There is a Russian word, drobnost’, that translates roughly to ‘splinteredness’ (musicologist Richard Taruskin uses that word; Google translates it to ‘fractionality’). It is a state of being—a feeling of being broken apart, of having discreet fractions of the whole occurring simultaneously. Holly’s work, which opens our concert, might be the best illustration of this concept, where melodies and forms are broken apart, seemingly abandoned for something entirely different, only to be resumed later right where it was left off. As the work progresses, you might begin to feel like you are listening to multiple pieces at once, where different blocks of sound throw each other into relief.

But there is a deeper thread of splinteredness throughout the concert, one that reflects much of what I feel as I contemplate the conflicts and struggles we are currently experiencing as a society. It seems that no matter how hard we try, where there are humans, there is damage. But that is also not the entire story, because often where there are humans, there is also healing. This strange paradox can be seen in our music—Can a destructive wildfire create something beautiful? Can a 20^th Century English melody sound like it both belongs in the 20^th Century and in the 18^th Century at the same time? Can the Lord’s Prayer and a text by a Buddhist monk not only both have the same plea, but also the same solution to our human paradox (and did Bach already figure that out too)?

A splinter is also a kind of paradox. When something foreign pierces my skin—a piece of wood, a mosquito’s proboscis, a slipped knife when cutting vegetables—my initial reaction is usually…dismay (or some more aggressive form of it). However, splinters can also bring healing—a surgeon’s scalpel, a stint for the heart, a shot filled with the MMR vaccine. I don’t know exactly what that means for our society, but it does bring me both caution and hope.

I think most people would agree with me that America, and possibly the world, and possibly even Utah County, live in a state of splinteredness. Our democracy was founded on the hope of Hegel’s dialectic, that opposites would synthesize into something greater (after a struggle of course). I suppose the question is what we do with that state of being. How do find each other, how do we build something together, how do respect each other’s position and still find something better together? I had the privilege of meeting David Maslanka several years ago before he passed, and I am confident in his confidence that music was one way forward. If we could just pay attention to it…and to each other.

So on the surface, this is a concert that presents familiar forms and tropes from new angles and showcases surprising shadows. But at a deeper level, we ask ourselves, what divides light from dark, left from right, right from wrong, tradition from innovation, good from evil, awesome from awful? And whatever that thing is that splinters opposites, how do we use it in the pursuit of the sublime?

In this context, the word "splinter" means to break into small, sharp fragments, and refers to the way in which the piece is structured as a type of mosaic or stylistic patchwork. Many sections of the piece feature instrument sounds breaking or distorting in some way -- whether this be in the extremes of register, wild glissandos, or crunchy chords. 

The other meaning of "splinter" is as a foreign object within the body. This acts as a metaphor for my experimentation with some lighter, delicate moments, which are not always part of my musical sound world.

- Program Note by composer

I never saw snowfall as a child growing up in Southern California; it was more a phenomenon that I saw in cartoons or read in children’s books. I did, however witness my first ash-fall when I was in elementary school. I looked up into the clouded sky and saw specks of ash falling from it. Excited but puzzled, I looked to my elementary school teacher during recess and held out my hand. “Oh, that’s ash from the wildfires,” she said. At that time, I couldn’t comprehend how an enormous forest fire could create a small flurry of ash-flakes. Now I have the ominous understanding that something so magical and beautiful comes from something so powerful and destructive.

-Program Note by the composer

My title was originally “Clog Dance.” But my dear friend Willim Gair Rathbone (to whom the piece is dedicated) suggested the title “Handel in the Strand,” because the music seemed to reflect both Handel and English musical comedy (the “Strand,” a street in London, is the home of London musical comedy) as if jovial old Handel were careening down the Strand to the strains of modern English popular music.

- Program Note by composer

The words “Give us this day” are, of course, from the Lord’s Prayer, but the inspiration for this music is Buddhist. I have recently read a book by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced “Tick Not Hahn”) entitled For a Future to be Possible. His premise is that a future for the planet is only possible if individuals become deeply mindful of themselves, deeply connected to who they really are. While this is not a new idea, and something that is an ongoing struggle for everyone, in my estimation it is the issue for world peace. For me, writing music, and working with people to perform music, are two of those points of deep mindfulness.

Music makes the connection to reality, and by reality I mean a true awakeness and awareness. Give Us This Day gives us this very moment of awakeness and aware aliveness so that we can build a future in the face of a most dangerous and difficult time.

I chose the subtitle “Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble” because the music isn’t programmatic in nature. It has a full-blown symphonic character, even though there are only two movements. The music of the slower first movement is deeply searching, while that of the highly energized second movement is at times both joyful and sternly sober. The piece ends with a modal setting of the choral melody Vater Unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven), No. 110 from the 371 four-part chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach.

-Program Note by the composer

Dr. Christopher Ramos

Conductor