Watch a recording of the concert.

Performance

Winter 2024

Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble

February 23, 2024

This event occurred as part of the 23/24 Hop Ensemble season. This is an archived view.

The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble has been selected to perform MusicMexico at Cornell University as part of the 2024 College Band Directors National Association conference.

23/24 Hop Ensemble

DCWE at Cornell

Watch a recording of the concert >

Brian Messier, director

In continuation of their efforts to advance the Mexican Repertoire Initiative, the ensemble, led by Director Brian Messier, premieres new works by Mexican composers: Onda Tropical, a Hop commission by Rodrigo Martinez Torres 'GR, and Tundra, a Hop-led consortium by Nubia Jaime Donjuan. Venezuelan two-time Latin Grammy-winning composer, cuatro and guitar player Héctor Molina shares the stage with the ensemble for the world premiere of Fuga con Pajarillo, a Hop commission composed by Aldemaro Romero. The program also features a Hop commission by Jorge Sosa and a Hop-led consortium by Juan Pablo Contreras.

The event is open to the public and will be live-streamed.

Photo: Katie Lenhart

The Hop Presents

Dartmouth College
Wind Ensemble

Brian Messier, conductor

with

Héctor Molina, cuatro
Ricardo Iván Guzmán Terrazas, guest conductor

Friday, February 23, 5:30 pm
Bailey Hall, Cornell University • 2024

Program

Approximate duration: 75 minutes

MusicMexico
La Silla (2023) Juan Pablo Contreras (1987–)

New England Triptych William Billings (1746–1800)
II. When Jesus Wept (1958) arr. William Schuman (1910–1992)
Katelyn Hadley ’24, trumpet
Margaret Frazier ’25, euphonium

Descarga (2023) Jorge Sosa (1976–)
Ricardo Iván Guzmán Terrazas, guest conductor

Onda Tropical (2023) Rodrigo Martinez Torres (1992–)
I. Rebajado
Abi Pak ’26, accordion

Fuga con Pajarillo (1976/2024)
Aldemaro Romero (1928–2007)
arr. Brian Messier; harp
Héctor Molina, cuatro harp and piano comp. Xavier Perry

Greta Richardson ’26, harp
Annie Tang ’25, piano
Nicholas Browne, bass
World premiere arrangement

Tundra (2024) Nubia Jaime Donjuan (1984–)
World premiere

About Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble

The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble (DCWE) is a non-credited ensemble primarily composed of non-music majors. With a membership of 40-50 Dartmouth College students, supplemented by community members from the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont, the DCWE performs exciting, innovative and culturally relevant music with the highest level of artistic integrity and a commitment to social justice.

From the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble Director

The Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble (DCWE) is thrilled to perform MusicMexico at the Eastern Division CBDNA Conference; a celebration of the Mexican Repertoire Initiative at Dartmouth. Throughout our program, we will share some of our early successes with authentic and innovative Mexican music, as well as some of our broader achievements as a result of our musical diplomacy work.

Our four original Mexican works on this program represent the “cornerstone” composers of our initiative. Rodrigo (Roy) Martinez Torres was the winner of the first DCWE Composition Competition for Mexican Composers in 2020, and is now a graduate student at Dartmouth. Juan Pablo Contreras and Nubia Jaime Donjuan joined Roy in our first round of commissioned composers featured at the our inaugural MusicMexico Symposium in 2022; all three of these composers have also won the prestigious Arturo Márquez composition competition in Mexico. Jorge Sosa served as an invited presenter at the Symposium, writing his first work for winds shortly thereafter.

But our work extends beyond commissions, we also strive to be cultural ambassadors. In the Fall of 2022, we invited Latin Grammy-winning trumpeter Pacho Flores and two-time Latin-Grammy winning cuatro player Héctor Molina to campus to perform Arturo Márquez’s Concierto de Otoño. Both artists being from Venezuela, they shared with me a remarkable work by Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero. Héctor is returning tonight to join us in our premiere, and we are honored to be joined by Romero’s daughter, Ruby.

Following our tour of Mexico last spring, we invited some of our partners from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to join the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble in performance at New England Conservatory’s historic Jordan Hall this Fall. Whereas we performed all original Mexican Music with UNAM in March, when welcoming our guests to New England, we thought it appropriate to reciprocate by sharing a work of classic, Boston-based Americana. Watching and listening to guest conductor Luis Manuel Sánchez lead the DCWE in Schuman/Billing’s When Jesus Wept was one of the most profound experiences of my career.

Tonight, as we attempt to encapsulate all that the Mexican Repertoire Initiative is—new music, new relationships, and expanding borders—we are again joined onstage by guest musicians from UNAM and beyond. We hope that you enjoy the performance as much as we have enjoyed the years of work that got us here. Thank you.

Brian Messier

Program Notes

La Silla
La Silla (“The Saddle”) was inspired by a horse racing event in Monterrey, as well as a natural ‘saddle’ (ridge) in the mountains nearby. A local ranch and this mountain feature share the name La Silla. The work features a bold fanfare and a lyrical theme under the rhythmic excitement akin to riding on horseback. Originally written for orchestra, this wind ensemble version was co-commissioned by a consortium of 10 wind bands.
Juan Pablo Contreras

When Jesus Wept
When Jesus Wept (1958) is the second movement of William Schuman’s New England Triptych, based on a hymn written by William Billings in 1770. The piece begins with a presentation of Billings’ hymn by the trumpet and euphonium duet, followed by a more contemporary take on the hymn with a round featuring the full ensemble. Schuman wrote the piece for Russo-American conductor Andre Kostelanetz, which, during the height of the Cold War, was seen as a bridge between the two cultures. When Jesus Wept is representative of strength growing within communities after a dark time, which resonated strongly with its post-World War II American audience. William Schuman (1910-1992) holds numerous musical achievements, including serving as the president of the Juilliard School of Music and the first president of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, as well as winning the first Pulitzer Prize for music in 1943 for A Free Song and the National Medal of Arts in 1987. William Billings (1746-1800), who wrote the hymn upon which this piece is based, was one of the earliest American choral composers. The text of the original hymn goes,

When Jesus wept, the falling tear

In mercy flowed beyond all bound.

When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear

Seized all the guilty world around.

When Jesus Wept was published in The New-England Psalm-Singer, the first collection of church hymns composed entirely by Americans, and is based upon a text by Perez Morton. Billings spent the entirety of his life in Boston and was friends with other famous Bostonians such as Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. When Jesus Wept features Dartmouth’s 2022 and 2023 Culley Concerto Brass and Percussion winners, Katelyn Hadley ’24 and Margaret Frazier ’25.
Margaret Frazier ’25

Descarga
Descarga is my first composition for wind ensemble commissioned by Brian Messier and the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College as part of their Mexican Repertoire Initiative. The title Descarga loosely translates to “discharge,” signifying an intense transfer of energy, similar to the term “descarga eléctrica” in Spanish, which means an electric shock. This piece draws inspiration from the high-energy, often improvised sections found in Salsa and other Latinx music styles. Sections within the music that are largely improvised and feature soloistic percussion and high-energy solos are commonly known as “descargas.” Descarga integrates elements of Mambo and other Afro-Latinx styles, creating a vibrant tapestry of pulsating, syncopated rhythms. These are set against references to symphonic works from the classical canon, including motifs reminiscent of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. The blend of Afro-Latinx genres with classical motifs presents a unique perspective, highlighting the versatility and sonic power of the wind ensemble. As Descarga unfolds, it takes the listeners on a journey through contrasting moods and textures, immersing them in a world where the fiery energy of Latin jazz meets the grandeur of symphonic music. This work combines the rhythms of Mambo and the music of Perez Prado with the energy of Beethoven’s symphonic writing, jazz harmonies and modernist colors.
Jorge Sosa

Onda Tropical
Early in the Fall of 2022, Dr. Brian Messier introduced me to first-year Dartmouth student Abi Pak. The two of us went on to build a special and musical friendship, reinforced by a culture so dear to us both: cumbia sonidera. This music sounds in every corner of my hometown, and in Abi’s former workplace in Germantown, Maryland; the same place where she learned to speak Spanish like a true chilanga. Brian asked me to write a concerto for Abi, so Abi and I met every week to improvise cumbias, me playing percussion and Abi accordion: Onda Tropical, concerto for diatonic accordion and wind band, was born. “Rebajado,” the first movement of an in-progress three-movement concerto, takes its name from a common practice among Mexican cumbia DJs of slowing down recordings.

There are three important Ondas that inform the title. First, the piece intends to transmit a tropical vibe (or “onda” in Spanish) amidst the cold weather of New England. Second, the conception of the piece alludes to the sonidero culture, where Mexicans in the US would ask cumbia DJs to send warm regards and greetings to their loved ones back in Mexico, via radio waves (also “ondas” in Spanish). Similarly, I am using this work to reach out to my loved ones in Mexico saying “I’m in the US. I’m ok. We listen to cumbia out here as well, and I have friends who speak my language.” Lastly, I intend to structure the eventual three movements of the piece as combined musical waves, where the sonic events established in the first movement unravel like waves that slowly become louder, faster and more tropical.

Onda Tropical was commissioned by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College and is kindly dedicated to Abi Pak, Brian Messier and the members of the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble.
Rodrigo Martinez Torres

Fuga con Pajarillo (fugue with little bird)
Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero wrote his Suite for Strings in 1976 while living in London. The work was first performed by the Caracas Philharmonic Orchestra, which Romero founded and conducted, but it was La Camerata Criolla who first added a “break” for traditional Venezuelan instruments, causing a national sensation. Years later, a young Venezuelan conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, was accepted into the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany. A requirement of the competition was that conductors bring a work from their home country. José Antonio Abreu, Director of Venezuelan El Sistema, commissioned Romero to compose a full orchestra version of Fuga con Pajarillo for Dudamel. Romero then coached Dudamel on the work, with which he ultimately won the competition in 2004, launching him to international stardom.

The wind band arrangement of Fuga con Pajarillo is primarily based upon Romero’s own orchestral arrangement with the addition of percussion and an optional break for traditional Venezuelan instruments: harp, cuatro, bass and maracas. The traditional Venezuelan llanera harp is a diatonic instrument without pedals, making the traditional strumming patterns impossible to play on pedal harp. In order to remain as authentic as possible, Venezuelan llanera and pedal harpist, Xavier Perry, was commissioned to write a solo for pedal harp in the style of llanera harp, which has been split between the harp and piano soloists.
Brian Messier

Tundra
I have always been interested in knowing about different ecosystems, and as a person who practically lives in the desert, I am amazed by the opposite. I have baptized this new danzón as Tundra, and you may wonder: what relationship would the danzón have with the cold climate of the Tundra, with the danzón being such a warm musical genre? The answer lies in the subtitle “A cold that burns.”
Nubia Jaime Donjuan

About the Artists

Dr. Brian Messier is Director of Bands and Senior Liaison for Hopkins Center Ensembles at Dartmouth, where he directs the Wind Ensemble and Marching Band, and teaches courses in applied conducting, musical leadership and arts entrepreneurship. After arriving at Dartmouth in 2019, Messier launched a Mexican Composition Competition, which he has since stewarded into the Mexican Repertoire Initiative at Dartmouth; a musical, cultural and diplomatic initiative sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. The initiative is committed to bringing Mexican repertoire to the international stage, providing opportunities for Mexican composers, combating institutionalized racism in educational and professional performing ensembles, and bringing artists together across borders. In the spring of 2023, the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble toured Mexico in partnership with the US Department of State and the Mexico Ministry of Culture’s celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico.

In addition to his work at Dartmouth, Messier is founder and Artistic Director of the 2016 American Prize-winning Valley Winds based in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, a group for which he also won the 2023 American Prize in conducting. Prior to his position at Dartmouth, Messier served as Artist in Residence and Director of the Wind Ensemble at Williams College, and served for 11 years in the public schools of Belchertown and Amherst, Massachusetts, receiving invitations to perform at the state conference with each program respectively. Lauded for his work with ensembles ranging from youth to professional, Messier is in high demand as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor.

Messier received his bachelor’s degree in music education from Ithaca College, his master’s degree in wind conducting from the University of Massachusetts, and his doctoral degree in conducting from the University of Minnesota where he studied with Craig Kirchhoff.

Héctor Molina (1980), is considered today one of the most recognized figures of the new generation of Venezuelan musicians. Awarded twice with the Latin Grammy with his group C4 Trío and nominated on multiple occasions for both the Latin Grammy and the Grammy Awards, Héctor has earned respect and recognition as one of the most outstanding figures of Venezuelan music with traditional roots.

Cuatro player, guitarist and composer, Héctor has achieved a symbiosis that leads him to move between the folkloric and the academic without any difficulty. A good demonstration of this has been the work developed with Los Sinvergüenzas and C4 Trío, with whom he has toured North, Central, South America and Europe, in addition to a dozen highly accepted and successful albums.

Parallel to his work with Los Sinvergüenzas and C4 Trío, in recent years he has dedicated a good part of his time to the development of a solo project where, in addition to exploiting his virtuosity as a player of the Venezuelan cuatro, his main instrument, he also shows his side as a composer. Part of this experience has already been recorded in two record productions; Giros (2018) and Travesía (2022).

Since 2017, the year he permanently settled in the city of Miami-USA, he has undertaken the “Nexus Duo” project with his wife, the Venezuelan flutist Yaritzy Cabrera. With “Nexus Duo” they work on a repertoire based on Latin American music with special emphasis on Venezuelan music and original compositions for the duo.

Starting in 2020, in the midst of global confinement, the project Hablemos del cuatro (Let’s Talk About the Cuatro), emerged, an informative and educational podcast where Héctor explores his role as a communicator and researcher through informal and relaxed conversations with different personalities of special relevance within the fascinating world of the Venezuelan Cuatro. This podcast has been well received and has become a record of special importance for the history of the national instrument of Venezuela.

Héctor is currently one of the most active and relevant figures in Venezuelan music, frequently required to collaborate on musical projects with artists of very different genres and trends, in addition to the work that he regularly develops in his own projects.

Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987, Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Latin Grammy-nominated conductor and composer who combines Western classical and Mexican folk music in a single soundscape. His works have been performed by 20 wind ensembles and 40 major orchestras in the United States, Mexico, Austria, Slovakia, Colombia, Spain, Argentina and Venezuela. He is the winner of the 2023 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music and is celebrated as the first Mexican-born composer to sign a record deal with Universal Music, serve as Sound Investment Composer with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and win the BMI William Schuman Prize.

Jorge Sosa “I have something to say, and I am saying it.” Jorge Sosa is a Mexican-born Associate Professor and Composer at Molloy University, currently residing in New York City. Best known for his work Alice in the Pandemic and I Am A Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams, Sosa writes “traces of folk and traditional music from around the globe, chant, and polyphonic vocal repertoire, Afro-Latin rhythms, Jazz harmonies, and electronic music” (Sosa). Notably, Sosa was selected as a finalist for The Atlanta Opera 96 Hour Opera Project in 2022, premiered the opera scene Samiir’s Feast, and co-composed Splintered with Justine Chen, with libretto by Lila Palmer, which was awarded an Opera America Repertoire Development Grant in 2022.

Rodrigo Martinez Torres is a Mexican composer interested in the abstraction of popular musical languages as a tool for new creations. He is also a multi instrumentalist who performs in different genres and styles. He studied music composition in Academia de Arte de Florencia and in Núcleo Integral de Composición (CDMX). He holds a Master in Electroacoustic Composition from Centro Superior Katarina Gurska (Madrid, Spain), and is currently pursuing an MFA in Sonic Practice at Dartmouth College.

He received an Arts Integration grant by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth in 2023. He was a grant holder in the Mexican program Jóvenes Creadores by FONCA in 2018-2019. He was awarded a MacDowell fellowship (New Hampshire, USA) in October 2019. Rodrigo was the grand prize-winning composer of the 2020 Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble Composition Competition. He also won the 2017 Arturo Márquez composition competition with his piece Mambo Urbano, for chamber orchestra. His music has been played by german accordionist Eva Zöllner, Dutch ensemble Modelo 62, Mexican ensembles CEPROMUSIC, Liminar and Ensamble Tamayo, as well as by Italian pianist Gloria Campaner.

Aldemaro Romero (1928–2007) was a Venezuelan pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. Born in Valencia, Romero spent most of his Venezuelan life in Caracas although he traveled widely, spending time and living in Cuba, Madrid, New York and London. Romero was primarily self-taught as a composer and musician, having been rejected from the music conservatory in Venezuela due to his fondness for “non-academic” music. Despite not holding a high school diploma, Romero was fluent in seven languages and founded and conducted the Orquesta Filarmonica de Caracas. Most significantly, Romero is credited as the creator of the Venezuelan Onda Nueva (new wave), a fusion of Brazilian Bossa Nova and Venezuelan Joropo. Throughout his career, Romero was both criticized and celebrated for his inclusion of folk and popular styles with classical form and technique. Today, Romero is Venezuela’s most performed classical composer, leaving behind a legacy of arrangements, recordings and compositions that reveal a musical master whose heart was always in Venezuela.

Nubia Jaime Donjuan began her cello studies at age six, forming part of the Symphonic Youth Orchestra of Sonora. She then continued her professional studies in the University of Sonora. She has studied composition with Arturo Márquez and Alexis Aranda, orchestration with David H. Bretón, and a composition master class with Brian Banks through the University of the Americas Puebla.

Proud of her roots and being raised by her musician father and historian mother, Ms. Jaime-Donjuan has adopted the artistic and cultural expressions of her surroundings to create her music, always taking inspiration from different elements of nature. Nubia navigates between two worlds as a composer and performer, being a cellist in the Pitic Quintet, a beneficiary of FONCA 2021-2022, and the founder of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sonora, where she currently serves as the co-principal cellist. As a composer and performer, she forms part of the project “Las Montoneras”, which unites the work of female composers, performers and researchers, seeking to make women’s work more recognized in the national music scene. Nubia is the first woman to win the Arturo Márquez Chamber Orchestra Composition Contest (2021), with her work Maso Ye’eme, which merges the popular genre danzon and the Yaqui Deer Dance.

Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble

Brian Messier, conductor

Flute
Elsa Coulam ’27 (+piccolo), Neuroscience/Education
Abby Cushman ’27, English
Brin Jaffe ’25 (+piccolo), Environmental Earth
Science/Public Policy
Clara Schaefer ’25, Anthropology/Philosophy
Crystal Ye ’27, Biology

Oboe
Nathaniel Chen ’25, Anthropology/Biology and Music
Aaron Lakota IIP

E-flat clarinet
Dwight Aspinwall ’84, Computer Science

B-flat clarinet
Conor Joyce C
Catherine Liao ’25, Biology and Music
Ulises Herrera Martínez UNAM
Connor Perrotta ’27, English
Anna Raymond ’27, Math
Elias Rosenberg ’22, Music and Computer Science/
Human Centered Design
Julia Spigai ’26, Psychology/Education
Leah Zamansky ’24, Women’s Gender and Sexuality
Studies/Spanish

Bass clarinet
Jim Lenz C
Morgan Reik GR, Chemistry

Bassoon
Maribel Alonso, UNAM
Sonny Hur ’27, Cognitive Science & Government

Contrabassoon
Lucy Langenberg ’22, Biology & Music/Earth Science

Soprano saxophone
Devontae Lacasse ’24 (+alto saxophone),
Quantitative Social Science/Public Policy,
African & African-American Studies

Alto saxophone
Mason Carter ’24, Government/French
Tracy Weener ’26, Quantitative Social Science/
Public Policy & French

Tenor saxophone
Azalia Hernández Villalobos UNAM

Baritone saxophone
Mickie McCorkle FS

Trumpet
Blaine Boxwell ’27, Earth Science
Jake Crawford ’27, Engineering
Jared Daigrepont ’26, Biology/French
Julia D’Antico C
Katelyn Hadley ’24, Engineering
Brady Quintard ’25, Engineering/Physics

Horn

Jack Duranceau ’23, Physics & Astronomy/
Applied Math
Ameila Evans ’24, Electrical Engineering/Philosophy
Ricardo Iván Guzmán Terrazas UNAM
Austin Macdonald FS
Janet Proctor C
Shisui Torii ’27, Computer Science modified
with Engineering

Trombone
Ian Smith ’24, Biology modified with Chemistry/Music
Sam Young ’27, Computer Science

Bass trombone
Tim Sessions IIP

Euphonium
Margaret Frazier ’25, Engineering & Music
John Rieling ’26, Biology modified with
Computer Science

Tuba
Chase Harvey ’25, Music

String bass
Nicholas Browne IIP
Amir Melkic ’26, Computer Science & Russian

Piano
Annie Tang ’25, Music & Computer Science

Harp
Greta Richardson ’26, Engineering/Music

Timpani
Diana Zaira García Soto UNAM

Percussion
Beccy Abraham GR, Digital Music
Braydon Baxter ’25 (piano), Music
Rafael Godinho ’24, Mathematical Data Science/Music
Jack Liedtka ’27, Mathematics & Physics
Abi Pak ’26, Linguistics
Adam Svoboda ’27, Biochemistry/Spanish

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