon realized that I had just created something that was bigger and needed to be expanded in ways that could only be accomplished with a wind ensemble. This percussion idea would become the catalyst for the creative chaos that would ensue, evolving over seven months until it became what you hear today. This work is what musically speaks to me, inspired by all of the fantastic pieces that I have been a part of. For me, it is a reminder that music is an ever-changing space that continually evolves. As a composer, I believe that it is my responsibility to challenge expectations, experiment with new ideas, and push creativity to new limits. It is only when you start breaking creative barriers do you discover that the possibilities are in fact limitless.
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