13th Annual Side By Side Concert

     Friday, May 12, 2023
8:00PM
West Side Presbyterian Church

Prelude Concert
7:30 PM
North Bergen High School Wind Ensemble
Michael Connor, Director

The New Jersey Wind  Symphony brings its 2022 – 2023 season to a close with a concert featuring outstanding young musicians who may help the NJWS continue to perform for the next 40 years and beyond! This concert features our 13th Annual Side by Side Concert, the winner of the 17th Youth Soloist Competition, and Eric Whitacre’s “Godzilla Eats Las Vegas”.

Guest Soloist
YSC 2022 – 2023 1st Place Winner
Timothy Lien – Clarinet

Timothy Lien – Clarinet

Timothy Lien is the principal clarinetist at the Livingston High School Wind Symphony who started playing clarinet at the age of 8. He was the concertmaster and principal clarinetist of the 2023 NJMEA All-state band and the 2023 NJSMA Region I band and has performed in NJPAC numerous times. Timothy is the clarinetist of the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2019, and he won the first prize for the 2023 Henry Lewis Concerto Competition. His solo performance of the first movement of Louis Spohr’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in C Major, op. 26 will be featured in several upcoming programs with the New Jersey Symphony. He also received the gold medal rating for the Arts Ed NJ State Solo Festival in 2021 and 2022. He studies with Andy Lamy, a clarinetist with the New Jersey Symphony.

In the words of the composer: “The players are called upon to scream in terror, dress like Elvises (Elvis), and play in about 30 different styles, from mambo to cheesy lounge music,”

You won’t want to miss our upcoming performance of this unique and highly entertaining work.

Composer Carl Maria von Weber met clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Baermann in 1811. They became close friends and Weber wrote a concertino for Baermann to be performed in Munich at a concert attended by King Maximillian of Bavaria. The King was so impressed that he commissioned Weber to write his two concertos for clarinet. His Concerto No. 1 for Clarinet is a work in three movements, with the final movement (‘Rondo’) written to showcase Baermann’s technical prowess.

In 1880, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned to compose a feature piece for the All-Russian Exhibition of Arts and Crafts in 1882. The resulting work was a tribute to one of the most triumphal moments in Russian history, their victory over the French invasion of 1812. The piece includes a plaintive Russian peasant tune, the French national anthem, a Russian folk dance theme, and an explosive climax.

Tchaikovsky described his now-famous work as “very loud and noisy and completely without artistic merit, obviously written without warmth or love”. Audiences across the globe disagree!

“The human soul is on a path of constant renewal and regeneration which is reflected in Transformed Spring’s lyric and dramatic metamorphosis from E minor to E major. There are many personal elements of my own life in this piece, most especially my walks in solitude on the beach at night as a younger man. These meditative and reflective times live in my memory today and I recall them frequently. The trombone portamenti, which become more and more prominent as the piece evolves, are a sort of sigh from the past which inevitably leads us over the horizon to our future. Read More

Composer D.W. Reeves composed “Memorial March” in celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the founding of Providence, Rhode Island. The march, performed by the American Band and conducted by the composer, kicked off the two-day celebration that included music, fireworks, and two “balloon ascensions” by pioneer American balloonist James Allen.

“March King” John Philip Sousa dedicated his march “The Rifle Regiment” to the officers and men of the 3rd U.S. Infantry. While the occasion for the composition of this march is unknown, it is regarded as one of his “better efforts”.

In this 1973 work by Alfred Reed, the band serves as a choir, performing a hymn of praise without words. The work is based on three themes: a brass chorale, a flowing line in the woodwinds and horns, and a fanfare figure that is developed and spread across the sections of the band.

Composer Rossano Galante has written large-scale wind ensemble compositions as well as music for films. He has also served as orchestrator for over sixty studio films including A Quiet Place, The Mummy, Logan, and Tuesdays With Morrie. His 2020 work Phoenix Ascending was commissioned by the Princeton High School Band, Princeton, Texas, to commemorate their 50th Anniversary. The piece is a musical, cinematic adventure seen through the eyes of the Phoenix.

Program

Overture 1812 – Tchaikovsky, arr. Lake
Phoenix Ascending – Rossano Galante
Transformed Spring – Patrick Burns
Rifle Regiment – John Philip Sousa
Clarinet Concerto No. 1 – Von Weber
Clarinet Soloist – Timothy Lien
Godzilla Eats Las Vegas – Eric Whitacre

Program Subject To Change

All New Jersey Wind Symphony Subscription Concerts are held at the West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ.  West Side Presbyterian Church is fully ADA compliant providing handicap accessible entry to the concert venue as well as bathroom facilities. Important signage and directions are presented in braille..