Photo: Daniel Island, SC
Memorial Day
May 31, 2021
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them."
John F. Kennedy
Our Memorial Day Musical Sulute
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
arr. Warren Kellerhouse
Annapolis Brass Quintet
1974
Haldon Johnson trumpet; David Cran, trumpet;
Calvin Smith, horn; David Kanter, trombone;
Robert Posten, bass trombone
(Duration: 02'24")
To listen Tap > Below
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
arr. Warren Kellerhouse
Annapolis Brass Quintet
1974
Haldon Johnson trumpet; David Cran, trumpet;
Calvin Smith, horn; David Kanter, trombone;
Robert Posten, bass trombone
(Duration: 02'24")
To listen Tap > Below
Today's Featured Work:
Rudy Shackelford's
Nighthawks
for brass quintet
(1976)
Rudy Shackelford (b. 1944) studied composition at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Illinois. From 1971 he has been a freelance composer and writer with residencies at Yaddo, the McDowell Colony, and the Ossabaw Island Project. In 1977, on a Rockefeller Foundation grant, he was a fellow of Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy.
EDWARD HOPPER'S PAINTING NIGHTHAWKS
(1942)
RUDY SHACKELFORD'S COMPOSITION NIGHTHAWKS
(1976)
While serving as composer in residence at McDowell Colony in 1976, Rudy Shackelford composed Nighthawks for brass quintet. This work was inspired by the collection of Edward Hopper’s oils, watercolors and prints in reproductions assembled and annotated by Lloyd Goodrich, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
Three Edward Hopper paintings were selected as the basis of the first three movements of Nighthawks: Approaching a City (1946), The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., Nighthawks (1942), The Art Institute of Chicago, and Early Sunday Morning (1930), The Whitney Museum, New York.
1982 Rockport Chamber Music Festival
Annapolis Brass Quintet
Robert Suggs, trumpet; David Cran, trumpet; Marc Guy, horn;
Wayne Wells, trombone; Robert Posten, bass trombone.
performing
Rudy Shackelford's
Nighthawks
three cityscapes after Edward Hopper
for brass quintet
To listen tap > below.
(There may be a 10 to 20 second delay before sound begins.)
I. Approaching a City
II. Nighthawks
III. Early Sunday Morning
IV Epilogue: The Man on the Bed
(poem by Debora Greger)
II. Nighthawks
III. Early Sunday Morning
IV Epilogue: The Man on the Bed
(poem by Debora Greger)
To highlight Hopper's three paintings for movements
I. II. III.
Tap on each photo:
I. II. III.
Tap on each photo:
IV. Epilogue: The Man on the Bed
In the fourth movement, Epilogue, members of the quintet in turn recite lines from Debora Greger's poem about Hopper to the accompaniment of a montage of fragments from the previous movements.
Debora Greger: “In late September 1958, I visited Edward Hopper's South Truro studio and saw on the easel not an unfinished painting, nor even a stretched canvas, but a large empty stretcher. ‘He’s been looking at that all summer,' his wife Jo Hopper said.”
Debora Greger: “In late September 1958, I visited Edward Hopper's South Truro studio and saw on the easel not an unfinished painting, nor even a stretched canvas, but a large empty stretcher. ‘He’s been looking at that all summer,' his wife Jo Hopper said.”
|
The Man on the Bed by Debora Greger
He lay on the bed, thinking of what he could see from the window as a little landscape of failure, glittering after the rain, the roses within reach but rusted, a red bird lost in the thick wet leaves of the oak, the tree, caught in mirrors, shaking. He lay on the bed, his shirt turning blue with evening thinking that in the dark a red bird might as well be black. |
He slept then and dreamt of a man
who slept with his glasses on, the easier to find them when he woke. The room seemed smaller, the wind against the corner of the house stronger. If the heart is a house, he thought, it is rented to strangers who leave it empty. If the heart is a house, it is also the darkness around it through which a black bird flies, unseen, and unseeing, into a window, beating and beating its wings against the glass. |
Postlude:
The Guardian
(27 Mar. 2020)
A commentary on loneliness in the coronavirus age:
We are all Edward Hopper Paintings Now
To see & read
Tap HERE
The Guardian
(27 Mar. 2020)
A commentary on loneliness in the coronavirus age:
We are all Edward Hopper Paintings Now
To see & read
Tap HERE
FOSTERING BRASS CHAMBER MUSIC
The score and parts for Rudy Shackelford's Nighthawks for brass quintet, along with the entire ABQ music library, are available for research and performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music Library.
Direct access to the Annapolis Brass Quintet Special Collection @ Oberlin
Tap Here
The score and parts for Rudy Shackelford's Nighthawks for brass quintet, along with the entire ABQ music library, are available for research and performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music Library.
Direct access to the Annapolis Brass Quintet Special Collection @ Oberlin
Tap Here