Quiet Fire, one of five HSU Jazz Combos in two separate shows November 15: Eric Simpson, David Semon, Courtney Abajian, Vance Umphrey, Kyle McKinnis.

One Night, Two Shows: Jazz Combomania

 In two shows with different groups in each, HSU Jazz Combos take the Fulkerson Recital Hall stage on Sunday November 15.

 Three combos (Moon Carrot, Tuesday Combo and Hindsight Bias) perform at 7 p.m. and two more (Quiet Fire and the 2:00 Combo) at 9 p.m., mixing new and classic jazz with original tunes. 

 For the 7 p.m. show, the quintet Moon Carrot plays two tunes by contemporary jazz group Ryan Keberle and Catharsis, two tunes by classic trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and “Sister” by singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens, featuring vocalist Olivia Bright.  Andrew Henderson is on trumpet, Craig Hull on trombone, Ryan Woempner on bass and Eric Tolfa on drums. 

 The Tuesday Combo (Siqueira Barros, alto sax; Leo Plummer, guitar; Christian Hower, bass; Logan Harriman, drums) goes international with tunes by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Japanese hip hop producer Nujabes, as well as “Close To You” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

 Playing classics by Miles Davis and John Coltrane, plus “Sky Turning Grey” by contemporary jazz pianist Brad Mehldau will be Hindsight Bias: Abraham Loaiza (tenor sax), Max Marlowe (piano), Ricardo Cueva (bass) and Felipe Pezzoli (drums.)

 In a separate show beginning at 9 p.m., Quiet Fire plays originals by alto sax player Kyle McInnis and guitarist David Semon, as well as its version of “When You Wish Upon A Star.” The quintet includes Eric Simpson on bass, Courtney Abajian on drums and Vance Umphrey on steel pans. 

 The 2:00 Combo goes entirely original with compositions by band members Jake Burns (guitar), Alan Spencer (tenor sax) and Jared Margen (bass.) Mike Deason is on drums. 

 HSU Jazz Combos perform on Sunday November 15 at 7 p.m. and at 9 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. Tickets are $8, $5 seniors and children, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Directed by Dan Aldag, produced by HSU Music department.

Media: Eureka Times-Standard Urge, Mad River Union, Humboldt State Now.

Jazz Combos: Concert(s) Notes

There are two going to be two concerts on Sun., Nov. 15 - one at 7 pm and one at 9 pm. Performing the 7 pm concert are:

Moon Carrot
 Olivia Bright - vocals Andrew Henderson - trumpet Craig Hull - trombone Ryan Woempner - bass Eric Tolfa - drums 
They're playing two Freddie Hubbard tunes, "Red Clay" and "Little Sunflower" and two tunes first performed by the jazz group Ryan Keberle and Catharsis: Keberle's "Gallop" and a cover of the singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens' "Sister".

The Tuesday Combo 
Matheus Siqueira Barros - alto sax Leo Plummer - guitar Christian Hower - bass Logan Harriman - drums
They're playing "Trenzinho Caipira" by Heitor Villa-Lobos, "Close To You" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and "Aruarian Dance" by the Japanese hip hop producer and DJ Nujabes.

 Hindsight Bias 
Abraham Loaiza - tenor sax Max Marlowe - piano Ricardo Cueva - bass Felipe Pezzoli - drums 
They're playing "Nardis" by Miles Davis, "Mr P.C." by John Coltrane and Brad Mehldau's "Sky Turning Grey"

 Performing the 9:00 concert are:

Quiet Fire
 Kyle McInnis - alto sax Vance Umphrey - steel pans David Semon - guitar Eric Simpson - bass Courtney Abajian - drums 
They're playing two original compositions, "Doo-Wah" by Kyle McInnis and "Running Water" by David Semon, along with "When You Wish Upon A Star", written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, and "Little Secrets" by Andy Narrell.

The 2:00 Combo
 Alan Spencer - tenor sax Jake Burns - guitar Jared Margen - bass Mike Deason - drums
 They're playing three originals, "Coeur D'Alene" by Jake Burns, "Morning Headache" by Alan Spencer and an as-yet-untitled tune by Jared Margen.

--Dan Aldag

   Assistant Conductor Audrey McComb with members of the Humboldt Bay   Brass Band 

 Humboldt Bay Brass Band in “Destiny of Knights & Cossacks”

 From opera overture to musical comedy, a Veterans Day tribute to a holiday season preview, Humboldt Bay Brass Band presents its autumn mash-up and its only HSU concert of the school year, “Destiny of Knights and Cossacks,” on Saturday November 14 at Fulkerson Recital Hall. 

 After the stirring overture to the opera Force of Destiny by Verdi, and selections from the musical Oklahoma, HBBB tackles Call of the Cossacks by contemporary British brass band composer Peter Graham that employs musical styles from Gypsy to Klezmer. 

“This five movement work tests all sections of the band,” notes director Gil Cline. “It highlights five soloists—one brandishing our so-called Cossack Horn.” 

Knights Templar by 20th century British band composer George Allen is “a roller-coaster major-minor masterpiece in counterpoint,” Cline said. Blades of Toledo by Trevor Sharpe, long-time musical director of the Coldstream Guards, “shreds notes at a furiously fast tempo, as if brandishing the famous swords of Toledo, Spain.” It features the HBBB trombone section.

  Also on the program are contemporary composer John Rutter’s “What Sweeter Music” anticipating the December holidays, and a special version of Taps to commemorate Veterans Day.

 HBBB is the only authentic British-style brass band in northern California, featuring 25 brass instruments plus percussion. Assisting conductor Gil Cline is Audrey McCombs. 

 Humboldt Bay Brass Band performs on Saturday November 14 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. Tickets are $8, $5 seniors and children, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Produced by HSU Music department.

Media: Mad River Union, Eureka Times-Standard Urge, North Coast Journal, Humboldt State Now

Humboldt Bay Brass Band Concert Notes

Concert Notes by Dr. Gil Cline, director and conductor

Kicking off the concert is the powerhouse overture Force of Destiny by Giuseppe Verdi.

 Following is Raymond Burkhart’s tone poem “Ozark Point,” and then a selection of Rodgers and Hammerstein melodies from Oklahoma.

 Ending the concert's first half is the tour-de-force Call of the Cossacks by Peter Graham. This 5-movement work tests all sections of the band, and highlights five soloists (one brandishing our so-called “Cossack Horn”) from within the band.

 The second half of the concert begins with Knight Templar, a roller-coaster major-minor masterpiece in counterpoint by George Allan.  John Rutter's “What Sweeter Music,” anticipates the December holidays.

HBBB’s stellar trombone section is featured in Blades of Toledo -- shredding notes at a furiously fast tempo, as if brandishing the famous swords and sabres of Toledo, Spain.


 Closing is HBBB’s observance of Veterans Day, this year with an echo version of Taps, then our custom arrangement of songs of six of the US military service branches. Encores are typical!

 Humboldt Bay Brass Band is directed and conducted by HSU professor Dr. Gil Cline, with assistant conductor Audrey McCombs. HBBB is the only true U.K.-style Brass Band in the North of California with 25 brass and four percussion. Far from some old “summer-park-concert-brass-band,” HBBB plays a very wide variety of music: very old to very new; marches to movies; and Gabrieli to grooves.

HBBB has recorded a full-length CD, performed often locally and on tour in Oregon while on the way to a festival in Seattle, re-introduced local historic music, and contributed newly-written works to current literature for “world band.”

photo: front: Nick Hart, Adrien Bouissou, Sador Rangel, Leo Plummer. Back: Jonathan Hernandez, Evan Dowadakin, Andrew Heavelin.

Guitar With A French Accent 

From “Claire de Lune” to Ravel, HSU Guitar Ensemble plays with a French accent—including homegrown music in the same spirit—in its concert on Friday November 13 at Fulkerson Recital Hall. 

 Guitarists Andrew Heavelin and Leo Plummer perform the classic Debussy “Claire de Lune,” as the first of four selections by 20th century French composers.

 Heavelin and Plummer are joined by Kenneth Bozanich and Adrien Bouissou for Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess. Francis Poulenc’s “Mouvements Perpétuels” is played by Sador Rangel and Nick Hart. 

 “Paraboles” by French composer Jacques Ibert “is a decidedly Spanish piece,” said Guitar Ensemble director Nicholas Lambson. Hart and Jon Hernandez perform part of this work. 

 Besides also being captivated by Spanish music, Debussy and Ravel were especially influenced by the Impressionist painters (like Monet) and French symbolist poets (like Rimbaud.)  So was the Russian composer Alexander Scribian. Bozanich, Rangel and Evan Dodakin perform two of his Twelve Preludes.

 The concert also features “The Jester,” a piece for four guitars and bass by HSU guitar and composition student Kenneth Bozanich. “It includes some of the same stylistic elements as the other pieces on the program, with extended jazzy harmonies,” Lambson said. It’s performed by the composer plus Plummer, Heavelin and Bouissou.

 The HSU Guitar Ensemble performs on Friday November 13 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. Tickets are $8, $5 seniors and children, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Produced by HSU Music department.

Media: Eureka Times-Standard Urge, North Coast Journal, Mad River Union, Humboldt State Now

Guitar Ensemble: Program and Notes

Program 
 Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy
 Andrew Heavelin and Leo Plummer

 From Twelve Preludes, Op.11 by Alexander Scriabin:  No.4 & No. 17
 Kenneth Bozanich, Evan Dowdakin, Sador Rangel

 Paraboles by Jacques Ibert I
Jon Hernandez and Nick Hart

 The Jester by Kenneth Bozanich
 Leo Plummer, Andrew Heavelin, Kenneth Bozanich, Adrien Bouissou

 Mouvements Perpétuels by Francis Poulenc
 Sador Rangel and Nick Hart

 Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a Dead Princess) by Maurice Ravel
 Andrew Heavelin, Kenneth Bozanich, Adrien Bouissou, Leo Plummer

Program Notes
 by Nicholas Lambson, director

Debussy

This semester’s program is essentially French. We will be performing a wide variety of pieces within this theme, including immediately recognizable favorites such as Claude Debussy’s “Claire de Lune,” and an original student composition.

 Nationalism was an important theme for many composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some trends were universal, such as the use of national folk songs, but each nation had a unique style as well: the Italian style emphasized sing-able melodies; the Germans featured a more intellectual and bombastic style; and the French style included music that was textural and nuanced.

While some French composers continued to develop their national artistic identity in the 20th century, some were also influenced by music from other times and places. Claude Monet’s painting, "Impression, Sunrise" essentially coined the term "impressionist" that later became a buzzword for the music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel; this was meant to convey a somewhat abstract and textural "impression" of something else.

The impressionist composers' music remained tonal, unlike the music of some their contemporaries (such as Arnold Schoenberg), and was generally more progressive than radical. Debussy's infamous statement on the guidelines for music and practice, "pleasure is the law," conveys this sentiment succinctly: essentially, if it sounds good, then it’s good! Indeed, rather than dispose of hundreds of years of musical development, he sought out both new and familiar styles to cultivate something that he found to be pleasurable, including everything from medieval music to Indonesian gamelan music.

Ravel

Similarly, Ravel was highly influenced by jazz and the music of other cultures. Therefore, these composers are not the revolutionaries that they are sometimes believed to be. They also did not particularly like being called impressionists; rather he and his compatriots preferred to be called symbolists. The French symbolist poets sought to describe the indescribable through reference, allusion, and suggestion, rather than tangible and overt statements.

While Debussy and Ravel where clearly linked with this French school of thought, other major composers were also heavily influenced by it, including the Russian composer,  Alexander Scriabin.  Scriabin, in a word, was kind of a weirdo. Beyond being part of the so-called Russian Symbolists, he was a mystic; a force for the Russian dictatorship; he had synesthesia (a neurological condition in which the other senses are associated with sound - in his case color); and although he went to school with Sergei Rachmaninoff and wrote in a similar style early on, he developed his own tonal language later in life, which shared some of the same aesthetic goals as the symbolists and atonal composers.

Also on this program is a decidedly Spanish piece by Jacques Ibert. Like many other French composers, including Debussy and Ravel, Ibert was captivated by the music of the exotic sounds of that bordering nation, and he wrote a number of highly effective pieces in the style, colored by his own French disposition.

Finally, there is one piece for four guitars and bass written by a current HSU guitar and composition student, Kenneth Bozanich, which features some of the same stylistic elements with extended "jazzy" harmonies.

This is the first of several more works to be written for the ensemble. Next semester, we will be doing a collaborative project with the composition majors at HSU, and we hope that you will join us for that on April 2nd, 2016 at 8pm in Fulkerson Recital Hall.

Stormy Beethoven, Jazzy Bolcom with Cindy Moyer & John Chernoff

 Violinist Cindy Moyer continues her project of playing all the Beethoven violin sonatas with the stormy Sonata in C Minor, plus a contemporary jazz-influenced sonata by William Bolcom and a lyrical sonata by Gabriel Faure, in concert with pianist John Chernoff on Sunday November 8 in Fulkerson Recital Hall. 

 "This is perhaps the most dramatic of all the Beethoven sonatas," Moyer said. "It's in the same key as the famous Fifth Symphony, and even more tempestuous."

 Contemporary American composer William Bolcom has won the Pulitzer Prize, National Medal of the Arts and two Grammy awards.

 His Second Sonata for Violin and Piano is "quite varied in style," Moyer said. "Some is very modern and dissonant--you gotta love a movement titled 'Brutal,' and it is. Some of it is very jazzy." The final movement is dedicated to Giuseppe "Joe" Venuti, an early 20th century Italian-American musician considered the first star of the jazz violin. 

 The music of 20th century French composer Gabriel Fauré is “famously lyrical and gorgeous,” Moyer said. His Sonata No. 1 “mixes the lyrical with some drama, though not nearly as intense as the Beethoven or the Bolcom.” 

Violinist Cindy Moyer and pianist John Chernoff perform on Sunday November 8 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU. Tickets are $10 general, $5 students, seniors and children from the HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. This Faculty Artist Series concert is produced by HSU Music Department. 

Media: Eureka Times-Standard Urge, Mad River Union, North Coast Journal The Setlist, Humboldt State Now

Cindy Moyer & John Chernoff: The Program and Notes

Faculty Artist Recital: Cindy Moyer, violin
 John Chernoff, piano

Sonata in C Minor for Piano for Violin, Op. 30, No. 2  by Ludwig van Beethoven

 Allegro con brio
Adagio cantabile
 Scherzo: Allegro
 Finale: Allegro

 Second Sonata for Violin and Piano by William Bolcom
 Summer Dreams
 Brutal, fast
 Adagio
 In Memory of Joe Venuti

 Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op. 13 by  Gabriel Fauré
 Allegro molto
Andante
 Allegro vivo
 Allegro quasi presto

Notes on the Program 
by Cindy Moyer

 Beethoven Sonata in C: Continuing my project of playing all the Beethoven sonatas.  This sonata is perhaps the most dramatic of all the Beethoven sonatas. It's in the same key as the 5th symphony – and perhaps even more tempestuous as that most-famous piece.

 Bolcom Second Sonata:  William Bolcom is  a living American composer. This piece is quite varied in style – some is very modern and dissonant (gotta love a movement titled “Brutal” – and it is…) – and some of it is very jazzy. The final movement is dedicated to jazz violinist, Joe Venuti – and is largely jazzy in style.

 Faure Sonata No. 1 : Faure’s music is famously lyrical and gorgeous. This piece mixes lyrical with some drama, although not nearly as intense as either the Beethoven or Bolcom.

Composers Concert Presents Prize-Winner

New works by three student composers, including a prize-winner, are presented in the HSU Composers Concert on Friday November 6 in Fulkerson Recital Hall.

Featured is a song cycle by Michael Barrett Donovan for voice and piano entitled “The Dignfied Lonely Person.” Donovan won this semester’s John W. DeLodder competition for best composition with this work.

 Mr. DeLodder, a local resident who sponsors the competition in partnership with the HSU Music department, will present Donovan with the $1,000 award during the concert. The competition is held every semester and is open to all HSU students. 

 Members of the HSU Jazz Orchestra will play works by Kyle McInnis and Kenneth Bozanich. Humboldt Symphony members will perform “Attribution” by Michael Donovan.

 Also on the program are a number of chamber works for instrumental ensembles including violins and percussion, saxophone quartet and guitar quartet. 

 “These works use various 20th century compositional techniques consisting of unique harmonic, rhythmic and tonal languages that produce an unusual tapestry of sound,” said HSU composition professor Brian Post. 

 The Composers Concert is presented on Friday November 6 at 8 p.m. in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus. Tickets are $8, $5 seniors and children, free to HSU students with ID, from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Produced by HSU Music department.

Media: Eureka Times-Standard Urge, Mad River Union, Humboldt State Now