Department of Music

Youth Orchestras of Central Virginia present an encore performance of original works by UVA graduate student composers Lanier Sammons, Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper. Prelude Flutes, Flute Choir and Flute Ensemble directed by Angela Kelly & Margaret Newcomb. Clarinet Ensemble directed by James Tobin. 

This encore performance re-unites three UVA graduate school composers with the Youth Orchestras of Central Virginia's Flute and Clarinet Ensembles.  This event is about expanding Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village experiment to East Main and beyond, exciting the mind and engaging local young musicians! UVA McIntire Department of Music graduate students Lanier Sammons, Aurie Hsu and Steven Kemper composed music for the Youth Orchestras of Charlottesville-Albemarle Flute Ensemble in 2009.  They attended the flute ensembles rehearsals, which are held on the Pantops side of town, on land once owned by Jefferson. They described their ideas and inspirations and made suggestions and changes on the spot with the young flutists. These high school and middle school musicians audition annually for their seats in either the Prelude Flutes, Flute Choir, Flute Ensemble or Clarinet Ensemble and represent some of the finest young talent in central Virginia.

The famous phrase by Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu, "I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man" inspired Aurie Hsu to write “Les Papillons et Les Rêves” (Butterflies and Dreams). Aurie remembering what it felt like to be a teenager said, "This piece is based on my imaginations of sitting in a butterfly house as a child. The timbres of the flutes seem well suited to reflect this imagery. I hoped to portray a youthful, light and whimsical quality in the music."

Steve Kemper had the River in mind, not the Moldau, but the Rivanna, or as he called his composition, “River Anna”. Steve was considering “…the interactions between Virginia's Monocan Indians and the colonial world of Thomas Jefferson set against the backdrop of the timeless nature of the river itself. Through passages of static chords and linear motion, ‘River Anna’ sonically represents the flow of this river and the history of the people it has sustained.” 

Lanier Sammons spent his 2008 winter of composition on the road and experienced all sorts of weather from the New England coast to UK to Florida beaches and expressed the various forms winter could take in his music, “Three Winters”.
The May 15th concert will also include works by Harold L Walters, John Cacavas, Desire Dondeyne, David Bennett, R. Vaughan Williams, Ian Clark  & Catherine McMichael performed by the Ensembles as well as a rousing finale by the The Prelude Choir of "New York, New York"!