Wind Ensemble Music

This paper examines three selected chamber works by seminal American composers of the twentieth century: John Harbison, Jacob Druckman and Aaron Copland. The works chosen are scored for mixed instrumental ensembles of between six and thirteen musicians, and require a conductor. The pieces examined are Confinement (Harbison), Come Round (Druckman) and Appalachian Spring Suite for 13 Instruments (Copland). While Copland’s well-known work is familiar to many, those of Harbison and Druckman are likely less so.

The smaller and more varied instrumentation of these works makes them particularly ideal for consideration as part of a broader orchestral programming strategy during this period of COVID-19, when parameters on traditional orchestral size and format limit traditional repertoire possibilities. The author has conducted all three works with a collegiate conservatory ensemble.

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the body of research that has investigated conducting in musical contexts, especially instrumental ensembles. This dissertation contains three papers on the topic of conducting, including one literature review and two quantitative studies. While the central focus of this dissertation is instrumental ensemble conducting, the manifestations of entrainment and the performer’s interactions with aural and visual stimuli emerge as consistent themes throughout. A brief summary of each paper in the dissertation is provided below.

Paper one contextualizes empirical literature and existing conducting pedagogy, focusing on the role of the conductor in ensemble coordination and expressive communication. The paper organizes its findings thematically, highlighting the conductor’s twin roles of coordination and expressivity through gesture. Through synthesis of research and pedagogical literature, I highlight that both conductor and ensemble are responsible for ensemble coordination and cohesion through the interlinked processes of visual and aural entrainment. The paper also provides implications for conducting pedagogues, practitioners, and future music researchers.

Paper two investigates the nature of ensemble response to conductor gesture from a temporal perspective. I examine the general tendencies of sonic offset from conductor gesture, as well as differences between ensemble type (orchestra, wind band), ensemble experience level (beginner, intermediate, advanced), and development over time. Findings reveal a general tendency for ensembles to lag behind the conductor’s gesture, but I identify that this lag is dynamic and demonstrates change between ensembles, between experience levels, and over the course of a selected excerpt. Additionally, I identify performance tempo and phrase structure as contributing factors in the variance observed.
The dissertation author is the primary author of paper three, joined by co-authors Steven J. Morrison and Deborah H. Confredo. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of action-sound congruence on perceptions of conductor efficacy. Through a quasi-experimental design, musicians (N = 110) evaluated ten videos of conductors during concert performance. Some of these videos were manipulated to offset audio and video by percentage of the ensemble's tempo (no offset, ±15%, ±30%) that would not register as unsynchronized with viewers. The videos appeared in one of five fully-crossed stimuli orders for evaluation. Participants evaluated offset of any kind as negative when compared with unaltered performance and identified greater offset values as more negative overall. Within this study, conductor evaluations were generally more negative than ensemble evaluations.

Elder Music, Instrumental Music Performance and Affirmative Aging is a Practice-led research project in Community Music performance. A phenomenological, auto-ethnographic critique of lived musical experience by a senior, former professional musician returning to an accomplished instrumental music performance practice after a playing hiatus of twenty-four years. Research that arose in response to this personal aesthetic process resulted in a performance-led community music investigation, detailing the journey of a musician returning to active performance, without claiming to be either unique or typical. It is both a chronicle articulating the incidence and benefice of later life music making and a report on how this experiential and artistic process involves many mature musicians. Qualitative artistic research revealing a context to the breadth of active involvement and commitment of older musicians, who are not only quantitatively significant and noteworthy in their numbers and musical influence, but in also reflecting the positive benefits of community music making within our society in promoting personal and collective wellness, vitality and social bonding through collegial expressions of abstract musical truth and beauty. iv 5 CONTENTS

Elder Music, Instrumental Music Performance and Affirmative Aging is a Practice-led research project in Community Music performance. A phenomenological, auto-ethnographic critique of lived musical experience by a senior, former professional musician returning to an accomplished instrumental music performance practice after a playing hiatus of twenty-four years. Research that arose in response to this personal aesthetic process resulted in a performance-led community music investigation, detailing the journey of a musician returning to active performance, without claiming to be either unique or typical. It is both a chronicle articulating the incidence and benefice of later life music making and a report on how this experiential and artistic process involves many mature musicians. Qualitative artistic research revealing a context to the breadth of active involvement and commitment of older musicians, who are not only quantitatively significant and noteworthy in their numbers and musical influence, but in also reflecting the positive benefits of community music making within our society in promoting personal and collective wellness, vitality and social bonding through collegial expressions of abstract musical truth and beauty.

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This work was initially written in German language as part of my book entitled 'Aerophone im Instrumentarium der Völker Ostafrikas' (Aerophones in East Africa). Trafo Wissenschaftsverlag,  Berlin (2009).
The content of this entry refers to a flute ensemble of the Berta people of western Ethiopia, who  are known for their flute, trumpet and horn ensembles that are used on various communal events for entertainment.

In this project, a series of short entries of aerophones found in East Africa will be made accessible to interested readers. The research on aerophones in this geographic area as well as in the entire African continent is still at its infancy. This is a first attempt to introduce the various types of aerophones in the musical traditions of East Africa.

My first instrument was the piano. When I was in grammar school, I was given lessons from a teacher who lived just around the corner. About the time I was ready for junior high, a Gibson-playing Texan moved in next door, taught me a few chords, and let me play along with him on his old learner’s guitar. In the eighth-grade I started on baritone in band class, then switched to trombone through my high school years. I started college as a piano major, but changed to a pre-ministerial curriculum in liberal arts including classical Greek. Music became my avocation. Sometime in the 1980s I took up the tuba—I already knew the Bb fingering from playing the baritone in junior high—and organized a brass quintet to play at various seminary functions. Eventually I became a regular member of the University City Summer Concert Band, which did me the honor of playing my arrangement of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” in the summer of 2015.

For a better control of dynamics generally play with closed/almost closed teeth. 2) All single staccato notes should be performed with throat articulation (: "g" / "k" rather than "t"). To help a clear attack, use finger percussion as much as possible. 3) Always smooth transition from note to multiphonic and vice versa. 4) All given fingerings have been tested on Yamaha/Mollenhauer/Zen-on instruments (sometime, according to individual blowing characteristics, small fingering adjustments could be necessary to get the notated result).

The orchestral tone poem La Procession del Rocio by Spanish composer Joaquin Turina was written in Paris in 1913 and in 1962 was arranged for symphonic band by noted composer and arranger, Alfred Reed. 1 Coincidentally, the orchestral version is rarely played but the symphonic band arrangement by Reed has become a staple of the wind-band repertoire. This is a programmatic tone poem and its form and harmonic language is in the Romantic Nationalistic tradition of composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Manuel De Falla. The piece has two movements.

Uno dice Verdi, e inmediatamente piensa en ópera; igual que en el bicentenario de su nacimiento, que coincide con este 2013. Uno dice Nino Rota, y piensa en el cine, cómo no; además en algunas bandas sonoras que pueblan estancias de honor en el salón de la fama del celuloide. Uno dice Taffanel… ¿Y qué piensa uno cuando dice Taffanel? Quizá esta sea una pregunta nada fugaz para el gran público en general, aunque también, es probable, para el melómano amante de la música, bregado y familiarizado en el trato de programas discográficos y de concierto. Taffanel no es un habitual, para nadie, y no lo es por demérito propio, como en esta velada se tendrá la posibilidad de constatar.
Tres nombres, pues, que pudieran ser vistos como tres ingredientes, escogidos para la imaginación de un nuevo plato. Cada uno con su propio sabor; cada cual con sus propios matices. Y es que, de forma similar a lo que sucede en la alta cocina, tan en boga en nuestros tiempos, es mérito del chef reunirlos, adecuarlos, presentarlos en la forma propicia para que no haya sustracción posible al deseo de probar el resultado. Al cabo, cuántas veces no es éste un recurso natural de la nouvelle cuisine: presentar a dosis equilibradas sabores conocidos con otros aún por conocer o, lo que puede ser más estimulante, olvidados. Es más, si Taffanel nos puede resultar de entrada una llegada de fondo de repertorio, es decir, un sabor como poco olvidado, el Verdi y el Rota de hoy no son los acostumbrados. Y eso es interesante, es atractivo. La mezcla, ya en la misma disposición instrumental, el viento, la cuerda, que desembocan en el viento y la cuerda, también en los estilos. Sólo hay una manera de saber si un plato determinado nos gusta…

Finalmente, abordaremos a los principales constructores que trabajaron en Madrid y Barcelona, como es el caso de Luis Rolland, Gerónimo Rey, Francisco Bernareggi, Juan Ayne, Poncio Auger, Hipólito Lahera, Narcís Coll y Francisco Montserrat, entre otros.

O músico Jorge Salgueiro é um dos compositores portugueses mais dinâmicos da actualidade. Já editou mais de 30 discos e compôs cerca de 130 obras, entre as quais se destacam a Sinfonia n.º 1 “A Voz dos Deuses”, a Sinfonia n.º 2 “Maré Nostrum”, a fábula sinfónica para crianças A Quinta da Amizade, duas Aberturas para orquestra e O Requiem pela Humanidade. Esta última foi composta para a encenação – do grupo de teatro “O Bando” – da peça O Ensaio sobre a Cegueira, inspirada no romance homónimo de Saramago. Aproveitando a actual reposição, pel’O Bando, de O Ensaio sobre a Cegueira e a recente edição em CD do Requiem pela Humanidade, o Jornal de Letras entrevistou o compositor sobre o seu Requiem, José Saramago e o actual panorama da composição musical em Portugal.

Antes de se destacar como compositor, Jorge Salgueiro integrou várias Orquestras como intérprete e solista. Foi músico da Orquestra dos Jovens do Mediterrâneo, da Orquestra Sinfónica de Corfu/Grécia, da Banda de Jovens da Comunidade Europeia e da Orquestra Portuguesa da Juventude. Ainda como intérprete, ganhou em 1988 o primeiro prémio de Nível Superior em Trompete nos concursos promovidos pela Juventude Musical Portuguesa.
Em 1998, Jorge Salgueiro decidiu dedicar-se exclusivamente à composição, tendo trabalhado principalmente em três domínios: (1) na composição de várias obras sinfónicas didácticas para crianças, principalmente a convite do pedagogo Miguel Pernes; (2) na composição de obras para Bandas e Orquestras, sendo de realçar as peças compostas para a Banda da Armada Portuguesa, onde é compositor residente; (3) e na composição musical para teatro, onde têm ganho destaque as suas peças para o grupo de teatro O Bando.
É no grupo de teatro O Bando, onde faz actualmente parte da direcção artística, que o compositor tem vindo a desenvolver um trabalho invulgar de relacionamento próximo entre música e teatro. A sua recente edição em CD de Um Requiem pela Humanidade é um bom exemplo disso.