Pete Nowlen, director
and UC Davis lecturer in music
Program
David
Maslanka:Give Us This Day (Short Symphony for
Wind Ensemble)
The words “Give us this day” are, of course, from the Lord’s
Prayer, but the inspiration for this music is Buddhist. I have
recently read a book by the Vietnamese Bhuddist monk Thich Nhat
Hahn (pronounced “Tick Nat Hahn”) entitled For a
Future to be Possible. His premise is that a future
for the planet is only possible if individuals become deeply
mindful of themselves, deeply connected to who they really are.
While this is not a new idea, and something that is an ongoing
struggle for everyone, in my estimation it is the issue for
world peace. For me, writing music, and working with people to
perform music, are two of those points of deep mindfulness.
Music makes the connection to reality, and by reality I mean a
true awakeness and awareness. Give Us This
Day gives us this very moment of awakeness and
awareness so that we can build a future in the face of a most
dangerous and difficult time.
I chose the subtitle, “Short Symphony for Wind Ensemble,”
because the music is not programmatic in nature. It has a
full-blown symphonic character, even though there are only two
movements. The music of the slower first movement is deeply
searching, while that of the highly energized second movement
is at times both joyful and sternly sober. The piece ends with
a modal setting of the choral melody “Vater Unser in
Himmelreich” (Our Father in Heaven) – No. 110 from the 371
four-part chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach.
In harmony with other venues on the UC Davis campus and across
the state of California, The Arts departments are committed to
providing as safe an experience as possible to our greater
community—and will do so until state or county guidelines are
lifted.
