Orchestra Season Archive
The 2008/09 Season
Concert
Friday, September 26, 2008 8:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Giuseppe Verdi—Nabucco Overture
Michael Carney—Island Fantasy Suite (Michael Carney, percussion soloist)
Franz Schmidt—Intermezzo from Notre Dame
Richard Strauss—Death and Transfiguration, op. 24
Concert
Friday, October 24, 2008, 8:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Mikhail Glinka—Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla
Aram Khachaturian—Violin Concerto (Chan Ho Yun, violin)
Tchaikovsky—Symphony No.2 in C minor, op.17 "Little Russian"
Concert
Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 8:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Sergei Rachmaninoff—Vocalise
Sergei Rachmaninoff—Rhapsodie on a Theme by Paganini, op.43 (Sarah Chang, winner 2007 Concerto Competition)
Franz Schreker—Prelude to Die Gezeichneten
Maurice Ravel—Mother Goose Suite
Concert
Friday, February 20, 2009, 8:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Olivier Messiaen (*100) Un Sourire (a smile), hommage to Mozart
Lewis Spratlan—Saxophone Concerto (Ryan Janus, saxophone; West Coast Premiere)
Edward Elgar—Enigma Variations
Concert
Sunday, March 15, 2009, 4:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Grieg—Piano Concerto Op. 16 in A minor (Melody Lai, piano—winner 2008 concerto competition)
R. Strauss—Vier Lieder (Malena Michota—winner voice concerto competiton)
Ludwig v. Beethoven—Symphony No. 8, op. 93, F Major
Celebrating Music
Sunday, April 19, 2009, 4:00pm Carpenter Performing Arts Center
Giuseppe Verdi—Requiem (Dr. Jonathan Talberg, conductor)
Concert
Friday-Saturday, May 8-9, 2009, 8:00pm Gerald R. Daniel Recital Hall
Mozart—Overture to Die Zauberflöte
Mozart—Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat (faculty soloists: Philip Levy, violin and Andrew Duckles, viola)
Mozart—Coronation Mass, K. 317 (w/University Choir )
2008/09 Season Soloists
Faculty Artist Michael Carney
Click here to find more information about Michael Carney on his faculty page in Percussion Studies.
Dr. Michael Carney, Director of Percussion Studies at California State University, Long Beach, is a nationally and internationally recognized performer, composer, teacher, and scholar who has performed, taught, and conducted musical and cultural research throughout the United States and abroad. Carney, originally from Rochester, New York, holds degrees in Percussion Performance from East Carolina University, Eastman School of Music, and North Texas State University, and has also studied at the International Center for African Music and Dance in Legon, Ghana, Oficina de Investigaçaõ Musical in Salvador, Brazil, and Rio Gruppo Percussaõ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Michael, a life-long performer and student of percussion, has traveled the world performing, teaching, and studying a large variety of musical instruments and styles. His broad range of knowledge and performance expertise ranges from classical to jazz, and includes musical instruments and styles from West Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil. His musical journeys have taken him to Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, and multiple times to Trinidad (West Indies), Ghana (West Africa), the Philippines, Thailand, and Brazil. In the summer of 2005, Michael completed his first jazz concert tour of Brazil, performing vibraphone and steel pan in concerts at the Ibitipoca Jazz Festival and in Rio de Janeiro with the Michael Carney-Guilherme Gonçalves Group. This concert tour gained honors from the Jazz Society of Rio de Janeiro when his Mistura Fina Concert in Rio was named as the #2 International Jazz Concert of the Year (Wayne Shorter was #1) and Carney was named as the #3 International Jazz Musician of the Year (tied with Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove). His Brazilian based group also features saxophonist Idriss Boudrioua, who was named as 2005 Jazz Musician of the Year in Rio de Janeiro. As a steel pan performer, he has had the honor of performing with some of the greatest steel pan players in the world such as Andy Narell, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ray Holman, and Liam Teague. Michael also performed on steel pan in Trinidad at the Panorama National Steelband Competition with Phase II Pan Groove and Potential Symphony in 1989 and with the Hummingbirds in 1993.
Michael has given numerous concerts and workshops at colleges, universities, public schools, and private venues throughout the United States. As a drummer and vibraphonist, Carney has performed with such jazz notables as Al Vizzutti, Pepper Adams, Bill Watrous, Eddie Daniels, John Pattitucci, Ernie Andrews, and Grammy Award Winner Bobby McFerrin. As a classical percussionist, he has performed recitals, concerts, and given workshops in classical percussion music and has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Carney has had his compositions performed and has been featured as a steel pan soloist with several symphony orchestras including: Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Tulsa Philharmonic, Modesto Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Wichita Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Michael is currently the leader of Pandemonium Steel Drum Band and Michael Carney World Jazz Experience.
As Director of Percussion Studies, Dr. Carney is responsible for overseeing the entire percussion program, coordinating seven percussion faculty members and all percussion performances. He teaches private instruction, directs the World Percussion Group, Steel Drum Orchestra, co-directs the Drums and Drummers Project, and teaches classes in World Music. He is also the founder and director of the World Percussion Project, a program that takes American professionals, students, and teachers abroad for intensive study of music and culture. The project has taken participants to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil and Ghana, West Africa.
Faculty Artist Chan Ho Yun
Click here to find more information about Chan Ho Yun at his faculty page in String Studies.
Chan Ho Yun currently serves on the faculty of the California State University, Long Beach and The Colburn School of Performing Arts. He has been awarded the DSCM, Sydney Conservatiorium of Music, MM, Southern Methodist University and DMA, University of Southern California. His violin studies have been with Harry Curby, Alice Schoenfeld, Eduard Schmieder and Abram Shtern.
Dr. Yun is the Executive Director and Founder of the Rainbow Music Academy, a non-profit organization recognized by the Los Angeles City Council for bringing quality musical instruction to underprivileged, inner-city children. In addition, Dr. Yun is the founder and director of the Montecito Summer Music Festival which just completed its very successful inaugural season.
Honored with a Big Brother Foundation Scholarship for studies in London and the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Music Award to study in the U.S., Dr. Yun has performed chamber music concerts and conducted master classes at summer residencies at the Pan Pacific Music Festival, the Idyllwild Arts Summer Festival, the Beverly Hills International Summer Music Festival, and the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival. Dr. Yun has performed extensively in solo and chamber music concerts, as well as being heard on radio broadcasts in Australia for ABC FM and 2MBS FM and in the US for KUSC and K-Mozart.
Dr. Yun has performed at major venues in Australia and the US. He has worked as a freelance musician playing with the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Pasadena Symphony. He is a former member of Los Angeles Musica Viva under the direction of Jim Tyler. Dr. Yun continues to collaborate regularly with prominent musicians in the Los Angeles area.
Sarah Chang
Sarah Chang was born in May, 1987, and started playing the piano since age of 4. She moved to California from Korea in 2001, and continued to pursue her career in piano.
In 2004, she performed Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto with the Korean LA Philharmonic Orchestra, and received first place at SYMP in 2006. Currently, she is majoring in piano performance under Dr. Shun-Lin Chou at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach.
Sarah is also the recipient of DAAG, Music Department, and Cariaga Scholarships. In 2007 she won the Concerto Competition.
Ryan Janus
Technical Sergeant Ryan Janus grew up in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. He studied at Hope College in Holland, Michigan (B.Mus. in Music Performance and B.A. in Mathematics) and University of South Florida in Tampa (M.Mus. in Jazz Studies), both on academic scholarships. He was a two-time concerto competition winner at Hope, as well as receiving the Outstanding Artist award for all Fine Arts departments. While at USF, Mr. Janus performed regularly with the bands at Disney World and Busch Gardens. He was then hired to teach saxophone, jazz studies and music theory at Hope College. Mr. Janus was also regular faculty member of the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and Aquinas College Jazz Camp.
Mr. Janus has performed with many notables in the jazz, classical, and pop worlds, including Barry Manilow, Manhattan Transfer, Renee Fleming, the Temptations, Ben E. King, Bob Newhart, Randy Brecker, Phil Woods and Kenny Wheeler. An accomplished doubler, he has played in the pit orchestras to over 30 shows, including several national touring companies. As a classical saxophonist, Mr. Janus has been a featured concerto soloist at the most recent North American Saxophone Alliance convention. With his brother, award-winning percussionist Matthew Janus, he as also been featured as a chamber musician at national and international festivals and conventions.
Mr. Janus has commissioned and is constantly commissioning new works for the saxophone. He currently serves as principal saxophone in the US Air Force Academy Band, one of the nation's premier military bands. In this capacity, he plays alto saxophone in the concert band and Falconaires jazz band, as well as piccolo in the marching band.
Lewis Spratlan
Lewis Spratlan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, was born in 1940 in Miami, Florida. His music is performed regularly throughout the United States. A number of works have toured widely, as far a field as Russia and Armenia. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Massachusetts Artists Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Tanglewood, and the MacDowell Colony. His opera, Life is a Dream, won a top prize in the Rockefeller Foundation-New England Conservatory Opera Competition and appeared on the New York City Opera’s “Showcasing American Opera” series in 2002; his composition, Apollo and Daphne Variations, won the New England Composers Orchestra Competition.
Among recent works are the one-act opera, Earthrise, with a libretto by Constance Congdon commissioned by San Francisco Opera; a piano quartet, Streaming, commissioned by the Ravinia Festival for its centennial celebration; Sojourner for ten players commissioned for Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress; Zoom for chamber orchestra commissioned by the New York ensemble Sequitur; Wonderer commissioned by the pianist Jonathan Biss; and Shadow commissioned by the cellist Matt Haimovitz. He has recently completed Wink, a chamber opera based on the life and works of the architect Louis Kahn. His music is recorded on the Albany, Opus 1, Koch International, Oxingale, and Gasparo labels.
From 1970 until his retirement in 2006 he served on the music faculty of Amherst College, and has also taught and conducted at Penn State University, Tanglewood, and the Yale Summer School of Music. He resides with his wife Melinda in Amherst, Massachusetts.
For more information on Lewis Spratlan visit his website.
How does a commissioned work happen?....
Ryan Janus:
The way it worked for me is as follows…. I contacted a composer—Mr. Spratan—whose music interests me to see about his level of interest. I explained what I was trying to do, and we agreed on a fee. Once I had a signed contract from him, I proceeded to call other saxophonists. Mr. Spratlan's fee for this piece was extremely reasonable, but it's still not something I could pay completely out of my own pocket. Rather than go around begging for grant money, I enlisted the help of other saxophonists as "co-commissioners." Each player (29 have joined the consortium) put an agreed-upon dollar amount into the proverbial pot for the composer's fee, plus mailing and copying expenses. There are several reasons players are willing to do this. Their names get attached to the piece, and they get to say that they helped to commission a new saxophone concerto by a Pulitzer laureate without having to take out a mortgage to do it. This often makes good resume fodder for young tenure-seeking professionals, although many of the commissioners are established names in the field. It's also exciting to have exclusive performing and recording rights for a period of time on a new piece before it gets published, and speaking for myself, I always get a good feeling helping to being new art into the world. The situation is also advantageous for the composer. Often, new works will be played a few times by the organization or individual who commissioned it, only to collect dust afterwards. This piece, on the other hand, will receive at least 29 performances nationwide (and possibly, as I understand it, in Germany and Sweden) within a very short time. All this is accomplished while completely circumventing the grant-seeking process. I believe the Holland Symphony participated in something very similar recently, commissioning a piece by Joan Tower through the Ford Made In America program.
Lewis Spratlan continues:
Ryan approached me three years ago about composing a saxophone concerto. Following the model of a number of recent consortium commissions he contacted dozens of saxophonists across the country, inviting them to "subscribe" to the commission, for a very reasonable fee. He ended up with almost thirty co-commissioners. The Holland Symphony Orchestra performance will be the world premiere. (This means the very first performance of this piece….)