Yale Concert Band Fall Concert: "The Pursuit of Happiness" (J Colonna), "Symphony No. 4" (D Masanka), more

Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director. Program:

● World premiere of Jim Colonna’s The Pursuit of Happiness: A Symphony for Wind Ensemble (2024),
a Yale Concert Band commission. This twenty-minute work celebration of optimism in the
face of hardship is inspired by The Happiness Lab, a positive psychology
podcast hosted by Laurie Santos, the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of
Psychology at Yale University. Each movement (“The Seeker,” “When I looked to
the sky, the stars sparkled with love,” “Simply, Play,” and “Be Here, Now”) is
named after a quotation from philosopher Alan Watts and derived from Colonna’s
favorite consonant and dissonant musical intervals.

● David
Maslanka’s monumental Symphony No. 4 (1993) is inspired by
the spontaneous rise of the impulse to shout for the joy of life. Structured as
a single thirty-minute movement, the symphony’s main melodic material is
derived from Bach chorales and hymn tunes, most notably “Old Hundred.”
According to Maslanka, these allusions take the composer’s fascination with the
life of Abraham Lincoln as an entry point for contemplating the fundamental
human issues of unity, transformation, and rebirth in times of chaos.

● Kevin
Day’s energetic Stride (2023),
a Yale Concert Band commission, contrasts brass and drum grooves with a lyrical section
featuring the woodwinds. The piece is inspired by the two meanings of its
title: to decisively overcome obstacles, but also to march on the field, a
homage to Day’s background in the Texas marching band tradition.

● Charles Ives, Yale class of 1898, composed the Country Band March in
1903. The “out-of-tune” introduction and eclectic allusions to nursery rhymes,
country fiddling and Sousa marches parody the sounds of a country band.