Repertoire

Donor Acknowledgement

This event is made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2023 – 24 Dobrow Series.

Program Notes

Braziliera from Scaramouche by Darius Milhaud

Scaramouche, Op. 165b, by Darius Milhaud is a suite of three movements composed originally as incidental music in 1937. The suite, which accompanied two theatrical productions, Le Médecin Volant (The Flying Doctor) and Bolivar gained immediate popularity with audiences, but was abruptly banned by the Nazis. Milhaud was then bombarded with requests to reorchestrate the suite for various instruments. It is most familiar to audiences as a piano duo, which Milhaud set, also in 1937, for pianist Marguerite Long to premier at the Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne, in flagrant defiance of the Nazi ban.

Movement III, Brazileira, is marked mouvement de samba, the national dance of Brazil. Milhaud spent two years of his life in Rio de Janeiro serving as secretary to the French ambassador Paul Claudel during the First World War. While working in Brazil, he was fascinated by the music of Ernesto Nazareth, whose works served as the inspiration for this third movement.

There is a diversity of opinions regarding Brazileira’s formal structure. It has been variously described by musicologists as an ABCA form (neither ternary nor rondo, but an amalgam of both), a theme and variations, or simply as being in ternary form, none of which are entirely accurate. Really there is no standardized label that accurately describes the architecture of the piece. Featuring the polytonality omnipresent in Milhaud’s works, Brazileira also uses syncopation, rhythmic anticipation (i.e. seemingly getting to the downbeat early), two lyrical secondary themes, and the fast Brazilian samba rhythm which all evoke the colors of Rio de Janeiro.

This version has been arranged by UCLA Music Performance major, Matthew LeFebvre.

Gutterflys by JaRon Brown

Composer JaRon Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in music composition from the University of South Carolina. He studied composition with Dr. John Fitz Rogers and Dr. David K. Garner, as well as percussion with Dr. Scott Herring and Dr. Brett Landry. While at the University of South Carolina, he premiered four of his most performed works including Fragmented Shards of Crystallized Water (2015), Neurobaloo (2016), RIPEHEART (2017), and Giant Woman (2017). Most recently Brown provided original music for the play Growing up Alice.

The publisher provides the following program notes for Gutterflys:

““And in the pit of his buttered rum belly,

making him sick, split liquorice churned jelly,

made a bed of cumbersome, gum Gutterflys.”

Gutterflys for percussion quartet by JaRon Brown is a unique musical soundscape that depicts the somewhat crippling feeling of experiencing performance anxiety. Derived from the expression “having butterflies in the stomach,” this composition explores the jittery quirkiness and the ambivalent essence of being nervous. This piece flutters amongst the dread of impending unsettling anxiousness in a peculiar hocket driven musical illustration.”

Brown utilizes a diverse and massive array of percussion instruments to vividly illustrate the ambivalent and quirky feelings in Gutterflys: prepared vibraphone, four kick drums, four snare drums, various wood planks, three brake drums, stacked cymbal, crotales, tambourines, floor toms, suspended cymbals, pitched metal pipes, glockenspiel, sizzle cymbal, wood blocks, bongos, and the voice. Through-composed, the piece oscillates between different manifestations of these unsettling interludes. At one point the sensation is pitch-based, both harmonious and melodious, as it is carried between various pitched percussion instruments such as the vibraphone, glockenspiel, or pitched pipes. Then, this feeling is immediately juxtaposed with a more visceral “rumbling of the tummy,” which Brown orchestrates in hocket with the rhythms interlocking between the four kick drums.

Tesseract by Francisco Perez

The composer provides the following program notes for Tesseract:

“Historically ranging from intricate thought experiments to the evocation of omnipotent vessels with the ability to bend the immensity of space-time, the hypercube – or “tesseract” – has been a commonly drawn upon entity eliciting a multidimensional perspective. Though this geometric figure has been associated with supernatural and metaphysical capabilities throughout literature and film, the tesseract is simply the four-dimensional analog of a cube similar to the relationship between a two-dimensional square and the three-dimensional cube.

Tesseract, originally written for solo vibraphone and prerecorded mallet keyboards, is the result of my exploration between the multiple aural “dimensions” unique to these instruments and the rhythmic capabilities they so naturally manifest. Rather than leading the listener through a programmatic narrative, the soloist acts as a sort of constant between the evolving layers and textures throughout, much like the tesseract serves as a point of reference to the fourth dimension. This work draws notable inspiration from the hypnotic and visceral music of Nils Frahm, Dawn of Midi, and Alejandro Viñao. This percussion ensemble arrangement was commissioned by James Campbell and the University of Kentucky Percussion Ensemble and premiered in April of 2017.”

Dr. Francisco Perez is a percussionist, composer, and educator from Pflugerville, Texas. He attended Texas Christian University and the University of Kentucky. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Percussion at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. As an active performer, Perez has performed in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Spain, and China, and toured extensively throughout the United States, including performances at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention.

Stone Song, Stone Dance by Paul Alan Barker

Paul Alan Barker is an award-winning composer of mostly theatrical works including 17 operas, many musical theater works, orchestral and concert works usually featuring voices. He is also known for a seminal pedagogical text entitled Composing for Voice. Barker is a gifted pianist, conductor, and stage director, having taught music theater at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London until his recent retirement in 2023.

His concert music reflects his firmly held belief that drama (theater) and music are inseparable. This can be seen in his work Stone Song, Stone Dance. The piece is written for four percussionists playing river stones with temple bowl accompaniment. The drone of the bowl is to, as the composer suggests, “hold the silence between the sustained rock melody.” Many of the passages are interlocking or suggest improvisation that focuses more on the combination of motion and sound. This piece was most recently championed by Tambuco, a well-known Mexican percussion ensemble, at the Festival Vera Cruz ESCENA CONTEMPORANEA in December of 2020.

Bipolar C Major by Ryan Matheny

Reminiscent of video game music, Bipolar C Major is scored for four mallet players including bells, vibes, marimba, chimes, timpani and drum set. This piece features an intentionally retro- drum set part (think garage bands of the 70’s), Charleston-like melodic themes, hints of the melody from the Hall of the Mountain King and a slow triplet-based jazz ballad. The title seems to point towards the alternation of dense and sparse textures throughout the piece.

Denkyem by Joe W. Moore III

The publisher provides the following program notes:

“Denkyem is the West African Adinkra symbol for the crocodile. The word denkyem refers to the crocodile’s adaptability – the fact that it breathes air but lives under water. The idea of adaptability is used throughout the piece as the motivic material is passed from player to player, adapting to the instruments used and the ever-changing time signatures. Denkyem was written for the Denkyem Percussion Group from Florida State University.”

Joe W. Moore III currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Texas Arlington. Prior to this, he has served on music faculties at the University of Louisiana Monroe, Benedict College, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the University of Texas at Brownsville. Moore earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Music degree from the University of South Carolina, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree with a minor in composition from Louisiana State University. His primary percussion teachers include Jeff Moore, Kirk Gay, Scott Herring, Jim Hall, Brett Dietz and Troy Davis. His composition teachers include Jay Batzner, Brett Dietz, and Dinos Constantinides.

Tres Minutos con la Realidad by Astor Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992) was a composer, bandoneon player, and arranger from Argentina. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style, termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements of jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, also known as the button accordion, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. He notably studied with Nadia Boulenger in Paris, and Villa-Lobos in Argentina. He travelled a great deal during his career, and the story is told of how he missed a plane that crashed, thus avoiding tragedy. From that moment on, he became very religious, believing that his life was dictated by fate.

Astor Piazzolla, known for his ability to brilliantly blend jazz and classical music, composed Tres Minutos con la Realidad originally for two bandoneons, piano, electric guitar, string bass and cello. The piece shows the influence of his studies with Alberto Ginastera, as well as a hint of his admiration for Igor Stravinsky, who he met while studying composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. The piece features quartal harmonies, short cellular-based melodies, melodies intentionally crafted for their rhythmic malleability, moto-perpetuo chromatic sixteenth note lines, and one lone romantic lyrical sweeping melodic theme. At many moments, the piece embraces quartal harmony, chromaticism and diatonicism, seemingly at the same time. With its rhythmic edginess and ever-shifting harmonic basis, the piece suggests the complexity of a big city, perhaps the New York of his youth, the Paris of the 50s or his beloved Buenos Aires.