Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we are excited to feature amazing new performances of three of David's most popular symphonies: Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 7, and Symphony No. 8.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we showcase three recent extraordinary performances of Symphony No. 4.
In May 2003, Tiffany Woods emailed David a series of questions in the course of writing a paper. She was a student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and taking a Band Literature course with Dr. John Locke. David wrote a thorough response. The interview has been excerpted from their correspondence and interleaved here. It has been lightly edited for spelling and style.
Tiffany Woods: I’ve read your interview with saxophonist Russell Peterson and first I want to talk a little about your compositional process and you referred to what you termed “active imagining.” While to some degree this makes sense in terms of a ‘programmatic’ piece, such as A Child’s Garden of Dreams and maybe even the Mass, when you sit down to “compose a symphony” does the same concept still apply?
David Maslanka: “Active Imagining” is a term used by the psychologist Carl Jung. It is a way of moving the conscious mind into the space of the unconscious. They closest thing to it that most people do is daydreaming. The difference is in being aware that it is happening, and in finding ways to deepen the experience. The result is that it is possible to approach the unconscious directly and to ask for the direction or energy that wants to become music. The process applies equally to all kinds of music. It isn’t about whether the music has a story, but about opening the channel […]
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature one of David's very last interviews. In April of 2017, Damon Talley - Director of Bands at LSU - had the opportunity to sit down with David and discuss Symphony No. 4 during a residency with the LSU Wind Ensemble.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature an episode from Montana Public Radio's Musician's Spotlight featuring John Floridis interviewing David about his music and background as a composer.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we are excited to feature three of David's works that make either direct or indirect reference to angels: Symphony No. 4, My Lady White, and Angel of Mercy.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 2 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 1 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature an episode from Spokane Public Radio's From The Studio featuring Jim Tevenan interviewing David about his music. The Whitworth Wind Symphony had just performed David's Symphony No. 4.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three ensembles from Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in performances of David's music: Symphony No. 4, Crown of Thorns, and Tears.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature Keitaro Harada's interviews of Scott Hagan and Kevin Michael Holzman on David's Symphony No. 10 and Symphony No. 4.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature a video of David in rehearsal with Mike Fansler and the Western Illinois University Wind Ensemble from December 2011. The rehearsal footage captures an amazing realization of the "Doxology" from Symphony No. 4.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature David's last known public address which was given at The Hartt School at the University of Hartford on May 6, 2017.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature two new performances of favorite symphonies: Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 7, and the recording of the premiere performance of "Allegro Molto" from Symphony No. 2.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that Gary Green championed: Symphony No. 8, Symphony No. 4, and Symphony No. 3.
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature pictures from the outside of David's residence in Missoula, Montana taken during a visit by Stephen & Andrea Steele in 2008.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we showcase five extraordinary performances of Symphony No. 4 from 2019.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three new recordings of favorite works: Mass, Remember Me, and Symphony No. 4. (Photo by Zachary C. Person)
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr. and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Wind Ensemble championed: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Symphony No. 4, and Tears.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature a spectacular livestream rehearsal featuring Jerry Junkin working with the Vandegrift High School Wind Ensemble in David's epic Symphony No. 4.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we take a special look at David's philosophies on music, the creative process, and creating peace through musical tones.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. We start the beginning of 2019 by taking time to remember the life and music of David Maslanka.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature five of the most extraordinary performances of Symphony No. 4 from 2018.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we remember the life of David Maslanka and Alison Matthews with unforgettable performances of Symphony No. 4, "Song for Alison" from Song Book for Alto Saxophone and Marimba, and Symphony No. 10: The River of Time.
Mark Morette of Mark Custom Recording shares his extensive experience in recording wind ensembles.
Kate Sutton’s Master’s thesis is a study on David’s Third, Fourth, and Ninth Symphonies with special emphasis on their themes on nature. She explores the influence that moving to Missoula, Montana had on David for Symphony No. 3, his connection to the “powerful voice of the Earth” in Symphony No. 4, and the themes of nature and water in Symphony No. 9.
David Maslanka and the Natural World: Three Studies of Music for Wind Ensemble
PDF, 4MB
Abstract:
The music of American composer David Maslanka (b. 1943) is informed by his deep connection to the natural world. This connection permeates his music and results in powerful works imbued with a wealth of spiritual and environmental meaning, including three of his symphonies for wind ensemble (Nos. 3, 4, and 9). Many of these natural connections emerge from Maslanka’s meditation process; his ability to consciously explore dream images allows him to embrace an understanding of the Earth and his environment. In Symphony No. 3, Maslanka combines impressions of the mountains, skies, and prairies of his new Missoula, Montana environment with dream images of both animal and American Indian spirits. Symphony No. 4 was inspired by the same western Montana landscape, stemming from Maslanka’s perception of a “voice of the Earth.” This piece also reveals connections to nature through the recurring use of the hymn tune “Old Hundred.” Maslanka identifies four concepts that guide Symphony No. 9 (nature, water, time, and grace); he also incorporates birdcalls, a story about whales, and settings […]
Dr. Stephen Bolstad’s dissertation on David’s Symphony No. 4 gives a thorough analysis and helpful advice to conductors. The author also includes a brief biographical sketch and provides insight into David’s unique compositional approach to this work.
David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4: A Conductor’s Analysis with Performance Considerations
PDF, 4 MB
Abstract:
In the last two decades of the Twentieth Century, the wind band music of David Maslanka has become well known and widely performed. A number of his compositions are becoming increasingly recognized as new additions to the standard wind band repertoire. The Symphony No. 4 is becoming such a work. The purpose of this treatise is to examine David Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4 with the goal of providing information, which will be valuable to a conductor or performer preparing the work for performance.
The composer’s meditative approach to the compositional process is examined with specific details concerning the source materials and inspirations pertinent to the creation of the Symphony No. 4. The episodic nature of the Symphony is examined with an analysis highlighting the unifying elements, which bind the various sections of the Symphony together. Performance considerations and suggestions, derived from interviews, discussions, and rehearsals with the composer, are presented to provide the conductor with insights about the Symphony No. 4.
Remarks given on 29 March 1994 at Michigan State University before a performance of Symphony No. 4
It goes without saying that we live in dangerous times, and that the human family is threatened by forces within itself that it does not understand. Community is shattered, individuals are alienated, hunger, slaughter, and oppression continue and seem to be gathering momentum. Yet I want to speak of hope. I offer a quote from the book Symbols of Transformation by Carl Jung. This was written in the first decade of the twentieth century, but has come to apply dramatically to our time. The first idea in this quote seems like a slap in the face, yet it is clear and true:
“Everyone who has his eyes and wits about him can see that the world is dead, cold, and unending. Never yet has he beheld a god, or been compelled to require the existence of such a god from the evidence of his senses. On the contrary, it needs the strongest inner compulsion, which can only be explained by the irrational force of instinct, for man to invent religious beliefs. In the same way one can withhold the stories of primitive myths from a child but not take from him the need for mythology, and still less his ability to manufacture it for himself.” Here is the crux of the quote: “One could almost say that if the world’s traditions were cut off at a […]