Jodie Blackshaw's 'Letter from Sado'

Synopsis

Australian composer Jodie Blackshaw is passionate about music for wind band and is fond of quoting her famous compatriot composer Percy Grainger on the subject:

“Why this cold-shouldering of the wind band?” Grainger asked. “Is the wind band — with its varied assortments of reeds (so much richer that the reeds of the symphony orchestra), its complete saxophone family that is found nowhere else ... its army of brass — not the equal of any medium ever conceived? As a vehicle of deeply emotional expression it seems to me unrivalled.”

For her part, Blackshaw has chosen to compose primarily for wind band. She also appears as a guest clinician and adjudicator for band festivals throughout Australia. “The Wind Band offers a varied and colorful contribution to instrumental music, and with literally millions of children worldwide entering musical performance through this medium, it is worthy of our serious attention,” she said.

On today’s date in 2014, a new work by Blackshaw intended for middle-school band students was premiered by the Rosemount Middle School Band of Rosemont, Minnesota, under the direction of John Zschunke. The new piece, Letter from Sado, was inspired by a Japanese haiku and traditional Japanese taiko drumming. This work is part of the BandQuest series commissioned by the American Composers Forum, intended to offer young musicians a diverse variety of fresh new wind band works by leading composers of our day.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jodie Blackshaw: Letter from Sado; University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble; Hal Leonard HL04004132 (sheet music)

On This Day

Births

• 1616 - Baptismal date of German composer and organist Johann Jacob Froberger, in Stuttgart

Deaths

• 1935 - American composer Charles Martin Loeffler, 74, in Medfield, Massachusetts

• 1954 - American composer and insurance executive Charles Ives, 79, in New York

• 2009 - British composer Nicholas Maw, 73, in Washington, D.C.

Premieres

• 1842 - Donizetti: opera Linda di Chamounix, in Vienna

• 1886 - Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 (Organ), in London

• 1911 - Ravel: L’Heure Espagnole (Spanish Hour), in Paris at the Opèra Comique

• 1915 - Stravinsky: Three Pieces for string quartet, in Paris

• 1932 - Shostakovich: incidental music for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in Moscow at the Vakhtangov Theater

• 1939 - Cowell: Return for 3 percussionists and wailer, at the Cornish School in Seattle, by John Cage and his Percussion Group

• 1942 - Cage: music for the radio play The City Wears a Slouch Hat (text by poet Kenneth Patchen), broadcast in Chicago

• 2000 - Robert X. Rodriguez: The Last Night of Don Juan for chorus and orchestra, by the San Antonio Symphony and chorus, Wilkins conducting

• 2002 - William Bolcom: Seventh Symphony (A Symphonic Concerto), at Carnegie Hall in New York, by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine conducting.

Others

• 1886 - American premiere of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor (11 selections), during the May Festival in Cincinnati, conducted by Theodore Thomas. The next documented performance (12 sections) was given in Boston on February 27, 1887, by the Handel and Haydn Society, with Carl Zerrahn conducting a chorus of 432 and an orchestra of 50. In both the 1886 Cincinnati and 1887 Boston performances, the famous 19-century German soprano Lilli Lehmann appeared as one of the soprano soloists. The first complete performance of the work was apparently given either at the Moravian Church in Bethlehem on Mar 17, 1900, by the Bach Choir under J. Fred Wolf, or at Carnegie Hall in new York on April 5, 1900, by the Oratorio Society, Frank Damrosch conducting.