Jules Pegram: L.A.tudes for Band (Michael Hancock, UCA Wind Ensemble)

L.A.tudes for Band (2023)
00:00 1. The Figueroa Corridor
03:00 2. WeHo Tableau
06:24 3. Mulholland Nights
10:54 4. Nuestro Pueblo (The Watts Towers)
16:55 5. Off-ramp
Michael Hancock, conductor
UCA Wind Ensemble
Reynolds Performance Hall
Conway, Arkansas
February 28, 2023 (*World premiere*)
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L.A.tudes for Band was commissioned by a consortium of the following ensembles and their directors, led by my longtime friend & supporter Michael Hancock:
Arkansas Tech University-Daniel Belongia
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona-Rickey Badua
Florida International University-Brenton Alston
Michigan State University-Kevin Sedatole
Purdue University-David Blon
Slippery Rock University-Jonathan Helmick
University of Central Arkansas-Michael Hancock
University of Illinois-Kevin Geraldi
University of Kansas-Paul Popiel
University of Memphis-Albert Nguyen
University of Michigan-Courtney Snyder
University of North Carolina at Greensboro-Jonathan Caldwell
University of North Carolina School of the Arts-Mark Norman
University of Oklahoma-Shanti Simon
University of Southern California-Sharon Lavery
University of Southern Mississippi-Catherine Rand
University of West Georgia-Josh Byrd
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PROGRAM NOTE
Almost anything you can say about Los Angeles is true. It’s large; it's a mess; it lives; it’s vulgar; it’s beautiful. For L.A. represents, more than any other city, the fulfillment of the American Dream...of wealth, speed, freedom, mobility.
- Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
Études are typically intended as short pieces showcasing techniques that illuminate something about an instrument and its performer. But in my travelogue for band L.A.tudes, I have assembled a collection of municipal études, five studies designed to evoke aspects of life in the endlessly exhilarating, remarkably iridescent City of Angels. Comparable in scope & duration to Percy Grainger’s landmark Lincolnshire Posy-a composer and work very dear to me-L.A.tudes is similarly a celebration of a specific place and its people, and it is my hope that these five musical vignettes sound like Los Angeles feels:
1. The Figueroa Corridor
Heraldic, brassy material performed at times in a lyrical, religioso style depicts the area extending from just south of Downtown L.A. to the museums at Exposition Park, a central district encompassing the classically-inspired campus of U.S.C. as well as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, site of the 1984 (and upcoming 2028) Olympics.
2. WeHo Tableau
My home neighborhood of West Hollywood is America’s most famous LGBT enclave, incorporated in 1984 as a safe haven for Los Angeles County’s gay population. The heart of L.A.’s club scene, WeHo is one of our most vibrant communities, though quieter residential streets jut off the colorful commercial strips. As such, I’ve written music that ambles along with a carefree gait, emblazoned in technicolor neon hues and Stravinskean mixed meters.
3. Mulholland Nights
A mystical, serpentine theme serves here as homage to ghosts of Hollywood past and of the fabled Mulholland Drive. As you careen around what David Lynch calls our “dream road,” you run the entire spine of the Santa Monica Mountains with alarmingly few guardrails-it’s little wonder that our most visually stunning street is also the most treacherous.
4. Nuestro Pueblo (The Watts Towers)
Simon Rodia was surely one of the twentieth century’s great "outsider artists." An Italian immigrant who quietly constructed without nails or traditional binding agents the 100-foot Watts Towers, Rodia mysteriously abandoned his structure after 33 years of dogged work and leave town, never to return again. Thanks to decades-long preservation efforts, the towers stand tall to this day, a beacon reflective of the neighborhood’s solidarity and immense cultural contributions as well as of the fortitude of one artist’s unwavering individualism and perseverance.
We begin with delicate pitter-patter on glass bottles, ceramic tiles, clay pots, and chimes made of seashells, the same sort of found objects Rodia used to adorn the towers he called Nuestro Pueblo (“Our Town”). Lonesome clarinet lines eventually crest into a warm, melancholic apex, a resplendent evocation of Rodia scaling his ever-higher creation above miles of sprawling cityscape before descending back to hushed ground-level.
5. Off-ramp
While the disparate paths that bring each of us to Los Angeles reflect a diversity & internationalism rivaled by few other cities, the one thing that quickly becomes universal for every Angeleno is our infamous freeway system. The movement opens at a stoplight flanking an on-ramp to The 10. It’s not long until we’re cruising bumper-to-bumper under explosive late afternoon sunlight, breezy tunes on the radio and smog-tinged sights set on Malibu down the way. Could any experience more epitomize the Southern California Dream?
- Jules Pegram
www.julespegram.com