Winds on Wednesdays: Psathas, Koechlin, Xenakis, & Frackenpohl

Welcome to Winds on Wednesdays, a musical tapas of winds, brass, and percussion. This series features short digital mini-concerts, each just 20-30 minutes in length, in celebration of the bold music-making of NEC's Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds during the Spring semester of 2021.

In each mini-concert, hear a selection of contemporary and classic works, recorded live in Jordan Hall and presented unedited.

"COVID inspired us to think anew about how we bring music to you. In spite of the limits in musical preparation posed by the pandemic, we are bringing you live and unedited performances; not full concerts, but in smaller portions – musical tapas.

Just as with that Spanish delight, the tastes and flavors are varied and more delightful for being served in smaller bites. So, pour a glass of cava and enjoy our musical Tapas. Buen Provecho."

—Charles Peltz


WATCH CONCERT STREAM:

ABOUT THE ENSEMBLES:

NEC Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds have established reputations as premier presenters of woodwind and brass repertoire from the Renaissance through the present day, performing works for small and full ensemble. The ensembles highlight classics and new works, including those that are sometimes neglected because of unusual instrumentation, and have commissioned and premiered new works by Pulitzer Prize composers Michael Colgrass, John Harbison, and Gunther Schuller, plus other distinguished composers such as Sir Michael Tippett, Daniel Pinkham, and William Thomas McKinley.

Joining the wind ensemble on this concert is NEC's Percussion Group, led by Will Hudgins.

Ensembles
  • NEC Wind Ensemble
  • NEC Symphonic Winds
  • NEC Percussion Group

  1. John Psathas | Kyoto

    A departure from John Psathas’ earlier aggressive, physically complex percussion works such as Drum Dances and Etude from One Study One Summary, Kyoto is stylistically similar to his marimba concerto Djinn. A constant rhythmic semiquaver pulse sustains momentum through varying time signatures, with brief moments of silence giving way to shifts in harmonic content. Two contrasting ideas alternate throughout — the rhythmically driven melodic lines, and arpeggios heard in the vibraphone — before coming together at the climax of the work.
    -Review

            “The title of the work refers to a 1976 improvisation by pianist Keith Jarrett which was recorded in Kyoto. This improvisation of Jarrett’s is, more than anything, the piece that woke the composer in me, and set me on this journey of creating my own music for others.”                                                     
    – John Psathas

     
    Artists
    • Leigh Wilson, Felix Ko, Mark Larrivee, Ariel Pei Ying Lu, and Rohan Zakharia, percussion

  2. Charles Koechlin | from Septet for Winds, op. 165 (1923)

    I. Monodie
    III. Intermezzo
    IV. Fugue
    VI. Fugue

    Charles Koechlin was one of that group of composers who were born to the clop and creak of horse and carriage and died with the roar of the jet plane.   In this cohort are the avant gardists and visionaries – such as Varèse and Ives – and those who step back from modernism and stay rooted in Romanticism of the previous era – Richard Strauss for one.
            Koechlin doesn’t fit easily in either category, but, as a devotee and biographer of Debussy, he is more conservative than visionary (at least as regards music – he was apparently a political radical).   The six movements of his Septet are miniatures; one thinks of Lautrec were he to paint a series of 12-inch square canvasses.  Each one unique and vibrant and full of motion – but in very small frames. 
            Koechlin manifests his conservatism in a love of counterpoint – there are three formal fugues in this six-movement work.  But he looks ahead – the first movement is a Monodie for solo clarinet – the other voices left to sit on the sidelines.  There is also his absolutely perfect use of the saxophone: melodic and sensuous, the comfortable exotique at the party.
            The pieces tantalize the ear with color with a palette invented for his Septet.  He creates this palette through unique instrumental combinations, especially working and expanding each instrument’s registers to exploit nuances in color as they fly high and swim low.  He is, as was Stravinsky, acutely aware of how a mix of dynamics between voices can make for unusual colors.  For example, a muted horn played ppp and a low register flute two dynamics louder produce a sound unique to this piece.  These chromatic treasures abound in Septet, each in its own tiny case.

    Wind Ensemble Personnel

    Flute
    Hui Lam Mak

    Oboe
    Rajan Panchal

    English horn
    Spencer Grasl

    Clarinet
    Theodore Robinson

    Bassoon
    Morgan Pope

    Alto Saxophone
    Rayna DeYoung

    French horn
    Helen Wargelin
     

  3. Iannis Xenakis | Rebonds for solo percussion

    Artists
    • Parker Olson, percussion

  4. Arthur Frackenpohl | from Brass Quintet No. 1

    III. Rondo

    Symphonic Winds Personnel

    Trumpet
    Sarah Heimberg
    Cody York

    French horn
    Jenna Stokes

    Trombone
    Elias Canales

    Tuba
    James Curto
     

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