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Medina Community Band & Community Band Association

Proudly presents

A Holiday Concert

It’s been a long time since Medina Community Band did a ‘Holiday Concert.’  There were lots of reasons why it became increasing difficult to present a holiday concert – the schedule of our musicians, securing a hall during the holiday season, and any number of other challenges. However, we have no problem in presenting a virtual concert for our audience.  With the pandemic, we just have to present our music to you on our website. Selections for this concert will be presented in a number of portions.  Each portion will feature Medina Chorus and Medina Community Band as well as at least once virtual ensemble.

We are delighted to partner with the Medina Chorus (former known as the Medina County Chorus) under the direction of Jordan Saul.  Medina Community Band will present season offerings from past years and for the first time a number of live virtual ensembles. With the help of Upbeat Music App, we are exploring using the new technology to allow our musicians to bring music to you.

Nonperishable food items may be brought to support St. Francis Xavier Parish’s St. Vincent de Paul Society food pantry, which will provide holiday meals for 200+ Medina families in need. Donations to the St. Vincent de Paul Society can be made at https://helpingmedinafamilies.org/

Our sincere hope is that we will be back together making music for you at some point in time!  Until then, enjoy memories from our past.

Marcus L. Neiman, conductor
Medina Community Band

Words of Welcome – Dennis Hanwell, mayor, City of Medina

 

Words of Welcome – Lu Ann Gresh, president, Medina Community Band Association

 

Words of Welcome – Elizabeth Blanch, president, Medina Chorus

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Words of Welcome – Marcus L. Neiman, conductor, Medina Community Band

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Act I

Most Wonderful Time of the Year (1963)	Edward Pola & George Wyle	arranged by George Wade & Mac Huff	Medina Chorus – December 2015
Overture to the Opera Die Fledermaus (1874)	Johann Strauss, II	arranged by Lucien Cailliet	Medina Community Band – December 15, 1999
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (1863)	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	arranged by Roy Ringwald	Medina Chorus – December 2016

Virtual Ensemble – Medina Community Band

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Flute Sextet

Gail Blackburn (alto flute), Sue McLaughlin (flute), Sadie Nayman (flute), Marcus Neiman (flute), Karen Sater (bass flute), and, Kristin Thompson (flute)

Virtual Ensembles. Since last March when the pandemic forced us all to change the way we live and, for us, the way we make music, there has been an emergence of a variety of applications for musicians to help them continue to make music together, not not really ‘together.’  Since November of this year, we have been exploring Upbeat Music App and Upbeat Music Perform (https://upbeatmusicapp.com/).  Sue McLaughlin (flute) and Marcus Neiman (conductor) have been working through the learning curve and assembling members of our ensemble to help us explore this new technology.  Hopefully, as we continue into the year, our offerings to you will be better and better.  Your thoughts and comments are, of course, most welcome.  (Marcus Neiman, conductor, November 28, 2020).

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Act II

Radetzky March, Op 228 (1848)	Johann Strauss, Sr.	arr. Norman Richardson	Medina Community Band (December 15, 1999)
O Come All Ye Faithful (1751)	Traditional	arr. Alice Parker/Robert Shaw	Medina Chorus (December 2017)
Celtic Flutes (2003)	Kurt Gäble		Medina Community Band (November 17, 2010)
I Love the Winter Weather/I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm (1937)	Irving Berlin	Earl Brown/Mac Huff	Medina Chorus (December 2015)

 

Virtual Ensemble – Medina Community Band

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Flute Trio

Sadie Nayman, Sue McLaughlin, and Gail Blackburn – flutes

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Act III

Flower Song (from Lakmé) (1883)	Léo Delibes	arr. James Curnow	Medina Community Band (October 11, 2017)
Grown Up Christmas List (1992)	David Foster and Linda Thompson-Jenner	arr. Mark Mayes	Medina Chorus (December 2016)
Christmas Time Is Here (1965)	Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi	arr. Steve Zegree	Medina Chorus (December 2019)
Minor Alterations (2007)	David Lovrien		Medina Community Band (2010)

Virtual Ensemble – Medina Community Band

Christmas Concerto, Op. 6, No 8 – Largo

Flute Trio

 

Sadie Nayman, Kristin Thompson, Marcus Neiman, flutes

Act IV

We Wish You a Merry Christmas	Traditional	arr. Alice Parker	Medina Chorus (December 2017)
An Irving Berlin Christmas	Irving Berlin	arr. Warren Barker	Medina  Community Band (December 15, 1999)
Happy Xmas (War is Over) (1971)	John Lennon/Yoko Ono	arr. Mark Brymer	Medina Chorus (December 2019)
Nessun Dorma (from Turandot) (1926)	Giacomo Puccini	arr. Donald Stauffer	Medina Community Band (October 17, 2010)
Hallelujah! (No. 44 Chorus from Messiah) (1741)	George Frideric Handel		Medina Chorus (December 2019)
God Be With You Till We Meet Again (1880)	James Eames Rankin	arr. John Leavitt	Medina Chorus (December 2017)

 

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Program Notes

Act I

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is a popular Christmas song written in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle. It was recorded and released that year by pop singer Andy Williams for his first Christmas album, The Andy Williams Christmas Album. The song is a celebration and description of activities associated with the Christmas season, focusing primarily on get-togethers between friends and families. Among the activities included in the song is the telling of “scary ghost stories,” a Victorian Christmas tradition that has mostly fallen into disuse, but survives in the seasonal popularity of numerous adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Other activities mentioned include hosting parties, spontaneous visits from friends, universal social gaiety, spending time with loved ones, sledding for children, roasting marshmallows, sharing stories about previous Christmases, and singing Christmas carols in winter weather. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_Most_Wonderful_Time_of_the_Year)

Edward Pola was an actor, radio/television producer, and songwriter. Pola was born Sidney Edward Pollacsek in New York City, the son of Ida and Alexander Pollacsek, both Hungarian Jews. In the 1920s, Pola began to write songs. He scored one of England’s first sound films, Harmony Heaven.

George Wyle was an American orchestra leader and composer best known for having written the theme song to 1960s television sitcom Gilligan’s Island. He is also the grandfather of musician Adam Levy.

 

 

 

 

Overture to the Opera Die Fledermaus

Johann Strauss Jr. eventually surpassed his father’s fame, and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, extensively touring Austria-Hungary, Poland, and Germany with his orchestra. He applied for the Music Director of the Royal Court Balls position, which he eventually attained in 1863, after being denied several times before for his frequent brushes with the local authorities. In 1853, due to constant mental and physical demands, Strauss suffered a nervous breakdown. He took a seven-week vacation in the countryside in the summer of that year, on the advice of doctors. Johann’s younger brother Josef was persuaded by his family to abandon his career as an engineer and take command of Johann’s orchestra in the interim. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_II)

Die Fledermaus – Overture to Die Fledermaus.   The overture to Johann Strauss Jr.’s operetta Die Fledermaus is firmly in the tradition established by Rossini and continued in our century by the likes of George Gershwin, which is a “trailer” for the goodies in store. It even starts with a traditional audience “shutter-upper,” succeeded by a veritable cascade of melodies so mouth-watering that one can only wonder what it would have taken to please those miserable Viennese, 150 years ago. It does, though, make considerable demands on the performers, who must be alive to its many and extreme changes of pace: not generally a feature of his waltzes and polkas, these are the key to much of the hair-raising excitement of this incredibly entertaining music. Of all his stage works one stands out as perhaps the greatest operetta written: Die Fledermaus. Based on a French play by Meilhac and Halévy (who had also provided Offenbach with many libretti for his operettas), it was an instant success and has remained so to this day. The operetta premiered on 5 April 1874 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and has been part of the regular repertoire ever since It was performed in New York under Rudolf Bial at the Stadt Theatre on 21 November 1874. The German première took place at Munich’s Gärtnerplatztheater in 1875. 

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem “Christmas Bells” by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  The song tells of the narrator’s despair, upon hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, that “hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men”. The carol concludes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among men. In 1861, two years before writing this poem, Longfellow’s personal peace was shaken when his second wife of 18 years, to whom he was very devoted, was fatally burned in an accidental fire. Then in 1863, during the American Civil War, Longfellow’s oldest son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, joined the Union Army without his father’s blessing. Longfellow was informed by a letter dated March 14, 1863, after Charles had left. “I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer”, he wrote. “I feel it to be my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good.” Charles was soon appointed as a lieutenant but, in November, he was severely wounded in the Battle of Mine Run. Charles eventually recovered, but his time as a soldier was finished.  Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day in 1863. “Christmas Bells” was first published in February 1865, in Our Young Folks, a juvenile magazine published by Ticknor and Fields. References to the Civil War are prevalent in some of the verses that are not commonly sung.

 

In the Bleak Midwinter

Gustav Holst was the creator of operas, chamber, vocal, and orchestra music of many different styles, based on subjects as varied as folk songs, Tudor music, Sanskrit literature, astrology, and contemporary poetry.  His great interest in Eastern mysticism can be heard in his setting of Choral Hymns from the “Rig Veda” and his short opera “Savitri.” Gustavis Theodore von Holst (he dropped the “von” in 1918) was the grandson of Gustavus von Holst of Riga, Latvia, a composer of elegant music for the harp. His father, Adolph, a pianist, organist, and choirmaster, taught piano lessons and gave recitals; his mother, who died when Gustav was only eight, was a singer. He died in 1934, four months short of his 60^th birthday, after a lifetime of poor health exacerbated by the concussion suffered in a backward fall from the conductor’s podium, from which he never fully recovered. (Jane Erb).[1]

“In the Bleak Midwinter” is a Christmas carol based on a poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti. The poem was published, under the title “A Christmas Carol“, in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s Monthly and was first collected in book form in Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1875). The poem first appeared set to music in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Gustav Holst.

[1] http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/holst.php

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Act II

Radetzky March, Op 228

Strauss composed the light and charming Radetzky March under a commission from Field Marshall Lieutenant Peter Zanini who was organizing a “victory festival” in recognition of the exploits of the Austrian Army in Italy. Field Marshall Johann Joseph Count Radetzky de Radetz was commander of the army and the namesake of the march. An unusual aspect of this march is that the trio modulates up a fifth instead of the traditional fourth. An explanation for this was found in the diary of one of Strauss’ friends, Philipp Fahrbach. On the afternoon of the day on which the commissioned work was to be premiered in the evening, Strauss still had not began work on it. At the insistence, and with the assistance, of his friend Fahrbach, he finally began work on the march. Using two popular melodies of the day (Mein Kind, Mein Kind, ich bin dir gut, and an anonymous waltz melody), he hastily wrote the score and copied out the parts. The first performance, conducted by the composer on August 31, 1848, met with only modest success. In discussing with Fahrbach how to improve the march, Strauss decided to slow down the tempo and to lower the key of the first section from E Major to D Major, while leaving the trio in the original key, thus producing the march’s departure from tradition.

Johann Strauss Sr. was the son of an innkeeper who wanted his son to become a bookbinder. However he learned music at an early age, mostly self-taught, and joined a dance orchestra as a violinist while a teen. He earned quite a reputation and played for such dignitaries as Chopin and Wagner.  Johann Strauss Sr. is known as the ” First Waltz King” because he was the co-inventor (along with Josef Lanner) of the Viennese waltz and because he wrote 152 waltzes, some of which are still played today. He was the patriarch of the highly acclaimed Austrian musical family which includes the most famous “Waltz King”, his son Johann Jr. Johann Jr. created such famous waltzes as Tales from the Vienna Woods and Blue Danube. It is ironic that the First Waltz King should best be remembered for a march, Radetzky March, and that this march is far better known than the man in whose honor it was written.

 

 

 

O Come All Ye Faithful

O Come, All Ye Faithful (originally written in Latin as Adeste Fideles) is a Christmas carol that has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), John Reading (1645–1692), King John IV of Portugal 1604–1656), and anonymous Cistercian monks. The earliest printed version is in a book published by Wade, but the earliest manuscript bears the name of King John IV, and is located in the library of the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa. A manuscript by Wade, dating to 1751, is held by Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. The original four verses of the hymn were extended to a total of eight, and these have been translated into many languages. The English translation of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” by the English Catholic priest Frederick Oakeley, written in 1841, is widespread in most English-speaking countries.

Celtic Flutes

Kurt Gäble was born on January 5, 1953. In Augsburg he studied music, fine arts and pedagogic sciences. He developed his talents as composer and arranger as an autodidact and as an expert in matters of the wind band. He gained recognition as a composer when his piece “Der Komet” (“The Comet”) was awarded a prize at a composers’ competition that was organized by the Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation) in cooperation with the Bayerischer Musikrat (Bavarian Council on Music). In 1992 his composition “Zeitenwende” (“Time of Change”) won a first prize at the national competition of the Kulturstiftung Schwaben (Cultural Foundation of Swabia). That far numerous commissioned works and contemporary arrangements round out his output as a composer. Currently Kurt Gäble is chiefly known to the band community for his contemporary, modern arrangements and compositions.

 

Sue McLaughlin (photo on right) has been a member of the Medina Community Band since 1994 and is a former flute student of Deidre McGuire.  While in school, she was a member of the band, orchestra,

and jazz band, playing clarinet and saxophone.  In addition to playing flute and piccolo in the Medina Community Band, Sue has also performed with Marcus Neiman and The Sounds of Sousa Band, Symphony West Orchestra, Medina Show Biz, St. Paul Lutheran Church orchestra, St. Paul Lutheran Celebration Worship Team, the Western Star Flute Choir and several other area churches.  She is retired from 24 years with Southwest General Health Center.  Sue lives in Medina with her two cats, Truffles and Kokopelli. She has a married daughter and two wonderful grandsons!  She is section leader for the flute section, media/public relations contact for the band and secretary of the Medina Community Band Association.

Amy Muhl (photo on left) has been a member of Medina Community Band since 1998.  Originally from Lyme, Connecticut, moved to Ohio to study music education at Oberlin Conservatory in 1991.  She graduated in 1995 and taught orchestra for two years in the Willard City Schools.  Amy received her masters of music education from Kent State University on a scholarship, in 1998.  She then taught instrumental music at Buckeye High School, in Medina (OH) and in the fall of 1999, became the elementary band teacher for Buckeye Local Schools.  In the fall of 2001, she began teaching elementary instrumental music at Central Intermediate School in the Wadsworth City Schools.  Amy also plays flute/piccolo and piano and teaches private lessons, in addition to being a member of Medina Community Band and Sounds of Sousa Band.  She is also treasurer of the Medina Community Band Association.  Amy resides in Wadsworth with her husband Frank, and three children Kenneth, Eva and Simon.

I Love the Winter Weather/I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm 

I Love the Winter Weather was written by Tucker Freeman with lyrics by W. Earl Brown in 1941. Ticker Freeman, a former song plugger in New York, was Dinah Shore’s accompanist for her 1950s television show.

I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm was written in 1937 by Irving Berlin for the musical On The Avenue.

Tony Bennett recorded the medley of “I Love the Winter Weather” and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” in 1967 for the album Snowfall, released in 1968. (https://medinacommunityband.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=3055&action=edit)

 

 

 

 

 

God  Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen is an English traditional Christmas carol. It is in the Roxburghe Collection (iii. 452), and is listed as no. 394 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also known as Tidings of Comfort and Joy, and by variant incipits as Come All You Worthy Gentlemen; God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen; God Rest Ye, Merry Christians; or God Rest You Merry People All. It is one of the oldest extant carols, dated to the 16th century or earlier.^[4] The earliest known printed edition of the carol is in a broadsheet dated to c. 1760. (Wikipedia)

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Act III

Flower Song (from Lakmé)

In full Clément-Philibert-Léo Delibes. French opera and ballet composer who was the first to write music of high quality for the ballet. His pioneering symphonic work for the ballet opened up a field for serious composers, and his influence can be traced in the work of Tchaikovsky and others who wrote for the dance. His own music—light, graceful, elegant, with a tendency toward exoticism—reflects the spirit of the Second Empire in France.

Delibes studied at the Paris Conservatoire under the influential opera composer Adolphe Adam and in 1853 became accompanist at the Théâtre-Lyrique. He became accompanist at the Paris Opéra in 1863, professor of composition at the Conservatoire in 1881, and a member of the French Institute in 1884. His first produced works were a series of amusing operettas, parodies, and farces in which Delibes was associated with Jacques Offenbach and other light-opera composers. He collaborated with Ludwig Minkus in the ballet La Source (1866), and its success led to commissions to write his large-scale ballets, Coppélia (1870), based on a story of E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Sylvia (1876), based on a mythological theme. In the meantime, he developed his gifts for opera. The opéra comique Le Roi l’a dit (1873; The King Said So) was followed by the serious operas Jean de Nivelle (1880) and Lakmé (1883), his masterpiece. Known for its coloratura aria “Bell Song,” Lakmé contains “Oriental” scenes illustrated with music of a novel, exotic character. Delibes also wrote church music (he had worked as a church organist) and some picturesque songs, among which “Les Filles de Cadiz” (“The Girls of Cadiz”) suggests the style of Georges Bizet.

The story of the Brahmin girl Lakmé was based on a novel by Frenchman Pierre Loti, who had traveled in the Orient and brought back stories filled with exoticism. Librettist Edmond Gondinet suggested the story to composer Leo Delibes. Gondinet wanted to write a libretto specifically for a young American soprano named Marie van Zandt who had starred in another French opera, Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon, in 1880. Gondinet gave Delibes a copy of Loti’s novel, to read on a train ride, and Delibes loved it. He composed the score in a year’s time. Lakmé is set in British India in the 19th century. Nilakantha, a Brahmin priest, is bent on rebelling against the occupying British, who have forbidden him from practicing his religion. When Nilakantha goes to attend a gathering of the faithful, his daughter Lakmé and her servant Millika are left behind. The two go off toward a river to gather flowers and sing the famous “Flower Duet.” As they approach the water, Lakmé removes her jewelry and leaves it on a bench.

Denise Milner Howell, mezzo-soprano, is a versatile performer of opera, concerts, and recitals, whose singing has been called “superb” (Cleveland Classical). Ms. Howell’s solo engagements include performances with Cleveland Opera Theater, Opera Cleveland, Chautauqua Opera, Kent/Blossom Festival, Nightingale Opera Theatre, Akron Symphony Orchestra, Akron Lyric Opera Theatre, Akron Baroque, Tanglewood Festival, Carousel Dinner Theatre, and Buffalo Philharmonic. Recent performances include leading roles in Little Women (Meg), Amahl and the Night Visitors (Mother), Carmen (Mercédès), La cambiale di matrimonio (Clara), Robert Ward’s The Crucible (Rebecca Nurse), and Iolanthe (Celia). A frequent concert soloist, Ms. Howell has performed the alto solos in Handel’s Messiah, Mozart Requiem, Bach Magnificat, Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, Verdi Requiem, Vivaldi Gloria and Duruflé Requiem. Additionally, Ms. Howell is committed to the performance of new works by living composers, and has been heard at Cleveland Ingenuity Festival and New to New York Concert Series. In addition to performing, Ms. Howell is an active voice teacher. She currently teaches at Cleveland Institute of Music/Case Western Reserve University. She lives in Sharon Township, Ohio with her husband, Gregg, and their three children.

Soprano Emily Stauch has performed and studied in the U.S. and in Europe in opera, oratorio, recitals and chamber music. Some of Ms. Stauch’s orchestral credits include the Brahms Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2, “Lobgesang”, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9,  Beethoven’s Egmont (Klärchen), and Poulenc’s Gloria. Ms. Stauch has performed over thirty oratorio roles, ranging from the Bach Magnificat to Dvořák’s Stabat Mater. Her operatic roles include Frasquita and Micaëla in Carmen, the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Musetta in La Bohème, and the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro.  She is a frequent concert and recital artist and specializes in repertoire of Nordic composers.

A native of Washington, D.C., Ms. Stauch has also lived in Naples, Italy,  has lived and studied in Munich, Germany and in Stockholm, Sweden, and graduated cum laude from The Catholic University of America. Her formal music training began at age nine with the study of the piano and her choral/vocal experience began at age sixteen, while she was an exchange student in Sweden.  She continued singing under the direction of Dr. Michael Cordovana while at Catholic University.  Ms. Stauch has since studied with many other teachers in the U.S., with Lydia Buschmann in Munich, Germany, and more recently, with Jane Eaglen.  Ms. Stauch has sung under the direction of truly great conductors such as Robert Shaw and James Conlon, and has performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., and at Carnegie Hall.  A voice and language/diction instructor for many years, Ms. Stauch speaks French, German and Swedish. She served previously on the voice faculty at Virginia Wesleyan College. She has directed opera and musical theater workshops and has taught master classes and workshops for various schools and choral organizations. As a singing voice specialist, she has worked with patients recovering from vocal fold injuries, surgery and problems related to vocal misuse, in conjunction with laryngologists and speech pathologists.  Ms. Stauch specializes in helping performing artists and public speakers manage stress and anxiety. She teaches Meditation for Performing Artists and offers virtual and onsite individual coaching and consultation. Ms. Stauch is a member of the voice faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music and maintains a private studio in Medina, Ohio.  She can be reached at emiliastauch@gmail.com.

Grown Up Christmas List

“Grown-Up Christmas List” (sometimes titled “My Grown-Up Christmas List“) is a Christmas song composed by David Foster (music) and Linda Thompson-Jenner (lyrics). It was originally recorded by Foster, with Natalie Cole on vocals, for his 1990 non-holiday album River of Love and a similar second version on his 1993 holiday album The Christmas Album. Though it was also released as a single, the song was not a hit upon its first appearance. In 1992, Amy Grant recorded a version for her second Christmas album, Home for Christmas. Grant’s version featured an additional verse that Grant penned herself. Her record label at the time, A&M Records, promoted the song as the second single from the album, and it received substantial radio airplay.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Time Is Here

“Christmas Time Is Here” is a popular Christmas standard written by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi for the 1965 television special A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of the first animated Christmas specials produced for network television in the United States. Two versions were included on the album A Charlie Brown Christmas: an instrumental version by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and a vocal version by choristers from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California who had previously performed with Guaraldi on At Grace Cathedral (1965).

Leland Maurice Mendelson (March 24, 1933 – December 25, 2019) was an American television producer and the executive producer of the many Peanuts animated specials. Mendelson was born in San Francisco and grew up in San Mateo graduating from San Mateo High School. He graduated from Stanford University in 1954 with a degree in English. He was lieutenant in the Air Force for three years. He then worked several years for his father, a vegetable grower and shipper. 

 

Minor Alterations

David Lovrien has been a member of the saxophone section of Dallas Wind Symphony for over 15 years, performing on ten of the group’s 13 compact discs and appearing several times as featured soloist.  He is also a founding member of the renowned Texas Saxophone Quartet, the first saxophone ensemble to win the prestigious Fischoff Competition in 1988.  His compositions and arrangements have been performed throughout the world, and his website celebrating the life and work of John Philip Sousa is recognized as the best Sousa authority on the Internet.

Minor Alterations – Christmas Through The Looking Glass is a medley of favorite Christmas tunes, transposed from major to minor keys then disguised, layered and morphed even more. From the ominous “Deck the Halls” at the start to the final, frenzied “Nutcracker Suite” finale, each tune is lovingly twisted into something new and inventive. The composition opens a rather short, but ominous introduction, we are treated to Deck the Hall.  At [A], we move into Up on the Housetop.  With an increase in tempo just prior to [C], we move into Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  At [E], we hear Jolly Old St. Nicholas.  The mood again changes at [F] as we have the New Year’s style of the Shostakovich Waltz No 2 moving into Here Comes Santa Claus.  A snippet of We Wish You a Merry Christmas Is heard as an English Horn or oboe solo at [H] leading right in to Silver Bells at [I]. At [K], we are treated to Jingle Bells.  At [M], we are given a wonderful minor version of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer leading to Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride at [P].  At [R], we hear Here We Come a Caroling pushing forward to Tchaikovsky’s dance from The Nutcracker Suite, a snippet of Deck the Hall to the end.

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Act IV

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” is a traditional English Christmas carol, listed as numbers 230 and 9681 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The famous version of the carol is from the English West Country, but the song had previously been performed by carolers, wassailers and mummers in the nineteenth century, with a variety of tunes and lyrics. The Bristol-based composer, conductor and organist Arthur Warrell (1883-1939) is responsible for the popularity of the carol. Warrell, a lecturer at the University of Bristol from 1909, arranged the tune for his own University of Bristol Madrigal Singers as an elaborate four-part arrangement, which he performed with them in concert on December 6, 1935 and had published by Oxford University Press under the title “A Merry Christmas: West Country traditional song” the same year. Warrell’s arrangement is notable for using “I” instead of “we” in the words; the first line is “I wish you a Merry Christmas”. It was subsequently republished in the collection Carols for Choirs (1961), and remains widely performed. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Wish_You_a_Merry_Christmas)

An Irving Berlin Christmas

Perhaps no other songwriter had so much influence on the development and performance of American popular song as Irving Berlin. Arranger Warren Barker put together three of Berlin’s most popular holiday selections for this medley from the motion picture “Holiday Inn.”  This 1942 picture featured actors Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as a popular nightclub song-and-dance team.  When his heart is broken by his girlfriend, Crosby decides to retire from the hustle-bustle of big city showbiz by purchasing a rustic New England farm which he converts to an inn. Of course the inn is opened to the public (floor shoes and al) only on holidays.

Barker features Berlin’s Happy Holidays, White Christmas, and Let’s Start the New Year Right.

 

 

 

Happy Xmas (War is Over)

“Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” is a Christmas song released in 1971 as a single by John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. It was the seventh single release by Lennon outside his

work with the Beatles. The song reached number four in the UK, where its release was delayed until November 1972, and has periodically reemerged on the UK Singles Chart, most notably after Lennon’s death in December 1980, when it peaked at number two. In a UK-wide poll in December 2012, it was voted tenth on the ITV television special The Nation’s Favorite Christmas Song.  Also a protest song against the Vietnam War, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” has since become a Christmas standard, frequently recorded by other artists, appearing on compilation albums of seasonal music, and named in polls as a holiday favorite. 

Nessun Dorma (from Turandot)

Giacomo Puccini has been called the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi. While his early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera, he successfully developed his work in the ‘realistic’ verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. In his sixties, Giacomo Puccini decided to “strike out on new paths.” The result was Turandot, a fantastic tale from the eighteenth century set in a mythical China. But Puccini never felt at ease with the plot: “My life is a torture because I fail to see in this opera all the throbbing life and power which are necessary in a work for the theater if it is to endure,” he wrote in desperation. He agonized over the opera for four years, finally dying of throat cancer before he finished the last scene.

To avenge the rape and death of a distant ancestress, the Chinese princess Turandot challenges her suitors with three riddles and, if they fail to answer them correctly, has them beheaded. Prince Calaf has just seen Turandot on the ramparts of the palace and is instantly bewitched by her beauty. He beats Turandot at her own game. For many of the arias and ensembles, Puccini used authentic Chinese melodies. Calaf has now challenged her to discover his true name, agreeing to sacrifice his life if she fails.  Turandot orders the citizens of Peking to uncover Calaf’s disguise, while he muses about the sleepless citizens, anticipating his ultimate victory over Turandot, but not before Liu, his slave who adores him, sacrifices her life in the face of torture.[1]

[1] http://www.williamsburgsymphonia.org/documents/2011MW4.pdf

Daniel Doty is a tenor who is equally at home on the opera, theatre or concert stage. He has appeared with the symphonies in Akron (OH), Mansfield (OH), Muncie (IN), Urbana (IL), Marion (OH), and

community bands in Medina and Wadsworth (OH). Performances have found him in a variety of settings from church sanctuaries to concert halls, and at such locations as the Celle di Puccini (Puccini summer home) and Severance Hall. In Akron, Daniel has appeared on the stage of Weathervane Playhouse as King Kaspar in “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” As participant of the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Daniel spent six weeks in the Tuscan village of Lucca (Italy) singing operatic arias at various venues associated with Lucca’s most famous son, Giacomo Puccini. Mr. Doty has appeared in Master Classes with such Metropolitan Opera stars as Martina Arroyo and Angela Brown. A past Guest Artist with the Masterworks Festival, Daniel worked with David Geier, Assistant Conductor for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Doty holds a Bachelor of Music Education Degree from Bowling Green State University. He is also an ordained minister and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL. Currently Daniel is Senior Minister at The Bath Church, United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio, Mr. Doty lives in Wadsworth with his wife Amy and is the proud father of Kristian, Sean, and Kaetlyn Doty.  Daniel’s most recent Cleveland area performances were as Spoletta in Tosca with Cleveland Opera Theatre and Beadle Bamford in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with KSU Opera Theatre. In May of 2017 Daniel made his Carnegie Hall debut singing the “Hostias” solo with the Hudson Festival Orchestra and Choir in the Fauré Requiem.

Hallelujah! (from Messiah)

Messiah, the most famous oratorio ever written, is quite unlike Handel’s other ones, let alone those by most earlier and later composers. A German who initially made his fame writing Italian operas for English audiences, Handel found in the 1730s that the public wanted something new and more understandable. After composing some three dozen Italian operas, works of great musical brilliance but often dramatically inert and set to mediocre librettos, he shifted his energies to creating what are in essence sacred English operas. The performance venues in which Handel’s oratorios were originally presented, the performers who participated, and the audiences that attended were pretty much the same as those previously connected with his operas. It was a natural shift for Handel, a man of the theater. (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6588044)

Handel composed Messiah without getting much sleep or even eating much food. When his assistants brought him his meals, they were often left uneaten. His servants would often find him in tears as he composed. When he completed “Hallelujah,” he reportedly told his servant, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself seated on His throne, with His company of Angels.” Although the first performance in Dublin on April 13, 1742, was a huge success, Messiah wasn’t met with the same excitement in London the following season. Six scheduled performances were cancelled by Handel in 1743, Messiah was completely removed from the 1744 schedule, and it wasn’t performed in London until 1749. (https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/articles/history-of-handels-hallelujah-chorus.html)

 

 

 

 

God Be With You Till We Meet Again

We all say the familiar, “goodbye,” so often that we may not realize we are using a shortened form of the phrase, “God be with you.” Dr. J.E. Rankin, then a pastor in Washington, D.C., thought it too bad that we should lose the really beautiful meaning underlying the simple words. His melodious song, “God Be with You,” was wrought out of this idea to form a Christian benediction hymn. When Dr. Rankin had finished the poem he sent it to Mr. W.G. Tomer, a composer whose melodies had already pleased him. The music Mr. Tomer composed for “God Be with You” is an excellent setting for the words, and contributes greatly to the hymn’s popularity. It is like some of the Negro spirituals in that one phrase of melody is repeated, and enlarged upon, come back to several times. The tune is subdues at first, suggestive of the sadness of farewell, yet in the refrain it breaks into strains that have the uplift of bright hope. The hymn was first sung in Dr. Rankin’s own church. the First Congregational Church of Washington, D.C., and very soon became the favorite closing hymn of young people in the Christian Endeavor Society. It has been translated into many other languages, and sung by Christian Endeavor Societies all over the world. Writing concerning this use of the hymn, Dr. Rankin said: “It has had no sweeter recognition than that given it by its adoption by the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor. Long, long, may they sing it!”

A few years before his death, when the late President Theodore Roosevelt was making a farewell visit in Memphis, Tenn., a great audience of three thousand people sang in his honor the well-loved strain, “God be with you till we meet again.”  Dr. Rankin was a man of unusual gifts. After serving as a pastor for many years, he became president of Howard University, Washington, D.C., an institution founded to help in the higher education of blacks. Not many of our hymns have been written by college presidents! No happier farewell can be made than by the simple benediction, “God be with you till we meet again.” When Mr. Tomer. the composer of the beautiful melody died, “God Be With You” was sung at his funeral as a memorial by the chorus of his church, the Methodist Church of Phillipsburg, N.J. (http://plymouthbrethren.org/article/10394)

Jeremiah Eames Rankin (January 2, 1828 – November 28, 1904) was an abolitionist, champion of the temperance movement, minister of Washington D.C.’s First Congregational Church, and correspondent with Frederick Douglass. In 1890 he was appointed sixth president of Howard University in Washington, D.C. Howard’s Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel was built during Jeremiah Rankin’s tenure as president (1890–1903) and named after his brother. Rankin is best known as author of the hymns “God Be with You ‘Til we Meet Again” and “Tell It to Jesus”. In 1903 Rankin published a fictional journal of Esther Burr (Jonathan Edwards’s daughter and mother of the third vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr).

 

 

 

 

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