Wednesday, April 22, 2026  •  7:30 p.m.

Weigel Auditorium
Columbus, OH

Wind Symphony
Russel C. Mikkelson, conductor 
Shawn Davern, guest conductor

and special guest
David Amram, composer-in-residence

Program notes for Sousa and Schuman written by the students of the European Musical Traditions course, led by Prof. Katie Graber.

This Land is Your Land — Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary

PROGRAM

The Liberty Bell

John Philip Sousa (1954–1932)

John Philip Sousa, often called The March King, was born in 1854 in Washington, D.C. Standouts of Sousa’s compositions include the “Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Gladiator,” and the piece being performed tonight, “The Liberty Bell.” Sousa's father was a trombonist in the United States Marine Band. Sousa would later follow in his father's footsteps, enlisting in the Marines at the age of only 13.

In Chicago, Sousa watched a show called “America” that had a backdrop with a huge painting of the Liberty Bell. Hinton, one of Sousa’s band managers, then suggested that “The Liberty Bell” would be a good title for Sousa’s new march. By coincidence, the next morning, Sousa received a letter from his wife in which she told him how their son had marched in his first parade honoring the return of the Liberty Bell. The new march was then called “The Liberty Bell.” 

The piece opens with a bright fanfare style, emphasized by a dotted 6/8 rhythm that moves between F major and Bb major. It includes a “tug of war section” between countermelodies, and eventually ends with a more energetic repeat of the main melodic line, as usual for a march. Throughout the piece, a bell is heard that is meant to represent the “Liberty Bell” that Sousa aimed to convey.

New England Triptych

William Schuman (1910–1992)

1. Be Glad, Then, America
2. When Jesus Wept
3. Chester

William Schuman (1910–1992) was an American composer, born in New York City. In the 1940s, Schuman received the first ever Pulitzer prize awarded to composition. He initially worked in popular music with lyricist Frank Loesser, though his interests quickly shifted to the composition of classical music following his attendance at his first professional symphony concert. Many of his compositions had a focus on American folk music and themes of American patriotism.

New England Triptych (subtitled Three Pieces for Orchestra After William Billings) was based on the music of William Billings, an 18th century American choral composer. Schuman describes Billings as a major figure in American music history, whose music reflects the patriotic sentiments of colonists during the American Revolution. The original version for orchestra was written in 1956 and was later arranged for bands.

In the first movement, you first will hear solo timpani as well as bass drones under a moving lyrical line. This dark mood quickly brightens as the high brass adds fanfare motifs supported by syncopation. The second movement is slower with a general melancholic feel; the beginning and end are marked by a brass duet. The final movement of the piece features a melodic line repeated and modified throughout the entire piece. At first it sounds like a hymn, and later it becomes upbeat and almost cheerful. 

The three movements are based on chorales that Billings wrote:

"Be Glad then, America"

Yea, the Lord will answer
And say unto his people — behold
I will send you corn and wine and oil
And ye shall be satisfied therewith.

Be glad then, America,
Shout and rejoice.
Fear not O land,
Be glad and rejoice.
Halleluyah!

"When Jesus Wept"

When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound;
when Jesus mourned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

“Chester”

Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And slavery clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England's God forever reigns.
The foe comes on with haughty stride,
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their vet'rans flee before our youth,
And gen'rals yield to beardless boys.
 

— Intermission —

THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie

David Amram (b. 1930)

Transcribed for wind band by David Amram and Shawn W. Davern (2007/2026)

Wind Band version World Premiere performance

1. Theme and Fanfare for the Road  | Variation I — Oklahoma Stomp Dance
2. Variation II — Sunday Morning Church Service in Okema
3. Variation III — Prelude and Pampa Texas Barn Dance
4. Variation IV — Sonado con Mexico (Dreaming of Mexico)
5. Variation V — Dust Bowl Dirge
6. Variation VI — Street Sounds of New York’s Neighborhoods

a) Caribbean Street Festival
b) Klezmer Wedding Celebration and Middle Eastern Bazaar
c) Salvation Army Hymn
d) Block Party Jam
e) Finale

Shawn W. Davern, guest conductor

Notes from the Composer

It was seventy years ago, on a cloudy afternoon in 1956 on the Lower East Side of New York that I first met Woody Guthrie. Ahmed Bashir, a friend of Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, and Charles Mingus (with whom I was playing at that time), took me over to meet Woody at his friend's apartment a few blocks from mine.

Woody was lean, wiry, and brilliant, with a farmerly way that reminded me of the neighbors I grew up with on our farm in Feasterville, Pennsylvania during the late 1930s. In the late afternoons after long hours of work, they would often congregate to chew the fat in the side room of Wally Freed's gas station, across the street from our farm. I used to get fifty cents to mow Wally Freed's lawn and when I was done and stayed around the gas station, I never got caught while eavesdropping on all the conversations of the local farmers and out-of-work men who would commune at Wally's for their late afternoon bull sessions after their chores were done.

They always told it like it was, without wasting a word or a gesture, leaving space for you to think about what they were saying, and in spite of the grinding seemingly endless horrors of the Great Depression, they had better jokes and stories than most professional comedians or politicians. Woody had this same quality, and I felt at home with him the minute we met. As Woody, Ahmed Bashir, and I sat swapping tales and drinking coffee at the tiny kitchen table from noon until it was dark outside, Ahmed and I spent most of the time listening to Woody's long descriptions of his experiences, only sharing ours when he would ask, "What do you fellas think about that?"

The rest of the time, we sat transfixed as he took us on his journeys with him through his stories. Woody didn't need a guitar to put you under his spell, and you could tell that when he was talking to us, it wasn't an act or a routine. Like his songs and books and artwork, everything came from the heart.

Looking back at these memorable first few hours with Woody, I still remember the excitement in his voice, as if he himself were rediscovering all the events and sharing them for the first time, as he told Ahmed and me his incredible stories of his youth and subsequent travels. Both Ahmed and I marveled at his encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of music, literature, painting, and politics, which he wove into his narratives, all delivered in a poetic country boy style that was all his own. During these descriptions of his travels and adventures around the country, he often included references to events of his early boyhood days in Okemah.

Ever since that day we first met a half a century ago, I have always hoped that someday I would get the chance to go to his hometown of Okemah, but with my crazy schedule I never had the opportunity to do so. Shortly after Nora Guthrie asked me to compose this piece to honor Woody's classic song, I was invited to perform at WoodyFest, the annual summer festival in Okemah. In his hometown, I was able to meet his sister Mary Jo, her late husband, and Woody's remaining old friends from long ago who were still living there. And by playing music and spending time with people who were also natives of Okemah, I felt that I was able to better understand Woody and his work in a deeper way. I was now able to make a connection, since that first meeting with Woody seventy years ago, to the ensuing years during which I have played countless times with his old friend Pete Seeger and his protege Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and times spent with Woody's late wife, Marjorie, and the numerous concerts I have participated in with his son, Arlo, over the past thirty-five years. All this helped me when writing the original orchestral setting of THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie.

The opening Theme and Fanfare for the Road has the percussion introduce the actual theme played by the marimba, followed by a fanfare, expressing Woody's desire to go out on that open road. Variation l — Oklahoma Stomp Dance, is my own melody, depicting Woody attending a nearby pow-wow and hearing an Oklahoma stomp dance of the Western Cherokee, on a Saturday night through dawn of Sunday morning. During the dance, slightly altered versions of the Theme appear, as they do in almost every other variation. The variation ends quietly, joined by fragments of the initial fanfare, blending with the Stomp Dance.

Variation ll — Sunday Morning Church Service in Okemah is a musical portrait of bygone times. The oboe, clarinet and harp introduce a mournful melody, restated by the woodwind section of the wind band. The theme is heard as Woody heard it in church played on the organ, but with extended harmonies. The theme is later stated by the alto saxophone and harp, with traces of the fanfare woven in with the first melody and distant church chimes being heard as the variation ends.

Variation lll — Prelude and Pampa Texas Barn Dance is the beginning of Woody's journeys from Oklahoma through America. The solo flute and clarinet introduction to the dance is followed by the muted brass, indicated in the score to sound like Celtic Uilleann Pipes. A lively original melody, composed in the style of Irish folkloric music, is later joined by the trombones and tuba, playing the theme as a cantus firmus in an extended version beneath the dance melody itself.

Variation IV — Sonando con Mexico (Dreaming of Mexico) is a musical portrait of the Mexican workers with whom Woody spent time, and about whom he wrote some of his most memorable songs. The opening trumpet call, marked in the score to be played cuivre ed eroico, al torero (brassy and heroic, like a bullfight ceremony) is followed by a nostalgic melody in the upper woodwinds, suggesting the workers dreaming of their home and families south of the border. The melody is developed and leads to a tuba solo, reminiscent of the Mexican polkas played by folk ensembles throughout the West. The principal song-melody returns, with the theme reappearing in the horns, weaving through the Mexican song as an obbligato, showing how Woody could not get this melody and the idea for the song out of his mind.

Variation V — Dust Bowl Dirge, for woodwinds and brass only, honors the brave people who survived the national nightmare of losing everything during this ecological catastrophe and still found a way to survive. One of Woody's greatest songs, "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya" was reportedly written as a farewell note during one of the terrible storms when it was feared that everyone present with him would suffocate. This minor variation of the theme is played by the solo horn and trumpet and then restated throughout the entire wind band.

Variation VI — Street Sounds of New York's Neighborhoods is a compilation of many kinds of music that Woody loved to hear when walking through the neighborhoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn, during an era when music was played everywhere out of doors during the warm seasons. We hear the lively sounds of a Caribbean street festival, with the rhythms of the West Indies, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, and the theme appears in counterpoint in the middle of the march. this is followed by a Klezmer wedding celebration and the festive sounds of a Middle Eastern bazaar, where again the theme is used with the exotic sounds of Greek, Turkish and Armenian music superimposed over it. We then hear the brass family play a hymn-like version of the theme (again using harmonies far from the three chords of the original song) evoking a Salvation Army band, which was a fixture on many corners of New York City's neighborhoods during the late 1940s.

The same harmonies are used for a short section entitled Block Party Jam, often an occurrence to welcome returning veterans of World War Two to their neighborhoods, where jazz bands played celebratory as well as innovative music. Finally the theme returns in a stately fashion with the original fanfare of the road playing in counterpoint, followed by a rousing conclusion restating the opening of the piece and a triumphant ending.

Just as in the case of Beethoven's' Symphony No. 6 in F major ("Pastorale"), where he titles each movement with a brief description, the program notes for THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie serve as a guide to listener but are not essential to enjoy the piece. The biographical nature of THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, just as in the case of Berlioz's moving Harold in Italy (which Berlioz said was inspired by the life and times of Lord Byron), served as a point of departure to write the best piece that I could.
The original orchestral setting of the composition was commissioned by Woody Guthrie Publications and received its World Premiere September 29, 2007; performed by the Symphony Silicon Valley in San Jose California, conducted by Paul Polivnick.

The wind band transcription of THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie was created from a collaboration between a young composer and conductor named Shawn W. Davern and myself. The transcription was produced as a result of Shawn’s doctoral dissertation and is slated to be premiered by The Ohio State University Wind Symphony on April 22, 2026. I am also fortunate to serve as the group’s composer-in-residence as they prepare for the premiere.

Many thanks to Russel Mikkelson and the School of Music for their support, and to the musicians of The Ohio State University for their stellar work in performing the wind band transcription. Music is a collective effort, which is why it is so important, when presented with that selfless spirit. I thank Woody Guthrie for sharing his gifts with the world, and hope that this piece can honor his spirit of bringing people together to share the blessings we all have with one another.

Composer notes by David Amram

Edited by Shawn W. Davern