Concert Series

The remainder of this year's concerts will be online only. We hope to see you in person again in 2021.

Sunday 25 October, 2:30pm

Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra

Luke Dollman conductor
Bailey Coates clarinet*
Dustan Cox saxophone**

Copland An Outdoor Overture
Connor Fogarty Clarinet Concerto* (New Work)
Miles Daves arr. Gil Evans Sketches of Spain**

Inspired by Rodrigo’s iconic Concierto de Aranjuez, Miles Davis’ and Gil Evan’s masterful work Sketches of Spain takes centre stage in this program celebrating the evocative sounds of the wind orchestra. Honours composition student Connor Foggarty’s clarinet concerto receives its world premiere and the musical scenes of awe, curiosity, and exploration in Copland’s An Outdoor Overture will take you on an adventure from the comfort of your living room.

Friday 30 October, 1:10pm

Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra

Luke Dollman conductor
Maria Zhdanovich flute*

Lukas Foss Renaissance Concerto*
Aaron Pelle New work
Schubert Symphony No. 3

Old and new collide in Lukas Foss’ Renaissance Concerto for flute and orchestra – the composer describing the 1985 work as “a handshake across centuries”. The program also includes a new work by Masters student Aaron Pelle and finishes with Schubert’s delightfully youthful third symphony.

'Sketches of Spain'

Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra
Luke Dollman conductor
Bailey Coates clarinet*
Dustan Cox saxophone**

Program

An Outdoor Overture                                                                      Copland

Three Preludes                                                                           Gershwin

Clarinet Concerto (premiere)*                                          Connor Fogarty

I; II; III

- Short interval -

Sketches of Spain**                                            Miles Davis arr. Gil Evans

I. Concierto de Aranjuez; II. Will O’ the Wisp; III. The Pan Piper; IV. Saeta; V. Solea

An Outdoor Overture                                                           Aaron Copland

The premiere performances of An Outdoor Overture were conducted by Alexander Richter on December 16 and 17, 1938 with his school orchestra. The score is dedicated to the High School of Music and Art. The piece starts in a large and grandiose manner with a theme that is immediately developed as a long solo for the trumpet with a string pizzicato accompaniment. Shortly afterwards, these same repeated notes, played broadly, give us a second, snappy march-like theme developed in canon form. There is an abrupt pause, a sudden decrescendo, and the third, lyric theme appears, first in the flute, then in the clarinet, and finally, high up in the strings. Repeated notes on the bassoon seem to lead the piece in the direction of the opening Allegro. Instead, a fourth and final theme evolves — another march theme, but this time less snappy, and with more serious implications. A short bridge section based on a steady rhythm brings a condensed recapitulation of the Allegro section. At a climactic moment, all the themes are combined. A brief coda ends the work on the grandiose note of the beginning.

Three Preludes                                                               George Gershwin

Gershwin’s three preludes were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in 1926. Each prelude is a well-known example of early-20th-century American classical music, as influenced by jazz. Gershwin originally planned to compose 24 preludes for this group of works. The number was reduced to seven in manuscript form, and then reduced to five in public performance, and further decreased to three when first published in 1926. Two of the remaining preludes not published were rearranged for solo violin and piano and published as Short Story. Gershwin dedicated his Preludes to friend and musical advisor Bill Daly. The pieces have been arranged for solo instruments, small ensembles, and piano.

Clarinet Concerto                                                              Connor Fogarty

I discovered the main theme of the concerto’s first movement as I was rummaging through old sketches buried deep on the hard drive of my computer. It is built around a series of distantly related minor chords, creating an unsettled, haunting atmosphere. The theme is first heard in the solo clarinet after a dissonant outburst from the full wind orchestra. It is then developed throughout the first movement by both the soloist and the orchestra, taking on many different moods and guises, but is never satisfactorily resolved. The movement ends darkly in D minor.

The beginning of the second movement brightens the tone of the piece. It is a lively dance with an emphasis on major sonorities. However, the minor theme from the previous movement often seeps through the cracks, trying to unsettle this newfound jollity. There is a short, fanfare-like section which moves to a seemingly triumphant new theme. However, this triumph is false, as the new melody is simply an inversion of the original theme from the previous movement. It slowly starts to fall apart but regathers its strength for one last triumphant exclamation in the full orchestra. However, this cannot be sustained, and the music quickly devolves into a minor version of the previous fanfare motif. The second half of this movement is heralded by a duet between the solo clarinet and a woodblock. It is consistently dissonant and rhythmically unsettled, with much of the melodic and harmonic material built around a combination of tritone and minor second intervals.

There is no break between the second and final movement. The tempo is slow and material from the first movement returns. The original clarinet motif finally receives its resolution, and the work ends peacefully in D major.

The Concerto for Clarinet and Wind Orchestra obviously follows some sort of narrative structure. However, in my mind, it is a purely musical one and I have made no attempt to describe extra-musical events. The most I can say is that there is a general dichotomy between light and dark, and an unsettling sense that neither are always what they seem.

© Connor Fogarty

Sketches of Spain                                                                Miles Davis

The uniquely creative collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans has already resulted in two extraordinarily evocative Columbia albums, Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess. Of the former, British critic Max Harrison wrote: "These scores represent the full expression of Evans' powers. In elaboration and richness of resource they surpass anything previously attempted in big band jazz and constitute the only wholly original departure in that field outside of Ellington's work.”

Evans' draft for Sketches of Spain looked complex, but Miles seemed to have no difficulty improvising around it. The orchestra's function, as in other Evans' scores, was to provide partly a support for and partly a commentary on Davis' solo statements. The range of colors was extensive, and they change often, sometimes subtly dissolving into slightly different shades and at other times breaking sharply from ominous cool to brighter blends. By means of more complete instrumentation and varied voicings, Evans gets an unusually full-bodied orchestral sound for jazz from the deep bottoms of the tuba and French horns to high register woodwinds and brass.

Connor Fogarty graduated with distinction from the Bachelor of Creative Arts (Music) degree at the University of Southern Queensland in 2018, where he was tutored in composition by Professor Rhoderick McNeill. He moved to Adelaide in 2019 to study Honours in Composition at the Elder Conservatorium under the supervision of Professor Graeme Koehne and Professor Charles Bodman Rae. Connor has written works for solo piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra. Two of his orchestral works have been performed, and a set of his piano miniatures have been recorded. In 2018 he composed the score for the feature length film, The Unquiet, and was a commissioned artist in the Toowoomba Empire Theatre’s Brief Encounters project. Connor composes in an expanded tonal idiom.

Bailey Coates is a second-year classical performance (advanced) student at the Elder Conservatorium of music studying clarinet under the tutelage of Dean Newcomb. Throughout this time, he has participated in the Adelaide Youth Orchestra (2018), Australian Youth Orchestra music camp(2020), ASO big rehearsal masters, performed in Evan Ziporyn’s take on David Bowie’s Blackstar for the Adelaide Fringe Festival (2019) and at the Adelaide premier of Steve Reich’s music for 18 musicians(2020). Bailey has also participated in many masterclasses with professional clarinettists Peter Handsworth, Janet Hilton, Nuno Silva, Andrew Simon, and Lorenzo Antonio Losco. Currently he is a member of the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, the Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra and various chamber groups.

Dustan Cox is lecturer in Saxophone and the former Head of Jazz at the Elder Conservatorium, the University of Adelaide. He holds a Master of Music in Classical Saxophone Performance from the University of Northern Colorado (USA).  While there as a graduate teaching assistant in the Jazz Studies Department, Dusty was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1993, for ‘Best Instrumental Jazz Solo’. He also was a five-time “DB” Student Music Award winner from Downbeat jazz (USA) magazine’s annual ‘Student Music Awards’, including three awards for his individual playing and two for his small ensembles. He also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies from St. Cloud State University (Minnesota, USA).  Dusty was previously a member of the jazz studies staff at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, in Durban, South Africa, where he performed with Professor Darius Brubeck’s quintet.  He received an award from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Adelaide in both 2011 and 2012 for the best ‘Outstanding Student Feedback in Learning and Teaching’. He has appeared in concert and/or as a support act with the Brecker Brothers, Mark Levine, Joe Henderson, Stanley Jordan, John Lee Hooker, Prince, Bob Mintzer, Jim Pugh, Ray Vega and many others. Dusty endorses P. Mauriat saxophones and Legere saxophone reeds.