Monday, Aug. 26, 2024 • 7:30 p.m.
Timashev Recital Hall
Columbus, OH
Double Reed Faculty Artists
Abby Yeakle Held, oboe
Jesse Schartz, bassoon
Guest Artists
Casey L. Cook, piano
Joseph Krygier, percussion
Laura Portune, narrator
Shine Wu Robison, piano
PROGRAM
"Play" for Solo Oboe and Audience
Kelly Vaneman (b. 1969)
I. Snap
II. Sing
III. Stomp
Abby Yeakle Held, oboe
You, as the audience, will be participating in the performance of this piece. Your instruction is dictated by the title of each movement. Don't worry, you'll be given a demonstration and guidance as we make music together. In the first movement you'll snap an easy-going backbeat for the oboe's swinging tune. In the second movement you'll sing a drone underneath the oboe's soaring, free melody. In the third movement you'll be asked to stomp as the oboe rocks out.
Composer Kelly Vaneman serves as Associate Professor of Oboe and Musicology at the Petrie School of Music of Converse College, the only women's college in the U.S. with a comprehensive music program. A lover of all music, her writing draws inspiration from diverse genres ranging from renaissance to rock. During the pandemic, Vaneman reflected on the idea of community and personal interaction. Many of Vaneman's compositions explore the concept of audience engagement, and Play, for solo oboe and audience is the piece that started it all. The composer reminds us to "have fun!"
"Get It!" for Bassoon and Percussion
Gene Koshinski (b. 1980)
Jesse Schartz, bassoon
Joseph Krygier, percussion
Best known for his extraordinary versatility as a percussion artist/composer, Gene Koshinski serves as Professor of Percussion at the University of Delaware. As a composer, his works have been used in television, film, art museums, and ballet productions, and in the concert hall have been performed in more than 40 countries, in 5 continents, with hundreds of performances per year.
Get It! was written in 2011 for bassoonist Dr. Jefferson Campbell. The piece itself is the product of a request made by Campbell to create a challenging concert piece for bassoon that stemmed from the popular music medium. The percussionist energetically supports the soloist with a cajon and a pair of foot-operated cymbals. Get It! is designed to unleash the bassoonist’s inner “rock star!"
"Where do Children Come From?" for Oboe and Piano
Alyssa Morris (b. 1984)
I. The Circus
II. Outer Space
III. A Higher Place
IV. Grace
Abby Yeakle Held, oboe
Casey L. Cook, piano
The Circus. Children are circus clowns; making their captive audience of parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends smile, laugh, and feel the warmth of life. Children are the lions, their parents (attempting to be) the tamers. Raising children can feel like walking a tightrope, flying on the trapeze, and jumping through the ring of fire; exhilarating, a bit frightening, and worth every ounce of courage it took to make such an endeavor. *Musical quotations include Pop Goes the Weasel, Entrance of the Gladiators, and Sobre las Olas.
Outer Space. Children must really be aliens from outer space. These little life forms come to earth speaking strange languages that are foreign to us. Babbling and bubbling, they attempt in their own slobber way to communicate with us. When we do not understand their form of speech, they often screen and wail, making it even more difficult to communicate! *Musical quotation includes Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
A Higher Place. Children come from a higher place. From heaven, children come to earth to bless the lives of those around them with their purity, energy, wit, and love. This movement was written as an inner response to those who have had children pass from this life far too soon. When a child passes away, loved ones are left grief-stricken and full of heartache. But there is hope for those who have lost a loved one.
Grace. Movement 4 is the response or answer to movement 3. Grace is the help or strength given through Jesus Christ. Through the grace of God, those who have passed on will be reunited with their families in heaven, after death. Children come from heaven, and heaven is where they return, to be reunited with their loved ones forever. * Musical quotation includes Welsh lullaby "Sleep My Baby"
"Full Moon in the City" for Bassoon and String Orchestra
Libby Larsen (b. 1950)
I. ...at 3 a.m.
II. Juking the Moon
III. ...5 a.m.
Jesse Schartz, bassoon
Shine Wu Robison, piano
Full Moon in the City is a triptych that imagines a bassoon, after hours, out on a walk in the club district of an unnamed city. The sound of the music borders on jazz but is not jazz — rather it is a noir portrait of echoes of late-night music, the kind of music that evokes party fatigue and staying up all night.
"…at 3am," the first movement, and "…5am," the third movement, are lyrical and use the technique of meander to move somewhere but stay in the same place — on the same block of the same street, if you will.
"Juking* the Moon," the inner movement, muses on the idea of the bassoon around 4 a.m., strolling along the street, detecting fragments of songs about the moon as juke boxes and bar musicians play out into the night. Fragments from nine songs about the moon are referenced and abstracted to create a Red Grooms (artist) inspired tone poem.
* Juke. noun.
- A cheap nightclub or bar (i.e. juke joint).
- A style of jazz music performed in bars and brothels.
- A coin-operated machine that plays records.
Verb: to tour juke joints, usually with a date; to drive one cheap bar to the next for the entire night.
References include: “Moondance,” Van Morrison; “Astronomy Domine,” Pink Floyd; “Space Oddity,” David Bowie; “Fly Me to the Moon,” Bart Howard; “Walking on the Moon,” The Police; “Moon River,” Henry Mancini; “Bike Ride to the Moon,” Dukes of Stratosphere; “Howling at the Moon,” The Ramones; “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” Hawley Ades.
*************
"Wildflower Trio" for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano
Jenni Brandon (b. 1977)
Laura Portune, narrator
Shine Wu Robison, piano
The Wildflower Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano was commissioned in 2004 by the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin, to honor and celebrate the life and environmental work of Lady Bird Johnson. The inspiration for the piece came from a poetry book written by one of Mrs. Johnson’s friends, Bette Woolsey Castro. Her book, The Wildflower, was inspired by the opening of Lady Bird’s Wildflower Research Center in Austin, Texas, and contains a collection of poems about wildflowers and nature. The five movements are based on the imagery from several of these poems. The beautiful combination of the oboe, bassoon and piano lend themselves to creating distinct colors and sounds that represent the wildflowers, hummingbirds, and summer afternoons in quiet gardens.
Wildflowers
They grow in random, scattered splendor,
A magical blending of the land’s bright hues,
Stretching across the hills and valleys
In never-ending majesty.
We call these magic flowers wild —
Wild because they scorn man’s power
And live and thrive without his care,
Wild because through drought and storm
They ride the winds to bring the seasons
That lift the heart.
A glorious tapestry, God’s own needlepoint!
Forever brilliant,
Forever wondrous,
Forever wild!
Wild rose, white butterfly
Silken petals, silken wings
A flutter of white:
Poignant, playful closeness.
Unexpected moments
Of the heart’s recall
Distant memories of joy
And happiness shared.
Miraculous matter
Within your gossamer wings;
Is the mystery of your message
The sweet foreverness of love?
The trumpet creeper and the hummingbird
I watched from my window
As the hummingbird came,
Swift as lightning,
His wings a song in motion.
Dipping into the brilliant blossom,
His slender beak
Took the nectar once again
As man takes the beauty of the flower
To renew the joy of living.
Indian Paintbrush
Ragged plant whose vermillion bracts
Transform the desert drab,
You gather reflections of the sun,
Turning them to red‐orange pigments,
Tinged with nature’s gold.
Dipping your leaves into their magic,
You paint the secrets of our landscape
With glowing, scarlet fervor,
Dazzling the beholder,
Enriching his senses
With the lasting gift of beauty.
Midsummer in the garden
Shafts of sunlight filtering through,
Paling the leaves of green,
Brighten the morn’s crisp awakening.
Bird song in dulcet tones
Colors the air with a message of hope.
The garden languishes in midsummer stillness.
Gone are the periwinkle, violet, and daffodil.
The day lily has turned to green-leaf slumber
And the wild geranium now commands the eye.
But oh, the rose!
How splendidly it rallies
To bloom again in soft, glorious abandon,
Giving its notice to all
That summer still demands to live!
Guest Pianist
Shine Wu Robison was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She is a freelance pianist, collaborative accompanist and piano teacher. She graduated from The Ohio State University with a dual degree in Piano Performance and Nursing. Shine currently works with the Clintonville Community Choir, accompanies the Olentangy Liberty High School choirs, teaches piano privately, is part of a quartet called Knisely, is the youth worship leader at Worthington Presbyterian Church, and works with various artists in the area. She and her husband Nick have two cats, Ember and Charcoal. Visit Shine Wu Robison
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