Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cut A Rug (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Cut a Rug” (2019) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano

This one movement fantasy is dance music. More specifically, it is an homage to 1920’s American dance music. The piece works well as a concert music, but I think a choreographer might find it fun to work with. “Cut a Rug” is energetic, dramatic and abstract, often toying with the motive of an alternating third. But there’s more than that. I found four pop tunes from the 1920’s which feature that alternating third interval and incorporated these tunes into the mix. You might listen for “Has Anybody Seen My …

Three Fantasies On African American Songs For String Quartet (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

I have been interested in mixing cultural aesthetics and musical styles for all of my life. Gunther Schuller coined the term “third stream” to describe the intertwining of American jazz with the Western European musical traditions. Of course there are so many branches to the trees of both African American music and the European traditions, that Schuller’s term can only have a very general meaning. Still, the “third stream” description does fit my Three Fantasies. In these three movements I combine different materials, styles, and developmental methods, mixing traditions freely, as I attempt to create a specifically American new music. …

Piano Sonata (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

My Piano Sonata consists of four large contrasting movements. Each movement bows to tradition and convention in many ways. Yet each also aims to create something new. I utilize diverse materials in my music, materials from Americana, jazz and world musics As well as the Western European tradition. Pluralism has become a major force for me. I find the 21st century to be strikingly different than the time in which I studied and came of age. Technology has brought us all into very close contact. Today the alien does not remain alien for long; it is soon incorporated. The world …

Suspicious Silence: Walking Out On John Cage, Clark Lunberry

English Faculty Research and Scholarship

2012 marked what would have been the composer and writer John Cage’s 100th birthday, offering a nice round numbered moment to commemorate and reevaluate Cage’s lasting legacy. And it is a rich and still, astonishingly, controversial legacy, bringing forth bold assessments of Cage that range, as they have for decades, from worshipful acclaim, to ridiculing rejection. It seems with Cage, still, that it’s either black or white, love or hate; that he is either a saintly prophet of new sounds, new silences, or a foolish charlatan leading anarchically astray.

Rich Matteson Biography (1929-1993), The Rich Matteson Foundation, Inc.

Rich Matteson’s Jazz Corner Radio Show

A brief biography of Rich Matteson

Combo Night 2011, Lynne Arriale, Daniel Dickinson, Brannen Pfister, Jose Rojas, Kevin Maddox, Chase Maddox, Brad Morse, David Smith, Sean Devivo, Richard Garcia, Joe Devolin, Erik Lofgren, Javier Enrique Arguello, Stefan Klein, Landon Baker, Diego Herrada, Stephen Justice, David Ott, Kelly Green, Javian Francis, Mike Perez, Emily Maddox, Alex Degnats, Alex Hernandez, Austin Gill, Phil Engsberg, Leo Vera, Ryan Slatko, Eric Ibarra, Alexander Alden Le Marchant-Smith, Mitchell Register

Music Performances

UNF Music Flagship Program Presents Combo Night Featuring UNF Jazz Studies Students

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 UNF Fine Arts Center - Choir Room, 1404

Kiku Preludes (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

A collection of Japanese inspired piano preludes.

Bye-Bye (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Bye-bye” for mixed sextet of instruments was written specifically for the 2010 Finale Composers’ Competition. It was finished in August 2010. It is a kind of abstract toccata which relies on rhythmic gestures as a primary unifying device. “Bye-bye” is Ivesian in it’s overall American character and in it’s use of materials from diverse musical genres (vaudeville, ragtime, waltz, early jazz, swing, etc.).

Only five minutes in length, this piece is written to serve as a brilliant, eccentric showpiece encore. Fans of the “Great American songbook” will recognize this music to be a free fantasy on the old sing-a-long favorite …

Benediction (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Benediction” for solo violin (2009) was written for violinist Piotr Szlewczyk and his recording project “Violin Futura”. This short set of variations is based on the old southern hymn, “Part in Peace”.

Apache Chant - Song Of The Holy Ground (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

Initial transcription of an Apache chant from The John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Music at the University of New Mexico.

Song Of The Holy Ground (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Song of the Holy Ground” for piano and string quartet was written in reaction to an Apache chant recorded in 1953 by musicologist John Donald Robb. The original recording, sung by a young girl, is clear, delicate and charming at first hearing. The text itself is unknown to me, beyond the fact that this is a song of consecration, a blessing. But the music of the chant is enchanting, with its uniquely expressive melodic shapes and its asymmetrical rhythms.

In approaching this material I first made a detailed transcription of the chant and became fascinated with the intricacy of the …

Beatbox (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

This group of short pieces for two pianists playing one piano was composed for a tour of central Japan in the summer of 2006. At a concert in Kyoto I premiered this collection, as secundo pianist, with six of my former Japanese piano students, each playing one movement with me. Each movement is dedicated to that individual and I like to think that these movements reflect, to some extent, each pianists’ personality.

The title “Beatbox” refers to the repetitive rhythmic motives which serve as the basis for each movement. This music features energetic ostinati, and thick, bopish textures. Movement five …

Wabi Sabi (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

Wabi Sabi is a fantasy for eight instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and bass. The title, a Japanese phrase, refers to a love and nostalgia for ancient times, for old 
things - antiques - things which evoke feelings of purity, nobility, hard won wisdom, an essential spirituality, true worth. A tea ceremony in a Kyoto garden is “wabi sabi”. The piece was formed intuitively as a kind of drama, perhaps a Japanese folk tale. The expansion of “time perception”, the savoring of sound colors and the evocation of mood is central to the aesthetic of this music.

Artist Study: The Compositional Style Of Jazz Guitarist Nathen Page, Stephen Lesche

All Volumes (2001-2008)

For this project, I have composed three and arranged two compositions for jazz quartet in the style of Page. The featured instrumentation will be guitar, piano, drums, and bass, which is the same instrumentation that Page had used almost exclusively since he first formed his own group. In preparation for writing my compositions and arrangements, I first had to learn Page’s compositions and arrangements by transcribing them from his recordings. In presenting my compositions/arrangements, I will first present the Page composition that my work will be derived from, along with a short written explanation of the song. Then I will …

Composition Of A Suite For Contemporary Jazz Ensemble, Brendan Moore

All Volumes (2001-2008)

Blue Shifts is the second of a three movement piece written for performance by a nine piece ensemble comprising the following instruments: Trumpet, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Trombone, Guitar, Piano, Bass, Drums, Percussion

"(Silence)": Scripting [It], Staging [It] On The Page, For The Stage, Clark Lunberry

English Faculty Research and Scholarship

The stage is no place for silence. The silence is no place for a stage. Like a white page upon which it is inscribed, presented as dramatic instruction—"(silence)"—the word is made into a mark, made into a bracketed moment, only to be instantly, noisily transformed into utterance. Mouths closed; the word erased but still seen, fully present and intended to form and function, to speak breathlessly. The speakers stop, pause, silent. On the page or on the stage, this instructed silence nevertheless stealthily expands and fills as a signified absence, inflating into a deliberately, paradoxically evacuated dimension; ink absorbed onto …

The Musical, Technical, And Compositional Qualities Of Latin American Music As Applied To The Marimba, Noel S. Milan

All Volumes (2001-2008)

After spending the last year and a half immersing myself in this project, I realize there are several lifetimes worth of research available in Latin American music. This project has challenged me to the limits of my ability as a student, a percussionist, and a musician, but it has also improved and motivated me. This music has become a part of me and I want to share what I have learned.

Invitation: Celebrate The Arts In Vermont / Kennedy Center

Saffy Collection - All Textual Materials

Celebrate the Arts in Vermont – A Special Invitation, September 6, 1995 held at Chaffee Center for the Visual Arts, Rutland, VT. Celebration for Kennedy Center’s 25 years and Vermont Council on the Arts’ (VCA) 30 years and to learn how to bring Kennedy Center programs to Vermont.

Persimmon (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Persimmon” was written in Nishinomiya, Japan in 1992 while I was teaching at Kobe College. The influence of Japanese traditional music on this piece is, I think, very apparent. The work was commissioned by the Verdehr Trio. This live recording is of the premiere performance.

At times the violin invokes the spirit of the “shamisen” and the piano the “koto”. Most important, the clarinet is asked to become, especially in the lingering coda, a player of that almost metaphysical Japanese instrument, the “shakuhachi”.

Takahashi Atoda’s wonderful story “The Square Persimmon” served as an inspiration for my work. Atoda’s “Persimmon” is …

Trumpeter Swan (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

This piece was originally recorded for Capstone Records in 1990. At the time, this beautiful bird was disappearing from the American West and was on the endangered species list.

The piece is in two movements. The first is “nesting music”, the second takes flight, and moves through several adventurous episodes, but finally settles back into the opening serenity. The work ends with echoing calls fading into silence.

Two Soundpieces - Saxophone Part (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

I was a student at Indiana University when I wrote Two Soundpieces (1969). The piece was originally written for a friend, tenor saxophonist, Robert Hores, who asked for a piece that used the tenor’s idiomatic “illegitimate” sounds. It was soon picked up by avant garde saxophonist Ken Dorn who performed the piece several times in various new music venues. I moved to Germany in 1970 and soon after lost much of my personal music library, including this piece, in a Cologne warehouse fire. At the time I had just a few copies of most of my works….and suddenly they …

Two Soundpieces (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

I was a student at Indiana University when I wrote Two Soundpieces (1969). The piece was originally written for a friend, tenor saxophonist, Robert Hores, who asked for a piece that used the tenor’s idiomatic “illegitimate” sounds. It was soon picked up by avant garde saxophonist Ken Dorn who performed the piece several times in various new music venues. I moved to Germany in 1970 and soon after lost much of my personal music library, including this piece, in a Cologne warehouse fire. At the time I had just a few copies of most of my works….and suddenly they …