Composer and Guest Conductor, Roger Cichy

Roger Cichy, composer and conductor

Ohio born composer, conductor, educator, music producer and music advocate, Roger Cichy began his musical careers teaching public school instrumental music in elementary through high school levels. He has a Master’s degree from The Ohio State University. He then served as Associate Director of Bands at the University of Rhode Island and Iowa State University where he directed the marching band, concert band and taught various courses in music education. All the while teaching at the public school and university levels, Roger was busy composing and arranging music and had his first publication in 1985 while still attending graduate school.

In 1995, Roger left Iowa State University to devote his full efforts to composition and now has more than 350 works for all levels of band, orchestras, and small ensembles, as well as 14 film scores. Roger has composed four pieces for the Concord Band including Flowing Pens from Concord, Emblazoned Joy, The Diamond Baton, and POEtic Justice. His music has been recorded by premier ensembles and is available on CD and many audio streaming platforms as well as YouTube. Roger is in demand as a guest conductor as well as a composer-in-residence and has conducted outstanding musical ensembles throughout the country. His music philosophy has always been that music is as natural as eating and sleeping, and that music, and the study of music should be available for all.

Chester, Overture for Band

William Howard Schuman, one of America’s most celebrated and accomplished composers, was born in NYC in 1910, to Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named, incidentally, for the 27th President of the United States, William Howard Taft, but his family called him Bill.

He played violin and banjo as a child, and formed a dance band in high school, “Billy Schuman had his Alamo Society Orchestra”, in which he played string bass- and they did local weddings and bar mitzvahs.

While writing popular songs as hobby, (including a staggering 40 in collaboration with the great lyricist Frank Loesser) Schuman entered NYU’s School of Commerce to pursue a business degree—until a fateful day in 1930 when he attended a Carnegie Hall concert of the NY Phil, conducted by Arturo Toscanini that changed his life. He said of that night, “I was astounded at seeing the sea of stringed instruments, everybody bowing together. The visual thing alone was astonishing. But the sound! I was overwhelmed. The very next day, I decided to become a composer.”

And what a career followed: 8 symphonies, the first ever Pulitzer Prize for music in 1943 for his Cantata No. 2, adapted from poems by another great American artist, Walt Whitman, a world-renowned concerto for violin, an opera based on “Casey at the Bat”. He taught composition at Sarah Lawrence, became president of the Julliard School, founded the Julliard String Quartet, became president of Lincoln center, won another Pulitzer in 1985 for half a century of contributions to American music as composer and educator, and received the National Medal for the Arts in 1987.

Inaugurating the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, we are pleased to perform for you his 1956 composition, Chester Overture for Band, adapted by the composer from his own orchestral work entitled New England Triptych. It is based on a tune written by arguably the first great homegrown American composer, of European stock, William Billings, first published in 1770. Chester was so popular that it was sung from Vermont to South Carolina, and became THE unofficial anthem of the American Revolution, sung around the campfires of the Continental Army and played by fifers on the march.

You’ll hear the original Billings chorale at the start of the piece, before Schuman breaks it into fragments of intense development which call to mind the struggle and tumult, but also the determination, the yearning for freedom during those difficult Revolutionary War years.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

Old Home Days

Charles Ives, born in 1874 to a father who was a band leader during the US Civil War, was raised in a prominent Danbury CT family—and went on to become perhaps the first American composer of international renown, and a pioneer in experimental musical techniques, including polytonality, tone clusters, so called ‘chance’ music, and quarter tones.

All delivered in a package of Ives’s favorite musical influences, which included hymns, traditional folk music, town band melodies at holiday parades, fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, parlor ballads and the melodies of Stephen Foster.

To complete the fascinatingly contradictory portrait, Ives’s musical career was a kind of side hustle. He had a parallel and equally successful career running his own… insurance agency! where he pioneered insurance plans for wealthy clients that prefigured many aspects of modern-day estate planning.

Incidentally, there was another great American artist who also worked in the insurance biz: the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Wallace Stevens, born five years after Ives, and who also spent his entire 9-to-5 career at an insurance company in Hartford. CT.

Ives’s music went largely ignored during his lifetime, but in the years since his death in 1954, his reputation has soared, championed by luminaries like Elliot Carter, Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann, Gustav Mahler, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, Frank Zappa and Phil Lesh, bassist for the Grateful Dead, who described Ives as one of his musical heroes. How’s that for irony: an insurance guy praised by one of the Dead.

We will be performing tonight Ives’s charming suite entitled Old Home Days, arranged for Band by Jonathan Elkus, which is both full of Ivesian nostalgia and also has little traces of those characteristic Ives touches: unexpected dissonances, out of kilter rhythms where you least expect them, snatches of familiar tunes heard fleetingly, as though from across a town green: listen especially for “Little Annie Rooney,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “The Girl I left Behind Me,” “London Bridge is Fallen Down!,” even a quotation from Handel’s oratorio “Saul” in the Slow March. And in the Opera House movement, notice how just as the listener gets ready to watch the show as the curtain goes up, Ives diverts the listeners attention to what’s happening OUTSIDE the theater: a village band marching by, and the ringing of church and schoolhouse bells.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

North Bridge Portrait

After graduating in 1976 from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in composition, Stephen Bulla went on to become the chief arranger for the President’s Own Marine Corps Band in Washington, DC, while also composing music for the celebrated group. When he left in 2010, composer John Williams described Bulla as “one of the most accomplished musicians of his generation.”

In addition to his tenure with the Marine Band, Bulla has composed for, and conducted, the National Capital Band of the Salvation Army, and has served as music director of the New England Brass Band and the Brass of the Potomac.

In 1999, the Concord Band commissioned Bulla to create a piece honoring the colonial heritage of New England. And Bulla responded with his evocative “North Bridge Portrait”, based on authentic musical themes of the American Revolutionary Period.

In his own words, “A slow and ominously quiet introductory section leads to a brisk sea-chantey-like tune, depicting the busy lifestyle of the Colonists. The music then slows, and an expressive setting of Willam Billings’ song ‘America’ is developed and incorporated in the musical tapestry as a tribute to the new England composer’s work. The music concludes with a dramatic recreation of the famous first shot that led the country to war (this time fired by the percussion section), along with a rousing setting of ‘Washington’s March,’ a popular song of that day.”

Contrasting colors and stylistic shifts tracing the historic events surrounding "the shot heard 'round the world," North Bridge Portrait is a memorable experience to play… and we trust, to hear.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

Three New England Caricatures

Another of our most treasured commission composers is James Curnow, born and raised in Michigan, now living in Kentucky, where he is composer-in-residence (emeritus) on the faculty of Asbury University in Wilmore.

Those of you who have attended our Holiday Pops concerts each year in December are undoubtedly familiar with one of those commissions, Overture to a Winter Festival, which we play joyfully every year without fail, a lyrical Curnow piece written as a retirement gift in 1994 for the Concord Band’s first music director, William Toland. 

And there have been other commissions as well, including 1987’s Five Concord Diversions and 1988’s beautiful Welsh Variants.

Tonight, in the spirit of our New England theme, we’re delighted to be performing Curnow’s evocative Three New England Caricatures, written in 2011 and dedicated to the New England Youth Wind Ensemble.

Written in three movements, “Jolly Old Roger,” “Polly Van,” and “Captain Kidd,” after the infamous 17th century pirate, the piece features many of Curnow’s characteristic flourishes—beautiful melodies, jaunty rhythms, challenging passage work, and, throughout, a myriad of percussion sounds coming from cake pans, frying pans and water bottles.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

Snapshots of Acadia

Those of you who attended the Band’s 60th Anniversary concert in March of 2019 might recognize the name of our next composer, Andrew Boysen, Professor of Music at the University of New Hampshire where he conducts their wind symphony and teaches conducting and composition. Andy wrote a beautiful piece for us for that former occasion, the Diamond Jubilee Suite, and he traveled down from his native NH to conduct it for us that night, to our great delight.

Tonight we’ll be performing another evocative composition of his entitled Snapshots of Acadia, which features four movements depicting the Bar Harbor Lighthouse, Thunder Hole, Calm Waters in Front of Cadillac Mountain and celebrated Acadia Sunrise. You’ll be treated to a video montage showing selected images of those landmarks, part of the terrific slide presentation put together by Jean Patterson of our horn section, which will help set the mood.

In fact the piece was originally commissioned by the photographer John Morneau, who’s images you’ll see, and the University of Southern Maine Music Academy, on the occasion of their 25th Anniversary. The four movements are based on the word ACADIA, using each of the letters of that word as musical notes (the letter I becoming the note E). The basic melodic cell for the piece is a-c-a-d-e-a, which underpins all four movements.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

Beachscapes

Rhode Island composer Roger Cichy has been a long time friend to the Concord Band, composing commissioned pieces for us for many years, including the 2009 Flowing Pens from Concord, written for the Band’s 50th anniversary, Emblazoned Joy, a fanfare we play before every Fruitlands concert, and The Diamond Baton, a piece celebrating the legacy of Band percussionist Dan Diamond.

Tonight we’re excited to present to you a composition commissioned by The American Band Commissioning Project Consortium, entitled Beachscapes, from 2008.

In his program notes, Roger notes that “each [New England] beach has its’ own personality. Whether the beach tends to draw families with children, or the younger generation or those looking for peace and serenity, each beach has a different feel, character, even a different set of sounds”.

Know for his capacity for taking intangible experience and emotions and turning them into memorable music, Roger sets about in this piece to convey the feel of Nauset Beach on the Cape, with large waves, surfers, beach chowder smells, sea creatures churned up by the heavy surf, and of course sea gulls snatching food-to Rocky Neck Beach in East Lyme, CT, with calmer and warmer waters, gentle rhythmic waves and warm breezes, interrupted only by an Amtrak train streaking by, to Scarborough Beach in Narragansett, RI, a family beach where finding parking is paramount, tons of beach paraphernalia is schlepped back and forth, sand castles are built and destroyed, and the occasional crab interrupts the proceedings.

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Program notes by John Rabinowitz

El Camino Real: A Latin Fantasy

El Camino Real: A Latin Fantasy is based on a series of chord progressions common to countless generations of Spanish flamenco (and other) guitarists, whose fiery style and brilliant playing have captivated millions of music lovers throughout the world. These progressions and the resulting key relationships have become practically synonymous with what we feel to be the true Spanish idiom. Together with the folk melodies they have underscored, in part derived by a procedure known to musicians as the "melodizing of harmony," they have created a vast body of what most people would consider authentic Spanish music. (Source; Alfred Reed)

Elegy

William McManus composed Elegy in memory of William M. Toland, Music Director of the Concord Band from 1962-1995. The work opens with a solemn memorial theme played by solo trumpet accompanied by timpani, one of the many percussion instruments played by William Toland. After a brief transition section, clarinets and flutes introduce a hymn-like life-celebrating theme. Following several statements of this melody, the percussion section is featured with the timpani now playing a motive from the opening memorial theme accompanied by snare drum, bass drum and cymbals.  This section leads to a majestic restatement of the celebration theme by the full band. The work closes as it began with the memorial theme played by solo trumpet, but this time accompanied by a tolling chime.

Masque

Masque by Francis McBeth is in a contemporary idiom familiar to followers of concert band music—not unusually experimental but nevertheless making use of twentieth-century devices. For example, Masque uses a variety of percussion instruments, has nontraditional harmonies, and makes use of short motifs for melodic interest. Two themes serve as the basic material for the entire piece; one is rhythmic, being heard only in the fast sections, and the other is a melodic three-note motif, which is developed during the entire course of the work. (Source; UNC, Greensboro, University Band concert program, 3 October 2016)

Chorale and Alleluia

Chorale and Alleluia was completed in January 1954, and was Dr. Howard Hanson's first work for symphonic band. The composition opens with a fine flowing chorale. Soon the joyous Alleluia theme appears and is much in evidence throughout. A bold statement of a new melody makes its appearance in lower brasses in combination with the above themes. The effect is one of cathedral bells, religious exaltation, solemnity, and dignity. The music is impressive, straightforward, and pleasingly non-dissonant, and its resonance and sonority are ideally suited to the medium of the modern symphonic band. (Source; Carl Fischer Music)

Tribute

Tribute by David Gorham opens with solemn and respectful material, the piece is both moving and expressive. As the work unfolds, the mood gradually ascends, almost visibly brightening, creating an uplifting feeling of hope and triumph. This wonderfully musical work will enhance any program with its expressive qualities that remind the listener of the strength of the human spirit to endure. (Source; Publisher)

Celtic Farewell

Music has the power to help us heal after the loss of loved ones. In Celtic Farewell composer Michael Sweeney combines the beloved traditional Scottish ballad “The Parting Glass” with an original melody to create a beautifully paced and sensitive musical memorial. A key element of this work is the use of highland bagpipes that adds to the Celtic flavor. (Source; Pepper Music Company)

A Bernstein Tribute

In A Bernstein Tribute, arranger Clare Grundman pays musical tribute to one of the greatest composers and musical personalities of our time. This colorful medley offers a wonderful opportunity to enter the world of Leonard Bernstein. Grundman's skillful adaptation includes excerpts from West Side Story (Prologue; Somewhere; Scherzo; Mambo), On The Town (The Great Lover; Times Square: 1944; Lonely Town), and excerpts from the Overture to Candide. (Source: Publisher)

Flourish for Wind Band

Flourish for Wind Band was written as an overture to the pageant Music and the People, performed in the Royal Albert Hall in 1939. The score was then lost, only to reappear in 1971. It was not made available to American bands until it was published in 1972. Flourish for Wind Band followed on the heels of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ great masterworks for band, English Folk Song Suite and Toccata Marziale, and is significant, in part, because it is a relatively easy work (grade 3), by a composer of high stature and skill. (Source: Creekside Middle School Wind Symphony concert program)

The Lords of Greenwich

Written in the style of an authentic British folk tune, Robert Sheldon's The Lords of Greenwich is an original composition inspired by the music of Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. A jaunty theme greets the listener at the outset of the piece, followed by a lyrical and expressive ballad. A brief transition culminates in a musical statement that recalls the music of a British military brass band, which is then accompanied by the original thematic material bringing the piece to a definitive conclusion. (Source: Publisher)

Greensleeves: A Symphonic Setting

One of the most enduring melodies of all time has been sensitively arranged by the incomparable talent Claude T. Smith. Greensleeves: A Symphonic Setting presents intriguing combinations of wind colors and contrapuntal textures to make this the most unusual setting ever written for band. (Source: Publisher)

English Folk Song Suite

This beloved suite for military band, English Folk Song Suite, was premiered in 1923 and originally included a fourth movement, “Sea Songs.” After the premiere, “Sea Songs” was removed from the Suite and used as a standalone piece by the same name. Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams collected the majority of the folk songs that were used as the inspiration of this work between 1906 and 1909. Along with Broadwood and Sharp, they carefully transcribed both text/lyric and tune of the songs sung by rural singers. Some were also recorded on wax cylinders, many of which still exist, though in poor condition due to the delicate nature of such recordings. There was a bit of a difference of opinion between Broadwood, who wanted to painstakingly note every nuance, every detail of each song to make sure the music was captured as exactly as possible, and Sharp’s opinion that many of these singers were aged and that time was of the essence in capturing as many of these tunes as possible. This came into play especially regarding lyrics as some did not meet the moral values of the day and revisions were thought to be appropriate. Vaughan Williams saw the value in both perspectives.

This Folk Song Suite has three movements. Movement I begins with the sprightly “Seventeen Come Sunday” which leads to the more legato melody of “Pretty Caroline,” with simple yet beautiful orchestration of these tunes. “Dives and Lazarus” is then heard in the basses as a countermelody before reprising the opening theme. The Intermezzo, Movement II, features “Green Bushes” and “My Bonny Boy,” and opens with a lovely oboe solo in the Dorian mode. Motifs found in “My Bonny Boy” are swapped around the band before entering the lively melody of “Green Bushes” before “My Bonny Boy” repeats, bringing the movement to a quiet close. Movement III opens with the light-hearted “Blow Away the Morning Dew” played by a clarinet solo and answered by the whole ensemble. The juxtaposition of the trumpet fanfare and basses playing “High Germany” centers the next section which then reverts to the opening theme. “John Barleycorn” is carried by the trombones and basses, and the trumpets then enter above before the final chord. (Source: Cindy Blanchard)

Rhosymedre

In 1920, Ralph Vaughan Williams composed three preludes for organ based on Welsh hymn tunes, a set that quickly established itself in the organ repertoire. Of the three, Rhosymedre, sometimes known as “Lovely,” has become the most popular. The hymn tune used in this prelude was written by a 19th century Welsh composer, J.D. Edwards, and is a very simple melody made up almost entirely of scale tones and upbeat skips of a fourth. (Source: Walter Beeler). The arrangement for saxophone quartet is provided by Donald Fabian.

"Minuet" from Le Tombeau de Couperin

"Minuet" is the fifth movement from Le Tombeau de Couperin, a suite by Maurice Ravel. Originally a piano composition, Ravel himself orchestrated it later. Each of the six movements is dedicated to a friend who died in World War I. The arrangement for saxophone quartet is provided by Christoph Enzel. (Source: John Rabinowitz)