Lessons of the Sky (1985)

Rodney Rogers
(b. 1953)

Liz Ames, piano

Knabenduett (1980)

Karlheinz Stockausen
(1928-2007)

Jack Schwimmer, soprano saxophone

Back Burner (1988)

Frank Ticheli
(b. 1958)

The Paradigm Shift Saxophone Quartet
Greg Mills, soprano
David Foley, alto
Courtney Kuhn, tenor
Jack Schwimmer, baritone

-IntermissionConcerto, op. 14 (1932)

Lars-Erik Larsson
(1908-1986)

I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro

Liz Ames, piano

The Seventh Healing Song of John Joseph (1983)

James DeMars
(b. 1952)

Audience members are reminded to silence alarm watches, pagers, and cellular phones before the performance. As a matter of courtesy and copyright law,
no unauthorized recording or photographing is allowed in the hall. Please hold all applause till the end of the piece, especially if there are multiple
movements.

Program Notes
Lessons of the Sky (1985)
Composed by Rodney Rogers
Rodney Rogers writes music for a variety of instrumental and vocal combinations, from orchestral music to
works for solo performers. A recent CD of his compositions entitled Complicated Optimism (Albany Records)
contains works for solo, instrumental and vocal groups. In addition, his music appears on solo albums by
various concert artists in both the United States and England. Air Mosaic appears on four CDs produced by
nationally recognized university wind ensembles. Rogers is the recipient of composition awards from BMI,
ASCAP, and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA). He has received commissions from the College
Band Directors National Association (CBDNA, 50th Anniversary), the MTNA, the National Endowment for the
Arts (NEA Consortium Commission), and numerous individual performers and chamber groups. Fellowships in
composition include Tanglewood, the MacDowell Colony, and the Yaddo Artist Colony. His music is published
by Hal Leonard and Carl Fischer and is also available through the composer. Rogers' received his PhD. from
the University of Iowa, has taught composition at Louisiana State University and Lawrence University
(Appleton, WI), and is currently on the composition faculty at Arizona State University.
The title Lessons of the Sky comes from the essay The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley (found in a collection of
essays under the same title). Here, the sky represents that which is open, alive and infinite. ‘Lessons’
suggests the knowledge gained through observation of the world around and above us - the endlessly varied
designs that nature provides as building blocks for life. The music is based on short motives and chord
progressions that are continually varied and juxtaposed. There are three sections in the composition, forming
a fast/slow/fast structure. While sections one and three emphasize patterns that are fast and rhythmic - with
no variation in speed - the rate at which chord changes occur varies widely. Early in the piece the harmonies
move quickly underneath the many motives; but as the first section progresses, a single motive/pattern is
periodically isolated and repeated over very slow chord changes. The surface rhythm of the pattern remains
fast and constant during these harmonically stable sections, yet there is a general perception that the music is
calmer. The interplay between the soprano saxophone and piano is another important aspect of the piece. The
two instruments tend to share ideas, tossing motives back and forth in an improvised manner, but in the lyric
slow section the soprano saxophone is featured and the piano takes on an accompanying role. Occasionally
the piano makes an unexpected percussive sound when the pianist dampens a string with fingers of the left
hand whilst playing the keyboard with the right hand. A single low piano note is dampened throughout the
entire composition with a rubber wedge (which, when struck softly during the slow middle section, takes on a
gong-like character). The piece closes with a return of the fast music, beginning with harmonically stable
repeating figures and then moving into the short and quickly juxtaposed motives that began the piece. This
loosely designed reverse order results in an arch-like shape for the whole composition.

Knabenduett (1980)
Composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stockhausen (born Aug. 22, 1928, Mödrath, near Cologne, Ger.—died Dec. 5, 2007, Kürten) was a German
composer. Orphaned during World War II, he supported himself with odd jobs (including jazz pianist) before
entering Cologne's State Academy for Music in 1947. After hearing Olivier Messiaen's music at Darmstadt in
1951, he began studying with the composer and experimenting with serialism. His early works include Piano
Pieces I–IV (1952) and Counter-Points (1952–53). He also became involved with musique concrète, a
technique using recorded sounds as raw material; his remarkable Song of the Youths (1955–56) used a highly
processed recording of a boy soprano mixed with electronic sounds. His extensions of serialism continued in
pieces such as Measures (1955–56) and Groups (1955–57), and he became a leading avant-garde
spokesman. His Moments (1962–69) influentially applied serialism to groups of sounds rather than single
pitches, and he began incorporating aleatoric (chance) elements as well. From the late 1960s he conceived
ever grander schemes, some incorporating literature, dance, and ritual, as in the Light series (1977–2003).

Licht (Light), subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz
Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003. The composer described the work as an "eternal spiral" because
Sunday sets up the action for Monday (with new life as its theme) so that "there is neither end nor beginning
to the week." Licht consists of 29 hours of music. Knabenduett is an interlude taken from the opera entitled
“Thursday” written for two soprano saxophones meant to mirror two boy sopranos singing to evoke the
archangel Michael. The two players are intended to perform the work while standing far apart from one
another, meaning to imitate Stockhausen’s two sons as they played together. The intervals involved in
Knabenduet create an artificial “third voice” as the harmonic structure between the two saxophones creates
overtones that play with the human ear creating counterpoint with the other two voices.

Back Burner (1988)
Composed by Frank Ticheli
Frank Ticheli's (b. 1958) music has been described as being "optimistic and thoughtful" (Los Angeles Times),
"lean and muscular" (New York Times), "brilliantly effective" (Miami Herald) and "powerful, deeply felt crafted
with impressive flair and an ear for striking instrumental colors" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Ticheli (b.
1958) joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in 1991, where he
is Professor of Composition. From 1991 to 1998, Ticheli was Composer in Residence of the Pacific Symphony,
and he still enjoys a close working relationship with that orchestra and their music director, Carl St. Clair.
Frank Ticheli is the winner of the 2006 NBA/William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest for his
Symphony No. 2. Other awards for his music include the Charles Ives and the Goddard Lieberson Awards,
both from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Walter Beeler Memorial Prize, and First Prize awards
in the Texas Sesquicentennial Orchestral Composition Competition, Britten-on-the-Bay Choral Composition
Contest, and Virginia CBDNA Symposium for New Band Music. He is a national honorary member of Kappa
Kappa Psi and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and he was named by the American School Band Directors Association
as the 2009 recipient of the A. Austin Harding Award, bestowed to individuals "who have made exceptional
contributions to the school band movement in America."
Back Burner is one of Ticheli’s few works for chamber ensemble. Although his medium is typically for wind
ensembles and symphonic bands, this piece written in 1988 has been highly acclaimed and already has a
strong history of recorded performances. Ticheli begins by presenting an idea in a melodic unison from all four
saxophone voices and slowly begins to splinter out both harmonically and rhythmically until all four voices of
the quartet are accounting for a composite rhythm. Ticheli utilizes traits of earlier saxophone quartet
composers like Guy Lacour such as the use of 12-tone passages, and the hocketing of rhythms. The slow
legato section adds voice by voice until all four saxophones come together to play eight chords prior to
splintering off again into dissonant fragments of melody. In the final section of the piece, we see an alignment
of the four horns as the work finishes with a strong statement in true Ticheli style.

Concerto (1932)
Composed by Lars-Erik Larsson
Lars-Erik Larsson (1908-86) was one of the leading figures in 20th-century Swedish music. His early studies
were at the Stockholm Conservatory in the late 1920s, in Vienna with Alban Berg, and finally in Leipzig in
1930-31. His contribution to Sweden’s musical life was enormous: he worked with the Royal Opera in
Stockholm; as a music critic; as a producer, composer and conductor with Swedish Radio; and as a professor
at the Stockholm Conservatory and the University of Uppsala. After the Second World War, Larsson was
appointed inspector of a number of amateur orchestras that were receiving government grants. He noticed
that there was little in their repertoire that could be described as modern, perhaps because of an aversion to
‘modern’ music, but more probably because the limited technique of the players made contemporary works
too great a challenge. Consequently, in the mid-1950s he wrote a set of twelve short concertinos under the

same opus number - one for virtually every instrument of the orchestra - that paired a complex solo part with
a fairly easy and accessible string orchestra accompaniment that could be easily handled by an amateur
ensemble. The works are by no means uninspired or condescending, however, but well-crafted and charming
miniatures that have continued to hold their popularity.
Written in 1932, Larsson’s saxophone concerto was originally written for famed saxophonist Sigurd Rascher
(1907-2001). It precedes Alexander Glazunov’s (1865-1936) saxophone concerto which was premiered in
1934. However, the work has actually performed for the first time two days after the premiere of Glazunov’s
concerto on November 27th, 1934 in Norrkoping, Sweden. The concerto is considered to be one of the first
major saxophone pieces to utilize non-standard tonality.
The first movement is a modernized version of classic sonata form. The first major theme in this movement is
more chromatic and angular, the second being a quasi-tango feel. This is followed by the development, and
then a cadenza which is somewhat auto referential. It closes with a recap of the first theme. The second
movement is a slow, very idiomatic chorale which is typical of the writing for Rascher featuring a pretty
prominent use of the altissimo register. As the first theme rises and comes to a climax, the saxophone breaks
out into an expressive flurry of arpeggios and triplet turns which is paired with the slow methodical theme
delivered in the accompaniment. The final movement is a short punctuation that serves as an epilogue to the
first two movements. The solo part ends with a final sol-do phrase taking us back to the tonic key of D-Minor,
and ending where the concerto began.

The Seventh Healing Song of John Joseph (Blue) (1983)
Composed by James Demars
James DeMars (b.1952) - Composer/conductor James DeMars belongs to a generation that is revealing a new
integration of world music with the range, depth and stylistic variety of the classical tradition. His works
include orchestral concertos for violin, piano, African drum ensemble, pow-wow singers, Native American
flute, several cantatas, a requiem mass and an opera. DeMars has received commissions from the NEA, the
Heard Museum, Flynn Foundation, Art Renaissance Foundation, the Phoenix Symphony, Canyon Records, the
European-American Foundation, the Phoenix Boys Choir, I Solisti di Zagreb, and the Arizona Commission on
the Arts.
As a conductor, DeMars' performances include the national premiere of his work, An American Requiem, at the
Kennedy Center in Washington and nationally televised performances at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in
New York. In 1998 he conducted the European premiere of the requiem in Paris at Église La Trinité with Choer
et Orchestre Francais D'Oratorio and was inducted to the French Order of Arts and Letters. With Native
American flutist R. Carlos Nakai he has created four CDs for Canyon Records. Two World Concerto received
two Native American Music Awards and led to the 2008 release of DeMars' inter-cultural opera, GUADALUPE.
In 2010 he received the Arizona Artist of the Year Governor's Award.
The Seventh Healing Song was one of the first pieces that DeMars wrote when he moved to Arizona at the
request of the flute professor at Arizona State University at the time, Eric Hoover. The electronic
accompaniment track was created using the slowed down harmonics of crystal glass with water in it. The low
bass drone heard is a modified recording of Dr. DeMars’s own voice. The native drum sound was created
through the use of the low end of the piano with electronically altered pitches and compressed to create a
more percussive sound. The electronics in The Seventh Healing Song were actually written first, and then
layered with written parts for the instrumentalist. The flute on the track was added by Eric Hoover to virtually
accompany himself. Although the work was originally written for flute and electronics instead of saxophone,
DeMars quickly discovered that it worked well for the saxophone as the piece grew. As it currently stands,
there are three different versions of the piece; flute, alto saxophone and soprano saxophone.
http://www.classicalsaxophonist.com/dissertation.html#content
http://www.signumrecords.com/catalogue/sigcd158/158booklet_web.pdf