Monday, Nov. 17, 2025 • 7:30 p.m.
Weigel Auditorium
Columbus, OH
Ohio State Symphonic Band
Scott A. Jones, conductor
Shawn Davern, guest conductor
Guest Artists
Will Healy, composer/piano
Dizzy Senze, emcee
Hannah Zazzaro, soprano
"Artful Conversations"
“Face-to-face conversation is the most human — and humanizing — thing we do. Full present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood.”
— Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age
Welcome
Welcome to the Timashev Family Music Building and this evening’s performance by the musicians of Symphonic Band. We are all in for a deeply transformative experience as we engage the age-old traditions of listening intently and responding thoughtfully — behaviors central to human conversation.
We are delighted to add three new voices to our shared conversation this evening — each performers with the New York City-based ensemble ShoutHouse. Will Healy, Hannah Zazzaro, and Dizzy Senze will provide individual contributions to the conversations of the evening as well as a collective voice during the premiere of Will Healy’s Noctuary for Adé.
This performance and residency would not be possible without the contributions and leadership of two registered student organizations on campus: the Beta Xi chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity and Symphonic Band at Ohio State. In addition to their organizational efforts, both received programing fund grants from the Council on Student Affairs to support the performance residency. An additional expression of gratitude to Dr. Colin Knoth, Tim Donel, Colin Headings, Bernadette John, and the members of stage crew and the livestream team for their support and professionalism.
Enjoy the performance! We look forward to continuing the conversations at the reception following its conclusion.
Scott A. Jones, conductor
PROGRAM
Canzon noni toni à 12 (1597)
Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1554–1612), ed. Crees
Italian composer and organist Giovanni Gabrieli is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of his time. While a great deal of his early life is unknown, we do know that by 1584 Gabrieli accepted an appointment as organist and composer at St. Mark’s Basilica, and shortly thereafter the additional position of organist at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco — both prestigious appointments in Venice that he held for the remainder of his life. While not the first to do so, he is largely credited with the use of dynamics and spatially separated groups of musicians in his compositions — a reflection of the churches in which Gabrieli worked, composed and performed.
This composition for 12 instruments (grouped in three 4-part choirs) was published in 1597 as part of a collection entitled Sacrae Symphoniae. A profound collection of 45 motets, 14 canzonas, and 2 sonatas, editor Eric Crees remarked, “The instrumental works contained in the 1597 Sacrae Symphoniae of Giovanni Gabrieli represent a pinnacle of late renaissance technical skill, musical imagination and sheer variety which are unsurpassed as a collection.”
The instrumentation employed for this evening’s performance is a woodwind choir (oboe, 2 clarinets, and bassoon), a saxophone choir (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone), and a brass choir (2 trumpets, horn and trombone). The composition presents the listener with a rich musical conversation in which each choir is heard individually, in quick succession (canon), and collaboratively.
Interlude I — Hannah Zazzaro, soprano and Will Healy, piano
John and Jim (2024)
Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
Shawn Davern, conductor
Vietnamese American composer Viet Cuong is “known for his imagination and colorful voice, and … [capacity] to blend the whimsical and profound by finding new expressive possibilities through unexpected instrumental pairings and textures.” Cuong is currently a member of the music faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he teaches composition, orchestration, and music theory.
Cuong’s 2024 composition John and Jim is in many ways a rich inter-related set of musical and human conversations. The composition is inspired by musical material from Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D — a composition Cuong played on piano as a young child, and to which he credits the start of his fascination with composing — improvising atop of the famous bass voice canon. The composition is also inspired by the committed lives of Ohioans Jim Obergefell and John Arthur. It was following the passing of John from ALS in 2013 that Jim sought legal status as his surviving spouse. Jim’s case was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court (Obergefell v. Hodges) which ruled in June 2015 that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Cuong states that he "disassembled and rewrote many of Pachelbel's canonical phrases to work harmoniously with one another upon the arrival of the piece’s climax, which appears after several minutes of what I think of as the music finding and piecing itself together. All of this takes place in a reverberant atmosphere, where notes linger and continually echo around one another, symbolic of both the persistence and impact of people like John and Jim."
Interlude II — Comments by Will Healy, composer
Noctuary for Adé (2024)
Consortium premiere
Will Healy (b. 1990)
Hannah Zazzaro, vocalist
Dizzy Senze, emcee
“Noctuary for Adé is a meditation on the writings of my close friend and collaborator, Adé Ra. Adé was the first emcee in ShoutHouse, and someone whose work encouraged me to begin experimenting with cross-genre collaboration in concert music. She taught me the value of letting go of creative control, discovering a shared narrative with other artists, and watching how a project can grow beyond your original vision.
After her sudden death in April 2022, I thought about the best way to pay tribute to her – to keep her creative spirit alive and to live with her work. She left words in handwritten documents, social media posts, and old songs stored on hard drives. For this piece, I decided to treat the composition process as a living collaboration, working as I often did with Adé over the years, adding to, excerpting and adjusting phrases so that they felt cohesive …”
A “noctuary” is a night journal, a record of happenings that occur in the dark. The piece unfolds as a sort of dream sequence, and along the way we are visited by multiple narrators: a singer, who is singing words written by Adé, the featured emcee, who has written original lyrical responding to those texts, and the instrumental ensemble. The instrumental music, singer lyrics, and featured emcee’s words act as three interconnected noctuaries, which lead us through the piece, through shadowy textures, shifting brass harmonies, and sudden bursts of energy. The focal point of the text is the image of a moonflower, a species of night-blooming morning glory, which Adé had written about poetically.”
Will Healy is a composer, pianist, and improviser whose work engages with many of the musical worlds in New York City, from classical concert halls to jazz clubs and hip-hop shows. A recipient of the 2023 Leonard Bernstein Prize from the ASCAP Foundation, he is passionate about both tradition and innovation. Healy is the artistic director and founder of ShoutHouse, a collective of hip-hop, jazz, and classical musicians. Described by US poet-laureate Billy Collins as “sweetly and smartly off the rails”, ShoutHouse has premiered over 50 new works, and their debut full-length album, Cityscapes, came out on New Amsterdam Records, featuring “a lavishly orchestrated, absolutely unique blend of postrock, art-rock and indie classical.” (New York Music Daily).
As a pianist, Healy has performed solo recitals in the United States and abroad, including programs of original music, world premieres of pieces by other composers, and a wide variety of works from the classical repertoire. Healy has performed the works of J.S. Bach extensively, including the complete Goldberg Variations and Well-Tempered Clavier. Healy plays piano and synthesizers in Pathos Trio, an award-winning metal-influenced chamber group that has premiered dozens of new works. Healy is also a founding member of Upstream, a duo with violinist and composer George Meyer. He is the composer-in-residence for Midsummer’s Music, Wisconsin’s longest-running chamber music series.
Interlude III — Conversation with the Audience
Interlude IV — Dizzy Senze, emcee
“Good Night, Dear Heart” (2009/2015)
Dan Forrest (b. 1978)
Composer Dan Forrest was moved to write a musical elegy in 2008 following news of the tragic passing of a four-month-old Ethiopian girl — Etsegenet — soon to be adopted by his brother and wife. A search for a suitable text led him to a picture of a tombstone from his childhood hometown cemetery. The tombstone marks the grave site of the 24-year-old daughter of American author Mark Twain’s — Susy — who had also passed unexpectedly.
Warm summer sun
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind blow softly here,
Green sod above lie light, lie light —
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.
Forrest initially set this text to music for choir and in 2015 transcribed the composition for concert band, made possible by a small consortium of university and high school band programs.
Dan Forrest is widely recognized as one of the leading American choral composers of our time. His music has sold millions of copies, has received numerous awards and distinctions, and has become well established in the repertoire of choirs around the world. Forrest’s compositional catalog ranges from small choral works to instrumental solo works, wind ensemble works, and extended multi-movement works for chorus and orchestra. Forrest currently serves as composer-in-residence at Furman University (Greenville, SC), artist-in-residence at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church (Greenville, SC), and Vice President of Publications and Editor at Beckenhorst Press (Columbus, OH).
Interlude V — Will Healy, piano
Lincolnshire Posy
Percy Aldridge Grainger (1891–1961)
i. “Lisbon” (Sailor’s Song)
ii. “Horkstow Grange” (The Miser and his Man: A local Tragedy)
iii. “Rufford Park Poachers” (Poaching Song)
iv. “The Brisk Young Sailor” (returned to wed his True Love)
vi. “Lost Lady Found” (Dance Song)
Australian-born composer Percy Aldridge Grainger was one of the early champions of the wind band. His compositions display a fascination with timbral color and inventive orchestration not witnessed by other composers of his day. Grainger moved to the United States in 1914 and lived out the remainder of his life as a US citizen. A superbly talented concert pianist, Grainger frequently performed as soloist with symphonic ensembles around the world. In 1952 Grainger performed on the Ohio State campus in a performance as piano soloist and composer-in-residence with the Ohio State Concert Band (Manley Whitcomb, conductor).
Lincolnshire Posy was commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association and premiered at their 1937 convention with the composer conducting. Since its premiere, it has been recognized as a cornerstone of the wind band repertoire. What follows is a program note for the work by the composer:
“Lincolnshire Posy, as a whole work, was conceived and scored by me direct for wind band early in 1937. Five, out of the six, movements of which it is made up existed in no other finished form, though most of these movements (as is the case with almost all my compositions and settings, for whatever medium) were indebted, more or less, to unfinished sketches for a variety of mediums covering many years (in this case, the sketches date from 1905 to 1937). These indebtednesses are stated in the score.
This bunch of 'musical wildflowers' (hence the title) is based on folksongs collected in Lincolnshire, England (one notated by Miss Lucy E. Broadwood; the other five noted by me, mainly in the years 1905–1906, and with the help of the phonograph), and the work is dedicated to the old folksingers who sang so sweetly to me. Indeed, each number is intended to be a kind of musical portrait of the singer who sang its underlying melody — a musical portrait of the singer's personality no less than of his habits of song — his regular or irregular wonts of rhythm, his preference for gaunt or ornately arabesqued delivery, his contrasts of legato and staccato, his tendency towards breadth or delicacy of tone.”
Interlude VI – Will Healy, piano; Hannah Zazzaro, soprano; and Dizzy Senze, emcee
All are invited to a reception in Timashev Rehearsal Room (N160) following the performance, sponsored and hosted by the Ohio State chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity.
Symphonic Band Personnel
Scott A. Jones, conductor
Musicians are listed alphabetically by section.
Piccolo
Nic Digena
Noah Peck
Samantha Vann
Flute
Melanie Ahn
Nic Digena ∆
Sophia Junga
Noah Peck
Anaiyah Rogers
Haley Svec
Samantha Vann ∆
Emma Walters
Alto Flute
Nic Digena
Oboe/English Horn
Thomas Alexander
Dylan Miller ∆
Emelina Pappalardo §
Bassoon
John Householder-Wise
Jordan Houtz ∆
Sarah Lewis
Contrabassoon
John Householder-Wise
E-flat Clarinet
Nicholas Ritchey
Clarinet
Jacob Behrend
Mackenzi Buynak
Zachary Grant
Jenna Harkin
Adam Lee
Aoi Nishiyama
Noah Reilly ∆
Nicholas Ritchey
Nathan Strittholt
Matthew Watson
Bowen Wei
Ethan White
Thomas Wilford
Bass Clarinet
Quinn Jensen ∆
Rachel Weinstein
Contra Clarinet
Rachel Weinstein
Alto Saxophone
Kyle Buchwalter
Hannah Goshima
Fisher Horaney ∆
Nicholas Robbins
Tenor Saxophone
Nathan Rykowski
Baritone Saxophone
Grant Higgins
Trumpet
Cameron Beard
Graham Bentley
Zach Burns ∆
Ava Diederich
Gabrielle Hardisky
Samantha Harvey
Jonathan Levene
Noah Madsen
Connor Milner
Horn
Caleb Anderson
Maggie Carter
Jared Giovannone ∆
Adeline Hannig
Mirai Nawa
Allie Polzin
Benjamin Wainwright
Trombone
Veronica Ball
Luke Brown
Nolan Call
Jackson Fortner
Michael Malone ∆
Gavyn Schooley
Amara Suchy
Bass Trombone
Jonathan Kessler
Euphonium
Matthew Grover
Clayton Messinger ∆ §
Ashlyn Seyfried
Tuba
Adam Briggs
Lucas Snouffer ∆
Owen Thomas
Percussion
Olivia Beadle
Xander Bullinger
Logan Crawford
Wesley Giles
Peter Kindt ∆
Ryan Speicher
Grayson Trinca *
Harp
Abigail Bachelor (faculty) *
Double Bass
Jimmy Perera *
Piano
Kaiwei Guo
∆ principal player
§ board member
* assisting musician
31st Annual Music Celebration Concert
Friday, Dec. 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Mershon Auditorium, 1871 N. High St.
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Celebrate 100 years of music at Ohio State by naming a seat in the new Recital Hall. With a gift of $2,500, honor someone special and secure your place in our history, helping ensure the next century of extraordinary music. give.osu.edu/SOM100
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