ITHACA COLLEGE CONCERT BAND
Benjamin Rochford, conductor
I'm amazed at how children use their imaginations to transform the ordinary and normal into the extraordinary and fantastic. Just about anything they come across can be used to spark their fantasies and usher their minds into unseen worlds. A stick on the ground becomes a wand with magical powers or a sword to fight off bad guys. A collection of rocks turns into buried treasure, and a blanket stretched over two chairs becomes a cave to hide in. And things found in nature -- birds, waterfalls, flowers, and even insects -- can take on mythic identities when viewed through the eyes of a child.
The idea for Firefly was born one night as I watched my four-year-old become mesmerized by a firefly that had wandered into our front yard. When I asked her what she thought of the "firefly" she looked at me with a puzzled look and said with a corrective tone, "Dad, that is not a firefly... that's Tinkerbell, and she's come to take me with her on an adventure!" Firefly is dedicated to my daughters Sophia and Nyla, who ignite my imagination and bring awe and wonder into my life every day.
- Program Note written by composer
Moonshot takes the listener on a journey from lift-off to the celebration that honored the astronauts that first stepped foot on our nearest natural celestial neighbor. The piece commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing. After composing the woodwind quartet version and having the premiere on August 11, 2019, I felt it was best to make a band version of it as well.
- Program Note written by composer
Often considered the dean of African-American composers, William Grant Still was responsible for achieving many firsts as a black classical musician during his distinguished career. Not only was he the first African-American to have a symphony played by a major orchestra (his renowned Afro-American Symphony), in 1936, but he was the first African-American to conduct a major orchestra, have an opera premiered by a major opera company (Troubled Island, 1937), and conduct an orchestra in the deep South.
From the Delta was composed in 1945 for the Goldman Band of New York City. Its three movements (Work Song; Spiritual; Dance) were meant to capture the essence of what life was like on the Mississippi Delta. Work Song illustrates a chain gang singing their way through days of hard labor. Spiritual is a more somber movement, meant to convey the pain felt by African Americans living in slavery. The final movement, Dance is the liveliest of the three movements and paints a portrait of friends coming together to celebrate one another in spite of their daily hardships.
- Program Note compiled by Garison Baker
This song comes from the orchestral work Final Alice. The original was premiered by soprano Barbara Hendricks and the Chicago Symphony in 1976. David Del Tredici has composed numerous pieces based on the Alice in Wonderland books by Lewis Carroll.
This moving piece is the lullaby-like concluding aria from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici's Final Alice, the fifth of six large works for soprano and orchestra based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books. This arrangement for band is designed to be playable by a wide variety of groups, and is appropriate for large or small ensembles. The gentle melody, heartrending harmonies, and artful instrumental voicing give this piece a truly timeless feel.
- Program Note from publisher
La Lira de Pozuelo is a symphonic pasodoble commissioned by the Asociación Músico-Cultural, in Madrid, for celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of this society. Although the piece has a very common structure (a first theme in F minor and a trio in F major connected by a long transition), La Lira de Pozuelo is a very particular and personal pasodoble. The composer explores harmonic and tonal ways very unusual in the classical pasodobles but without distorting the genuine flavor that permeates through the work.
- Program Note written by composer
Explaining the significance of Machu Picchu begins with remembering the Incan empire at its zenith, and its tragic encounter with the Spanish conquistadors. The great 16th century empire that unified most of Andean South America had as its capital the golden city of Cuzco. Francisco Pizarro, while stripping the city of massive quantities of gold, in 1533 also destroyed Cuzco’s Sun Temple, shrine of the founding deity of the Incan civilization.
While that act symbolized the end of the empire, 378 years later an archaeologist from Yale University, Hiram Bingham, rediscovered “Machu Picchu,” a glorious mountaintop Incan city that had escaped the attention of the invaders. At the central high point of the city stands its most important shrine, the Intihuatana, or “hitching post of the sun,” a column of stone rising from a block of granite the size of a grand piano, where a priest would "tie the sun to the stone" at winter solstice to ensure its seasonal return. Finding the last remaining Sun Temple of a great city inspired the belief that perhaps the royal lineage stole away to his holy place during Pizarro’s conquest.
After considering these remarkable ideas, I wished to musically describe that magnificent citadel and trace some of the mysteries sealed in Machu Picchu’s past. Three principal ideas dominate the piece: 1) the shimmering golden city of Cuzco set in the dramatic scenery of the Andes, 2) the destructiveness of violent invasion, and 3) the re-emergence of Incan glory as the City in the Sky again reached for the sun.
- Program Note written by composer
Flute
Nawar Aboud, Lynbrook, NY
Gianna Gassira, North Branford, CT
Zoe Lisa, Hawthorne, NY
Cameron Ting, Belchertown, MA
Dionisia Yanniotis, piccolo,
Verona, NJ
Alan Zimmerman,
Massapequa Park, NY
Oboe
Anthony DeSando, Mahwah, NJ
Natalie Gilbert, Redding, CT
Jamie Heskett, Livingston, NJ
Clarinet
Evelyn Balzer, Seneca Falls, NY
Kaitlin Barron, Bergenfield, NJ
Joseph Carreiro, Brentwood, NY
Hunter De Young, Oakland, NJ
Ava Gestwick, e-flat, Budd Lake, NJ
James Rapuzzi, Isipterrace, NY
EJ Tucker, Madison, NJ
Sami Shone, bass, Derry, NH
Bassoon
Walter Read, Ithaca, NY
Rebecca Williams, Bridgewater, NJ
Alto Saxophone
TJ Lanks, Nanuet, NY
Bryson Sauer, Dobbs Ferry, NY
Rebecca Wielhouwer,
Bridgewater, MA
Tenor Saxophone
Isaac Hophan, Half Moon Bay, CA
Baritone Saxophone
Lauren Bradbury, Colts Neck, NJ
Trumpet
Bowie Beecher, Ransomville, NY
Jayden Casey, Ho Ho Kus, NJ
Erik Figueroa, Bay Shore, NY
Lamar Williams, Nassau, Bahamas
Horn
Emma Bradley, Tauhton, MA
Elizabeth Ferrara, West Windsor, NJ
Joel Rivera, Massapoque, NY
Trombone
Victor Chicas Caceros,
Brentwood, NY
Elvis Lazo, Saugerties, NY
Ilan Medwed, Plainview, NY
David Miller, Williamsport, PA
Isiah Owens, bass, Mastic, NY
Euphonium
Andrew Herrick, Mechanicville, NY
Tuba
Seamus Bufford, Richmond, VT
Rayna Button, Norway, ME
Noah Smith, Seneca Falls, NY
Double Bass
Nellie Cordi, Schnectedy, NY
Piano
Rohan Gupta, New Delhi, India
Percussion
Aarin Arora, Brooklyn, NY
Clara de Long, Greenville, NY
Luke Dumouchel, Boxford, MA
Jessica Fasano, Ronkonkoma, NY
Madelyn Krebs, Rochester, NY
Allison Mattle, Rochester, NY
Jillian Mihalik, Nazareth, PA
Rachel Somers, Shirley, NY
Benjamin Rochford joined the Ithaca College School of Music in 2016 and currently serves as the Associate Director of Bands. At IC, Rochford conducts the Wind Symphony and Concert Band and teaches courses in instrumental conducting and brass pedagogy. Prior to his appointment at Ithaca College, Mr. Rochford was a Doctoral Conducting Associate and PhD candidate at the University of Florida and also served as Director of Bands at the Valley Grove School District in Franklin, Pennsylvania. While at the University of Florida, his responsibilities included directing the UF Concert Band, assisting with the athletic bands, and teaching courses in conducting, music education, jazz improvisation, jazz history, and philosophy. In addition, Mr. Rochford managed marketing and promotional materials for the band department and assisted with the UF Wind Symphony and Jazz Band.
Mr. Rochford completed a bachelors degree in Music Education from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and a Masters degree in Instrumental Conducting from Youngstown State University in Ohio. Mr. Rochford's primary conducting influences include Dr. David Waybright, Dr. Stephen Gage, Dr. Adam Brennan, and Dr. Nathan Rinnert. Mr. Rochford has also participated in conducting symposiums with Ray Cramer, Tom Leslie, Robert Garofalo, and Ed Lisk, Rodney Dorsey and participated in Beethoven conducting master classes with Svilen Simeonov, director of the Sofia Sinfonietta in Bulgaria. He recently was a participant in a conducting presentation by Craig Kirchhoff at the South Eastern CBDNA conference in Charleston, SC.
Mr. Rochford served as Director of Bands at the Valley Grove School District in Pennsylvania where he was responsible for overseeing the entire 5-12 instrumental music program. At Valley Grove, Mr. Rochford directed the district's athletic bands, jazz combo, and elementary, middle, and high school bands. He hosted and managed the PMEA District III Jazz Festival in 2012. He has also given presentations in Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida on a variety of topics including jazz improvisation, rehearsal techniques, student motivation, and authentic student self assessment within the paradigm of Harvard Project Zero and Arts PROPEL.
Mr. Rochford is an active free lance trumpet player and has performed with the Erie Philharmonic, Venango Chamber Orchestra, Franklin Silver Cornet Band, and various jazz groups. Mr. Rochford has toured across the United States with wind bands and has performed at Carnegie Hall. Recently, he performed with he American Chamber Winds throughout Italy and Switzerland. He has also performed with a number of notable jazz musicians including Bobby Shew, Wycliffe Gordon, Dennis DiBlasio, George Rabbi, Michael Davis, Dave Pietro, Ingrid Jensen, Ryan Kisor, and Chris Vidala.