Program:

09/27/2023

Wind Ensemble

Symphony No. 9 (2011)

Symphony No. 9 

is a large collection of instrumental songs. There are many influences and underlying elements, but most of them cannot be explained in words. Rather than try, I will simply list some of the things at work:

Time - memory, passing of time, "we flew through the years hearing them rush under us" - Merwin Water - cleansing and life-giving power, Shall We Gather at the River, Whale Story

Nature - our ground, river, ocean, chickadees Grace - compassion, forgiveness, rest

The Symphony begins with a reading of the poem Secrets* by W.S. Merwin.

Time unseen time our continuing fiction

however we tell it eludes our dear hope and our reason that is a pure condition of the story

and wherever our parents came from is another century

an age which they themselves could barely remember but carried with them as their own year after year

hidden away hardly looked at until the secret without their noticing had faded all the details white

for my mother it came to be the lace veil covering the front of the baby carriage where she was being

wheeled through the Garden of the Gods when her parents were still alive as she told about it later

and for my father it was the glare bleaching the surface of the river as he sat under the white blaze

of summer in the rowboat tied above the waterline where he was allowed to hold the oars and imagine

leaving did he see any farther when he was

dying in summer after midnight and before the solstice

coughing saying he was not afraid and was the veil still there

when my mother turned from her own garden one evening that same year

telling a friend on the telephone that she was going to get a little rest now and her glasses were lying

apart from her on the floor not more than an hour

later when a neighbor pushed the door open and found her

Each movement embodies one or more Chorale** melodies or other songs. In the fourth movement there is a reading of my own Whale Story (O Sacred Head Now Wounded).

     I.   Shall We Gather at the River

           I Thank You God for All Your Good Works**

     II.  Now All Lies under Thee**

     III.  Fantasia on I Thank You ..

     IV.  Fantasia on O Sacred Head Now Wounded**

Shall We Gather at the River

Watch the Night with Me (flute, trumpet, harp, piano)

Soul, How Have You Become So Unhappy** (flute, trumpet, saxophone, harp, piano)

Whale Story (O Sacred Head Now Wounded)

Why Should God have incarnated on in human form? (A brief story about whales)

In the sixty million years or so the great whales have had, both on land and in the oceans, there have been numerous, and in fact, innumerable great beings among them. In fact, it turns out now that all great whales are either highly developed bodhisattvas or Buddhas. And in fact, it turns out that the Earth's oceans are a Buddha Pure Land, and when you pass from this existence it is to be hoped for rebirth as a god or great whale. In fact, it turns out that the Pure Land oceans of the Earth are a training ground for Buddhas across all space and time. We are loved by the great whales, and they, serenely riding the waves of birth and death, will die for us so

that we may continue to our enlightenment.

The end.

O Sacred Head Now Wounded** (clarinet, saxophone, harp, piano, percussion)

* Secrets is used by permission of Copper Canyon Press

** The old chorales melodies are taken from the 371 Four-part Chorales by J.S. Bach

- David Maslanka

ROSTER

* Denotes Section Leader

MTSU WIND AND PERCUSSION APPLIED FACULTY

WOODWINDS

Prof. Don Aliquo, saxophone

Dr. Deanna Little, flute, woodwind coordinator Dr. Keith Sorrels, oboe

Dr. Todd Waldecker, clarinet, woodwind coordinator Dr. Mingyuan Myles Yang, bassoon

BRASS

Dr. Michael Arndt, trumpet Dr. Chris Combest, tuba Prof. Angela DeBoer, horn

Dr. David Loucky, trombone, euphonium, brass coordinator Prof. Jamey Simmons, jazz trumpet

PERCUSSION

Prof. Julie Davila, percussion

Prof. Lalo Davila, percussion, percussion coordinator Dr. Brian Mueller, percussion

Prof. Russell Wharton, percussion