Commissioned by a consortium lead by former students and colleagues of
Stephen W. Pratt in honor of his retirement and 34 years as a faculty member
at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Participants include:

Andrew D. Chybowski, Christopher Dortwegt and Kimberly Dortwegt, Paul A. De Cinque, Jennifer K. Bollero and Ross P. Erickson, Tiffany J. Galus, Kyle R. Glaser, D.M.,
Christopher P. Heidenreich, D.M., Pamela D.S. Holt and Jack C. Holt, Matthew J. Holzner and Emily Holzner, Scott A. Jones, D.M., Anthony M. Messina, Polly Middleton,
Jason H. Nam, D.M. and Melissa Nam, Richard Paluch, William Peterson, D.M.,
Brett Richardson, D.M., Eric M. Smedley and Jessica E. Williams, Benjamin D. Taylor, D.M. and Allyson Taylor, Nicholas P. Waldron, Ryan M. Yahl

and the following institutions & conductors:

Indiana University Department of Bands/Wind Conducting
(Jason H. Nam, Eric M. Smedley, David C. Woodley)
University of South Carolina (Scott Weiss)
University of Arizona (Chad Nicholson)
Washington State University (Danh Pham)
University of Southern Maine (Trae Blanco)
Temple University (Matthew G. P. Brunner)
Perrysburg High School (Scott Schleuter)
Fishers High School (Todd McCready)
Hamilton Southeastern High School (Michael Niemiec)
North Central High School (Rick Granlund & Andrew Brinkman)
Bloomington High School North (Janis Stockhouse & Thomas Wilson)

Program Note

For the second time in my career at IU, I was asked to compose a work for the retiring director of bands. There must be a few clever rejoinders to that statement, but in any event, I have certainly been honored by both invitations – the first being for Ray E. Cramer – and I am pleased to offer this current work celebrating Stephen W. Pratt and his life in Bloomington and at IU. I have known Stephen Pratt for over thirty years, since my days playing trumpet in the IU Wind Ensemble, and I am pleased to dedicate this new work to him with my congratulations and very best wishes.

Associate Director of Bands Jason H. Nam was the instigator of this project, which is supported by many former students and colleagues of Professor Pratt. Jason passed on a few suggestions for the piece from Steve's family, who asked for a slower work, lyrical in nature, playable by most high schools and colleges; as well, to consider including reference to one or more of Steve's favorite hymns and perhaps also a hint of "The Chimes of Indiana," the IU fight song, or IU's alma mater. While leaving aside "Chimes" for copyright issues and the fight song for other good reasons, I did make brief reference to Steve's favorite hymn, "Lead Me, Lord;" more extensive use of the ancient plainchant, "Divinum Mysterium" (basis for another favorite hymn, "Of the Father's Love Begotten"); and used a few bars – mainly the climactic "Gloriana, Frangipana" – of IU's alma mater, "Hail to old I.U." Supplementing these borrowed ideas, I composed a short melodic phrase built around a framework of pitches suggested by the letters in "Stephen Pratt." First played in bars 4-8 by clarinet and alto saxophone, this melody has a bit of a "W" shape to it and also contains important motivic kernels used throughout the piece; namely, a rising, repeating and expanding arpeggio figure and a descending scale. Helping in part, I hope, to glue all this together is the commonality of the melodic scale fragments: a four-note scale descent is the soprano line of "Gloriana, Frangipana"; the first four bars of of "Lead Me, Lord" have 2-note, 4-note and 3-note scale descents; and many phrases of "Divinum Mysterium" begin with a four-note scale ascent, reversing the motive.

As an addedum, it might be interesting to know that J.T. Giles, who organized the Indiana glee club, wrote the words for IU's alma mater for a performance at a state contest in 1893; the music comes from "Annie Lisle," a ballad composed by Boston songwriter H.S. Thompson in 1857 and first used in a school song by Cornell in 1870. Giles and his colleagues came up with the Latin-sounding Gloriana, which had some prior use, for instance as a character representing Queen Elizabeth I in Edmund Spenser's 1590 poem, "The Faerie Queene", and then in a stroke of genius, crafted Frangipana as a further rhyme with Indiana, close to, but not quite, frangipani, the Hawaiian lei flower.

David Dzubay, February 1, 2018