Program note provided by the Composer

Grace Baugher Dunlap (b.1995) is a Kansas born composer, horn player, and music educator. Her music is known for its memorable melodies and highlights emotional aspects of the human experience. She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a Masters in Music Composition and Graduate Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy. Previously she studied Music Composition and French Horn at Kansas State University where she later received a Graduated Certificate in Music Education. Her music has an international presence and has made appearances at many colleges and conferences across the country. Grace lives in Kansas City with her husband Max, her cats Elsa and Willett, and many, many plants.

Becoming is a piece about change. It was written at a period of much transition for me. I had just moved to a new city, finally finished all my graduate work, got married, bought a house, and started a career. These are beautiful and exciting parts of life but I found that I had a difficult time with my self-identity. In the following months I found beauty in the transition and came to accept that I was always going to be evolving, and that is okay. If you are in a period of transition as well, I hope this piece will give you time for reflection and space to love yourself through this phase.

Program note provided by Austin Lowery

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg concerti, the Mass in B minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier, two Passions, keyboard works, and more than 300 cantatas, of which nearly 100 cantatas have been lost to posterity. His music is revered for its intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty.

Bach was born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach, into a great musical family; his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father probably taught him to play violin and harpsichord, and his brother, Johann Christoph Bach, taught him the clavichord and exposed him to much contemporary music. Apparently at his own initiative, Bach attended St Michael's School in Lüneburg for two years. After graduating, he held several musical posts across Germany: he served as Kapellmeister (director of music) to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, Cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, and Royal Court Composer to August III. Bach's health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Modern historians believe that his death was caused by a combination of stroke and pneumonia. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the nineteenth century. He is now generally regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque period, and as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, stands as one of the most innovative musical explorations of counterpoint in Western music. Composed during the final years of Bach’s life, this collection consists of a series of fugues (then known as Contrapuncti) and canons, all derived from a single, seemingly simple theme.

In Contrapunctus V, Bach introduces a new level of complexity by employing inversion and stretto, two techniques that deepen the intellectual and emotional impact of the fugue. The principal subject is manipulated in a variety of ways, often appearing upside down or layered closely with itself in rapid succession. These techniques not only demonstrate Bach’s contrapuntal mastery, but also provide the work with a sense of dramatic tension and momentum.

Program note provided by the composer

Molly Joyce is a composer and performer whose work explores disability creative sources through music, performance, and research. Hailed by The Washington Post as a “versatile, prolific and intriguing composer,” she blends adaptive technologies like motion capture and the KAiKU glove in her compositions. Her upcoming album State Change (2025) uses surgical records as lyrics and she recently scored Patrice: The Movie, which premiered at TIFF and streamed on Hulu. Joyce's 2022 album Perspective features interviews with 47 disabled individuals and has evolved into performances, installations, and public art. Her music has been presented by institutions like Carnegie Hall, SXSW: EDU, and the Hirshhorn Museum, and performed by orchestras such as the Minnesota and New World Symphony. She collaborates across disciplines with artists, choreographers, and writers, including Jerron Herman on the acclaimed piece Left and Right. She often performs on a vintage toy organ, central to her exploration of disability and sound. A Juilliard and Yale graduate, Joyce holds an MA in Disability Studies and is a Dean’s Doctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia. Her work has earned major grants, awards, and residencies, and is represented by INTERIM. 

Up and Down is an exploration between wide and contracted ranges within the wind ensemble, along with arpeggios to sustained chords. The inquiry stems from research into social uniformity and particularly through the social model of disability, which states that people are disabled by barriers in society rather than by impairment or difference. Therefore by highlighting the differences between expanded and contracted registral facets, I hope to illuminate overriding challenges in such a polarizing categorization, as well as utilize the singular body of the wind ensemble, an optimal instrumentation to execute such differences. Up and Down was commissioned by and dedicated to Hope College Wind Ensemble and Dr. Gabe Southard, made possible by a Hope College Patrons for the Arts grant.

Program note provided by J. Ben Jones

James Barnes was born September 9, 1949, in Hobart, Oklahoma. Barnes was involved with music from a young age and played tuba and euphonium in his school band. He attended the University of Kansas and earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1974, and a master’s degree in theory and composition in 1975. Beginning in 1977, he taught courses in arranging, composition, and band literature as a member of the Theory and Composition faculty at the University of Kansas, where he also served as the Associate Director of Bands for twenty-seven years. Barnes has composed over eighty pieces for band and won the prestigious American Bandmasters Association / Ostwald composition award twice, first in 1978 for Symphony, op. 35 and again in 1981 for Visions Macabre. 

Autumn Soliloquy was originally written for solo oboe and band, but was later transcribed to feature flute or clarinet. Throughout the opening section of the piece Barnes uses non-traditional harmonies based on fourths and fifths rather than the familiar triadic harmony. The result is a more open feeling in an effort to depict the changing of the seasons as autumn turns to winter. Though the melodies in the outer portions of the piece have a wandering, almost melancholy quality, those in the middle section of Autumn Soliloquy take on a more vibrant character. The ending of the piece mirrors it's beginning by returning to the contemplative solo oboe melody, before relaxing through the closing phrases. Autumn Soliloquy was composed in 1987 and dedicated to the oboist, Susan Hicks Brashier.

Program note provided by the composer

David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied composition with Joseph Wood. He spent a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and did masters and doctoral study in composition at Michigan State University where his principal teacher was H. Owen Reed. Maslanka’s music for winds has become especially well known. Among his more than 150 works are over 50 pieces for wind ensemble, including eight symphonies, seventeen concertos, a Mass, and many concert pieces. His chamber music includes four wind quintets, five saxophone quartets, and many works for solo instrument and piano. In addition, he has written a variety of orchestral and choral pieces.

David Maslanka’s compositions are published by Maslanka Press, Carl Fischer, Kjos Music, Marimba Productions, and OU Percussion Press. They have been recorded on Albany, Reference Recordings, BIS (Sweden), Naxos, Cambria, CRI, Mark, Novisse, AUR, Cafua (Japan), Brain Music (Japan), Barking Dog, and Klavier labels. He served on the faculties of the State University of New York at Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, and was a freelance composer in Missoula, Montana from 1990 until his death in 2017.

Concerning On this Bright Morning, Maslanka writes the following:

There are times of stability in life, and times of significant transition. Transitions can be upsetting, often provoked or accompanied by physical or emotional troubles. They are times of uncertainty and unknowing, but also the times of greatest creative change. “On This Bright Morning” acknowledges the struggle, and the feelings of pain and loss in times of transition, but embodies the pure joy of realizing the bigger life. On this bright morning, life is new, life is possible. The following is from a Bill Moyers interview with the poet, Jane Kenyon, who suffered chronic depression, and who died of leukemia at age 48: “Yes, there are things in life that we must endure that are all but unendurable, and yet I feel that there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? How, when there could have been nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, Beauty?”

Program note provided by the composer

Georgia native, Katahj Copley (he/him/his) premiered his first work, Spectra, in 2017 and hasn’t stopped composing since. As of now, Katahj has written over 100 works, including pieces for chamber ensembles, wind ensembles, and orchestra. His compositions have been performed and commissioned by universities, organizations, and professional ensembles, including the Cavaliers Brass, California Band Director Association, Admiral Launch Duo, and “The President’s Own” Marine Band. Katahj has also received critical acclaim internationally with pieces being performed in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, and Australia. Katahj received two Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of West Georgia in Music Education and Composition in 2021. In 2023, he received his Masters in Music Composition from the University of Texas at Austin - studying with Omar Thomas and Yevgeniy Sharlat. He is currently studying music composition at Michigan State University. Aside from composing, Katahj is an excited educator who teaches young musicians the joy of discovering music and why music is a phenomenal language. “Music for me has always been this impactful thing in my life. It can soothe, it can enrage, it can quiet, and it can evoke emotions that are beyond me and this world we live in. I believe that music is the ultimate source of freedom and imagination. The most freedom I have had as a musician was through composing. Composition is like me opening my heart and showing the world my drive, my passion, and my soul.”

Concerning Kaleidoscope Eyes, Copley writes the following:

For some time now, I have had this fascination for kaleidoscopes. I love the idea of different patterns and ideas being molded with extraordinary colors to create unique movements in time. I always wanted to explore that with music. However, I learned about a new term called Kaleidoscope Eyes. Kaleidoscope Eyes is a visual effect- creating mirages, splashes of colors, and moments of confusion. When hearing that word, I knew what I wanted to do: manipulate rhythm and color changes with the wind band. The piece begins with a marimba ostinato that is the anchor of the entire piece as we travel through moments of rhythmic displacement as we add and remove different voices of the ensemble. Through this crazy trip of sound, there are moments of epic and colorful events that fill the ensemble until the final moments, where it’s a splash page of sound and rhythm.

• Through Each Other's Eyes