MusicConnect featuring Gabriel Campos Zamora
Encore Wind Ensemble
Jerry Luckhard, Conductor
Gabriel Campos Zamora, Guest Solosit
Tempered Steel - Charles Rochester Young
Song (for Band) - William Bolcom
Brooklyn Bridge - Michael Daugherty
- Gabriel Campos Zamora - Soloist
1. East
2. South
3. West
4. North
Sponsored by Eckroth Music, Midwest Musical Imports, Schmitt Music
Gabriel Campos Zamora
Principal Clarinet, Minnesota Orchestra
Gabriel Campos Zamora, a native of San José, Costa Rica was appointed principal clarinet of the Minnesota Orchestra in June 2016. Campos began his musical training at the Instituto Nacional de Musica as a student of Jose Manuel "cheche" Ugalde. He then came to the United States to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy with Nathan Williams and later received his bachelor's degree in music from the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, where he studied with renowned professor Yehuda Gilad.
Concert Program Notes
Tempered Steel - Charles Rochester Young
As we grow stronger and more resilient through hardship, we become “tempered.” Tempered Steel is a celebration of our triumph over these unavoidable hardships and obstacles that we regularly face. It rejoices in the tenacious and unrelenting resolve that is part of us all.
As the title implies, the metallic sororities of the wind band are continually explored and developed throughout the work, while the “tempest” is a symmetric hexachord that is exposed and developed through a variety of juxtaposed gestures and themes.
Charles Rochester Young (b. 1965) has won high praise and honors for his work as a composer. Major awards include: first prize in the National Flute Association New Publications Competition, first prize in the National Band Association/Merrill Jones Composition Competition, second prize in the 1990 Fischoff Competition, second prize in the National Association of Composers in the USA Young Composers Competition among others. A native of the United States, Dr. Young is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Song (for Band) - William Bolcom
William Bolcom wrote Song for Band in 2001 for the retirement of longtime University of Michigan band director H. Robert Reynolds. The dedication of the piece reads: “In honor of the retirement of H. Robert Reynolds from the directorship of the University of Michigan band, this song is a present for Bob.”
William Bolcom (b. 1938) is an award-winning composer whose music spans many genres, from the wind band to piano works to opera. Those awards include four Grammy Awards for a recording of his setting of Williams Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience on the Naxos label, a Pulitzer Prize, and the National Medal of Arts. He taught at the University of Michigan for 35 years before retiring in 2008.
Brooklyn Bridge for Clarinet and Symphonic Band - Michael Daugherty
Michael Daugherty is one of the most colorful and widely performed American composers on the concert music scene today. Hailed by The Times (London) as “a master icon maker” with a “Maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.” He first came to international attention in the 1990’s with a series of witty, dark-humored, brilliantly-scored pieces inspired by 20th-century pop-culture phenomena such as Metropolis Symphony. After teaching music composition from 1986-1990 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daugherty joined the School of Music at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1991, where he is Professor of Composition. He says of this of Brooklyn Bridge:
Brooklyn Bridge (2005) for Clarinet and Symphonic Band was commissioned by the International Clarinet Association with the assistance of the following College Band Directors National Association member institutions: the Universities of Arizona State, Columbus State, Florida State, Kentucky, Michigan, Sam Houston State, Texas Christian, Texas Tech, Towson and Concordia College.
Designed by John Roebling (1806-1869), the Brooklyn Bridge endures as the most admired and best-loved bridge in New York City. After the opening of the bridge to the public in 1883, Harper’s Monthly reported, “The wise man will not cross the bridge in five minutes, nor in twenty. He will linger to get the good of the splendid view about him.” As I have lingered and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge over the years, the stunning vistas of the New York skyline have inspired me to compose a panoramic clarinet concerto.
Like the four cables of webs of wire and steel that hold the Brooklyn Bridge together, my ode to this cultural icon is divided into four movements. Each movement of the clarinet concerto is a musical view from the Brooklyn Bridge: I. East (Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights); II. South (Statue of Liberty); III. West (Wall Street and lower Manhattan skyline which was once dominated by the World Trade Towers); IV. North (Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center). In the final movement of the concerto, I also imagine Artie Shaw, the great jazz swing clarinetist of the 1940’s, performing with his orchestra in the once glorious Rainbow Room inn the sixty-fifth floor of the Rockefeller Center.
Concert Sponsored by the following:
