Symphonic Band

Stride (2023)

Kevin Day is a composer, jazz pianist, producer, and conductor who is known to juxtapose diverse musical traditions including contemporary classical, jazz, R&B, and soul with classical composition. His father was a prominent hip-hop producer, and his mother was a popular gospel singer. Day is one of eight founding members of the Nu Black Vanguard, a collective dedicated to the advancement of Black composers, and a graduate of Texas Christian University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music. In 2024, Day joined the faculty at the University of California San Diego as a lecturer in theory and musicianship.

Stride celebrates Day’s college marching band experiences and the idea of walking with confidence and decisiveness to overcome obstacles within one’s path. The piece includes a high energy theme, a contrasting slower section, and a return to the theme for an optimistic, high-energy end.

— Note by Kevin Day and Patty Saunders

Santiago (2019)

Ivette Herryman Rodríguez, a Cuban-born composer, often incorporates elements of Cuban musical traditions into her work. Santiago takes its name from Santiago de Cuba, a city renowned for its vibrant musical life and carnival traditions. At the heart of this culture is the “Comparsa Santiaguera,” a parade of singers, dancers, and musicians that has become a defining feature of the city’s identity. The work celebrates Cuban musical traditions while paying tribute to Santiago de Cuba, capturing both the spirit of its music and the lively energy of the comparsa. The piece opens with a lyrical statement of the main melody played by the corneta china, a double-reed instrument with a piercing, trumpet-like sound that traditionally announces the comparsa. The theme is followed by three titled variations: Variation I: Chorale, which takes a lyrical approach to the main melody; Variation II: Lullaby and Dance, which introduces a waltz-like dance; and Variation III: Comparsa, which fully embraces the celebratory energy of the Cuban carnival. 

— Note by Ivette Herryman Rodríguez and Molly Allman

Variants on a Mediaeval Tune (1963)

Norman Dello Joio, an American composer best known for his choral works, came from a musical family and first studied organ with his father before pursuing formal training. He is often identified as a postmodern, specifically neoromantic, composer. Postmodernism in music is characterized less by a unified style than by an emphasis on individual expression, extending modernism’s break from tradition by encouraging composers to reject past conventions and write freely. Neoromanticism is a branch of postmodernism but shows a distinct return to emotional expression in music seen in 19th-century Romanticism. 

Variants on a Mediaeval Tune premiered on April 10, 1963, as Dello Joio’s first original work for band. It is based on a melody titled “In dulci jubilo,” a traditional Christmas carol, which acts as the main theme. It includes a brief introduction followed by the theme and five variants that strongly contrast in tempo and character, fully utilizing the possibilities of the band. The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation commissioned the piece for the Duke University Band with Paul Bryan, conductor. 

— Note by Jaden Brown 

Vitality (2022)

Gala Flagello is an American composer, teacher, and non-profit director. In 2022, Flagello was a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Part of her fellowship requirement was to submit a piece to be read and recorded by the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra. For this, Flagello chose to write Vitality.

Flagello wrote Vitality in 2022 for the Aspen Conducting Academy orchestral readings. It draws inspiration from a quote by Martha Graham, a renowned American dancer, teacher, and choreographer. 

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. 

Found in a letter from Graham to fellow dancer and choreographer Agnes De Mille, this quote contains three ideas: the what, the how, and the why. Graham defines the “what” as the universal life-force within each person, the “how” as its unique expression through individual actions, and the “why” as the necessity of expression, since otherwise that force would be lost. Flagello writes that “the piece loosely follows this structure, musically exploring the prickly and potent glimmers of one’s life force alongside the uncertainty of self-expression and vulnerability.” 

— Note by Gala Flagello and Jaden Brown

Deep, Dark Night (2019) 

Drew Bonner is a composer and euphonium player. As a performer and educator, he writes for a range of ensembles, including euphonium quartets and wind bands. Deep, Dark Night is originally written for solo tuba and British brass band and explores the thoughts and emotions that arise as night falls: moments of reflection, grief, anxiety, and ultimately resilience. The piece captures experiences we have all faced: the quiet heaviness of the mind at night, as well as the emotional struggles that can accompany it. 

The first movement begins with percussion and introduces a four-note motif that recurs throughout. This movement reflects a sense of melancholy and inner weight, as the motif is developed and varied, leading to a cadenza that descends into the tuba’s lowest register. The second movement, “Agitato,” conveys anger and a willingness to fight, driving forward with continuous motion through repeated rhythms, shifting melodies, and overlapping parts. The main motif reappears in the accompaniment while the soloist rises above it, creating contrast and ultimately concluding the work with determination and strength. 

— Note by Tiffany Galus and Molly Allman

Dance I from Suite for Variety Orchestra (ca. 1956)

Dmitry Shostakovich was a highly regarded 20th century Russian composer who lived in the Soviet Union for much of his life. As a composer, he lived in the shadow of constant criticism and fear from Soviet authorities which dictated the trajectory of his work. When Shostakovich died in Moscow in 1975, his legacy included a prolific oeuvre that also reflected his personal experience of composing within the context of political oppression.

Dance no. 1 is taken from Shostakovich’s Suite for Variety Orchestra which was compiled by Shostakovich’s colleagues in the 1950s from his film and stage scores. “Dance no. 1” was adapted from “No. 16, ‘The Market Place’” in Shostakovich’s film score for The Gadfly and is a galloping race from the start. The dance includes a main theme, a contrasting middle section, and a return to the opening with whirling, scalar flourishes in the woodwinds and punctuated brass.

— Note by Patty Saunders and Gerard McBurney

Stephanie Ycaza

Stephanie Ycaza is the Assistant Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She previously held the position of Instructor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of Northern Iowa, and has also served on the music faculties of Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia State University, Longwood University, the University of Richmond, and Shenandoah University. Stephanie is active as a masterclass teacher and as a clinician for middle and high school bands. 

Stephanie is a founding member of Calypsus Brass, a brass quintet dedicated to performing new works and providing high-quality recordings for composers. Calypsus is committed to promoting the works of composers from historically marginalized groups, and serves as an Ensemble-in-Residence for Rising Tide Music Press. Stephanie is Principal Tuba of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, and has also performed with the Virginia Symphony, the Williamsburg Symphony, the Capital Wind Symphony, and the Virginia Grand Military band. She has also contributed to recording projects at Spacebomb Records in Richmond, VA. Stephanie’s recent solo performances have focused on music for tuba with electronic accompaniment, music by women composers, and her own transcriptions and arrangements for low brass. She has appeared as a soloist at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference, the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest Regional ITEA Conferences, the Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Workshop, and the International Women’s Brass Conference. Stephanie also writes and gives presentations on the topic of mindfulness in the practice and performance of music. 

Stephanie holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Shenandoah University, a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. She studied with Dr. Ross Walter, Toby Hanks, Mike Roylance, Andrew Hitz, and Michael Bunn. Stephanie is a Miraphone tuba artist. 

The renowned UNCG Bands are dedicated to the performance, study, and cultivation of wind band music of the highest quality, and are a serious and distinctive medium of musical expression. The UNCG Bands are considered to be among the very finest collegiate band programs in America based upon our active profile of excellence in our performances, recordings, tours and convention performances.

Through exemplary practices in organization, training, and presentation, the UNCG Bands provide exceptional experiences for our members, sharing outstanding performances throughout the year and enhancing the institutional spirit and character of UNCG.

The UNCG Bands seek to support music education in the state of North Carolina and in our region by providing leadership and sponsorship to secondary school band programs and other organizations.