NEC Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds: Bach, Dove, Schoenberg, Johnson, Dello Joio, Nieske, Atkins
NEC Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Winds close their 2023-24 season with a joint concert conducted by guest conductor Carl Atkins as well as William Drury, Rachel Brake '24 MM, and Jackie Hu '24 MM. Joining the wind ensembles are members of Jerry Leake's Ghanaian Drumming Ensemble and master drummer and guest artist, Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng.
Carl Atkins
In a career spanning more than 60 years, Carl Atkins has distinguished himself as a woodwind specialist, conductor, composer, ethnomusicologist, administrator, consultant, and teacher, in “Jazz,” non-Western and Western European art music. Atkins received the Bachelor of Music in Woodwinds from Indiana University, the Master of Music in Conducting from the New England Conservatory, and the Doctor of Music in Conducting from the Eastman School of Music.
Atkins has performed with many noted musicians and organizations, including Gunther Schuller, George Russell, Bill Evans, Jaki Byard, and Herbie Hancock; the American National Opera Co., the Boston Opera Co., and the Swedish Radio Jazz Orchestra. As a composer, he has written for solo artists, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, wind orchestras, and documentary films.
Atkins was the founding director of the Jazz and Afro-American Music Department at the New England Conservatory, where he also taught woodwinds, African American Music History, and conducted jazz and wind ensembles. He has served as President and Executive Director of the David Hochstein School of Music & Dance (Rochester, NY), and Board Chair of the National Guild for Community Arts Education. In 1995 he became Co-Director (with noted Jazz bassist, Ron Carter) of the Thelonious Monk Institute at NEC. In 1999, Atkins was appointed Associate Dean for Advanced Studies at NEC. In 2002, he was appointed Professor of Music at the Rochester Institute of Technology, serving as Chair of the Department of Performing and Visual Arts from 2012 to 2018. Atkins retired as Professor Emeritus in 2018, and in 2021 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the New England Conservatory.
This is an in-person event with a private stream available to the NEC community here: https://necmusic.edu/live
Johann Sebastian Bach | Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048
arranged for brass by Christopher Mowett
Allegro moderato
Adagio
AllegroArtists- William Drury, conductor
Jonathan Dove | Figures in the Garden (1991)
Dancing in the Dark
Susanna in the Rain
A Conversation
Barbarina Alone
The Countess Interrupts a Quarrel
Voices in the Garden
Nocturne: Figaro and SusannaProgram note
For their 1991 Mozart bicentenary celebrations, Glyndebourne commissioned five composers to write wind serenades. Each serenade was to be musically connected in some way with one of Mozart’s operas, and to be played outdoors before the performance of the opera. I was asked to compose a piece to precede The Marriage of Figaro. Although Mozart’s comic masterpiece needs no introduction, musically or otherwise, I was attracted by the aptness of playing a serenade in the garden before performances of an opera whose last act is set in a garden, and which itself includes a number of serenades: Voi che sapete, Deh vieni, non tardar, and Susanna and the countess’ letter-writing duet Canzonetta sull‘aria. I had the idea that with all the performances of The Marriage of Figaro that had taken place at Glyndebourne, sounds from the opera had in some way impregnated the garden: snatches of recitative, musical figures, instrumental colours. I didn’t want to overwork Mozart’s tunes – it would be disastrous if the audience were tired of them before the opera had even begun – but each movement of Figures in the Garden is developed from a musical idea in the opera. Here and there an alternative scenario emerges: Susanna sings her aria in the rain (because it’s an English garden), and Figaro and Susanna finally enjoy a moment of shared tranquillity that is denied them in the opera.
– Jonathan Dove
Artists- Jackie Hu '24 MM, conductor
Arnold Schoenberg | Theme and Variations, op. 43a
played without pause
Theme: Poco allegro
Variation
Variation: Allegro molto
Variation: Poco adagio
Variation: Tempo di valse
Variation: Molto moderato
Variation: Allegro
Variation: Moderato
Finale: ModeratoProgram note
Theme and Variations, op. 43a was commissioned for high school band by Carl Engel, Schoenberg’s friend and the publisher of G. Schirmer Music. Hoping to encourage original high-quality literature for band, he requested a piece with multiple characters and moods to enrich the wind ensemble repertoire. However, its complexity proved beyond the capabilities of high school bands at the time, and it is still mostly performed only by advanced bands today.
The work is a carefully crafted masterpiece of complex counterpoint. Having completed his textbook, Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint, just prior to composing this piece, Schoenberg put into practice much of what he wrote. It is not a 12-tone work like many pieces he composed at the time but a masterfully created tonal work in g minor that demonstrated his virtuosity.
The theme is introduced first by the oboes and clarinets and then developed through seven variations each increasing in complexity. As the piece progresses, elements of the theme are treated like a tone row through fragmentation, inversion, retrograde, etc. and played by various instruments according to their complimenting timbres and tessituras. When the piece climaxes at the finale, the powerful forces of the entire ensemble are released and a reference to Schoenberg’s dear friend and tennis partner, George Gershwin, is heard through a Rhapsody in Blue chordal progression in the last bars.
– Rachel BrakeArtists- Rachel Brake '24 MM, conductor
BRIEF PAUSE
J. J. Johnson | Poem for Brass (1956)
Artists- Carl Atkins, conductor
- Mark Tipton, trumpet soloist
- Eli Canales, trombone soloist
Norman Dello Joio | Scenes from the Louvre
The Portals
Children's Gallery
King of France
Nativity Paintings
FinaleArtists- Carl Atkins, conductor
Robert Nieske | Pop's Parade
Artists- William Drury, conductor
Carl Atkins | from We Free Kings
I. Dance for an Unknown African King
Program note
Dance for an Unknown African King is the first movement of a work-in-progress, We Free Kings. This suite is dedicated to three notable Africans/African Americans in history: An Unknown African King, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rodney King. The “Dance” is based on ancient West African songs and dances associated with the war dance ritual known as Agbekor. It loosely translates to “clear life”, the aspirational mental state of warriors returning from battle. Agbekor is central to the West African cultures of the Ewe, Ashanti, and the Yoruba people in Ghana, Nigeria, and other regions of Central West Africa.
The current realization was composed and arranged with the hope of successfully integrating African and western musical elements. This involved the direct usage of melodic and rhythmic elements from Agbekor, as well as originally composed melodic and rhythmic material, based on Agbekor elements. The African percussion ensemble sets and maintains the traditional rhythmic foundation, while the melodic material is based on melodic material from Agbekor, and written for the wind band. The percussion ensemble consists of the “primary time-keeper”, the gangkoqui or double-clapperless bell, the axatse, a gourd, playing a stylized version of the bell pattern; various high and low pitched drums (i.e., sogo, kidi,kagan), filling in and supporting the bell pattern, and the “master drum” or Atsimevu, played by the Master Drummer, embellishing the bell pattern and improvising.-Carl Atkins
Artists- Carl Atkins, conductor
- Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng, Master Drummer and guest artist
- Jerry Leake, drummer
- Victor Giraldez, John Jiang, Carlo Kind, Elfie Shi, members of Ghanaian Drumming Ensemble
Personnel and bios
Jerry Leake is a professor at Berklee College of Music, the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, and the New England Conservatory (Jazz and CMA). He is a founding member of Cubist, Natraj, Club d'Elf, and the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society. He has written eight texts on Indian, West African, and Afro-Cuban percussion, as well as articles for the Percussive Arts Society Magazine. Jerry is a student of Gary Burton (vibes), Godwin Agbeli, Alhaji Dolsi-naaAbubakariu Lunna (Ghana), and Rajeev Devastli, and T.K. Ramakrishnan (India).
Kwaku Kwaakye Obeng (KK0) is a world-renowned Ghanaian drummer, singer, composer, dancer, and educator, who has performed and taught internationally for the past 30 years. He began drumming at age five with the Fontomfrom Ensemble, a royal court ensemble that performs for the Paramount Chief of the Aburi-Akuapim area in the Eastern region of Ghana. He was also a member of Ghana’s National Arts Council Folkloric Company based in Accra. In addition to traditional West African music, he has performed and recorded a range of musical styles, such as highlife, funk, jazz, Latin, and reggae.
Mr. Obeng directs the Ghanaian Drumming and World Music Ensembles at Brown University. Previously, he taught at Wesleyan University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of New Haven, and the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. He has shared the stage with such luminaries as Roy Hargrove, Randy Weston, Max Roach, Anthony Braxton, Obo Addy, Fleetwood Mac, and Bootsy Collins. Mr. Obeng has given workshops at many colleges and universities across the U.S., and appeared at many venues and festivals in the U.S, Mexico, Brazil, St. Lucia, New Zealand, and Africa.
Kwaku has been featured on many recordings and compilations, most recently playing on the soundtrack for the Penratonix’s It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, for Around the World for the Holidays on Disney. KKO’s music is available at Bandcamp and CDBaby.
NEC Wind Ensemble and NEC Symphonic Winds
Flute
Chia-Fen Chang
Anne Chao
Jeong Won Choe
Isabel Evernham
Sadie Goodman
Honor Hickman
Amelia Kazazian
Subin Oh
Anna Ridenour
Oboe
Dane Bennett
Donovan Bown
Yuhsi Chang
Robert Diaz
Rebecca Mack
Kelley Osterberg
Victoria Solis Alvarado
Clarinet
Dillon Acey
Sarah Cho
Evan Chu
Xianyi Ji
Phoebe Kuan
Yi-Ting Ma
Chasity Thompson
Cole Turkel
Bassoon
Zoe Beck
Abigail Heyrich
Zilong Huang
Evan Judson
Wilson Lu
Erik Paul
Julien Rollins
Saxophone
Zhikang Chen
Vladyslav Dovhan
Xinyi Liao
Zeyi Tian
French horn
Elijah Barclift
Mattias Bengtsson
Grace Clarke
Graham Lovely
Mauricio Martinez
Willow Otten
Noah Silverman
Xiaoran Xu
Qianbin Zhu
Trumpet
Daniel Barak
Ko Te Chen
Matthew Dao
Maxwell DeForest
Sebastián Haros
Eddy Lanois
Reynolds Martin
Nelson Martinez
Matthew Mihalko
Alexandra Richmond
Cody York
Trombone
Becca Bertekap
Devin Drinan
Jaehan Kim
Noah Korenfeld
Allie Klaire Ledbetter
Ethan Lehman
Quinn McGillis
Noah Nichilo
Alex Russell
Kevin Smith
Bass Trombone
Roger Dahlin
Scott Odou
David Paligora
Ki Yoon Park
Jason Sato
Shin Tanaka
Tuba
James Curto
Masaru Lin
Hayden Silvester
Percussion
Isabella Butler
Eli Geruschat
Doyeon Kim
Felix Ko
Danial Kukuk
Nagaieng Lai
Mark Larrivee
Eli Reisz
Jeff Sagurton
Halle Hayoung Song
Lucas Vogelman
Rohan Zakharia
Wind Ensemble Graduate Assistants
Weizhe Bai
Rachel Brake