Our 2024 Spring Chamber Music Series will explore some of the most beautiful repertoire in the intimate sanctuary of Greeley's First United Methodist Church.
We are excited to welcome an array of local artists and UNC Faculty to perform an exciting program of chamber works. This concert will include the World Premiere of the San Luis Valley, a new Guitar Trio
by Colorado composers Jim Klein and Ian Jamison.
Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 2:00 PM | First United Methodist Church Greeley
PROGRAM
Ian Jamison & Jim Klein
San Luis Valley (2023/2024)
World Premiere
Jason Olson, guitar
Jubal Fulks, violin
Sally Murphy, cello
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Romance, op. 67 (1866)
Grace Whalen, horn
Reggie Winters, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
String Trio No. 3 in D Major, op. 9 no. 2 (1798)
Jubal Fulks, violin
Russell Guyver, viola
Sally Murphy, cello
Frank Bridge (1879–1941)
Phantasy Piano Quartet, KH. 94 (1910)
Jubal Fulks, violin
Russell Guyver, viola
Sally Murphy, cello
Jeremy Gould, piano
Ian Jamison & Jim Klein
Sonata No. 1 for Alto Saxophone and Piano
Andrew Dahlke, alto saxophone
Juhyun Lee, piano
Since his appointment at the University of Northern Colorado in 2013, Associate Professor of Violin Jubal Fulks has become one of the most successful and sought-after violin teachers in Colorado. His students include competition winners at the state, regional, and national levels, many of whom have gone on to lead professional careers as music educators, orchestral musicians, and attend prestigious music festivals and graduate programs throughout the United States and abroad.
An acclaimed performer, Dr. Fulks maintains and active and multi-faceted performance schedule. Along with his UNC School of Music colleagues Adam Zukiewicz and Gal Faganel he formed the Colorado Piano, which performs concerts, outreach, and recruiting activities across the region and nationally.
Recent performances include Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and a feature on Colorado Public Radio’s “Colorado Spotlight,” and the trio looks forward to beginning a Greeley-based concert series to bring high-quality chamber music to northern Colorado. Dr. Fulks also serves as a leader and founding member of Sinfonia Spirituosa, a baroque chamber orchestra based in Sacramento, California. Sinfonia Spirituosa is dedicated to presenting bold, historically-informed performances on period instruments, and to bringing to life the broad spectrum of color, affect and rhetoric inherent in the music of the Baroque era.
A native of Colorado, guitarist Jason Olson has been teaching and performing since 1989. Expanding upon a background in Rock and Jazz, Jason graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a Bachelor of Music (BM) in Classical guitar in 2000, and a Master of Music (MM) in 2005.
At UNC, Jason studied with Stephen Waechter and Jonathan Leathwood. He also performed in master classes with artists such as Evangelos and Liza, Antigoni Goni, Fábio Zanon, Judicaël Perroy, Jason Vieaux, Nikita Koshkin, and Denis Azabagić. Jason continues to be a “student of the guitar” as a member of the Guitar Foundation of America, and through various other professional activities including participation in guitar festivals and competition judging.
Jason’s teaching experience spans over 35 years and he is currently the Classical Guitar Instructor at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. In addition, Jason teaches a private studio of over 50 students a week in Longmont, Colorado and has taught music at Imagine Charter School, Firestone. His other teaching activities have included numerous public school presentations and a variety of other community classes, music camps, and clinics.
Jason is also an active performer with musicians and groups of various styles along the Front Range and Northern Colorado. As a classical guitarist, Jason performs both solo and in various ensembles. In addition, he often works as a “guitarist for hire” for a variety of classical and contemporary projects.
Sally Murphy enjoys an active and versatile career as a cellist, teacher, and chamber musician. As a performer, Sally engages with a dynamic range of repertoire as both a soloist and chamber musician. She has been featured in the Lewisville Lake Symphony’s International Chamber Series (TX), the Garden Music Series (CO), the Ad Astra Music Festival (KS), the Open Space New Music Festival (UNC), and solo appearances with orchestra, including the Littleton Symphony and the Greeley Chamber Orchestra. At the University of North Texas, Sally performed regularly with the Bancroft String Quartet and the Center Piano Trio. During the summer, she has been on the faculty at the University of North Texas’ International Summer Music Institute and served as the director of the cello ensemble at the International Summer School in Pirovac, Croatia. She has held several orchestral positions, including the Greeley Philharmonic, the Cheyenne Symphony, the Owensboro Symphony, and the Paducah Symphony.
Sally is the cello professor at the University of Northern Colorado, where she teaches cello, chamber music, and other related courses. Previously, she served as the Instructor of Cello and Bass at Murray State University and as an Associate Instructor at Indiana University. Sally completed her doctoral studies in cello performance at Indiana University. She received a Master of Music degree from the University of North Texas and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Northern Colorado. Her primary mentors have included Barbara Thiem, Gal Faganel, Nikola Ružević, and Peter Stumpf.
Russell Guyver is originally from London, England. He has followed a varied career as conductor, violist, composer and educator.
As a violist he has played in many orchestras including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English National Opera, Oxford Philharmonic. Royal Ballet and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela. He has appeared as conductor, soloist and chamber musician on four continents and has been a guest artist at several annual music festivals in the United States and in Brazil.
In 1984 Russell Guyver co-founded the String Orchestra of the Rockies, now a flourishing professional chamber orchestra based in Missoula, Montana.
Also active as a composer, he received an Emmy for his score of a PBS docudrama, Laurence of Alaska, in 1991 and in 2010 premiered his one-act electric opera Opera[tion] World Peace, co-written with Brian Luedloff. Guyver recently retired from his position of Director of Orchestras and Professor of Strings at the University of Northern Colorado.
Andrew Dahlke has been a guest artist and performer across the United States and East Asia, joining the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Capitol Saxophone Quartet, the Gangnam Symphony in Seoul, South Korea, and the Aspen Music Festival.
In the Capitol Quartet, Andrew participated in the commission and recording of Carter Pann’s Mechanics, Six from the Shop Floor, one of the three finalists for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in music.
Andrew’s performances, recordings, and music editions of J. S. Bach’s Solo Cello Suites have received international recognition. His concert: Bach, Poetry, and the Greater American Experience was commissioned and live streamed on 17 May 2022 by the Aspen Music Festival.
Andrew recently performed Cake for jazz drummer Gerald Cleaver’s electronic music project 22/23 on Positive Elevation from 577 Records. This past Fall Andrew recorded nine of his own compositions with jazz luminaries pianist Craig Taborn, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Gerald Cleaver at The Bunker Studio in Brooklyn, NY. Andrew is currently Professor of Saxophone at the University of Northern Colorado School of Music.
A native of South Korea, collaborative pianist, and Chamber musician, Dr. Juhyun Lee actively performs nationwide, including in New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C, Boston, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Montana, and Colorado.
Dr. Lee has performed in a large number of recitals, concerts, and new music festivals, including a world premiere performance of Charles Strouse’s Sonata for Horn and Piano and Armand Qualliotine’s Duo for Piano and Alto Saxophone.
She joined a premier Sonata recording project for Saxophone and Piano by Jim Klein and Ian Jamison with Dr. Andy Dahlke and released an album in July 2023.
As an orchestral pianist, she served in the Arizona State University Symphony and has joined the Fort Collins Symphony and Greeley Philharmonic. She performed in Jordan Hall as a guest keyboardist in the Boston Modern Orchestra Project in 2014.
Dr. Lee joined the Bowdoin International Festival 2013 and SongFest 2016 as a performance associate and fellow. She performed at the 47th National Flute Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2019 and the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention in Washington, D.C., in 2020. She was the guest artist at MCC’s Summer Flute Project in Mesa, Arizona, and performed in faculty recitals and chamber music concerts in 2020.
In 2023, she was appointed a collaborative piano faculty member at the Luzerne Music Center summer program in New York.
Dr. Lee has joined Colorado State University as an instructor of collaborative piano since 2018. Previously, she served as a staff pianist at Longy School of Music from 2013 to 2015. During that time, she was also a primary pianist for Kenneth Radnofsky's saxophone studios at the New England Conservatory, Boston University, and Boston Conservatory.
She served as a judge penal in concerto competition finals for the University of Northern Colorado Southard Music Competition and the University of Wyoming Jacoby Competition in 2023.
Dr. Lee received her MM from Longy School of Music and her D.M.A from Arizona State University. She published A New Piano Reduction of the Nielsen Flute Concerto in December 2019.
Jeremy Gould resides in Greeley, Colorado, where he offers private piano lessons online as an integral part of the husband-and-wife partnership, Gould and Fall Piano. With a continuous 30-year history of private piano instruction and two decades of experience as a piano technician, Jeremy has established himself as a seasoned professional in the local musical community.
Jeremy's piano journey began in earnest during his high school years when he had the privilege of studying piano privately with Sally Johnson in Greeley. Thanks to her guidance and instruction, he went on to earn a Bachelor's of Music Degree in piano from the University of Northern Colorado (UNC). At UNC, he focused on solo piano music with Dr. Rob Hallquist and collaborative piano with Vergie Amendola.
Post-UNC, Jeremy taught piano and music theory classes at Aims Community College and performed with the Colorado Contemporary Music Consort (CCMC). In 1998, he earned a Master's Degree in piano performance from the University of New Mexico. He has also performed alongside his wife, Robyn Fall, as a piano duo in recital, and for Little Theatre of the Rockies productions of "My Fair Lady" (Two Piano version) and "Smokey Joe's Café".
Jeremy currently lives a charmed life with his wife Robyn, his amazing 13 year old son, Theo, and their dogs Phoebe and Pearl.
A two-time winner of the University of Northern Colorado’s Southard Music Competition (2023, collaborative piano and 2024, horn), Grace Whalen is an energetic collaborative pianist, horn player, conductor, and educator currently based in Greeley, Colorado.
Before her time at UNC, she had the privilege of assistant teaching music theory and keyboarding/figured bass classes for several years at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee. Besides these opportunities, she has taught lessons for her own private studio.
Ms. Wahlen’s versatility has taken her to perform in a great variety of settings. As a horn player, she has performed with the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, the Loveland Choral Society, Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, Symphony of the Mountains, and East Tennessee
Symphony Orchestra, as well as in the Bear Lake Winds, UNC’s graduate wind quintet. As a keyboardist, in addition to solo and chamber recitals, she has also performed early music, organ services, and as the accompanist for vocal diction classes and three of the four choirs at UNC. She has also served as a choral director for the Red Bank United Methodist Church in Chattanooga, TN.
Most recently and rapidly growing as a conductor under Dr. Andrés Jaime’s teaching and mentorship at UNC, Grace had her debut orchestral conducting performance in March 2024 with the university’s Symphony Orchestra and soloist Alejandro Arroyo Alberto on Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18. Other works she has studied and rehearsed include music by Donizetti, Sibelius, Piazzolla, Bruckner, and Moncayo.
Grace completed a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Southern Adventist University and completed two additional Bachelor of Music degrees in both Horn and Piano Performance. She is currently completing her Master of Music degree in Horn Performance at the University of Northern Colorado.
Reginald (“Reggie”) Winters is an active pianist, educator, and arts administrator based out of Greeley, Colorado. As a performer, Reggie has become a highly sought after collaborator. He currently serves as a Collaborative Piano Teaching Assistant at the University of Northern Colorado where he assists with courses in the Voice Area. He additionally serves as the basso continuo in the URSA Early Music Ensemble. He has previously served as an orchestral pianist for the Texas Tech University Symphony Orchestra and for the chamber orchestra Ensemble Bravura.
Reggie completed the Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Texas Tech University where he was a recipient of the Undergraduate Collaborative Piano scholarship. He is currently completing the Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Northern Colorado. His principal teachers include Drs. Tatiana Roitman Mann and Lei Weng.
PROGRAM NOTES
by
Hanguang Wang
Ian Jamison & Jim Klein
San Luis Valley (2024)
The Guitar Trio, "San Luis" is a collection of six movements for Guitar, Violin, and Cello that chronicle Klein's student years as an eighteen-year-old undergrad at Adam's State University in the San Luis Valley. The pieces explore both the dramatic environment of the region and, like most of Klein and Jamison's output, Klein's personal experiences. The Guitar Trio was written for performance by Jason Olson, Jubal Fulks, and Sally Murphy in the Spring 2024 Beethoven in the Rockies Series.
I. San Luis Valley is a scenic overview that establishes the tone of the piece
II. Isolation describes the isolation felt by some San Luis residents
III. Cathedral is about the peaceful beauty of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. It is the oldest church in Colorado and a valley landmark.
IV. Tango “Wedding Trap” is about a wedding trap that Klein escaped
V. Rio follows the vital Rio Grande River through a series of rhapsodic episodes, always changing as the river flows at different speeds and across various landscapes
VI. Flamenco is about unusual experiences associated with the valley and concludes the work with a flare
The six movements are integrated with one another via thematic cross-pollination from beginning to end. The character is generally approachable, expressive, and tuneful.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
String Trio No. 3 in D Major, op. 9 no. 2 (1798)
In the realm of chamber music, composers have seldom favored string trios, especially beyond the classical era, primarily due to inherent challenges. The absence of a second violin places demands on the viola and cello to reinforce harmonies, requiring performers to navigate an exceptionally high register. Simultaneously, the formidable difficulty of the violin part has posed a barrier to the widespread acceptance of this genre.
Despite these challenges, Haydn left a lasting mark with several compositions for string trio, and Mozart contributed an exceptional work in the form of the Divertimento (K. 563). Continuing this tradition, Beethoven composed five string trios during his early years in the 1790s. Three of these trios (Op. 9) were penned at the outset of 1798, a period when Beethoven was still solidifying his reputation in Vienna. As a young composer, he grappled with the looming influence of Mozart and Haydn, both of whom had significantly shaped the musical landscape.
Beethoven’s Op. 9, the most renowned set among his string trios, adheres to the four-movement structure characteristic of string quartets and symphonies. Through these compositions, we not only witness Beethoven’s distinctive contribution to the rare genre of the string trio but also observe the trajectory of his artistic evolution into the realm of the string quartet.
The first movement of String Trio No. 3 in D Major is in sonata form. The violin takes a leading role in the trio, possibly crafted for the exceptionally talented violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who frequently collaborated with Beethoven. The brisk opening movement features a lyrical violin melody, but the continuous accompaniment creates a restless atmosphere. The second movement adopts a smooth 6/8 rhythm, playing a theme resembling lamentation with a dance-like feel. The plucked string technique, while playful, carries a hint of aggression. The third movement is a minuet, marked by a strong tendency towards a minor key. The rhythm is hazy and dark, creating a mysterious and unpredictable atmosphere. The finale is not only Beethoven’s customary Rondo but also presents a true sonata-allegro movement. The cello taking the lead, afterwards interwoven with splendid insertions among three string instruments, eventually returning to the violin and concluding the piece with a satisfying punctuation.
Ian Jamison & Jim Klein
Sonata No. 1 for Alto Saxophone and Piano (2023)
Jim Klein’s Father presented his 11-year-old son with a Black Angus calf for his 4-H project that Spring. The farm youngster developed a deep affection for his calf, and they became best friends. Jim Klein spent all his extra time with his friend, sometimes napping next the calf. That January Jim and his dad took the full-grown calf to the National Western Stock Show for Jim to exhibit. At the end of the competition the calf was sold at auction for top price. Jim had to take the halter off his best friend and witnessed the animal being chased toward the ramp to the slaughterhouse.
The youngster was devastated, and his father consoled him explaining the purpose of the animal. Jim’s grandfather passed away that same day. After returning home the youngster expressed his grief through his saxophone and composed a song titled “My Calf”. Sixty-two years later the the theme and melody of My Calf became the foundation of Saxophone Sonata #1 by Jim Klein and Ian Jamison. The writing of this composition enabled Jim to finally understand the destiny of himself and the calf.
Frank Bridge (1879–1941)
Phantasy Piano Quartet, KH. 94 (1910)
Born into a working-class family in Sussex, British composer Frank Bridge received his early musical education from his father, where he learned to play the violin and gained orchestral experience. In the orchestra, he explored various instruments, substituting for missing musicians and making arrangements. This apprenticeship provided practical insights into orchestral music construction, design, and sound balance. In 1896, he entered the Royal Academy of Music, studying violin, piano, and composition under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford for four years.
The Phantasy Piano Quartet, completed in June 1910, was a commission of Walter Wilson Cobbett’s Phantasie competitions. Cobbett was an amateur musician with a great passion for chamber music and the Elizabethan and Jacobean composers, particularly seeking inspiration from the instrumental “fantasy” or “phantasy” form of that era.
Under the influence of Cobbett, one of Bridge’s compositional hallmarks became his adaptation of the phantasy form, emphasizing thematic unity within one or several movements. The Quartet, a single-movement work, showcases Bridge’s innovative “arch form,” where all musical ideas stem from a single source. Its symmetrical arch structure logically sequences the introduction, slow movement, scherzo, trio, scherzo, slow movement, and coda. This approach replaced the conventional development section of the classical sonata form, incorporating contrasting yet related episodes. Benjamin Britten, perhaps the most renowned pupil of Bridge, holds a special appreciation for this quartet, describing it as “Sonorous yet lucid, with clear, clean lines, grateful to listen to and to play. It is the music of a practical musician, brought up in German orthodoxy, but who loved French romanticism and conception of sound—Brahms happily tempered with Fauré.”