Emily WhittakEr Certificate Recital - Monday, February 21, 2022 6:00 PM - Murray and Michele Allen Recital Hall 2330 North Halsted Street ...

Monday, February 21, 2022 • 6:00 PM

Emily Whittaker
Certificate Recital

Murray and Michele Allen Recital Hall
2330 North Halsted Street • Chicago

Monday, February 21, 2022 • 6:00 PM
Allen Recital Hall

Emily Whittaker, french horn
Certificate Recital

Seungwha Beak, piano

Program
Kristen Flores (b. 1977)
By the Lake (2005)

James M. Stephenson (b.1969)
May the Road Rise to Meet You (2020)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11 (1882-83)
        I. Allegro
        II. Andante
        III. Allegro

Florence Price (1887-1953); arr. Ashley Ertz
Florence Price Suite (arr. 2020)
        I. The Goblin and the Mosquito (1951)
        II. Adoration (1951)
        III. Ticklin’ Toes (1933)
                            Payton Borich, trumpet
                            Rhys Edwards, trumpet
                              Alex Ertl, trombone
                               Castin York, tuba

Emily Whittaker is from the studio of Oto Carrillo. This recital is presented in partial
fulfillment of the degree Certificate in Performance.
Masks must be worn at all times. As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell
phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you.

Emily Whittaker, french horn • February 21, 2022

Program Notes
Kristen Flores (b.1977)
By the Lake (2005)
Duration: 6 minutes, 30 seconds
With only a handful of unaccompanied horn solos composed by Canadian
women in the horn literature, By the Lake is the first of its kind to portray
Canada’s beauty of the West Coast. Composer Kristin Flores had this to
say about the piece:

  By the Lake was written for a concert entitled ‘Wilderness Songs,’ which
  took place outdoors at Goat Pond just outside Canmore, AB. This
  was a two-part concert series organized by Jean-Louis Bleau. Most of
  the musicians and audience members camped nearby and attended a
  concert at dusk and another at dawn. This piece was premiered by Jon
  Fisher as part of the program at dusk. This event was sponsored by the
  Canadian Music Centre’s ‘New Music in New Places.’ I had silences
  throughout in hopes that the sound would echo back from the
  mountains and sustain in the air throughout.

Flores’s composition leaves open spaces between phrases for the sound
to echo back from the Rockies and showcases the horn’s vast range and
dynamic levels. The piece concludes with a passage using stopped-horn,
as if the mountain range were so large it echoed the entire phrase.

James M. Stephenson (b. 1969)
May the Road Rise to Meet You (2020)
Duration: 3 minutes
May the Road Rise to Meet You comes from “Maytudes,” a French horn
etude project created in consultation with Gail Williams, with one etude
written for each day of the month of May 2020. In the original Maytudes
etude book, composer Jim Stephenson wrote:

  I’ve always known that today’s Maytude would be about my father.
  Today would have been his 84th birthday. Hence the time signature.
  I also knew that I would base it on this text from the Irish Blessing.
  Even though Dad had founded and presided over a company steeped
  deeply in the electrical engineering field, his first and foremost love was
  always music. As a “side job”, he was a church accompanist pretty
  much all of his life, starting as a teenager, and continuing up until his
  stroke last year.

Emily Whittaker, french horn • February 21, 2022
                                                       Program Notes
  When I lived in Florida, he and Mom became “snowbirds”, and
  immediately joined a church there. They joined the choir, and he quickly
  became the accompanist because his talents for music-making and his
  giving spirit, were obvious.
  The Irish blessing was often sung at that church, and I would often be
  there as a visiting trumpeter. It’s one of my fondest memories of that
  place.
  Dad loved hymns and he loved those harmonies that one might expect
  in a modern church hymn, (hence the F-naturals that appear). He would
  accompany them beautifully, always ever so musically. When he died just
  last month, the funeral home asked me to submit a prayer to be used on
  the prayer-cards they were to create. This one immediately jumped out
  as the obvious choice. I just love the text.
  And so I have created my own setting to go along with the words.
  Once again, Dad is my inspiration. Happy 84th birthday, Dad.

Irish Blessing
    May the road rist to meet you,
    May the wind be always at your back.
    May the sun shine warm upon your face,
    The rains fall soft upon your fields.
    And until we meet again
    May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11 (1882-83)
Duration: 17 minutes
When Richard Strauss left school in 1883, at the age of 18 years old, he
had already composed more than 140 works, including lieder, and various
chamber and orchestral pieces. Between 1882-83, while still in the early
stages of his writing, Strauss composed his Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat
Major for his father Franz Strauss. Franz was recognized as Germany’s
leading horn virtuoso and had been principal hornist of the Bavarian Court
Orchestra in Munich from 1847-1889. However, upon practicing his son’s
piece, with all its high notes throughout the concerto, he deemed it too
risky to perform it for the public and allowed the honor of the premiere to
be performed in 1885 by the principal horn of the Meiningen Orchestra,
Gustav Leinhos. With the concerto’s bold themes, romantic and reflective
phrasing, and soaring lines of heroism; it is a prominent work in horn
literature and is endlessly performed around the world.

Emily Whittaker, fench horn • February 21, 2022
                                                        Program Notes
Florence Price (1887-1953); arr. Ashley Ertz
Florence Price Suite (1933 & 1951; arr. 2020)
Duration: 6 minutes
The first noted African American female composer to have a symphony
performed by a major American orchestra, Florence Beatrice Price, won
first prize in the Wanamaker Competition with her Symphony in E minor. As
a result, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played the world premiere of her
symphony on June 15, 1933 under their music director, Frederick Stock.
This was one of four concerts presented at The Auditorium Theatre from
June 14-17 during the Century of Progress International Exposition. Also
known as the Chicago World’s Fair, the city celebrated its centennial with
the theme being technological innovation and showcasing “A
Century of Progress”. But if the fair was any index to the country’s
progress in race relations, it indicated that the black population would have
to fight for recognition of even the most elementary rights at the event. With
the promise of assurance that discrimination would not be tolerated and
that qualified black workers would be considered for low paid positions by
Rufus C. Dawes, black visitors were met with immediate discrimination at
the entrance gates and restaurants by being ignored, told to leave, or that
they could not sit at vacant tables, and only a few qualified black workers
were allowed to rise above menial labor working in the washroom
concessions. Although Price’s premiere brought instant recognition and
fame for her, the success as a composer was not to be hers. She would
continue to wage an uphill battle in a nation filled with segregation,
systemic racism, and sexism.

Notes by Emily Whittaker

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