Program Notes

At the beginning of the Covid lockdown in NYC in spring 2020, the sudden quiet encouraged the wildlife to come out of the parks and into the streets and onto rooftops. The result was profound to hear: a magnificent chorus of birdsong that felt like an anthem of hope resounding from their small melodies.

For SONGBIRD, I spent time with field recordings of many different birds, notating their songs and using these as the starting points for the melodies in the first two movements of this work. The names of these birds have been notated in the score above where their melodies appear. Songbirds I firsts met durning my Michigan childhood can be heard in the first movement: mourning doves (I always assumed they were "morning doves" back when I was too young to know what "mourning" was), robins, cardinals while the second movement draws from the lonely, fog-lit cries of loons and whooping cranes.

The final movement is influenced by starling murmurations, a phenomenon wherein thousands of starlings flock together in the sky about an hour before sunset and embark on an aerial dance: the massive flock takes on shape after shape, perhaps to confuse predators into avoiding the area so that the birds may then be safe when they return to their nests for the night. The beauty of these avian beings in the sky at twilight, moving together as they simultaneously merge into myriad designs (sometimes the flock's shape will look like a gigantic bird), has haunted me for a good long while. The piano and flute merge and fly together here also, a kinetic propulsion of sound before indulging in a nighttime lullaby.

When my sister and I were young, our mother taught us to recognize birds by their songs, and I hope that this piece may help do something similar for its audiences; that you may now know who is calling out to you the next time they do.

I'm so grateful to the artists who have commissioned this work; in this odd and dark time, Songbird has been a great source of joy and light for me and I hope that our little piece of music-making will keep amplifying the light of these artists and their audiences for many years to come.

About the Artists

Hailed by the Washington Post as “brilliantly virtuosic,” flutist Brook Ferguson is a versatile solo and orchestral artist. The Miami Herald praised Ferguson’s performance of Carl Nielsen’s Concerto for Flute with the New World Symphony as “soaring, fraught with emotion, possessing sterling technique with pure tone, showing herself fully in synch with Nielsen’s enigmatic world, putting across the playfulness, passing shadows and sheer strangeness of this music with strong impact.” First prize winner of the 2009 National Flute Association Young Artist Competition, Ferguson has performed as a concerto soloist with the Colorado Symphony, the New World Symphony, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival and Tanglewood Music Center—as both an orchestral fellow and New Fromm Player.

Ferguson was appointed Principal Flutist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in 2010 and has been Principal Flutist of the innovative River Oaks Chamber Orchestra since 2012. Previously, she completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony, where she had the privilege of working with Michael Tilson Thomas and many other great musicians and conductors. She has made Principal appearances with the Aspen Chamber Symphony and Festival Orchestra, Grand Teton Festival Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Prior to her appointment with the New World Symphony, Ferguson was the Acting Principal Flutist of the Knoxville Symphony and the Principal Flutist of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. Ferguson is a William S. Haynes Company Artist. 

In 2013, Ferguson was a featured soloist on Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Douglas Boyd. An enthusiastic performer of new music, she performed Michael Gandolfi’s Geppetto’s Workshop multiple times in Jordan Hall at the composer’s invitation and gave the Tanglewood premiere of his Three Pieces for Solo Flute. Her performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra was commercially released on Yarlung Records and her live performance of David Amram’s Red River Valley Variations is available on the Newport Classic LTD label. Other notable solo and concerto performances were at the National Flute Convention of Japan and at festivals in Russia, Chile, Brasil, Ecuador and Qatar.

A dedicated teacher, Ferguson encourages her students to cultivate strong and imaginative interpretations, guides them toward a deeper understanding of self-reliant problem solving and helps them to develop physical and mental self-awareness. Currently, Ferguson is a Professor of Flute at the University of Northern Colorado and founded the Bel Canto Flute Academy in Arvada, Colorado- hosting community performance events for flutists of all ages and abilities: http://www.belcantoflutes.com. Brook has given master classes and performances at Carnegie Mellon University, Peabody Conservatory, CU Boulder, the Aspen Music Festival and the New World Symphony. 

Ferguson received her Master of Music from Carnegie Mellon University as a student of Jeanne Baxtresser and Alberto Almarza and her Bachelor of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute studying with the Marina Piccinini. Other important teachers and influences are Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Paula Robison and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Mitchell Giambalvo is a recent transplant to the Salt Lake City area from the East Coast. Moving here in late August of 2019, Giambalvo is currently employed by the University of Utah where he coaches and collaborates with the University Graduate Vocal Quartet. Aside from that, Giambalvo is a freelance pianist at the university where he coaches more than 20 singers weekly, and works with instrumental students and singers on their degree recitals.

Giambalvo has been quite active in the area with recent performances at BYU for their Trumpet Festival Artist Recital, playing a guest artist Trumpet recital at the University of Utah with artist Jean Laurenz, and working with flutist Gina Luciani for the Utah Flute Associations flute day at Westminster College.

Upcoming performances include playing a recital with the winners of the recent Utah Flute Association Sonata Competition, three recitals for the clarinet faculty search at the University of Utah, as well as a trombone recital with guest artist John Sipher.

Giambalvo grew up in Pennsylvania and has spent the last 15 years in Florida. He received his Bachelors in Piano Performance from Florida State University, his Masters from Eastern Michigan University, and his Doctorate from FSU. After finishing his DM, Giambalvo returned to FSU to complete a second Masters in Collaboration. He has been on faculty at Troy University in Alabama. During the summers Giambalvo teaches on piano faculty at Red Lodge Music Festival in Montana as well as Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan.

About the Composer

Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette, Ashley Bouder, NYCB soloist Peter Walker, and XAOC Contemporary Ballet’s Eryn Renee Young. Eero, a ballet commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York, was written for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Stephanie’s music has been praised as “a racing, brassy score” (New York Times), “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP), and “wide ranging, imaginative” (Portland Press Herald). 

Boyd is the 2021/2022 Peoria Symphony Orchestra Composer in Residence, a position culminating in an entire concert of her works, including her violin concerto Sybil, her cantata Sheltering Voices, and a new work inspired by Betty Friedan entitled Everywoman, with Deborah Rutter, Michelle DeYoung, and Sirena Huang as soloists. The 2021/2022 season also includes the premiere of Julia Louisa Esther: a Suffragette Symphony with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Dragon; Alleluia Olora commissioned by Astral Artists for cellist Tommy Mesa; Aurora, commissioned by the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others. 

Boyd’s music has been commissioned and performed by concertmasters of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony, the Faroe Islands Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal players in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.  Her music has been commissioned and/or played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic, the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, the New York Jazzharmonic, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Roosevelt University Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, the JVL Festival Orchestra, the Texas State University Symphony, the Cremona International Academy Orchestra, the UW La Crosse Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the El Paso Youth Symphony. Her work has been presented by the Thalia and her Sisters concert series, the Moirae Ensemble, and Sandcastle New Music in New York City; Æpex Contemporary Music in Michigan; Juventas New Music, Collage New Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series in Boston; Cincinnati Soundbox, and others. Stephanie has worked with conductors such as Andrew Litton, Lina Gonzales, Earl Lee, Nathan Aspinall, Cliff Colnot, Gill Rose, Julian Benichou, Kristo Kondakci, and Kevin Fitzgerald.

stephanieannboyd.com