Program Notes

Star Spangled Banner

John Smith 1750-1836/Francis Key 1779-1843
In 1814, during the War of 1812, American journalist Francis Scott Key was held aboard a British ship in Baltimore Harbor. As the British navy bombarded Fort McHenry in an effort to land troops and capture Washington, D.C., Key watched anxiously through the night.

When morning came, he saw that the fort had not fallen and the American flag was still flying. In that moment, Key recognized something powerful: a symbol of resilience and independence. Inspired, he captured that feeling in a poem.

Following the custom of the time, folks said, “Let’s make a song of this”. His words were set to the melody of a well-known drinking tune, To Anacreon in Heaven, creating an energetic tribute to American bravery and independence. The Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the national anthem of the United States in 1931.

"Somewhere" from West Side Story

Leonard Bernstein 1918-1990
In 1957, Leonard Bernstein, the foremost advocate for classical music in America, teamed up with the 25 year old Stephen Sondheim to create West Side Story. The result was a masterpiece of American musical theater on Broadway and later two outstanding movie renditions were produced. The love story is loosely based on “Romeo and Juliet”, but the underlying American element is the struggles of immigrants to assimilate into their new lives.

The lyrics are not part of the direct narrative of the action, but a vision of what could be… “Somewhere there is a place for us, peace and quiet and open air wait for us.” has been, and still is, the dream of American immigrants for hundreds of years.

Appalachian Spring Suite

Aaron Copland 1900-1990
Aaron Copland is America’s most prominent classical composer. Born to Jewish immigrants and raised in New York City, Aaron showed a great interest in the musical life that surrounded him. Concerts, Musicals and the live performances in Tin Pan Alley drew him like a moth to flames. In his early twenties, his interest was composition and he elevated his training by moving to Paris, the cutting edge for modern composers. Copland came of age at a time of musical experimentation. All the older styles were falling into disfavor and Paris was filled with young composers who all claimed they were creating the new concert music. The variety was exciting for young Copland and many of his early compositions reflect the “search for the new style”.

Upon returning to America, he was not satisfied with the audience response to the new European styles, so he began to search for a unique “American” sound for our concert halls. Beginning in the late 30’s, he found it. There is a distinctive sound to Copland’s major works - an energetic rhythm that reflects the frontier Hoe Down, the folk songs of the American East. These, combined with an ability to orchestrate vivid pictures of everyday American life, became the “Copland Style”-a style that influenced many composers, including some on the program tonight. Appalachian Spring is probably his most performed work.

Premiered in 1944, the ballet’s story is the American story. It is not about great events, statues, or notable figures. Instead, the plot follows a young couple, full of hope for the future, as they build a new home on the frontier. Struggles and an unavoidable reality of life, are overcome through the couple’s resilience, vision of the future, and love for each other. This is the promise that America has always held for new starts. Appropriately, after all the work, the struggle, and the beauty, the piece ends with the development of a folk hymn from the Shaker Community, Simple Gifts. As a symbol, the tune is stated in an opening clarinet solo, but like our lives, the treatment grows in complexity and energy while never losing its core starting point.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free

’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be

And when we find ourselves in the place just right

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Andante Moderato

Florence Price 1887-1953
A contemporary of William Grant Still, Aaron Copland, and so many other American composers, Florence Price’s personal story is filled with “firsts”. As an African American woman from Little Rock, Arkansas, her struggles to overcome prejudices against her race and gender reminds us all how resilience and courage is needed to build our lives. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music (where she told them she was of Hispanic descent from New Mexico to be able to get in), Florence came to prominence on the national scene by winning a nationwide contest when she submitted both her Symphony In E Minor and Piano Sonata for consideration. The prize, awarded in 1932, had her win the first prize for her symphony and third prize for her Piano Sonata. While the $500 dollar prize money was very nice during the Great Depression, it was the performance of her works by the Chicago Symphony that gave her a national platform. Like Still, the Symphony was featured prominently in American concert halls for the next twenty years. Price settled in Chicago where she taught, composed and performed the rest of her life.

Andante Moderato is the second movement from her String Quartet in G Major. The melody is reminiscent of a folk or popular tune and the entire movement is so relaxing and tranquil, the listener cannot help but let the cares of the world slip away in the beauty of her writing.

Rhapsody No. 2: Discovery of Peace

Logan Hadlock 2007-present
Tonight we are going to premiere a new piece by local musician, Logan Hadlock. Hadlock is a well known youth percussionist and musician in St. George specializing in percussion, drums, and keyboards. Hadlock made sure to attend every possible Honor Band, festival, or local performance group across all genres. From the back row, in between diligently counting hundreds of rests at a time and watching the podium, Hadlock paid just as much attention to the composer as he did the conductor. Combining his music awareness picked up from piano, and the music literacy picked up from percussion, he started the composition journey. While some songs have been in his head or strictly on the keys since he was 8 years old, he has recently released two albums under his name, and his first written and performed piece was "Redemption" (Percussion Ensemble) which Desert Hills High School premiered in 2024. Hadlock has trained with the United States Army, graduating from the Army School of Music. Upon completion of his LDS Mission he will be stationed with the 23rd Army Band.

From the composer: "The piece was started purely for the sake of writing interesting music. I began experimenting with interesting ideas on piano and began to plot out orchestration. I started the piece before I left for Basic Training and honestly wasn't quite sure what would happen with it. It wasn't until I returned home that I even began the other themes present in the work. The brave start, the chaotic middle, the uncomfortable pauses, and the slow glide down where things are uneasy, but calm may be a reflection of my Basic Training. In a general sense, that's what training felt like. The emotions of 'tolerable uncertainty' and the mental fortitude required to search for peace even in places one wouldn't expect to find it. The quest is taxing, busy, and sometimes long, but ultimately, life will always resolve, just as the music does in the end.”

The Stars and Stripes Forever

John Philip Sousa 1854-1932 - Orch. Leopold Stokowski 1882-1977
John Philip Sousa is one of America’s great gifts to the world. His family immigrated from Portugal by way of Spain, and his father became a trombonist in the Marine Band in Washington, D.C. Sousa’s father arranged an apprenticeship by enlisting John Philip in the Marine Corps at the age of 13.

Sousa was surrounded by a full schedule of performance and composition with the Marine Band. In 1880, he became its director and led it for the next 12 years, establishing the Marine Band as “The President’s Own.” After leaving the Marines, he formed his own professional touring band. He conducted until the end of his life, dying the day after leading a performance of The Stars and Stripes Forever in New York City.

By the time he wrote The Stars and Stripes Forever, Sousa was world-renowned. While returning from a European tour in 1896, musical ideas for the march came to him. This most American of marches premiered in 1897 and has symbolized the nation’s exuberant energy ever since. In 1987, Congress designated it as the official march of the United States and no patriotic celebration feels complete without it.

Although originally written for a wind band, the piece has been arranged for many different ensembles, and Sousa even wrote lyrics for it. This arrangement by Leopold Stokowski, widely associated with American orchestral music through his work on Fantasia, was premiered in 1960. Listen carefully for the “outchorus,” the final section of the march. It serves as a showpiece for the brass and, most famously, for the piccolo.

Suite from The Magnificent Seven

Elmer Bernstein 1922-2004
Elmer Bernstein had the nickname of Bernstein West to distinguish him from his good friend, Leonard Bernstein, who was Bernstein East. Elmer is best known as a composer of film scores.

As a child, Bernstein showed interest in acting, painting, and writing, but his musical talent stood out and became the focus of his education. Early in his career, he studied with Aaron Copland in New York City and began working professionally as a performer, arranger, and composer.

During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps. Instead of flying combat missions, he composed music for War Department films. After the war, he moved to Hollywood, which led to the nickname “Bernstein West.”

At one point he was “greylisted” during the McCarthy Era and was temporarily limited to composing scores for low-budget science fiction films which have now become cult classics.

When this period of suspicion ended, Bernstein returned to major projects and achieved great success. Over his career, he received 14 Academy Award nominations for his film scores, and two of his works are often listed AFI as the greatest in film history: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Magnificent Seven.

The theme from the 1960 Western, The Magnificent Seven, is instantly recognizable. Bold, energetic, and heroic, it has become a lasting part of American cultural tradition.

"Summertime" from Porgy and Bess

George Gershwin 1898-1937
George Gerswhin is yet another American gift to the musical world. Prolific during his short life, he gave us music for the concert hall, the night club, live musicals, and Hollywood classics. Gershwin, with his formal training, was also fascinated with American folk and popular music. Like many other musicians, he began in New York's live music scene in Tin Pan alley, where he incorporated a universe of musical styles.

From 1933-35 Gershwin collaborated with novelist DuBose Heyward (1925-Porgy), to create what Gerswhin called a “folk opera”, Porgy and Bess. Set within an African American community in the deep south, Gershwin wanted to reflect the musical idioms of both spirituals and the blues.

Summertime is a lullaby in the blues style. From 1936, when Billie Holiday recorded it, Summertime went on to be the most recorded song in history.

“Animato” from Afro-American Symphony

William Grant Still 1895-1978
William Grant Still is a trailblazer in American concert music. As an African American, he claims many “Firsts”. A graduate of Oberlin Musical Conservatory, his music incorporated the classical training he received and his African American roots in jazz, spirituals, and blues. Raised in Little Rock, the same hometown as Florence Price, he was the first American composer to have an Opera produced by the New York City Opera and have a symphony premiered by a major American symphony orchestra. That work was his Afro-American Symphony, of which we are featuring the Third Movement, “Humor”, or Animato.

Premiered by the Rochester Philharmonic in 1931, his symphony was an instant success and was the most performed American classical piece until 1950. The “Animato” movement is filled with fun energy, and from the first measures, it may sound vaguely familiar. You may know the Gershwin tune, “I Got Rhythm" and you can hear its opening note progression in Still’s Animato. The story goes that Still was playing oboe in the pit orchestra for the all-black musical, Shuffle Along in the 1920s. Still played this improvised line as part of the performances-performances that Gershwin attended several times. In 1930, Gershwin composed the Broadway musical, Girl Crazy, premiering his song, I Got Rhythm. No one knows for sure whether Gershwin intentionally took Still’s musical idea, and Still remained stoic about it-but in the following year incorporated the same riff in this movement.

Early Light

Carolyn Bremer 1957-2018
Carolyn Bremer was a prominent contemporary American performer, educator, and composer. Her music reflects a variety of styles and is accessible to the listening audience.

Early Light is a nostalgia piece, reflecting her love of baseball as a child. Filled with energy from the beginning, imagine the trip to the park, the stadium filling up, the cry of “Popcorn, hotdogs” on a sunny afternoon, and then, The Star Spangled Banner has the crowd standing to sing, followed by “Play Ball!”. If we listen, we are back at our first ballgame. Wait for the slap near the end of the piece as the homerun ball brings the crowd to its feet. We can’t get more American than a baseball game!

America the Beautiful

Samuel A. Ward 1848-1903
After an 1893 trip to the top of Colorado’s Pike’s Peak, poet Katherine Lee Bates put into words the awe and wonder she experienced. From over 14,000 feet, the expanse opened up in every direction and the overwhelming feelings of both love and connection lead to Bates’s poem, America, The Beautiful, published in 1895. As with several other program pieces, the poem was set to an existing and well-known hymn tune, Moterna by organist Samuel A. Ward. The tune and poem met up and were published as the song we know today in 1910.

Tonight we are sharing Phillip Rothman’s stirring arrangement from 2014.

Olympic Fanfare and Theme

John Williams 1932-
For those of us who remember watching the Olympics on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, the games were long associated with Leo Arnaud’s Bugler’s Dream, a piece commissioned in 1958. Over time, the music and the Olympic Games became closely linked in the minds of viewers.

That connection continued until the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. For that event, the Olympic Organizing Committee commissioned John Williams, widely considered one of America’s greatest film composers, to create a new work titled Olympic Fanfare and Theme.

Williams explained that the fanfare was meant to represent “the human spirit stretching to prove itself.” From its very first measure, Olympic Fanfare and Theme captures the heroic spirit found in both Romantic and contemporary musical traditions. It stirs the heart and gives sound to confidence itself. It is his sound we now all associate with the Olympics.

Battle Hymn of the Republic

William Steffe 1830-1890
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, with lyrics by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, was written to give moral urgency to the idea of freedom during the difficult years of the American Civil War. She reminds us that freedom is not just a political idea, but a divine one, and that it must be defended by each generation.

The tune itself has much older roots. It began as a folk hymn from the early 1700s, Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us, and later known as Glory Hallelujah. The melody spread through revival camps for over a century before being formally anthologized by William Steffe.

During the Civil War, the tune took on new meaning when it became associated with the Southern defiance song, John Brown’s Body. Howe used that same melody to write new, opposing lyrics, reminding us that our country is dedicated to eternal freedom.

This arrangement was written by Carmen Dragon (1914–1984), an important American orchestral figure who worked extensively in radio and later helped shape performances at the Hollywood Bowl.