Whidbey Island’s only professional orchestra joyfully brings great music to our island audiences and offer educational opportunities to our youth and adults alike. Please consider a donation to help us continue our mission.
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Program to include:
Poetry and Prose by members of The Four Voices
Dianne Shiner, Dallas Huth, Janice O'Mahoney and Faith Wilder
Earthscape - David Marlatt
Flugelhorn: Gordon Ullmann, Alto Sax: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Trombones: Larry Heidel, Josh Stout, Sadie Stout
Keyboards: Rumi Drumeva & Nancy Blaire
Percussion: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen
In the silent, black vacuum of space exists this bright blue planet, slowly rotating,
giving astronauts a serene and breathtaking view of the only source of life in our solar system.
Ocean Sketches - Brent Mazan
I. Ocean Floor, ll. Ocean Rift
Steel Drum: Erica Montgomery
Ocean Sketches is a three-movement work for solo tenor pan in which each movement captures an image of the ocean. The first image, Ocean Floor, is simple but fast-paced, and seeks to capture the activity of wildlife in the shallows just off the shore. The second image, Ocean Rift, seeks to display the expansiveness, darkness, and emptiness of the deepest parts of the ocean. Brent Mazan is a 2017 graduate of University of Oklahoma and Founder/Director of BSM Drums, LLC.
In a Treeless Place only Snow - John Luther Adams
Conductor: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Vibraphone: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen
Keyboard: Rumi Drumeva, Nancy Blaire
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
White is not the absence of colour.
It is the fullness of light.
Silence is not the absence of sound.
It is the presence of stillness.
As the Inuit have known for centuries, and as painters from Malevich to Ryman have shown us more recently, whiteness embraces many hues, textures and nuances. As John Cage reminded us, silence does not literally exist. Still, in a worlds going deaf with human noise, silence endures as a deep and resonant metaphor. In his Poetics of Music, Stravinsky speaks of music as a form of philosophical speculation. But music can also be a form of contemplation: the sensual reaching for the spiritual. I aspire to music which is both rigorous in thought and sensuous in sound. For many years now, I've worked with an ideal of "sonic geography" - music as place, and place as music. The treeless, windswept expanses of the Arctic are enduring creative touchstones for my work, and In A Treeless Place is an attempt to evoke an enveloping musical presence equivalent to that of a vast tundra landscape. But I want to go beyond landscape painting with tones, beyond language, metaphor and the extra-musical image. I no longer want to be outside the music, listening to it as an object apart., I want to inhabit the music, to be fully present and listening in that immeasurable space which Malevich called "a desert of pure feeling". --John Luther Adams
Western Sketches: Noble Prairie - Robert Kreutz
Marimba: Erica Montgomery, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
This work was the first major piece that Kreutz wrote for marimba. It is a marimba trio that was dedicated to, and premiered by the James Dutton Trio. Written in 1949, this trio consists of three movements, each of a “Western” theme. The first, “Horse Thief,” is a lively movement utilizing two-mallet technique and featuring continual sixteenth notes shifting throughout the three parts. The fast harmonic rhythm of the movement is based on the quarter note. “The Noble Prairie” is the middle movement which consists mainly of rolls in all three parts. This movement, which is similar to Kreutz’s chorale writing style, creates a desolate, open landscape through music. It requires superior musicianship and the use of four-mallet technique. The final movement, entitled “Rodeo,” will challenge even the most capable marimbist’s ability to execute fast, repeated double and triple stops on the marimba.
Minus Nine - David Madeira
Vibraphone: Erica Montgomery, Marimba: Karyelle Nielsen, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
Minus Nine refers to a very low tide that occurs once in a while at my father's house on Puget Sound, when the water gives way to a vast rocky shore, revealing all kinds of odd sea creatures that otherwise remain hidden. This foreign landscape gradually appears and disappears with nothing to herald its coming, but to those that wander down to explore the beach at this time, a beautiful and exotic world is revealed.
David Madeira (b.1982) is an internationally performed composer, worship leader, and university instructor based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Notable performances of his compositions include broadcasts on NPR and PBS, as well as a featured performance at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). David has produced a large body of work for congregational church use, including original hymns and hymn tunes, liturgical service music, choral anthems, and psalm settings.
O Magnum Mysterium - Morten Lauridsen
Arranger/ Conductor: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Percussion: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
Flugelhorn: Gordon Ullmann Trombone: Larry Heidel, Josh Stout, Sadie Stout
Keyboard: Rumi Drumeva & Nancy Blaire
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen (b. 1943, Colfax, Washington) worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mount St. Helens), where he remained on this tower alone for 10 weeks. Lauridsen stated that it was a great time of self-reflection for him, and that it helped him realize that music needed to become a central part of his life. He attended Whitman College for 2 years, before traveling south to study composition at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at USC in 1967 retired in 2019. In 2006, Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide". Lauridsen divides his time between Southern California and his home on Waldron Island in the San Juan Archipelago.
Poetry and Prose by members of The Four Voices
Dianne Shiner, Dallas Huth, Janice O'Mahoney and Faith Wilder
Earthscape - David Marlatt
Flugelhorn: Gordon Ullmann, Alto Sax: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Trombones: Larry Heidel, Josh Stout, Sadie Stout
Keyboards: Rumi Drumeva & Nancy Blaire
Percussion: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen
In the silent, black vacuum of space exists this bright blue planet, slowly rotating,
giving astronauts a serene and breathtaking view of the only source of life in our solar system.
Ocean Sketches - Brent Mazan
I. Ocean Floor, ll. Ocean Rift
Steel Drum: Erica Montgomery
Ocean Sketches is a three-movement work for solo tenor pan in which each movement captures an image of the ocean. The first image, Ocean Floor, is simple but fast-paced, and seeks to capture the activity of wildlife in the shallows just off the shore. The second image, Ocean Rift, seeks to display the expansiveness, darkness, and emptiness of the deepest parts of the ocean. Brent Mazan is a 2017 graduate of University of Oklahoma and Founder/Director of BSM Drums, LLC.
In a Treeless Place only Snow - John Luther Adams
Conductor: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Vibraphone: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen
Keyboard: Rumi Drumeva, Nancy Blaire
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
White is not the absence of colour.
It is the fullness of light.
Silence is not the absence of sound.
It is the presence of stillness.
As the Inuit have known for centuries, and as painters from Malevich to Ryman have shown us more recently, whiteness embraces many hues, textures and nuances. As John Cage reminded us, silence does not literally exist. Still, in a worlds going deaf with human noise, silence endures as a deep and resonant metaphor. In his Poetics of Music, Stravinsky speaks of music as a form of philosophical speculation. But music can also be a form of contemplation: the sensual reaching for the spiritual. I aspire to music which is both rigorous in thought and sensuous in sound. For many years now, I've worked with an ideal of "sonic geography" - music as place, and place as music. The treeless, windswept expanses of the Arctic are enduring creative touchstones for my work, and In A Treeless Place is an attempt to evoke an enveloping musical presence equivalent to that of a vast tundra landscape. But I want to go beyond landscape painting with tones, beyond language, metaphor and the extra-musical image. I no longer want to be outside the music, listening to it as an object apart., I want to inhabit the music, to be fully present and listening in that immeasurable space which Malevich called "a desert of pure feeling". --John Luther Adams
Western Sketches: Noble Prairie - Robert Kreutz
Marimba: Erica Montgomery, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
This work was the first major piece that Kreutz wrote for marimba. It is a marimba trio that was dedicated to, and premiered by the James Dutton Trio. Written in 1949, this trio consists of three movements, each of a “Western” theme. The first, “Horse Thief,” is a lively movement utilizing two-mallet technique and featuring continual sixteenth notes shifting throughout the three parts. The fast harmonic rhythm of the movement is based on the quarter note. “The Noble Prairie” is the middle movement which consists mainly of rolls in all three parts. This movement, which is similar to Kreutz’s chorale writing style, creates a desolate, open landscape through music. It requires superior musicianship and the use of four-mallet technique. The final movement, entitled “Rodeo,” will challenge even the most capable marimbist’s ability to execute fast, repeated double and triple stops on the marimba.
Minus Nine - David Madeira
Vibraphone: Erica Montgomery, Marimba: Karyelle Nielsen, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
Minus Nine refers to a very low tide that occurs once in a while at my father's house on Puget Sound, when the water gives way to a vast rocky shore, revealing all kinds of odd sea creatures that otherwise remain hidden. This foreign landscape gradually appears and disappears with nothing to herald its coming, but to those that wander down to explore the beach at this time, a beautiful and exotic world is revealed.
David Madeira (b.1982) is an internationally performed composer, worship leader, and university instructor based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Notable performances of his compositions include broadcasts on NPR and PBS, as well as a featured performance at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). David has produced a large body of work for congregational church use, including original hymns and hymn tunes, liturgical service music, choral anthems, and psalm settings.
O Magnum Mysterium - Morten Lauridsen
Arranger/ Conductor: Sebastian Serrano-Ayala
Percussion: Erica Montgomery, Karyelle Nielsen, Meg Tolley, Emmy Ulmer
Violin: Patrice Weed Shearer, Jenny Massey, Viola: Anna Edwards, Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
Flugelhorn: Gordon Ullmann Trombone: Larry Heidel, Josh Stout, Sadie Stout
Keyboard: Rumi Drumeva & Nancy Blaire
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Lauridsen (b. 1943, Colfax, Washington) worked as a Forest Service firefighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mount St. Helens), where he remained on this tower alone for 10 weeks. Lauridsen stated that it was a great time of self-reflection for him, and that it helped him realize that music needed to become a central part of his life. He attended Whitman College for 2 years, before traveling south to study composition at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn, and Harold Owen. He began teaching at USC in 1967 retired in 2019. In 2006, Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide". Lauridsen divides his time between Southern California and his home on Waldron Island in the San Juan Archipelago.
Saratoga Orchestra of Whidbey Island
Saratoga Chamber Orchestra
P.O. Box 1524 | Langley, WA 98260
©2023
Saratoga Chamber Orchestra
P.O. Box 1524 | Langley, WA 98260
©2023