NJWS Live

American Elegy
Frank Ticheli

American Elegy was composed in 1999 as an expression of grief for the souls lost in the Columbine massacre as well as to honor the survivors. It is an  eloquent expression of grief and sadness, as well as an expression of ultimate strength.

Video/Recording Credits: Robert Paustian

Metropolis 1927
Peter Graham
NJWS May 13, 2022 Concert
West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ

Affirmation
Wayne Oquin

Wayne Oquin (b.1977) is among today’s most performed American composers, having premiers on five continents, in twenty countries, and in forty-five states. Upon completing his Doctorate of Musical Arts in 2008, the Julliard School awarded Oquin its coveted Richard F. French Prize for best dissertation and appointed him to its faculty where he teaches music theory, graduate studies, and serves as Chair of Musicianship. Affirmation is a ten-minute reflection on a wide range of often conflicting emotions that encompass the human condition of life and death, love and loss, and darkness and light. At no point are these extremities juxtaposed side by side, but rather, they gradually materialize. While the music travels far in terms of its range of register, harmony, and dynamic, it does so almost imperceptibly as one long arc from beginning to end.

Program Notes: Marcie Phelan

Video/Recording Credits: Robert Paustian

Scarecrow Overture
Joseph Turin
NJWS February 8, 2020 Concert
West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ

Scarecrow Overture
Joseph Turrin

Joseph Turrin (b.1947) is a greatly valued contributor to contemporary American musical life, thanks to his wide ranging activities as a composer, orchestrator, conductor, pianist, and teacher. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and pursued a career that has always been multifaceted. As a composer, he has produced works in many genres. Scarecrow Overture is taken from Turrin’s 2006 opera The Scarecrow. This opera is based on a short story written by the well known author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. In Hawthorne’s story, a scarecrow named Feathertop is created by a lonely old witch who brings him to life, teaches him to act human, sends him into town, and watches him struggle with the emotional complexity of human society.

Program Notes: Marcie Phelan

Video/Recording Credits: Robert Paustian

Grantham Tuba Concert  – Mvt 1 (Fiery and Bold)
Donald Grantham
Tuba Soloist – Alan Baer
NJWS December 8, 2019 Concert
West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ

Tuba Concerto
Donald Grantham

Program Notes

Donald Grantham (b.1947) is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes in composition. His music has been praised for its “elegance, sensitivity, lucidity of thought, clarity of expression and fine lyricism,” in a citation awarded by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In recent years his works have been performed by the orchestras of Cleveland, Dallas, and Atlanta among many others, and he has fulfilled commissions in media from solo instruments to opera.

Video/Recording Credits: Robert Paustian

George Washington Bicentennial March
John Philip Sousa
NJWS February 8, 2020 Concert
West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ

George Washington Bicentennial March
John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) remained active as both a composer and conductor to the very end of his life and wrote several superb marches in 1930 and 1931. A special commission was formed in Washington, D.C., in 1930 to coordinate the upcoming national celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of George Washington’s birth, and Sousa was engaged to compose a special march for the occasion. He completed the score to the George Washington Bicentennial March in June of that year, and while on tour with his Sousa Band in November, he made a stop in Washington, D.C., to conduct a preview of the new march with the U.S. Marine Band for President Herbert Hoover and his guests in front of the White House. The Sousa Band continued to perform the march on its 1930 and 1931 tours before the actual bicentennial in 1932. Sousa himself took part in the climactic ceremony held at the Capitol Plaza on February 22, 1932, where he conducted the combined premier bands of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. This would be the last time he would conduct the Marine Band in public. Just a few weeks later, after finishing a rehearsal in preparation for a concert with the famed Ringgold Band of Reading, Pennsylvania, Sousa unexpectedly passed away on March 6, 1932.

Program Notes: Marcie Phelan

Video/Recording Credits: Robert Paustian

Places We Can No Longer Go
John Mackey
Kristen Plumley – Soprano
NJWS February 8, 2020 Concert
West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ

Places We Can No Longer Go
John Mackey

Program Notes

John Mackey (b.1973) holds a Master’s of Music degree from The Julliard School and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with John Corigliano and Donald Erb respectively. Mr. Mackey particularly enjoys writing music for dance and symphonic winds, and has focused on those mediums for the past several years. Mr. Mackey has received numerous commissions for his writing, including works for The American Bandmasters Association, the Dallas Wind Symphony, and a concerto for New York Philharmonic Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi. John

About Kristen Plumley

Described as possessing a “shimmering soprano” (The New York Times) with “sparkle and precision” (The Washington Post), Connecticut native Kristen Plumley has performed with many opera companies throughout the country, including New York City Opera (Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro), Virginia Opera (Norina in Don Pasquale and Zerlina in Don Giovanni), Chautauqua Opera (Sophie in Werther), Lyric Opera of Cleveland (Despina in Così fan Tutte), Amarillo Opera (Musetta in La Bohème), Greensboro Opera (Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore and Gilda in Rigoletto), Opera Festival of New Jersey (Nannetta in Falstaff and Amor in Orfeo ed Euridice, Boheme Opera (NJ) (Adelein Die Fledermaus), Opera Memphis (Yum-Yum in The Mikado) and Nevada Opera (Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore).