VIOLINS OF HOPE

Copland’s Fanfare Buy Saturday May 30 7:30 PM Buy Sunday May 31 3:00 PM Winston-Salem Symphony Winston-Salem Symphony Chorus Jaki Shelton Green Narrator Michelle Merrill Conductor Chris Gilliam Chorus Director Conor Brown How to Relax with Origami Dan Locklair SINCE DAWN Aaron Copland Symphony No. 3 Read program notes and hear audio clips. Conor Brown’s quirky How to Relax with Origami folds numerous, varied miniatures into a brief opening work. Winston-Salem composer Dan Locklair pairs poetry by Maya Angelou—narrated here by NC poet laureate Jaki Shelton Green— with a large orchestra and chorus. Copland’s enormous Symphony No. 3 celebrates the contributions of everyday, hard-working people and its familiar melody (“Fanfare for the Common Man”) makes for a stunning conclusion to the season and a remarkable fête for America 250. THE PAULINE TURNER DOUGHTON LEAD CHORUS SPONSORSHIP Single tickets to this event go on sale June 2, but you can save your seat with a subscription! Subscribe now. Saturday May 30 7:30 PM Sunday May 31 3:00 PM Pre-Concert Talk Saturday at 6:30 PM | Sunday at 2:00 PM All audience members are invited to join us in the Judy Voss Jones Fine Arts Center, directly behind Reynolds Auditorium on its west side, for a lively discussion about the music and surrounding context. Wake Forest University emeritus professor of music Dr. David Levy is your guide—pre-concert talks are free to attend, and occur one hour before any Classics Series concert. Venue Reynolds Auditorium 301 N. Hawthorne Rd. Winston-Salem, NC 27104 Directions & Parking Rideshare and Dining What will my view be like? While Reynolds Auditorium’s sightlines and sound are best enjoyed in the Mezzanine, Orchestra-level seating also offers superb viewing and sound, especially in rows F through O. Please bear in mind that Reynolds Auditorium is a historic venue; there is no elevator, thus the Mezzanine and Balcony levels are only accessed via stairs. Accessible seating is available on the Orchestra level at the rear of the house and along the outside left and right. Program Notes by Dr. David Levy Conor Abbott Brown: How to Relax with Origami American clarinetist, composer, synth programmer, orchestrator, and producer Conor Abbott Brown was born in Boulder, CO in 1988. This polymath musician holds degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder (DMA and MM in Music Composition), Bard College (BA in Dance), and the Bard College Conservatory of Music (BM in Music Composition). Conor’s compositions, described as “creatively wrought” and “zesty” by The New York Times and noted for their “sharp humor” by The Aspen Times, have been performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and others. How to Relax with Origami was composed in 2017 and received its premiere with Leonard Slatkin leading the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in that same year. The work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon (doubling 3rd bassoon), 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, large percussion group (including unusual instruments such as police whistle, clown horns, and hammer), harp, piano, celesta, strings. Luke Howard at Brigham Young University has kindly provided the following based on conversations with Conor Brown: How to Relax with Origami, a series of eight orchestral vignettes, was conceived in response to the changing socio-political landscape in early 2017. When the work was premiered by the Detroit Symphony later that year, the composer recalled, “I found myself in a grim mood at the confusion, callousness, and illogic of the new era. This is reflected directly in the structure of the piece, which consists of very short, internally-conflicted movements that interrelate only in tangential or fraught ways.” The work’s overall structure is, in Brown’s words, “the musical equivalent of folding origami out of the cartoons page of a newspaper,” highlighting the fragmentation and contradictory juxtapositions along with the synthetic forms that result. Some of the subtitles appended to the various movements also refer to the esoteric “muses” that inspired him to create music of binary polarities—high and low culture, the real and the imagined, violence and play—exploiting these emotional tensions. Brown also found some hope in the music of Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas who, he notes, “often contrasted dark satire and rapid-fire juxtaposition… with moments of sincerity, playfulness, and joy.” The first movement, “Ducks in a Walnut,” was inspired by daydreams of “a tiny, enclosed world populated only by ducks in outrageous costumes.” Latin-inflected rhythms drive this miniature world, framed by brief moments of piccolo-flavored cuteness. “Two-Party System,” the second movement, pits contradictory ideas against each other—one an asymmetrical kind of patriotic march, the other a sustained dissonance. In a perpetual Ivesian face-off, neither allows itself to be influenced by the other. “Tempest in a Star Box” is a play on the “storm in a teacup” metaphor, with an origami twist. Brown notes that while some have described the origami star box as “useful and cute,” this movement is neither. Four borrowed chords are a direct quote from the 1995 clarinet quintet Turning Points by Joan Tower, Brown’s teacher and mentor, and a powerful influence on his compositional development. While Brown was working on this piece, one of his colleagues of Mexican heritage was the victim of a racist hate crime. In solidarity, Brown chose to title some of the movements in Spanish. The fourth movement, “Ternura volcánica” (“Volcanic Tenderness”) employs a suitably oxymoronic phrase borrowed from Pablo Neruda’s poetic memorial to Silvestre Revueltas, and features a lonely, poignant clarinet solo mocked by a slide whistle at the conclusion. The title of the fifth movement, “Guepardos hacen el caballito,” has a somewhat less sentimental origin; it is the caption of one of Gary Larson’s celebrated Far Side cartoons, “Cheetah Wheelies,” translated into Spanish. Another daydream, this time eating a piece of the finest French washed-rind cheese, inspired the exceptionally brief and acerbic sixth movement, “Biting into Mold.” “The Last of the Snowmen” references an episode of the Cartoon Network’s animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog, as well an invoking the specter of global warming. The final movement, “Ojo de Ana Coluto,” is a multilayered pun. Literally, the “eye of Ana Coluto,” it anthropomorphizes (in Spanish) the grammatical construct known as “anacoluthon,” in which a sentence breaks off midpoint and pursues a conclusion with no logical relation to the opening. It is the exact term for the kind of internally-fraught constructs that have played out musically in each of the work’s prior movements as well. “I picture the word ‘anacoluthon’ incarnated as the Cosmic Judge of Cohesion,” Brown explains. “I imagine her gazing down upon me as I write this piece. Although I plead with her that it’s a celebration of free association, she still condemns the work to oblivion.” Program Note by David B. Levy/Luke Howard, ©2025 Dan Locklair: SINCE DAWN Award-winning composer, organist, and educator, Dan Locklair was born in Charlotte, NC on August 7, 1949. His musical education includes the Master of Sacred Music degree from the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His former teachers have included Joseph Goodman, Ezra Laderman, Samuel Adler and Joseph Schwantner (composition), as well as Donna Robertson, Robert Baker and David Craighead (organ). Dr. Locklair is Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music, Emeritus at Wake Forest University. His music is widely performed throughout the U.S. and the world. His catalog includes symphonic works, a ballet, an opera, solo, chamber, vocal and choral compositions. Outstanding musicians worldwide, including the Helsinki Philharmonic, the St. Louis Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, The Louisville Orchestra, the Elmer Iseler Singers of Canada, the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys (NYC) and the BBC Singers (UK) have performed Locklair’s music. Broadcasts of it have included National Public Radio (NPR), American Public Media (APM), Vatican Radio, Czech Radio, Finnish Radio, the BBC and the CBC. Recordings of his works are commercially available on numerous CD’s including Naxos, Koch, Ondine, Albany, MSR, Priory, Loft and Convivium (UK). Further details of recordings and publications may be found at http://www.locklair.com. Since Dawn was composed in 1995 for Wake Forest University’s Year of the Arts (1996-7). The work is based on Maya Angelou’s 1993 poem, “On the Pulse of Morning,” written and spoken at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993, was published the next year. Locklair’s setting is dedicated “to Maya Angelou and to all artists who, through their art, seek to make the world a better place.” Its first performance took place in Wait Chapel on September 28, 1996 with Dr. Angelou as Narrator, and Peter Perret conducting the Winston-Salem Symphony and the Wake Forest University Chorus. It is scored for 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, timpani, percussion, strings, narrator, and chorus. Dan Locklair has provided his own program notes for Since Dawn: “Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was the first poet since Robert Frost to be asked to create a poem for an American presidential inauguration. Her On the Pulse of Morning both challenged our nation and offered renewed hope as she read her poem at the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Although the poem was created to be a part of a national political function, the significance of the poem goes far beyond the event for which it was created. As all quality art should be able to do, the poem clearly stands on its own as a work of art as it addresses all of creation. I have long admired the many aspects of Maya Angelou’s creative work and I valued her both as a person and as a colleague at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. From the start of SINCE DAWN I was honored to have had Maya’s strong support and encouragement toward the creation of this, the first, musical setting of her On the Pulse of Morning. Dr. Angelou’s On the Pulse of Morning emanates from three key words that form the first line of her poem: “A Rock, A River, A Tree.” The ideas represented by these three poetic images are developed throughout the poem. In SINCE DAWN three musical ideas emerge, most often over a pulsating bass line, which correspond with each of the three poetic images: A gentle two-note, sixteenth/dotted-quarter fanfare idea (“A Rock”); a more lyrical and flowing melodic idea (“A River”); a rich and lush chordal idea (“A Tree”). As with the poem’s poetic ideas, the use and development of these three musical ideas are at the heart of the creation of SINCE DAWN. Except for the very final portion of SINCE DAWN, there is no textual repetition between the narrator (who functions as a true soloist) and the chorus (which, like the orchestra and the later two piano version, functions both alone and in a supportive, coloristic roles). Near its conclusion, Maya Angelou’s On the Pulse of Morning challenges us to: “Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For a new beginning.” It is my hope that all hearts that experience SINCE DAWN will be lifted and moved to new beginnings.” Program Note by David B. Levy/Dan Locklair, © 2025 Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3 Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, NY on November 14, 1900, and died in North Tarrytown, NY on December 2, 1990. In addition to his distinguished accomplishments as a composer, he was an important author on musical topics, as well as a gifted pianist and conductor. Furthermore, he was a mentor to at least two generations of important American composers. Copland, more than any composer in the 20th century, gave classical music a distinctly “American” voice. His Symphony no. 3 was first performed in Boston’s Symphony Hall on October 18, 1946 with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. The work is scored for 3 flutes (piccolo), 2 oboes (English horn), 2 clarinets (Eb and bass), 2 bassoons (contrabassoon), 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, piano, and strings. In his notes written for the premiere of his Third Symphony, Aaron Copland stated his concern that he had previously been “pigeon-holed” as a composer of symphonic jazz, a folklorist, and as a “purveyor of Americana.” This artistic self-consciousness explains, at least in part, why he chose to fulfill a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation with a “traditional” four-movement symphony. Copland’s two earlier efforts in the genre do not fit that description insofar as Symphony no. 1 (1924, rev. 1928) was originally conceived as a composition for organ and orchestra and thus leaned more toward a concerto than a true symphony. He named his Symphony no. 2 (1932-33) a Short Symphony and lasts only fifteen minutes. Copland was a great admirer of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich. This meant that the composition of a true full-length symphony was not an undertaking that he took lightly. Copland was also aware that Koussevitzky, who was slated to conduct the premiere of the work, had a strong preference for compositions written in the “grand manner.” The Third Symphony was dedicated “to the memory of my dear friend Natalie Koussevitzky,” the late wife of the conductor. Coincidentally, the English composer Benjamin Britten’s great opera, Peter Grimes, was the result of a commission from the Koussevitzky Foundation also was dedicated to her memory. The work’s first performance took place in Boston’s Symphony Hall on October 18, 1946, and was declared the winner of the New York Music Critics Circle Prize as the best orchestral composition by an American composer for that season. As chronicled by Alex Ross in his fine book, The Rest is Noise (Picador, 2007), the work’s approbation by the public was tainted by a vitriolic and politically-motivated attack on it by the critic/composer, Virgil Thomson. Thomson was very much opposed to the New Deal and Henry Wallace, and found in Copland’s Third Symphony too much sympathy with populism in the mode of the Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich. The composer wrote his own descriptive notes for the Third Symphony, which I give below: 1. Molto moderato: The opening movement, which is broad and expressive in character, opens and closes in the key of E Major. (Formally it bears no relation to the sonata-allegro with which symphonies usually begin.) The themes—three in number—are plainly stated: the first is in the strings, at the very start without introduction; the second in related mood in violas and oboes; the third, of a bolder nature, in the trombones and horns. The general form is that of an arch, in which the central portion is more animated, and the final section an extended coda, presenting a broadened version of the opening material. Both first and third themes are referred to again in later movements of the Symphony. 2. Allegro molto: The form of this movement stays closer to normal symphonic procedure. It is the usual scherzo, with first part, trio, and return. A brass introduction leads to the main theme, which is stated three times in Part 1: at first in horns and violas with continuation in clarinets, then in unison strings, and finally in augmentation in the lower brass. The three statements of the theme are separated by the usual episodes. After the climax is reached, the trio follows with pause. Solo woodwinds sing the new trio melody in lyrical and canonical style. The strings take it up, and add a new section of their own. The recapitulation of Part 1 is not literal. The principal theme of the scherzo returns in a somewhat disguised form in the solo piano, leading through previous episodic material to a full restatement in the tutti orchestra. This is climaxed by a return to the lyrical trio theme, this time sung in canon and in fortissimo by the entire orchestra. 3. Andantino quasi allegretto: The third movement is freest of all in formal structure. Although it is built up sectionally, the various sections are intended to emerge one from the other in continuous flow, somewhat in the manner of a closely-knit series of variations. The opening section, however, plays no role other than that of introducing the main body of the movement. High up in the unaccompanied first violins is heard a rhythmically transformed version of the third (trombone) theme of the first movement of the Symphony. It is briefly developed in contrapuntal style, and comes to a full close, once again in the key of E major. A new and more tonal theme is introduced in the solo flute. This is the melody that supplies the thematic substance for the sectional metamorphoses that follow: at first with quiet singing nostalgia; then faster and heavier—almost dance-like; then more child-like and naïve, and finally vigorous and forthright. Imperceptibly the whole movement drifts off into the higher regions of the strings, out of which floats the single line of the beginning, sung by a solo violin and piccolo, accompanied this time by harps and celesta. The third movement calls for no brass, with the exception of a single horn and trumpet. 4. Molto deliberato (Fanfare)—Allegro risoluto: The final movement follows without pause. It is the longest movement of the Symphony, and closest in structure to the customary sonata-allegro form. The opening fanfare is based on “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which I composed in 1942 at the invitation of Eugene Goossens for a series of wartime fanfares introduced under his direction by the Cincinnati Symphony. In the present version it is first played pianissimo by flutes and clarinets, and then suddenly given out by brass and percussion. The fanfare serves as preparation for the main body of the movement which follows. The components of the usual form are there: a first theme in animated sixteenth-note motion; a second theme—broader and more song-like in character; a full-blown development and a refashioned return to the earlier material of the movement, leading to a peroration. One curious feature of the movement consists in the fact that the second theme is to be found embedded in the development section instead of being in its customary place. The development, as such, concerns itself with the fanfare and the first theme fragments. A shrill tutti chord, with flutter-tongued brass and piccolos, brings the development to a close. What follows is not a recapitulation in the ordinary sense. Instead, a delicate interweaving of the first theme in the higher solo woodwinds is combined with a quiet version of the fanfare in the two bassoons. Combined with this, the opening theme of the first movement of the Symphony is quoted, first in the violins, and later in the solo trombone. Near the end a full-voiced chanting of the second song-like theme is heard in horns and trombones. The symphony concludes on a massive restatement of the opening phrase with which the entire work began. Program note by David B. Levy/Aaron Copland © 2012/2025 On Audio Locklair SINCE DAWN Winston-Salem Symphony | Wake Forest University Choirs Maya Angelou Narrator | Peter Perret Conductor September 1996 (world premiere) Copland Symphony No. 3 Winston-Salem Symphony | Robert Moody Conductor September 2012 Jaki Shelton Green Jaki Shelton Green, ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina appointed in 2018, is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. Some of her recognitions include North Carolina State University 2026 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, 2022 Forbes Magazine 50 Over 50 Lifestyle List, 2021 UNC Chapel Hill Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence, 2021 recipient of the George School Outstanding Alumni Award, 2020 Kathryn H. Wallace Award for Community Service, 2020 St. Andrews University Ethel Fortner Award, 2020 Northern Orange County Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Achievement Award, 2020 Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award, 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureates Fellow, 2019 North Carolina Humanities Council Caldwell Award, 2019 Woman of Distinction Excellence in Humanities Award, 2014 Induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, 2009 North Carolina Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green recently retired as professor of documentary poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies. Her publications include Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, and breath of the song, published by Blair Publishers. Feeding the Light, i want to undie you, The Communion of White Dresses published by Jacar Press, and i want to undie you, English /Italian bilingual edition published by Lebeg Publishers of Rome Italy. Juneteenth 2020, she released her first LP poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, produced by Soul City Sounds and Clearly Records and released a CD, i want to undie you in 2021. Jaki Shelton Green is the owner of SistaWRITE providing writing retreats for women writers in across the United States, Northern Morocco, the Loire valley in France, and Ireland. She has been involved with numerous public art collaborations and projects including the NC Freedom Park, Dix Park Conservancy, City of Asheville Riverwalk Project, Mint Museum of Charlotte, North Carolina African American Heritage Commission Africa to Carolina public art installation. Her poetry has been commissioned, performed, choreographed, and translated into symphonies, film, and paintings by visual artists, dance companies, and musicians including Flutronix, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, The North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, The Art Project of Chicago, The New York City Girls Choir, Wichita Falls Texas Symphony, Lexington Kentucky Philharmonic Orchestra, Duke University Black Music Lab Project, the Miami City Ballet, the Justice Project Theater, Murmurations Dance Company, Choreodance Company, Elon University Dance Department, Chuck Davis African American Dance Company at the Kennedy Center, DancaNova at Naropa Institute, Two Near the Edge Dance Company, North Carolina State University Dance Department, North Carolina Central University Dance Department, North Carolina State University Craft Center, Gregg Museum of Art and Design, and Theatre Charlotte. Other collaborations include 2026 Artist in Residence at the Durham NC Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Moroccan Ministry of Education, the History Museum of Charlotte, the Blowing Rock Arts and History Museum, Poet Laureate in Residence at the North Carolina Museum of Art (2021-2024), poetry editor for WALTER Magazine. |