Thomas C. Duffy, Music Director.

● “The Pursuit of Happiness: A Symphony for Wind Ensemble” by Jim Colonna. World premiere of a Yale Concert Band commission. Written in 2024, this twenty-minute work celebration of optimism in the face of hardship is inspired by The Happiness Lab, a positive psychology podcast hosted by Laurie Santos, the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Each movement (“The Seeker,” “When I looked to the sky, the stars sparkled with love,” “Simply, Play,” and “Be Here, Now”) is named after a quotation from philosopher Alan Watts and derived from Colonna’s favorite consonant and dissonant musical intervals.

● David Maslanka’s monumental “Symphony No. 4” (1993) is inspired by the spontaneous rise of the impulse to shout for the joy of life. Structured as a single thirty-minute movement, the symphony’s main melodic material is derived from Bach chorales and hymn tunes, most notably “Old Hundred.” According to Maslanka, these allusions take the composer’s fascination with the life of Abraham Lincoln as an entry point for contemplating the fundamental human issues of unity, transformation, and rebirth in times of chaos.

● Kevin Day’s energetic “Stride” (2023), a Yale Concert Band commission, contrasts brass and drum grooves with a lyrical section featuring the woodwinds. The piece is inspired by the two meanings of its title: to decisively overcome obstacles, but also to march on the field, a homage to Day’s background in the Texas marching band tradition.

● Charles Ives, Yale class of 1898, composed the “Country Band March” in 1903. The “out-of-tune” introduction and eclectic allusions to nursery rhymes, country fiddling and Sousa marches parody the sounds of a country band.
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