West in concert April 10 in Vacaville, Calif. On the playlist were
compositions by two other WSU College of Fine Arts faculty
members, Walter Mays and Dean Roush.
Military bands are a long-standing tradition. The first in this nation formed in New Hampshire in 1653 — with 15 hautbois (oboes) and two drums. In the late 1800s, John Philip Sousa and his U.S. Marine Band raised their function to an art form, and today’s U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West, stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California, continues the legacy.
Commanded and conducted by Capt. Michael Mench, the Band of the Golden West holds the reputation of being one of the top military bands in the country, a reputation proven by its selection to play at the 2004 internment ceremonies for former President Reagan. While the band has a solid repertoire of marches and other traditional music, Mench also strives to back up the up-to-the-nanosecond technology of the Air Force planes overhead with a band that’s “on the bleeding edge of modern music.”
To that end, Mench invited Victor Markovich, WSU professor and director of bands, winds and percussion studies — and a former professor at Mench’s undergraduate institution of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville — to California to work with and then conduct the band in a Great Composers concert in Vacaville. He also taught as the lead clinician at a conducting symposium this past April at Travis Air Force Base.
As it turned out, Markovich wasn’t the only Shocker to be in the spotlight in California. He explains, “For the concert, Capt. Mench wanted to program two relatively new works for band. I told him about the work of two of our WSU resident faculty composers, Walter Mays, our WSU Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Composition, and Dean Roush, professor and director of musicology and composition studies — and they ended up accompanying me to California to work with the Band of the Golden West. At the concert, we played ‘First Light’ by Mays and Roush’s ‘Illuminations.’”
Both “Illuminations” and “First Light” are amelodic, occasionally rumbling pieces — definitely not typical military-band marches.
Mays explains that he wrote the latter as “a metaphor for the process of discovery that will unfold in the new century,” specifically in astronomy; a tuba chorale in the piece was inspired by “the slow moving majesty of telescopes like Palomar and Hubble,” through which one can sometimes see the “first light” of a distant star spilling through the lens.
Roush’s “Illuminations,” recorded by the WSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble at the 2002 National Band Association Convention, was written for the centennial of WSU Bands. Roush relates that his composition is “based on the idea of light overcoming darkness, which in our ultimately good but dangerous world has long served as a metaphor for both spiritual and intellectual transcendence.” With this as its intent, it’s no wonder the piece is at times unsettling, with intervals that aren’t expected and sudden changes that keep the listener off guard.
Ultimately, Mays says, “we want our pieces to please the audience, but I think there’s also something bigger we’re trying to express.”
With a sense of professional and school pride, Markovich reports that both Mays and Roush have won the William D. Revelli Memorial Band Composition Contest Award, one of the band profession’s top awards for original composition. Mays won in 1996 for “Dreamcatcher,” while Roush won in 2002 for “Illuminations.” Says Markovich, “To my knowledge, WSU is the only university in the country with two composers residing on its faculty to have won this prestigious award.”
Having composers on faculty is important for a university band program, since, while orchestras can rely on centuries of compositions, “serious” music for concert band is younger and much less prevalent. And from the composer’s point of view, the university setting is a near-perfect workshop for their music, affording the opportunity to revise and re-revise, a luxury not offered a composer when turning over a composition to a professional group.
Markovich, Mays and Roush agree that rehearsals with the Band of the Golden West were fascinating, collaborative, productive sessions — with an eighth note of creative friction thrown in for good measure. For instance, there were the complexity and length (20 minutes compared to the usual six to 11) of the compositions, which caused some initial tension between the composers and members of the band, particularly for Mays, who was still putting finishing touches on “First Light.” He recalls that one trumpeter grumbled about being asked to change mutes: “Why didn’t you write it that way the first time?”
Markovich’s style of conducting, which Roush describes as “almost operatic,” fits perfectly with the intense — even lyrical — feelings explored in “First Light” and “Illuminations.” Yet this more emotive side of the WSU contingent may have taken the seasoned military band musicians by surprise. That’s because, as Mays points out, the more traditional military style is “exciting, but not emotional.”
There were advantages to working with the pros, say Markovich, Mays and Roush: less time spent on technique, for example. In fact, the members of the Band of the Golden West, had, as Markovich puts it, “no limitations.” (By the way, Mays reports that the complaining trumpeter ended up being one of the strongest players.)
In addition to rehearsals for the Great Composers concert, Markovich taught at a conducting symposium for high school directors. Mench describes this as a valuable service for the Air Force. Because band musicians and conductors aren’t recruited through ordinary channels (for one thing, most of them have master’s degrees), it’s an excellent opportunity for qualified people to learn what it’s like to lead an Air Force band. And even if they don’t sign up, studying with a top-notch university conductor such as Markovich helps them learn what he calls “emoting without having to talk.”
From every perspective, say Mays and Roush, the trip to California was an educational and musical success. Markovich says the experience “will live with me forever — a great collaborative experience.” Mench relates that it was “a blast to work with Vic again. He was a big inspiration for me, getting into teaching, realizing it was an honorable profession.”
And the Vacaville audience of 1,000 met the ultra-modern music with a standing ovation.
