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Cayuga Fanfare was commissioned by the Ithaca College School of Music, Theatre, and Dance for the 2024 December Commencement ceremony. Inspired by the stunning views of Cayuga Lake, prominently visible from campus, the piece reflects the majesty and tranquility of the surrounding natural landscape. The fanfare is meant to evoke a sense of celebration and pride, marking both a moment of personal achievement and a connection to the rich beauty of the area. Its bold, yet uplifting brass and percussion writing encapsulates the spirit of commencement while honoring the significance of the location.


David Miller (he/him, b. 2004) is an award-winning composer and accomplished tenor/bass trombonist. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Composition at Ithaca College, where he studies under Dr. Sally Lamb McCune, Dr. Jorge Grossmann, and Dr. Nicolas Chuaqui. An active performer, David contributes to a variety of Ithaca College's premier ensembles and chamber groups as well as the local jazz and musical pit scene.Drawing inspiration from his roots in high school band, David’s compositions span a diverse range of styles and themes. He is passionate about bridging the worlds of performance and composition, valuing the collaborative relationship between composer and performer. This connection fuels his work, which aims to balance innovation with accessibility, creating compelling experiences for both audiences and musicians alike.David’s music has earned recognition in numerous competitions and festivals, including the PMEA All-State Composition Award, the International Trombone Association's 50th Anniversary Fanfare Contest, the Smadbeck Prize, and the Downey Prize. His works have been performed at prestigious events such as the International Trombone Festival, the International Tuba/Euphonium Conference, the DC Trombone Workshop, and the Cyprus Music Festival, among others.

In an article published in Musica Hebraica in 1938, Ernest Bloch wrote: “In my works termed ‘Jewish’ I have not approached the problem from without, by employing melodies more or less authentic, or ‘Oriental’ formulae, rhythms or intervals... No! I have but listened to an inner voice, deep, secret, insistent, ardent, an instinct much more than cold and dry reason, a voice which seemed to come from afar beyond myself, far beyond my parents. This entire Jewish heritage moved me deeply; it was reborn in my music.  To what extent it is Jewish, to what extent it is just Ernest Bloch, of that I know nothing. The future alone will decide.” Bloch’s best music is found in his works specifically designated as Jewish. There is the orchestral triptych Three Jewish Poems; there is a symphony Israel; and there is, most glorious of them all, Schelomo. In a letter to Philip Hale regarding Schelomo, Bloch wrote with passion: “It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing, agitated soul, that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible; the freshness and naiveté of the Patriarchs; the violence that is evident in the prophetic books; the Jew’s savage love of justice; the despair of the preacher in Jerusalem; the sensuality of the Song of Songs. All this is in us; all this is in me, and it is the better part of me. It is all this that I endeavor to hear in myself and to transcribe in my music; the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers way down in our soul.” Schelomo is the Hebrew name for King Solomon. The voice of Schelomo is the cello in Bloch’s score. It embodies the glory, the greatness, and the human sensuality of the great King; it also expresses the lyric despair: “Vanity of vanities... all is vanity.”

In his music Bloch unites his ancient heritage and his living consciousness. The Jewish inflections of the music are immediately perceptible, but they come from Bloch’s inner self, not from ethnomusicological sources. The harmony is austere in its naked fourths and thirdless fifths. The orchestra is often sounded in unison, made powerful by insistent rhythmic cantillation. The work begins with a single note on the cello in its high and most expressive register, and it ends with philosophical resignation on the low D.

Written by Nicolas Slonimsky

Although anxious to pursue the study of music, Modest Mussorgsky was trained for government service, and had to forage around as best he could for a musical education. Considering his limitations—an insecure grasp of musical form, of traditional harmony, and of orchestration—it is no wonder he suffered from profound insecurity. A victim of alcoholism, he died at 46 but left a remarkably rich legacy— authentic, bold, earthy, and intensely vivid Russian music. Pictures at an Exhibition proved to be a welcome rarity in Mussorgsky’s anguished experience—a composition born quickly and virtually painlessly. Reporting to his friend Vladimir Stasov about the progress of the original piano suite, Mussorgsky exulted: “Ideas, melodies, come to me of their own accord. Like roast pigeons in the story, I gorge and gorge and overeat myself. I can hardly manage to put it all down on paper fast enough.” The fevered inspiration was activated by a posthumous exhibit in 1874 of watercolors and drawings by the composer’s dear friend Victor Hartmann, who had died suddenly the previous year at the age of 39. Mussorgsky’s enthusiastic and reverent homage to Hartmann takes form as a series of musical depictions of 10 of the artist’s canvases, all of which hang as vividly in aural space as their visual progenitors occupied physical space. As heard most often in present-day performances, Pictures wears the opulent apparel designed by Maurice Ravel, who was urged by conductor Serge Koussevitzky to make an orchestral transcription of the piano set, which he did in 1922. The results do honor to both composers: The elegant Frenchman did not deprive the music of its realistic muscle, bizarre imagery, or intensity, but heightened them through the use of marvelously apt instrumentation. Pictures begins with, and several of its sections are preceded by, a striding promenade theme—Russian in its irregular rhythm and modal inflection—which portrays the composer walking, rather heavily, through the gallery. Promenade: Trumpets alone present the theme, after which the full orchestra joins for the most extended statement of its many appearances.

Gnomus: Hartmann’s sketch portrays a wooden nutcracker in the form of a wizened gnome. The music lurches, twitches, and snaps grotesquely.

Promenade: Horn initiates the theme in a gentle mood and the wind choir follows suit.

Il vecchio castello: Bassoons evoke a lonely scene in Hartmann’s Italian castle. A troubadour (English horn) sings a sad song, at first to a lute-like accompaniment in violas and cellos.

Promenade: Trumpet and trombones are accompanied by full orchestra.

Tuileries: Taunting wind chords and sassy string figures set the scene, and then Mussorgsky’s children prank, quarrel, and frolic spiritedly in the famous Parisian gardens.

Bydło (Polish Oxcart): A Polish peasant drives an oxcart whose wheels lumber along steadily (with rhythmic regularity) and painfully (heavy-laden melody in brass).

Promenade: Winds, beginning with flutes, then in turn oboes and bassoons, do the walking, this time with tranquil steps.

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks: Mussorgsky, with disarming ease, moves from oxcart to fowl yard, where Hartmann’s chicks are ballet dancers in eggshell costumes.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle: The names Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle were later additions to the title of this section, originally named “Two Polish Jews, One Rich, the Other Poor.” The composer satirizes the pair through haughty pronouncements from the patriarch (winds and strings) and nervous subservience from the beggar (stuttering trumpets).

The Market at Limoges: The bustle and excitement of peasant women in the French city’s market are brilliantly depicted.

Catacombs: The music trudges through the ancient catacombs on the way to a mournful, minor-key statement of the promenade theme.

Cum mortuis in lingua mortua: In this eerie iteration of the promenade theme, which translates to “with the dead in a dead language,” Mussorgsky envisioned the skulls of the catacombs set aglow through Hartmann’s creative spirit.

The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga): Baba Yaga, a witch who lives in a hut supported by chicken legs, rides through the air demonically with Mussorgsky’s best Bald Mountain pictorialism.

The Great Gate of Kyiv: Ceremonial grandeur, priestly chanting, the clanging of bells, and the promenade theme create a singularly majestic canvas that is as conspicuously Russian to the ear as Hartmann’s fanciful picture of the Gate is to the eye.

Written by Orrin Howard

Cellist Greg Hesselink leads an eclectic musical life as a chamber musician, orchestral cellist and soloist. As a chamber musician, he is a winner of the Naumburg Chamber Award with the New Millennium Ensemble, and is a former member of numerous other ensembles including Sequitur, Newband (former caretakers of the Harry Partch instrument collection), the Argento New Music Project and New York Philomusica. Other ensembles he has performed with include the the Vivaldi Consort, Talea Ensemble, Flux Quartet, Speculum Musicae, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Group for Contemporary Music, American Symphony Chamber Players, and with the dance companies Cedar Lake, Mark Morris, Merce Cunningham and Nai Ni Chen. As an orchestral cellist, he was a member of the Manhattan Sinfonietta and the Bang on a Can ‘Spit’ Orchestra, as well as performing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and American Symphony. He continues to perform with the Locrian Chamber players, the Orchestra of the League of Composers and as principal cellist of Riverside Symphony. 
An active promoter of new music, Greg has premiered more than 150 works including cello concertos by Ross Bauer and Daniel Weymouth, as well as James Tenney’s Song and Dance for Harry Partch at the Donaueschingen Musiktage (a double concerto for tenor violin and diamond marimba, performed on the tenor violin). Premieres include works by Stephan Wolpe, Charles Wuorinen, Helmut Lachenmann, John Harbison, Harry Partch and the chamber version of Duke Ellington’s piano concerto. He has been the recipient of numerous awards with his ensembles, including the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, NEA, Ditson Fund, Copland and Mary Flagler Cary recording grants, CMA, Fromm, Meet the Composer and NYSCA commissioning grants. Recordings can be heard on CRI, Nonesuch, Naxos, Bridge, Koch, Neuma, Albany, Wergo, Innova, PPI and Point Records. 

Greg has performed at venues and in festivals across North America, Europe, Turkey, Japan and Indonesia. Venues include Carnegie’s three halls, Alice Tully, Avery Fischer, MOMA, the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums, the Library of Congress (100th birthday celebration for Eliot Carter), the National Cathedral, the Smithsonian Freer Gallery, Zipper Hall, the Andy Warhol Museum, Vienna’s Musikverein and Palais Lobkowitz, Philharmonie Chamber Hall (Berlin), Oji Hall (Tokyo), Salihara (Jakarta), throughout the Cappadocia region of Turkey, as well as numerous performances in Italy at the Spoleto festival with Colla Marionette, concerts with cellist Giovanni Sollima, and at the American Academy in Rome. 
Greg Hesselink received his training at the Interlochen Arts Academy with Cris Campbell, the Eastman School of Music with Steve Doane and SUNY Stony Brook with Tim Eddy, as well as summer studies with Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Orlando Cole and Stephen Geber. He studied chamber music extensively with members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Alban Berg, Emerson, Tokyo, Prague, Bartok and Mendelssohn String Quartets, the Beaux Arts Trio, Gil Kalish, Julius Levine, Jan De Gaetani and Martha Katz. A dedicated teacher his entire professional life, Greg has taught at Princeton, Sarah Lawrence, Hunter College, for 20 years at Mannes prep, and now at Ithaca College. During summers he has taught at Yellow Barn, Kinhaven, the Interharmony International Music Festival, the Summer Music Academy at Ithaca College and he regularly teaches at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.

Described by Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC) as an “impressive conductor…outstanding in his attention to detail and his command of the big picture”, Hong Kong-born conductor Ho-Yin Kwok is a three-time winner of The American Prize, 2021, winner of 2017-2018 Vincent C. LaGuardia, Jr. Conducting Competition and 2021 International Conductors Workshop and Competition. Recently concluded an 8-year tenure as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, Kwok is the Director of Orchestras at Ithaca College, New York. He also serves as Music Director of Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra in Duluth, Minnesota. 
Having established a nationwide reputation, Ho-Yin Kwok’s recent guest conducting engagements include the New World Symphony, the Syracuse Orchestra, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, Arapahoe Philharmonic, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Gwinnett Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Eastern Festival Orchestra, and Collegium Musicum Hong Kong. He also has been invited to serve as cover conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Kansas City Symphony. In the 2025-2026 season, he will make his debut with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Tucson Symphony Orchestra as well as conducting the season opener for Syracuse Orchestra at the Masterworks Series. 
An avid music educator, Ho-Yin Kwok directs the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonietta, and Contemporary Chamber Ensemble at Ithaca College. He has previously served as the Director of the Duluth Superior Youth Symphony and in the faculty of Eastern Kentucky University and University of Minnesota Duluth. His recent educational guest conducting engagements include All-State Orchestras, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, University of Wisconsin-Madison Summer Music Clinic, and Foster Music Camp. He was invited as adjudicator for concerto competitions such as those of Minnesota Orchestra Young People's Symphony Concert Association, University of Minnesota, University of Kentucky, and Cornell University. In the 2025-2026 season, he will conduct the All-state Orchestras of California and Maine. 
Ho-Yin Kwok is a first prize winner of The American Prize in opera conducting. He had served as Music Director of the Opera Theatre at University of Minnesota Twin-Cities. He enjoys conducting operas of a wide range of periods and styles, including those by Mozart, Puccini, Britten and Menotti. He was the instigating artistic force behind the formation of opera orchestra at Eastern Kentucky University and has collaborated professionally with Arbeit Opera Theatre and Lyric Opera of the North. In the 2021-22 season, Kwok gave one of the first performances of Laura Kaminsky’s new opera, Hometown to the World. He is looking forward to conducting Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle in the spring of 2026. 
Known for his passion in diversifying the orchestral concert repertoire, Ho-Yin Kwok has been involved in multiple initiatives and special projects. With the Mississippi Valley Orchestra, he created the annual Foreground Composers Series, a year-round celebration and in-depth research on an underrepresented composer. This ongoing project has led to numerous US premieres of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Ruth Gipps, Ina Boyle, and Bao Yuankai, along with many other neglected composers. Kwok is also a panel member of …And we were heard, a national initiative to promote contemporary music and composers of underrepresented backgrounds. 
Ho-Yin Kwok studied conducting at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities and the University of Iowa. His principal teachers are Mark Russell Smith and William LaRue Jones. His other important mentors are Gerard Schwarz, Kevin Noe, Cristian Măcelaru, Giancarlo Guerrero, the Ensō String Quartet, Brentano Quartet, Joel Krosnick, David Shifrin, Kathy Saltzman Romey, and Grant Cooper. He is a Marquis Who’s Who biographical listee.

Violin 1
Valerian Connor, concertmaster
Noor Rouhana, assistant concertmaster
Cristian Rodriguez
Maya Connolly
Jonas Chen
Marisol McDowell
Mackenzie VanVoorhis
Julia Chu
Naveen Tomlinson
Sarah Chruscicki
Katalena Hume
Imogene Zybala
Jaxon Yeagy

Violin 2
Marie Nemeth, principal
Rachel Berger, assistant principal
Kaitlyn Murray
Lily Lemery-Allen
Maxwell Lines
Andrew Neal
Paige Wilkins
Marvin Juarez Espinoza
Abby Marchesani
Lily Huwer
Joshua Chang
Jade Vadeboncoeur
Deandre Simmons

Viola
Zoe Galgoczy, principal
Breanna Annonio, assistant principal
Elijah Shenk
Sasha Narea
Zacchary Pierre
Zoe Link
Agena Malziu
Andrei Popovici 

Cello
Eli Jort, principal
Tom Bowstead, assistant principal
Ian Croker
Ariel Alejandro
Emilia Lyons
Emily Donohue
Jonah Harley
Allison Glaza
Elijah Shin
Molly Davey
Heather Cruz
Chiara Marino
Nina Hughes
Miles Summerlin 

Bass
Sophia Gates, principal
Alexa Markowitz, assistant principal
Jack Bradway
Jake Smith
Nellie Cordi
Matt Argus 

Flute
Madi Connor, principal
Tori Hollerbach
Hannah McAlpine 

Piccolo
Tori Hollerbach, principal 

Oboe
Brady Santin, principal
Cole Trenkelbach 

English Horn
Reid Canham, principal 

Clarinet
Liam Kearney, principal
Fitz McApline 

Bass Clarinet
Anthony Angelillo, principal 

Alto Saxophone
TJ Lanks, principal 

Bassoon
Dylan Frey, co-principal
Meg Moriarty, co-principal 

Contrabassoon
Thomas German, principal 

Horn
Eliza Ferrara, co-principal
Finney Keefe, co-principal
Madison Stolarski
Orpheus Tulloch

Trumpet
Juliet Arau, principal
Thomas Papke
Lizzy Carvell

Trombone
Gabriel Ramos, principal
Miguel Lopez 

Bass Trombone
Isiah Owens, principal 

Tuba
David Castro, principal 

Timpani
Rebecca Muller
John Santucci
Peter Stenberg

Percussion
Thomas Anzuini
Rebecca Muller, principal
Olivia Okin
Brayden Reed
John Santucci
Peter Stenberg 

Celesta
Advika Balaji, principal 

Harp
Elizabeth Mayo, principal
Viviana Alfaro