Sunday, April 13, 8pm
Hofmann Theatre
Lesher Center for the Arts
1601 Civic Dr., Walnut Creek CA
Tickets: $12-$18
Call the Box Office: (925) 943-7469
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Join us as we go green and make the Celtic Connection – an inspiring concert celebrating the music and dance of Ireland.
Enjoy . . .
• Folk singer Liam Tiernan singing “Born in Belfast Town” and Back Home in Derry” among others from his popular CDs. He began his career in his native Belfast, where he formed the legendary group Barleycorn that performed throughout the world.
• The McGrath Irish Dancers of Dublin (Alameda County). Now in its fourth generation, the group was formed in 1950 in Waterford, Ireland, where the family’s school of dance, like the one here in Dublin, continues to thrive.
• The U. S. premiere of a new work by Irish composer Vincent Kennedy, who will be present to conduct his work written for wind symphony.
{click on titles or composers for notes}
Riverdance .................................................................. Bill Whelan Arr. Carl Strommen
1. Wellspring Theme: Women of Ireland - "Countess Cathleen", "Women of the Cidhe"
2. The Hearts Cry
3. Thunder and Lightning
4. Riverdance Finale
My Lagan Love ................................................................................ Arr. Luigi Zaninelli
Blackwater ............................................................................................. Fergal Carroll
Suite on Celtic Folk Songs .................................................................... Arr. T. Tatebe
2. Air - Yellow Village Gate
Cry of the Celts .................................................... Ronan Hardiman / Arr. Peter Graham
3. Breakout
INTERMISSION
Born in Belfast Town ................................................................................. Dave Scott
The Green Fields of France ........................................................................ Eric Bogle
Back Home in Derry ............................................................................... Bobby Sands
Liam Tiernan, - Guest Soloist
Irish Tune from County Derry (Danny Boy) .............. Percy Grainger / Arr. Mark Rogers
Guest Conductor from Ireland - Vincent Kennedy
What's a Heaven For? (U. S. Premiere) ............................................. Vincent Kennedy
1. Sunday Morning
2. Friends
3. March
Guest Conductor from Ireland - Vincent Kennedy
Irish Washerwoman ........................................................................... Leroy Anderson
Gaelforce ............................................................................................. Peter Graham
The Rocky Road to Dublin
The Minstrel Boy
Tossing Feathers
From the arranger’s notes:
This piece contains portions of the original Riverdance score, faithfully reinstrumented for Wind Band.
The Wellspring Theme . This is an introductory prior to the dance melodies. It is free, yet haunting piece.
Women Of Ireland (The Countess Cathleen/Women Of The Sidhe) . Countess Cathleen or Cathleen Mavourneen (Mo Bhuirnin) was often used by the poet W. B. Yeats as a feminine image for Ireland. Hence the title for this slip jig. The second tune in this passage is Women of the Sidhe (Pronounced Shee). It is a lively jig for a dance in which the powerful fairy women overwhelm and subdue the male intruders who have tried to capture the queen.
The Hearts Cry . The Hearts Cry as well as the Women of Ireland were written in praise of feminine qualities. The original lyrics refer to the salmon and the eagle. The salmon was traditionally a symbol of wisdom in Irish folklore. Its daring journey back to its birthplace is a wonderful example of the powerful instinct to procreate in nature. The eagle's fierce protection of its young makes it a symbol of motherhood.
Thunder And Lightning . In the original Riverdance, a group of male dancers tap out unison rhythms. Then a solo dancer sets a rhythm to which the other members respond. This ongoing "call and response" is the basis for this section. The percussionists duplicate the sound of the dancers on a wooden stage.
Riverdance Finale . The inspiration for Riverdance was the life of a river. In the Finale, the slip jig is danced by the Riverwoman who then vanishes with the entrance of the male dancer, who symbolizes the Earth. River and Earth are united, the tension of which is finally released into a full-blown jig for the finale. {Back to Program}
My Lagan Love … Arr. Luigi Zaninelli
From the composer’s notes:
"While in Dublin for the world premiere of my Five American Gospel Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, I heard a melody of such extraordinary beauty that I felt compelled to set it. Its haunting mystical melancholy was unlike anything I had ever heard. It continues to beguile me."
The River Lagan runs through Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland and from Belfast Lough into the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland. At one time Belfast was a great shipbuilding hub. Great gantry cranes rose high above the Lagan. From these shipyards the doomed Titanic slid into the sea for her short-lived and tragic voyage.
MY LAGAN LOVE
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby, there blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye, the night is on her hair
And like a lovesick Lenanshee she hath my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe, nor liberty for love is lord of all
And often when the beetle's horn hath lulled the eye to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn and thro' the dooring peep
There on the cricket's singing stone, she stirs the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone the song of heart's desire
Her welcome like her love for me is from the heart within:
Her warm kiss is felicity, that knows no taint or sin.
When she was only fairy small her gentle mother died
But true love keeps her memory warm, by Lagan's silver side
[In Scottish Gaelic a Lenanshee, or “leannan-sidhe,” is a Faery Lover that often takes a person's love and then departs, leaving the human pining for their lost love. The poor mortals in these tales often died of sorrow.] {Back to Program}
The River Blackwater is the largest in the southwest of Ireland and flows through the counties Waterford and Cork before entering the Celtic Sea at the town of Youghal.
Two main themes provide the melodic material: one traditional, the other original. The basis of the main theme is an old Irish air 'Cape Clear', and the region from which it takes its name is not far from where the River Blackwater rises. Against this is placed an original countermelody, which we hear at the beginning in the style of a plainchant.
This piece develops original and traditional Irish material in a beautifully paced, inventive and appealing miniature. It is stylishly crafted with Carroll’s lucid hallmark scoring and rhythmic interest: atmospheric and eloquently individual. {Back to Program}
Suite on Celtic Folk Songs … Arr. Tomohiro Tatebe
Celtic ancestors, after conquering agrarian cultures in middle Europe, migrated northward to Ireland and other places. The so-called "Celt" culture was a blend of those migrants and indigenous peoples of the northern island. This suite for wind band consists of three Old Irish melodies handed down through the generations.
This performance will be Movement 2, a beautiful and nostalgic "Air" entitled Yellow Village Gate in Gaelic, the first language of Ireland. Traditionally, fiddle and Uilleann pipes play a passionate duet. Here, a solo piccolo presents the image of a simple fife. {Back to Program}
Cry of the Celts … Ronan Hardiman
Ronan Hardiman's music for the successful Michael Flatley dance extravaganza, The Lord of the Dance, has become hugely popular. This suite from the show premiered in 1997 in London. Present in the audience was Nigel Boddice who realized a potential for wind band and subsequently commissioned this version for the winds of the Royal Norwegian Navy Band.
There are 5 movements: 1) Nightmare 2) Suit a Ruin 3) Breakout 4) Lament and 5) Victory, each of which features various solo voices from the ensemble in a blend of Irish traditional, folk and rock styles. This performance will be Movement 3, Breakout. {Back to Program}
Songs performed by Liam Tiernan
Back Home in Derry. This poem by Bobby Sands tells the story of deportees who were transported to Van Dieman's Land, nowadays Tasmania. It is one of his poems that were smuggled out of prison. Sands recited this poem during the 1981 hunger strike in the Maze prison to keep up morale. After Sands and nine other prisoners died in the hunger strike, global media attention forced Britain to abandon their stiff attitude and most of the prisoners’ demands were granted.
The Green Fields of France. Eric Bogle wrote these lyrics and set them to a traditional Scottish lament after a visit to the war cemeteries in France. The song is in the form of a conversation with one Private William McBride on the futility of war. While some ten Private William McBride’s died in the Great War, only one was 19. He is buried in Authuille British Cemetery on the Somme battlefields of France.
Born in Belfast town. Upbeat tune against the hardest decision for natives of Northern Ireland: stay or immigrate. {Back to Program}
Irish Tune from County Derry … Percy Grainger
This work is based on a tune collected by Miss J. Ross of New Town, Limavaday, County, Ireland, and was published in The Petrie Collection of Ancient Music of Ireland. Known to many as "Danny Boy," this beautiful setting of the ancient Irish air was written by Percy Grainger in 1909. Dedicated to the memory of the great Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, this composition has been a favorite for almost a century. {Back to Program}
What's a Heaven For? … Vincent Kennedy
The title is taken from the line in a poem by Robert Browning "Oh that a man 's reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for?"
From the composer’s notes:
It is my view that the success of the Rathfamham Concert Band is in part due to the fact that they never set limits on what they would do or where they go musically. They have always reached for the highest standards in performance and entertainment and on an individual level in teaching. And so when I was thinking about a title for this new piece, Robert Browning's words kept coming into mind and I now I believe they are most apt. The music in this arrangement is in three movements that run into one another. They are titled:
I. Sunday morning, Monday night
If you go to the suburb of Rathfarnham in Dublin on Sunday Morning or Monday evening you will witness the sight of people coming from all directions carrying all sorts of instruments. If you follow them into St Mary's Boys School you will hear the different sounds of individual instruments and different bands playing in different locations. This first movement captures that movement of people and sound and finishes out with the warm up exercise Rathfarnham members know so well while the bells of the Rathfarnham Churches which mix with the sounds on a Sunday Morning are heard. I imagine this is a scene familiar in some respects to band's people all over the world.
II. Friends
Over a 1000 people have been members of the Rathfarnham Concert Band and I have seen great friendships and great love in the midst. Music brings people together and is a vehicle for forming great and lifelong friendships.
III . March
This is a modern march with twists and turns that I hope captures the joy of playing in Wind Bands. {Back to Program}
Irish folk music has undergone something of a renaissance in recent times, with high profile shows including Riverdance and Lord of the Dance being successfully adapted for a variety of media, including the wind band.
Gaelforce follows in this tradition, and using three traditional folk tunes exploits the color and variety of the modern wind band. Firstly, the slip jig, The Rocky Road to Dublin features the woodwind section. The Minstrel Boy, and the final reel, Tossing the Feathers, have both recently enjoyed renewed popularity courtesy of The Corrs. The Minstrel Boy here features the solo Flügelhorn in contrast with woodwind choir and mellow voices, while Tossing the Feathers is something of a tour de force for drums, woodwind, and eventually the whole band. {Back to Program}
The Irish Suite … Leroy AndersonThe suite contains five movements, each one based on a different Irish folk song. This concert will perform the first movement, "The Irish Washerwoman," It is a double jig, the sprightliest of dances, and is enhanced with a brilliant and infectious orchestral setting. Anderson was said to have composed the entire Irish suite in just eleven days. {Back to Program}
BIOGRAPHIES
Liam Tiernan - Guest Soloist began his career in his native Belfast and formed the legendary group Barleycorn. Their first recording, The Men Behind the Wire, landed in the number one slot on the Irish music charts and remained there for months, staying in the top ten for 18 months and selling in excess of 3,000,000 copies worldwide.
Barleycorn toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, performing in major concert halls, clubs and theaters. In 1981 Liam embarked on a solo career, and the last two decades have found him crisscrossing the United States and Canada playing clubs and festivals.
His two solo albums, One for the Ditch and most recently Liam Tiernan – “Straight from the Heart,” are both highly acclaimed. When not delighting audiences on the road, Liam is kept busy as proprietor of one of San Francisco’s finest restaurant-pubs, “Tiernan's”, where he is known to sing from time to time. {Back to Program}
Bill Whelan (1950 - ) is a native of Limerick, and was educated at Crescent College, University College Dublin and the King's Inns. Whelan has worked as a composer and producer in Dublin since the late 1970's with many credits in theatre and film.
Appointed composer to the W.B.Yeats International Theatre Festival at Ireland's National Abbey Theatre in 1989, he wrote original music for 15 Yeats plays. His adaptation of HMS Pinafore received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination. His work in film includes original scores for Dancing At Lughnasa starring Meryl Streep, Some Mother's Son starring Helen Mirren and Lamb starring Liam Neeson. Music for television includes The Seven Ages, Sean O'Mordha's history of the Irish State. The Seville Suite was his first large scale orchestral work, commissioned for Ireland's National Day at Expo '92 in Seville. The Spirit Of Mayo followed in 1993. His composition Inishlacken has been performed in Europe and the USA. His concerto Carna, the second in a series of three pieces for chamber orchestra, premiered in Carnegie Hall.
Whelan was honored with the 1997 Grammy Award for “Best Musical Show Album” for his Riverdance record. {Back to Program}
Carl Strommen, a native of Long Island, New York, is recognized as a major contributor of instrumental and vocal music. He is a graduate of the City College of New York and an ASCAP award winning composer/arranger. {Back to Program}
Luigi Zaninelli (1932 - ) is known internationally for work that excites the senses and stimulates the mind. Following high school, he was brought to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. At age 19, he was sent to Italy to study composition with the legendary Rosario Scalero, the
teacher of Samuel Barber and Menotti. Upon graduation, he was appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute.
In 1964, he returned to Rome, Italy to compose film music. During that period, he became conductor/arranger for Metropolitan Opera soprano Anna Moffo. During his career, he has served as composer-in-residence at the University of Calgary and the Banff School of Fine Arts. Since 1973, he has been the composer-in-residence at the University of Southern Mississippi.
With more than 300 published works to his credit, Zaninelli has been commissioned to compose for all mediums including opera, ballet, chamber music, orchestra, band, chorus, and solo songs. He has also composed many movie and television scores, including the PBS documentaries: The lslander, Passover, and The Last Confederates. {Back to Program}
Fergal Carroll (1969 - ) was born in Tipperary and began playing the trumpet and piano. From 1993 to 1997 he studied music at the Waterford Institute of Technology, majoring in composition. 
He graduated with a first class honors degree and was awarded the 1997 Good Shepherd Arts Award.
In 1998 he undertook an MA in composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. His music has been performed in the UK, Switzerland, New Zealand, United States and Canada. Recent compositions includes Drumslade (2001), Biplane (2000) for symphony orchestra, and Winter Dances (2002). In addition to his compositional work, Fergal Carroll teaches music at the Ursuline Secondary School, Thurles, and is active as a conductor throughout southeastern Ireland. He is also the conductor of the Irish Defense Forces Band in Dublin. {Back to Program}
Tomohiro Tatebe (1957 - ) graduated from Tokyo's Komazawa University, majoring in Japanese Literature. He studied saxophone, composition and arrangement. Tatebe has produced many original works and arrangements for wind ensemble and chamber winds. Mr. Tatebe is Permanent Conductor of the Itoigawa Wind Orchestra and an Associate Lecturer for the Ryukoku University Wind Band. {Back to Program}
Ronan Hardiman (1961 - )
is one of Ireland's premier composers of traditional music. Born in Dublin, Hardiman grew up listening to rock & roll and pop as a child, although his 
siblings preferred traditional Irish music. He worked as a clerk at the Bank of Ireland for twelve years, and occasionally played in pop bands during the 1980s. In 1990 he quit his day job to follow his dream of becoming a composer. He quickly found success in the Irish television and film industry. Now, however, he composes material based more on Irish traditions than pop music.
During the next few years, Hardiman composed for Coca-Cola and Guinness and gained his reputation as Ireland's best contemporary composer. In 1996 Michael Flatley, creator of Riverdance, asked Hardiman to compose the score to the new production Lord of the Dance. Thanks in large part to the success of the production, Hardiman gained a recording contract and released his debut album, Solas, in 1998. {Back to Program}
Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882 - 1961) was born in Melbourne, Australia. He studied piano as a child and gave his first recital at the age of twelve. Grainger moved with his mother to Frankfurt, Germany, for more musical studies. In 1901, Grainger and his mother moved on to London, where he 
became well known as a concert pianist.
In these years he befriended the Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, whose love of national music inspired Percy to look closely at English folk music. Like Béla Bartók, Percy Grainger collected and preserved folk songs. He traveled around England and recorded these songs on a wax-cylinder phonograph. Grainger believed that folk songs were a good source for learning the history of certain communities. Folk songs were also important to Grainger, as he wanted to be a composer. He used the folk songs he collected as the basis for many of his pieces, including Lincolnshire Posy.
In 1914, Grainger and his mother moved to the United States to escape World War I. When the United States entered the war in 1917, Grainger enlisted in the U.S. Army Band as a saxophone player. During this period, he "dished-up" (as he put it) Country Gardens, a piece that many people now equate with his name.
His experiences in the band sparked his interest in composing for bands and wind ensembles. Later, Grainger went back to composing and playing the piano. He was known for his powerful piano playing and his healthy, athletic lifestyle. In 1926, Grainger met and fell in love with Ella Ström-Bandelius, a Swedish artist and poet. They were married two years later at the Hollywood Bowl. The wedding took place during a concert in which Grainger conducted a piece he wrote for Ella, called To a Nordic Princess.
An original music thinker for his time, Grainger did much to publicize medieval European music, and the music of other cultures. Towards the end of his life he worked on means for producing “Free Music”: music not limited by time or pitch intervals. The Free Music machines he created in association with the scientist Burnett Cross are forerunners of modern electronic synthesizers.
Given his extraordinarily busy life, Grainger nevertheless published a huge body of work, well over 1200 works and arrangements in all. {Back to Program}
Vincent Kennedy (1962 - ) was born in Dublin and studied trumpet at CBS Westland Row, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the DIT Conservatory of Music. He holds teaching qualifications 
from ABRCM, Trinity College of Music in London and professional affiliations with Contemporary Music Centre, University of California Los Angeles (Film Scoring) and Screen Training Ireland. He is an executive member of the Association of Irish Composers and a founding member of the Irish Film and Television Academy. He has written for orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal combinations. His music has been performed amongst others by the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra, Antipodes Ensemble, Concorde, Strands Ensemble, Ottoni Ensemble, Tine Verbecke, Veale/Cleary Trio, RCBS, Band of An Garda Siochana and numerous Symphonic Wind Ensembles, Brass and Pipe Bands throughout Ireland, Europe, USA and Canada. He received an Arts Council Bursary in 2007 to enable him to spend time working on his first symphony.
From January 2009 to March 2009 his music Baginbun – 1170 AD and a new arrangement of Mary of Dungloe will be performed as part of multiple concert series given by the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra in the USA. Vincent has also been commissioned by the Dublin Concert Band to write a 15-minute work Dublin – The Fair City for performance at their 50th Anniversary Concert in the National Concert Hall in October 2008.
Kennedy trained as a trumpet player before deciding to concentrate on composition. Essentially self-taught as a composer, his style, while reflecting numerous eclectic influences, remains firmly rooted in tonal harmony. Typical of his recent output is the 4-movement, 15 minute work "What's a Heaven For?" which was premiered by the Rathfarnam Concert Band in Dublin in May 2006. The work contains elements of minimalism and atonality within a strongly melodic framework, as well as using traditional Irish dance rhythms in the up-tempo finale. Other works by Kennedy include the prize-winning Soliloquy and March in Memoriam Michael O’Hehir (1997), In a Yellow Wood (2003) and Serendipity (2005). {Back to Program}
Peter Graham (1958 - ) was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland and is one of the leading composers for Brass Band. He attended the University of Edinburgh and undertook
postgraduate studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He holds a PhD in composition.
From 1983 until 1986 he worked in New York as a freelance composer/arranger. Since his return to the U.K. he has worked regularly as an arranger for the BBC and has specialized in composition for the British style brass band. His original compositions, which include The Essence of Time, Montage and Journey to the Center of the Earth, are performed worldwide. He is currently Professor of Composition at the University of Salford. {Back to Program}
Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975)
was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John 
Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music." He wrote nearly all his pieces originally for orchestra, then transcribed most of them himself for band.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Swedish parents, Anderson was given his first piano lessons by his mother, who was an organist. He studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music and also took double bass lessons in Boston. In 1926 Anderson entered Harvard, to study theory, harmony and music composition. He earned a Master of Arts in 1930.
Anderson continued at Harvard, concentrating in Scandinavian languages, while also working as organist for the university, leading the choir and the Harvard University Band, and conducting and arranging for local dance bands. In 1936 Arthur Fiedler hired Anderson as both arranger and to produce original works for the Boston Pops.
In 1942, Anderson joined the U.S. Army, as a translator and intelligence officer. He was stationed at the Pentagon on Scandinavian intelligence matters.
In 1951 Anderson wrote his first hit, Blue Tango. It was the first instrumental recording to sell over a million records. He was immensely successful in the 1950s with pieces such as Sleigh Ride, Bugler's Holiday, and The Syncopated Clock.
- The Syncopated Clock was the theme song for The Late Show on New York’s WCBS-TV in 1950.
- Plink, Plank, Plunk! was used as the theme for the CBS panel show “I’ve Got A Secret” throughout the 50s.
- The Typewriter was often performed by the Boston Pops. When Anderson occasionally conducted, he would roll up his sleeves, don a green eyeshade and flail away on an imaginary typewriter while the orchestra played.
According to the his official website, "Leroy Anderson is considered by many to be one of America's four greatest 20th Century composers of instrumental music, alongside George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Charles Ives”
June 29, 2008 is the centennial of Anderson’s birth.