Bicentennial Music

Legacy
Download MP3 files: (Legacy I), (Legacy II) and (Legacy III)

Born in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio, Eric Ewazen received his training from the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School, where he has served on the faculty since 1980. A student of Samuel Adler, Milton Babbit, Warren Benson and Joseph Schwantner, Ewazen has achieved his own position of prominence. His music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles at home and abroad, and his works have been recorded by members of the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra.

Legacy..., his commission for the academy's bicentennial, is a large, three- movement work written in cyclic form. It contains wonderfully broad Schumann-like themes that return in the final movement, creating a very full, powerful statement.

Dr. Ewazen has this to say about his piece:

"When I was first approached to compose this work, I immediately thought of my father, who was a World War II veteran. Wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, he was always very proud of his military service. The stories he would tell - of gallantry, loss, determination, harrowing experience - always resonated with pride. It is the spirit of his stories that I am trying to capture in this piece.

"The United States Military Academy is situated high above the Hudson River. It commands a grand view of this spectacular valley, and is a most imposing sight as viewed from the river. A true fortress, it seems as if it is carved into the massive, rocky cliffs. "...of a Fortress over a River Valley" describes this scene. The music depicts the stateliness of the buildings, the flow of the river and the drama of the beautiful landscape. "...of Fields of Battle" recalls the frightening WWII stories told by my father and uncles. Violent sounds of conflict surround a reassuring chorale. The finale "...of Home and Country" speaks of the never-ending hope to return home. Memories of West Point are ever present, and the old West Point song "Benny Havens" is heard, along with many traditional bugle calls."

Perpetual Song
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Dan Welcher, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, served with the U.S. Military Academy Band from 1969 to 1972 as a bassoonist and arranger. His compositions cover virtually every genre, including opera, concerto, symphony, wind ensemble and chamber music. Welcher has enjoyed performances of his music by over fifty orchestras and ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony and the Boston Pops. He currently serves as professor of composition at the University of Texas at Austin, and his recent commissions have been premiered by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus.

Perpetual Song is a single-movement work in three sections, reminiscent of the charming style of Percy Grainger, for many years a great friend to the Academy Band. In this work, Welcher also pays tribute to J.S. Bach and Dmitri Shostakovich through his use of seamless and well-crafted counterpoint.

Hudson River Rhapsody
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James Kessler, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, served for over twenty years on the arranging staff of the U.S. Army Band. His writing includes music for National Geographic, Kennedy Center Honors, numerous PBS specials and a host of performances involving the National Symphony Orchestra.

Hudson River Rhapsody, for solo oboe and band, was the first in a series of works written for the Academy Band to celebrate the bicentennial of the Military Academy. Like the Hudson River School paintings of Thomas Cole and Thomas Benjamin Pope, the rhapsody is really a bit of nostalgia, a remembrance influenced by the pastoral beauty and history that surround West Point and the Hudson River Valley. For over two hundred years, people have traveled from near and far to enjoy the quiet and tranquil peace of the Valley - to relax and perhaps meditate for just a moment on America's hard-won freedom. Hudson River Rhapsody is a modern day ballad, a reflective and melancholy camp song - the sort of music that has long been part of army life.

Restless Birds Before the Dark Moon
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David Kechley, a native of Seattle, Washington, holds degrees from the University of Washington and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is currently a professor of music and chair of the music department at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Kechley has produced 67 major works, with combined performances totaling more than eight hundred. These include collaborations with the Minnesota Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Pops, Seattle Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Colorado Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Kronos Quartet and Lark Quartet. He is the winner of numerous national prizes and awards, including a Barlow Foundation commission, and ASCAP and National Association of Schools of Music awards.

His tone painting Restless Birds Before the Dark Moon captures with realism all the effect of birds in flight. Both jagged and lyrical, it is a technical tour de force expressing the conflict of good and evil. The piece received its premier at the Twelfth World Saxophone Congress, in Montreal, Quebec, in 2000, and was the winner of the National Band Association's William D. Revelli Composition Contest.

The Line
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Jerry Bilik, conductor, lecturer, arranger and composer began writing while a student at the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan and served as chief arranger for the U.S. Military Academy Band from 1955 to 1958. After a distinguished career of teaching at his alma mater and Wayne State University, Bilik moved to Los Angeles, where he wrote for television, film, and live shows. He currently resides in Cabin John, Maryland and is the vice president of creative development for Disney on Ice. His spirited march The Line opens with a mist-shrouded reference to America's past. Distant drums set the tone, and a lonely piccolo quotes an early Revolutionary War tune. The title, of course, refers to West Point's "Long Gray Line" - the graduates of the United States Military Academy who have courageously served the Army and our nation for the past two hundred years.

Legacies of Honor
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Legacies of Honor, by Bert Truax, was premiered in 1997 at the Military Academy's magnificent Cadet Chapel, and was one of the first of the academy's bicentennial commissions. It pays tribute to three colorful figures in the Army's history: Heroic bugler Calvin P. Titus, winner of the Medal of Honor during the China Relief Expedition; Louis Bentz, beloved class bugler of the 1st Artillery Corps, who was buried at West Point after 45 years of faithful service; and illustrious Civil War General Dan Butterfield, composer of Taps. The original version, recorded here, is for five trumpets, tympani, field drum and organ. An alternate version with extra brass parts replacing the organ, is also available.

Bert Truax is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, and was a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra trumpet section from 1976 to 2000. He has been composing since 1978, and his Legacies of Honor was performed in Dallas by the Dallas Symphony, along with members of the Academy Band, during the fall of 1999.

Buffalo Soldiers
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James Kimo Williams' Buffalo Soldiers was inspired by the courageous exploits of the famed 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry, all-black regiments who served in the American West following the Civil War. These troops were nicknamed "Buffalo Soldiers" by the Indians, as their curly hair, dark complexion and strength in battle reminded them of the tremendous creature. This proud symbol of respect and honor eventually became part of the unit's history and is included on its unit crest.

According to Mr. Williams:

"Buffalo Soldiers includes an excerpt from a speech by Abraham Lincoln in 1857, responding to the Supreme Court's momentous Dred Scott Decision. This passage is unusually poetic, and, unfortunately, prophetic, as history proves. It would be another hundred years before those "hundred keys" began to unlock the prison of discrimination. The Civil War ended the institution of slavery, but had little effect on the institution of racism. Only through the collective efforts of individual Americans, black and white, have we been able to create a society of equal participation..."

Dawn to Glory
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Renowned American composer, conductor and teacher Samuel Adler (b.1928) began his formal studies with Herbert Fromm at Boston University, and continued with Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson and Paul Hindemith at Harvard. He is a product of the early years of the Tanglewood Festival, where he studied composition with Aaron Copland and conducting with Serge Koussevitsky. In 1950 he joined the U.S. Army, organizing the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted in more than seventy concerts throughout Europe. Adler returned to the United States and began his academic career as professor of composition at North Texas State University. In 1966 he joined the staff of the Eastman School of Music, eventually becoming chairman of the composition department. Samuel Adler has received many commissions and awards including grants from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. He currently serves as professor of composition at the Juilliard School.

Dawn to Glory is patterned on the traditional overture, with some bows to sonata form. Thematic material comes from three early-American songs: a hymn tune of William Billings, a modal fuging tune, and a patriotic anthem entitled To Thee the Tuneful Anthem Soars. These melodies, along with some fleeting references to Reveille, provide most of the fabric which makes up this beautifully crafted work.

Fantasy on When Johnny Comes Marching Home
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Robert Starer (1924-2001), long-time resident of New York's Hudson Valley region, began his musical life in Vienna. He studied at the Vienna Academy and continued his work at the Jerusalem Conservatory. Starer received a postgraduate scholarship to the Juilliard School and then remained in New York, where he served for many years as professor of composition at City University's Brooklyn College. He received two Guggenheim fellowships and a Fullbright grant, and his works have been performed by many of America's major orchestras.

The Fantasy on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," which received its premiere at West Point in October of 1998, contains many of Starer's oft used techniques: parallel chord movement, quartal harmonies, and repetition of small melodic fragments. The work's clear, direct structure is the perfect vehicle for this traditional, well-known tune, providing opportunity for a wide cross-section of affects, from plaintive and poignant to explosive and powerful.

Fantasia on The Army Blue
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Hollywood film composer Ira Hearshen's contribution to the bicentennial was written for the U.S. Army Field Band and premiered by that organization in February of 1999. It is based on one of West Point's most beloved songs, Army Blue. The academy borrowed the melody from the popular song Aura Lee, which originated as a minstrel song and was published at the beginning of the Civil War. It was well-known by soldiers of both the Confederate and Union armies, and in 1865, the graduating cadets adopted it as their class song. The words of the first verse refer to the graduating cadets, who will soon toss off their gray uniforms as they prepare to wear the army blue of a new 2nd lieutenant:

We've not much longer here to stay, for in a month or two,
We'll bid farewell to "Kaydet Gray," and don the "Army Blue."
Army Blue, Army Blue, Hurrah for the Army Blue!
We'll bid farewell to "Kaydet Gray," and don the "Army Blue."