Provided

CU Winds conductor Cynthia Johnston Turner.

Since taking over as conductor of CU Winds in 2004, associate professor of music Cynthia Turner has been commissioning cutting-edge compositions from Cornell composers, particularly graduate students. Albany Records, a national label specializing in classical music, noticed and has signed CU Winds to a contract.

Its first release is "Augenblick," which means "moment" in English. The CD is available online and at the Cornell Store. Its royalties will support CU Winds and its ongoing service efforts in Costa Rica.

"It's pretty special" for undergraduates to have a national label record their performances," Turner says, especially since the majority of members are not music majors. At many schools, the top ensembles are reserved for music majors, says CU Winds President Ritchie Iu '13.

 

Wind ensembles have been seen as legitimate for concerts only since the mid-19th century, explains Turner, so new compositions for them are important. Composer William Kraft, who recently visited Cornell, calls the wind band "the friend of the living composer."

Compositions on the recording include works by graduate students Christopher Stark, Takoma Itoh, Ryan Gallagher, Jesse Jones and Zachary Wadsworth, all in the field of music, and Catherine Likhuta, who studied privately with Professor Steven Stucky while visiting Cornell from Ukraine.

Turner's goal of "forging new paths of sound" found, perhaps, its most dramatic incarnation in Gallagher's "Exorcism," a four-minute concerto for a wind ensemble with a death metal drummer. Turner describes such death metal as "kill-babies burn-churches kind of music, really hard, really difficult stuff, but absolutely legitimate." As far as she knows, Gallagher's is the only concerto of this kind ever written.

Gallagher composed the piece specifically for well-known American drummer Derek Roddy, who was, Turner says, "probably one of the best soloists I've ever worked with."

In contrast, Jones' piece, "Through the Veil," which CU Winds performed last May, is an exploration of Jones' spiritual quest and includes harmonicas. "I don't know many other pieces that incorporate a harmonica," Turner says. "But when they are played quietly and in three different keys, it's an incredibly beautiful, haunting sound."

Turner says she chose challenging music for the recording because "if I put music that wasn't difficult in front of the ensemble, the students wouldn't be as engaged or satisfied with their music-making." She adds, "If we're going to call it art, then it needs to provoke discussion, and maybe even controversy."

"It's exciting to realize that by performing this music, we're contributing to the advancement of wind repertoire," says Iu. "After all, music that is established now was once considered odd and controversial, so perhaps what we are playing will be the new standard in the future."

The experts at Carnegie Hall evidently agree: CU Winds has an open invitation to perform at the prestigious venue whenever their schedule permits.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.