Catalog

Neal Gittleman writes: “The Dayton Philharmonic’s Wright Brothers Centennial Commissioning project dates back to 1997. At that point, more than five years before the actual 100th anniversary of Wilbur and Orville’s first successful powered flight, it was already clear that something big was called for. 2003 would also be the Ohio state bicentennial, the orchestra’s seventieth anniversary and the DPO’s first season in the new Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center. Given our commitment to the music of today, a major commissioning effort seemed the way to go, bringing to life four new medium-length pieces addressing the broad theme of the Wright Brothers. How do you do that? Easy. You find fearless composers like Bill Bolcom, Robert Xavier Rodríguez, Mike Schelle and Steve Winteregg and turn them loose. They attacked the challenge with the same vigor as Orville and Wilbur tackled the challenges of powered flight. Technical problems had to be solved. For the Wrights there were issues of wing and propeller design, inventing a control mechanism, finding a light but powerful motor and conquering the multidimensional challenges of lift, yaw and roll. For the composers, there were questions of genre, language, piece-d’occasion – or piece-for-the-ages and “How many percussionists can I have?” In the end, what made both endeavors successful was imagination and inventiveness – the imagination to envision the end result and the inventiveness to make it happen. More than anything else, this CD and the four works it contains reflect the spirit of Wilbur and Orville Wright, the greatest sons of Ohio’s great city of inventors”. Allison Janney, of The West Wing fame, was raised in Oakwood, a small suburb of Dayton. She attended Kenyon College in Ohio and landed a role in a play directed by alumnus Paul Newman. Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, encouraged Janney with her acting and suggested that she consider studying at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse. She has won three Emmy awards for her work in television.

The art-music composer of today faces many challenges. On the one hand, one is tempted to create music that embraces a diversity of styles. On the other hand, one hopes to develop a personal language that would reflect one's artistic orientation and at the same time communicate effectively with the audience. This issue is of particular relevance to composers who grew up in non-Western cultures. Their music, to some extent, manifests their struggle to mediate between Western music and music of their own culture. Shih-Hui Chen is one example. Having grown up in Taiwan and having her basic musical training there, her works have been influenced by traditional Chinese as well as Western concert music. Over the years Chen has become adept in the compositional language of Western music. She earned a doctoral degree from Boston University while continuing her education in the United States. A prolific composer, she has written for a wide range of genres, including solo, chamber, orchestral and film music. The five works featured on this CD cover a broad span of time (1999-2003), and reflect a developing aesthetic. This music summarizes Chen's development and comes out of a desire to create works that assimilate her Chinese heritage and her training in Western art music. Like the interaction between yin and yang, these two opposing yet complementary forces continue to shape Chen's aesthetic and her music, resulting in music that explores the representation of "Chineseness" within predominantly Western compositional frameworks.

Paul Neebe — soloist, orchestral musician and chamber player — performs widely in the United States and Europe. He is principal trumpet of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. A graduate of Juilliard and the Catholic University of America, Neebe has taught at the University of Virginia, James Madison University, Elon University and the Summer University in Bayreuth, Germany. His commitment to the commissioning and recording of contemporary American works for trumpet was the impetus for this CD. All four trumpet concertos (by Richard Cioffari, Walter Ross, Roger Petrich, and Eddie Bass) were commissioned and premiered by Mr. Neebe and represent major additions to the trumpet repertoire.

The Miramar Sinfonietta was founded in the spring of 2000 specifically to record the Fantasy on Two Christmas Carols in honor of what would have been the composer's 100th birthday. The group was later reassembled for the purpose of recording works by outstanding composers, mostly Americans, that have not been recorded as yet, and deserve to be heard. The chamber orchestra consists of some of the finest musicians in the Milwaukee area, all of them engaged in various professional organizations in that area. Jeani Foster is the principal flute of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. William Barnewitz serves as principal horn of the Milwaukee Symphony and the Sante Fe Opera Orchestra. Samantha George is the associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony and has also been a member of the Colorado and Hartford Symphony Orchestras. Eric Segnitz is a founding member and solo violinist of the highly regarded contemporary music group, Present Music. Henri B. Pensis, founder and conductor of the Miramar Sinfonietta, was active as professor of music and conductor for a period of 30 years at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.