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Mallory Thompson, conductor
Imran Amarshi, graduate assistant conductor

Flute
Claire Kim
Emma Krause
Minseo Kim
Saeyeong Kim
Miguel Rodriguez

Oboe
Stina Hawkinson
Orly Linder
Timothy Zhang

Bassoon
Micah Cortezzo
Justice Gardner
Colin Kurtz

Clarinet
Elynn Chang
Anjali Covill
Andrew Guo 
Kathryn Jarvey 
Andrew Kang
Henry Lazarro
Chengze Li
Ashrey Shah
Caroline Weiss

Saxophone
Sam Alvarez
Isaac Boone
Hudson O’Reily
Natalia Warthen

Trumpet
Troy Archer
Sarah Heimberg
Zach Hommel
Charlie Jones
William Lewis
Ari Rios
Tehya Shapiro
Fiona Shonik

Horn
Colin Akers
Gwen Boros
Emmett Conway
Yui Ginther
Alessandra Liebmann
Lily Kern
Mark Morris
Miranda Smith

Trombone
Stewart Bridgeforth
Noah Eder
Kurt Eide
Alex Ertl
Tim George
Griffin Rupp
Neal Williamson

Euphonium
Chris Carrigg
Oliver Stark

Tuba
Evan DeRicco
Alec Rich

Percussion
Ryan Lee
Cameron Marquez
Claire McLean
Blake Parker
Ryan Payne
Stephen Symank
Kyle Yuen

String Bass
Broner McCoy

Piano/Celesta
Dong-Wan Ha 

Harp
Emily Stone

Egil Hovland was one of Norway’s most popular modern composers. A pupil of Luigi Dallapiccola and Aaron Copland, Hovland was equally at home writing for large symphonic forces and at crafting chamber and choral music. His compositional style is diverse and varied, progressing from Romantic nationalism to neoclassicism, as well as experiments with electronic music and aleatoric techniques. His chamber work, Music for Ten Instruments, was awarded the Koussevitzky Prize in 1957. In the following year, his Concertino for Three Trumpets and Strings was performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music “World Music Days” in Strasbourg. Even in his most experimental periods, Hovland favored melodic writing, successfully fusing rich melodies with contemporary techniques. In the later part of his life, Hovland dedicated himself increasingly to sacred music, composing over 150 pieces that encompassed almost every genre in the sacred repertory. 

Fanfare and Choral was composed during a time when Hovland was greatly influenced by the neoclassical music of Hindemith, Stravinsky, and Bartók. Grandiose in style and conception, the main structure of the work includes an introductory fanfare and later a fugue. Rhythmic interjections underscore woodwind flourishes and accompany an augmented restatement of the theme that unfolds seamlessly into a soloistic woodwind interlude. Material from the opening fanfare, now tutti and rhythmically ornamented, makes a valiant return before a second interlude featuring percussion leads to the noble choral. Eventually, the fanfare, choral, and interludes are woven into an intricate and resounding display of sonority. Fanfare and Choral, Op 52a was commissioned by the St. Olaf band for their tour of Norway in 1966 and was premiered at the Bergen International Festival that same year. 

Born in Colfax, Washington in 1943, Morten Lauridsen was raised in Portland, Oregon. He attended Whitman College and studied composition at the University of Southern California. HIs compositions have been performed by the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Dale Warland Singers, Pacific Chorale, Los Angeles Chamber Singers, and the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers. He was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001 and is distinguished professor emeritus of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he taught for 52 years until his retirement in 2019.

O magnum mysterium was premiered on December 18, 1994 with conductor Paul Salamunovich and the Los Angeles Master Chorale performing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The piece was commissioned by Marshall Rutter, a board member with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, in honor of his wife, Terry Knowles. The text comes from the Catholic Responsory for the Office of Matins on Christmas Day and reads:

O great mystery, and wondrous sacrament, 
that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in the manger! 
Blessed Virgin whose womb was deemed worthy to bear 
Christ the Lord. Alleluia!

Lauridsen says of the text: 

"For centuries, composers have been inspired by the beautiful text, with its juxtaposition of the birth of the newborn King amongst the lowly animals and the shepherds. This affirmation of God’s grace to the meek and the adoration of the Blessed Virgin are celebrated in my setting through a quiet song of profound inner joy."

Since its premiere, O magnum mysterium has become one of the most performed and recorded pieces in the choral repertory. H. Robert Reynolds, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan and former principal conductor of the Wind Ensemble at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, created this arrangement for wind ensemble in 2003 with the approval and appreciation of the composer. This arrangement was recorded in 2004 by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble on the album Contemporaries, produced by Summit Records. 

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than 60 years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, Paul Neubauer, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Nashville, Albany, and Washington DC, among others. In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. She is the first composer chosen for a Ford “Made in America” consortium commission of 65 orchestras. Tower’s tremendously popular six Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 600 different ensembles. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972. Her composer-residencies with orchestras and festivals include a decade with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year for their 2010-11 season, as well as the St. Louis Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. She has received honorary doctorates from Smith College, the New England Conservatory, and Illinois State University.

Commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association in 2001, Fascinating Ribbons is Tower’s first work for the wind ensemble. It opens with a stately unison minor third motive that passes through the ensemble, followed by many melodic “ribbons” that are layered and developed throughout the work. For her first composition that included the saxophone family, Tower chose to highlight the instrument with a virtuosic cadenza. The work ends with a quotation of Gershwin’s "Fascinating Rhythm," as the dotted-rhythm ostinato presented in the work reminded her of this piece. 

A native of Marietta, Georgia, Michael Martin joined the trumpet section of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops as fourth/utility trumpet in October 2010. Prior to this appointment, Martin attended Northwestern University, where he received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in trumpet performance studying with Barbara Butler and Charles Geyer. Martin was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2006 and 2008, and received the Roger Voisin Trumpet Award both summers. He has performed with orchestras across the country and around the world, including the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Chicago Symphonies, and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan and the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming. He has performed as guest principal trumpet with the Honolulu Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic and with the Malaysian Philharmonic of Kuala Lumpur. From 2006 to 2009, Martin was a regular member with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A champion of new music, Martin has performed with acclaimed contemporary music groups Eighth Blackbird and the Pacifica Quartet and has also performed with members of the CSO as part of their “MusicNow” series at the Harris Theater. An award-winning composer, Martin also studied composition at Northwestern University and orchestration at the University of Chicago with renowned composer, orchestrator, and conductor Cliff Colnot; he has received commissions from members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Chamber Musicians.

Martin writes the following on his work:

"Lontano is an Italian term meaning 'at or from a great distance,' often used in a musical context to describe something intended to be played extremely quietly, or very distantly offstage. In the case of this piece, the title is certainly representative of the use of both musical devices, but is intended more to describe the musical range and scope of its commissioner, Mallory Thompson and her Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

"While the published narrative of the piece may be slightly cryptic, it is my hope that the listener is able to simply enjoy what they hear, the music perhaps inspiring something more personal for each person than what I imagined. That being said, there is a somewhat specific journey the music is intended to illustrate, and in the spirit of trying to create something special and personal for Mallory and SWE, it’s worth it to me for you to be at least peripherally aware of where we start, where we end, and how we get there.

"When we first discussed the piece in 2013, Mallory requested that it in some way honor and represent both her relationship with all of her SWE students of the past 20 years and also her connection to one of her greatest mentors, the late Vincent Cichowicz. “Vince” is a powerful voice not only in the history of Northwestern, where he was the Professor of Trumpet spanning three decades and mentor to hundreds of aspiring brass players, but also in the world of brass playing from his years as 2nd trumpet in the Chicago Symphony. Vince transformed the lives of countless musicians, not just trumpet players, with his singing and fluid approach to playing a brass instrument. Mallory studied trumpet with Vince during her time at Northwestern, and in her words, Vince 'forever impacted the way I thought about music, performed music, and eventually how I taught and conducted it. In some way, however small or large, everything I have to give in a rehearsal or a concert found its origins in something I learned from Vince. He’s there with me everyday, and by extension, with SWE.' Musically speaking, Vince is there throughout Lontano as well; his theme opens the first movement in the clarinets and piano, then is expanded and inverted in solo bassoons, laying the tonal foundation for the entire symphony. It returns here and there, subtle at times and more overt at others, ultimately bringing the symphony to a close in the final phrase of the third movement.

"My goal in writing Lontano was for each movement to be a gift. The first movement, by far the longest and most complex of the three, is for Mallory; the second movement, incredibly technical and aggressive in its demands on the players, is for the current Symphonic Wind Ensemble, filled to the brim with tomorrow’s great players; the last movement is for all SWEs, past and present. As anyone who knows me, or Mallory!, might expect, there is some theatricality involved in this symphony: offstage brass and percussion, extra players, and a narrative that asks you to suspend disbelief for a moment and open yourself to the complex depths of grief, catharsis, and inevitably the heights of triumph."