Jenkins is a young composer whose primary focus has been music for bands, although he has written a body of chamber music, as well.\u00a0\u00a0His compositions have been widely popular in the band and wind ensemble world, garnering him numerous prizes and broad recognition.\u00a0\u00a0A recipient of degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Rice University, he presently is a member of the music faculty at Arkansas State University.<\/p>\n
We Seven<\/em>\u00a0was commissioned by Joseph Parisi and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Ensemble, and received its premi\u00e8re in 2014.\u00a0\u00a0In addition to the wind ensemble version, there is also an arrangement for brass band; the version for symphony orchestra received\u00a0its premi\u00e8re with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra in 2024.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The work was conceived as a tribute to the well-known early efforts of the United States in the space race, Project Mercury, upon the occasion of the 50th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of its completion in 1963.\u00a0\u00a0It takes its name from the title of a contemporary book written by the seven original astronauts.<\/p>\n There two aspects of the work that are rather unusual, one being the generation of musical motifs from cryptograms that \u201cencode\u201d the astronauts names and initials.\u00a0\u00a0Musical cryptograms have a long history on the periphery of the history of music, and have been generated by a number of esoteric methods.\u00a0\u00a0Generally, the musical notes of the scale have been put into matrices that associate them either with numbers or other notes of the scale.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps, the most famous of them is Bach\u2019s generation of a short melodic motif\u2014Bb\u00a0<\/sub>A C H (H is B natural in Germany)\u2014from the letters of his name.\u00a0\u00a0(There\u2019s even a vintage short clip on YouTube of a group of jazz musicians creating a boogie-woogie tune based on that).\u00a0\u00a0Historically there have many complex schemes for the kinds of codes that can produce cryptograms.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes, a text or name is generated with specific solf\u00e8ge syllables.\u00a0\u00a0But the intent is the same:\u00a0generating musical ideas (or hiding them!) by recondite means.\u00a0\u00a0So, in\u00a0We Seven<\/em>, abandon hopes of hearing an obvious allusion to an astronaut\u2019s name or initials.\u00a0\u00a0Like so many aspects of musical composition over the centuries, it\u2019s a device part of the composer\u2019s private aesthetic, technique, and pleasure\u2014not the audience\u2019s.<\/p>\n The other rather usual aspect of\u00a0We Seven<\/em>\u00a0is the quotation of bits of Puccini\u2019s great aria, \u201cUn bel di, vedremo\u201d from\u00a0Madame Butterfly<\/em>\u00a0near the middle of the composition.\u00a0\u00a0If you are at all familiar with the opera, you\u2019ll hear it!\u00a0Apparently, John Glenn would relax from intense preparations for the missions by listening the opera.\u00a0\u00a0So it became part of the mix of musical elements.<\/p>\n We Seven<\/em>\u00a0opens with the lightest of gossamer-like textures in the highest register\u2014completely appropriate for our idea of musical metaphors for outer space.\u00a0\u00a0Gradually, the texture thickens as more instruments enter, lower and lower.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Aphoristic fragments of intervals bounce around as everything becomes denser.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201chigh altitude\u201d chattering is gradually joined by a sonorous, low foundation that sounds almost like something tonal.\u00a0\u00a0After the resumption of the high atmospherics, we hear in the lower instruments fragmented allusions to \u201cUn bel di,\u201d which gradually become more powerful and strident.\u00a0\u00a0And lo, the attractive, but nonetheless dissonant clusters give way to broader, richer, less dissonant sonorities that gradually subdue.\u00a0\u00a0As it all winds down, various short melodic motifs are traded around\u2014and this brief rumination on early experiences by the \u201cMercury Seven\u201d is over\u2014ending with a sonorous grand peroration that gradually dissipates.<\/p>\n –Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n \u00a92023 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[164],"class_list":["post-414","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-derekjenkins"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}