Solstice for Trombone and Orchestra with the Houston Symphony January 10, 2008

Solstice for Trombone and Orchestra
by Dallas based-UNT Regents Professor of Music
Cindy McTee
to premiere Jan. 10 with the Houston Symphony

For press information:
Lisa Taylor, Taylor-Made Press
214-914-1099

Composer and Professor of Music Cindy McTee is pleased to announce the world premiere performance in January 2008 of her new work “Solstice for Trombone and Orchestra.” Commissioned by the Houston Symphony Orchestra for its principal trombonist, Allen Barnhill, “Solstice” will be conducted by HSO music director, Hans Graf. Additional information about the piece can be found at www.cindymctee.com/solstice.html.
Also appearing on the program is Mozart’s Linz Symphony which the composer wrote in four days, Haydn’s Symphony No. 83, La Poule (The Hen) and Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, a set of five songs for voice and orchestra. The performances are Thursday, Jan. 10 at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Jan. 13 at 2:30 p.m. in Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana St, Houston TX 77002. Ticket prices range from $26-$103 and can be purchased at http://www.houstonsymphony.org or by calling (713) 224-7575.
About Cindy McTee
Hailed by critics as a composer whose music reflects a "charging, churning celebration of the musical and cultural energy of modern-day America," Cindy McTee “brings to the world of concert music a fresh and imaginative voice.”

McTee (b. 1953 in Tacoma, WA) has received numerous awards for her music, most significantly a "Creative Connections Award" from Meet The Composer, two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Composers Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was also winner of the 2001 Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition, and in 2002 was selected to participate with the National Symphony Orchestra in "Music Alive", a residency program sponsored by Meet The Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League.
McTee has been commissioned to create compositions by the Houston, Amarillo, Dallas, and National Symphony Orchestras, Bands of America, the American Guild of Organists, the Barlow Endowment, the College Band Directors National Association, and Pi Kappa Lambda.
Her music has been performed by leading orchestras, bands, and chamber ensembles in Japan, South America, Europe, Australia, and the United States in such venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Sydney Opera House. Among the many ensembles to have performed her music are: the Pacific Symphony, the North Texas and Dallas Wind Symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the United States Army Field Band, and the symphony orchestras of Colorado, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, Rochester, Saint Louis, San Antonio, Seattle, and Sydney.
She has taught at the University of North Texas since 1984 and she is also affiliated with BMI.
Additional information about Ms. McTee and her music can be found at cindymctee.com.
PROGRAM NOTES
During the summer of 2007, I was talking with a friend about the various ways in which “shadow” might be expressed musically in my new trombone concerto. She reminded me that it was June 21st that day - the day of summer solstice when shadows are at their shortest.
Derived from the Latin “sol” (sun) and “sistere” (to stand still), the word “solstice” seemed an apt title for my new piece as I contemplated writing music that would represent “shadow” through rhythmic stasis and the dark interval of the minor third, while associating “light” with quick tempos and the consonant interval of the major third.
Like most art in my experience, Solstice for Trombone and Orchestra embodies a conjunction between tension and release, subjectivity and objectivity, light and shadow. According to author, Anthony Storr, Carl Jung believed “that artists are more divided in nature than most people, and that one force which drives them to be productive is the need to heal the split.” Perhaps Jung was right. Composing could not be more therapeutic for me, and I am very motivated by the compulsion to resolve opposites. Solstice therefore both dances and sings, celebrates and mourns, illuminates and darkens.
Cast in three movements without pause between the first and second, Solstice opens with a dramatic leap in the solo trombone beginning on the note B followed by Bb and G. This major/minor-third melodic unit is supported harmonically in the strings by a transposed version of the same structure, G#, G, and E, which returns at the end for resolution as the G disappears and shadow gives way to light.

Official Website: http://www.houstonsymphony.org