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Witches Take Flight is a fanfare that flips the tradition on its head. When I was asked to write a fanfare for this concert specifically, I decided to forsake the traditional broad heroic brass lines for something much spookier. This fanfare instead imagines a dark Halloween night where the full moon sits high, and witch's cackles can be heard in the distance. Dense chromatic textures compliment nimble interjections as haunting tensions build. The festivities of Halloween continue as the night grows later and later. Finally, the ensemble is heard in full force as the moon reaches its peak, the werewolves howl, and the Witches Take Flight.

- Program notes by Alan Zimmerman

Florence Price is famous today as the first African-American woman to have a work performed by a major symphony orchestra but most of her music went unnoticed in her own time. Much of it has had to wait for the 21st century to find an audience. Price’s first violin concerto was seemingly never played in its composer’s lifetime. The work was uncovered posthumously in an unlikely find: several major works of Price including both of her concertos for violin were discovered in 2009 in a dilapidated house in St. Anne, Illinois which the composer had used as a summer home. This discovery led to an increase of interest in Price’s work and the violin concertos have started to enter the standard repertoire.

The first violin concerto is set in D Major and has been noted as being similar in some respects to Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in the same key particularly evident in the openings of both works. Despite this the concerto unmistakably evinces Price’s own style being inflected with blue notes and the sound of African-American spirituals. The work follows the three-movement structure of 19th century concertos though with a first movement in a moderate tempo rather than the more usual fast opening. After a soulful and pastoral andante the final movement provides a fast and relatively short close to the concerto.

- Program notes by Benjamin P. Skoronski

No one helped Brahms to realize his own inner visions more than composer Robert Schumann and his pianist wife Clara. In 1854 a year after the young man’s first meeting with the Schumanns Robert wrote to their mutual friend Joachim: “But where is Johannes? Is he not yet ready to let drums and trumpets sound? He should always keep in mind the beginning of the Beethoven symphonies he should try to make something like them.” Schumann was never to realize the fruits of his advice for he died tragically in an asylum in 1856. But his admonition to Brahms resulted eventually in the C-minor First Symphony for whose beginning and ending Brahms did indeed look to Beethoven.

An early (1862) version of the First Symphony’s opening movement did not have the imposing introduction which later was appended an introduction in which the composer reveals at a slow pace all the important materials we meet in rapid motion in the movement proper the Allegro. (In the matter of thematic transformation, epitomized by the introductions to the Symphony's first and fourth movements as they presage their Allegros, Brahms was much closer to the methods of Liszt and Wagner than to those of Beethoven.) The throbbing intensity of the introduction (Brahms was ready to let the drums sound) gives way to a sober urgency that recalls the angry young Brahms of say the F-minor Piano Sonata (1853). This movement and the fourth are primers of the compositional methods Brahms practiced with utter mastery: motifs are transformed through changes of rhythm dynamics timbre they are combined fragmented and developed with an unerring sense of their inherent possibilities. And it was not until this severely self-critical composer was satisfied with his work that he allowed the First Symphony to be performed in 1876 some 20-plus years after he made his first symphony efforts.

The strength of Brahms' symphonic convictions is everywhere apparent and his instinct for the scope and power of the form directly descended from Beethoven (of whose Fifth Symphony three-shorts-and-a-long rhythm Brahms was not loath to invoke repeatedly). The entire first movement is keenly dramatic nowhere more so than in the extended slowly building passage leading to the recapitulation. Here Brahms' sense of dynamic expansion is definitive this is as grand a symphonic movement as he ever conceived.

The two central movements present the other side of the Brahmsian coin: melting lyricism and soaring expressiveness in an Andante that closes with those rapturous violin solos that must have paved the way for his Violin Concerto gentle Schubertian smiles through tears contrasted with sinewy boisterousness in an Allegretto that is Brahms’ personalized version of a Beethoven scherzo.

The Finale’s introduction with fragments of the ensuing Allegro passing before our eyes is more extended than the first movement’s and evolves a fearsomeness bordering on terror. This dark emotional tone is finally pierced by a radiant horn call and by a solemn chorale that speaks of deliverance and peace. Then that theme begins which has been called Brahms’ version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy theme in the Ninth Symphony. In its reappearances this grand melody is a source of deep comfort and in its radical transformations a nucleus for the imposing grandeur that unfolds on the way to blazing unrestrained triumph.

- Program notes by Orrin Howard

Alan Zimmerman (2004) is a composer and pianist from Long Island, New York. They have had works premiered by various ensembles and students at Ithaca College. Zimmerman's works explores timbre and texture through the use of counterpoint. Their interest lies primarily in minimalist ambience and soundscape, with their body of works focusing on the "sound of the sound". Zimmerman's repertoire spans chamber ensembles, vocal ensembles, and electronics. They are currently a senior at Ithaca College, though they hope to continue their education in composition and theory.

A native of Buffalo, NY, Teagan Faran is a multidisciplinary musician focused on enacting social change through the arts. Her playing has “brought the house down” (Represent Classical) as she explores the boundaries of genre and performance. An avid collaborator, she has worked with the Alarm Will Sound, Blackbox Ensemble, and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. Recent recording features include albums with Carlos Simon, La Martino Orquesta Típica, loadbang, Diamanda Galás, and her own project “Middle Child” out on Navona Records. Also active in the world of tango music, she has performed with Victor Lavallén and the Orquesta Escuela de Emilio Balcarce, as well as at festivals across the United States.

As a soloist, Faran has performed throughout the United States, Italy, Argentina, Germany, México, and Canada, including appearances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Uptown Philharmonic, the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra the Ann Arbor Camerata, the Williamsville East Symphonic Orchestra, the Clarence Summer Orchestra, the Amherst Symphony, the Ithaca College Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Vermont Symphony.

Administratively, she has held positions in the Marketing and Education Departments of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and Education and Concerts/Touring with Jazz at Lincoln Center. She founded Ann Arbor arts collective Red Shoe Company and worked as a teaching artist with the Kennedy Center, the University Musical Society and the Sphinx Organization.

After graduating from the University of Michigan, Faran moved to Buenos Aires on a Fulbright grant. Faran was also a Turn The Spotlight Fellow, receiving their inaugural Hedwig Holbrook Prize. Faran participated in OneBeat, a fellowship in musical diplomacy, DeeDee Bridgewater’s Woodshed Network, and recently graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied Contemporary Performance. She is a co-artistic director of the GRAMMY-nominated ensemble Palaver Strings, forms half of the electroacoustic duo Persephone & the Phoenix, and is an Assistant Professor of Violin at Ithaca College. Faran plays on a 1977 Silvano Rebessi violin and “The Briar” viola by John Perrin Bean, as well as enjoying experiments with luthiers to push the boundaries of what makes a violin a violin.

Listen to her most recent album, Middle Child, released on Navona Records!

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 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 I
Noor Rouhana, concertmaster
Valerian Connor, assistant concertmaster
Rachel Berger
Marie Nemeth
Kaitlyn Murray
Jonas Chen
Marisol McDowell
Andrew Neal
Lilly Lemery-Allen
Marvin Juarez Espinoza
Naveen Tomlinson
Katelena Hume
Sarah Chruscicki


VIOLIN II
Cristian Rodriguez, principal
Maya Connolly, assistant principal
Mackenzie VanVoorhis
Max Lines
Julia Chu
Imogene Zybala
Jaxon Yeagy
Paige Wilkins
Lily Huwer
Abby Marchesani
Jade Vadeboncoeur
Joshua Chang
Deandre Simmons

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


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


DOUBLE BASS
Sophia Gates, principal
Alexa Markowitz, assistant principal
Jack Bradway
Jack Smith 
Nellie Cordi
Matt Argus 

FLUTE
Madi Connor, principal
Tori Hollerbach, co-principal
Hannah McAlpine


OBOE
Reid Canham, principal
Cole Trenkelbach


CLARINET
Liam Kearney, principal
Fitz McAlpine, co-principal


BASSOON
Meg Moriarty, principal
Dylan Frey, co-princpal
Thomas German


CONTRABASSOON
Thomas German, principal

HORN
Finny Keefe, principal
Eliza Ferrara, co-principal
Madison Stolarski
Orpheus Tulloch


TRUMPET
Juliet Arau, principal
Thomas Papke, co-principal
Lizzy Carvell


TROMBONE
Gabriel Ramos, principal
Miguel Lopez


BASS TROMBONE
Isiah Owens, principal


TUBA
David Castro, principal


TIMPANI
Rebecca Muller, principal
John Santucci, co-principal