Meeting Arcadian Winds

by Janet Underhill

Arcadian Winds is a woodwind quintet specializing in the performance of twentieth-century music. Education is an important concern; we endeavor to enlighten the public to the versatility of woodwinds and the relevance of music from the here and now. A contemporary work is included on all our concerts, whomever the audience. The group consists of Matthew Doherty, flute; Jane Harrison, oboe; Mark Miller, clarinet; John Aubrey, horn; and Janet Underhill, bassoon. Based in the Boston area, Arcadian Winds is in residence at Northeastern University and the South Shore Conservatory, and serves as the core wind faculty for the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras. Since its inception, the group has presented numerous recitals in the New England Area; at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Emmanuel Church, the Berklee Music School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Boston University, among others. Arcadian Winds is a regular participant on many contemporary music concert series, including Cross Currents, Underground Composers, and the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont.

Arcadian Winds was formed at Boston University in 1987 as a trio of flute, clarinet, and bassoon. From the beginning we were unsatisfied with most of the woodwind literature; we found too much of it "fluffy" or light, with no real depth. The expectations of presenters towards woodwinds in recital were even more disconcerting. To us it seemed that if the audience wanted serious classical music they hired strings, or a mixed group including piano. If the audience wanted classical pops, they hired a brass quintet. Woodwinds were considered light in nature, having no dramatic depth. With their history in the divertissement, woodwinds are often considered glorified background music. As young aspiring chamber musicians we felt it was our mission to change this "image" through education, commissioning and arrangements. Two early trio commissions for Arcadian Winds are Don Hagar's Twittering and Protest and Greg Tucker's Three Scenes. The Hagar is a sprightly piece in two movements. The Tucker is an excellent composition, with many different moods and strong rhythmic drive; it is a lengthy work in three movements. Other trio works I would highly recommend are Karel Husa's Two Preludes, Walter Piston's Three Pieces and George Washburn's Three Pieces. In 1989, Arcadian Winds expanded to a quintet.

Mark Miller is Arcadian Winds' in-house arranger. We have found his arrangements and transcriptions excellent additions to "general audience" concerts. The quintet arrangements include: Carmen Suite, Songs Without Tenors, Fauré Pavane, La Boh&egraveme: Paraphrase Wind Quintet, Twelve Christmas Carols, Ravel Mother Goose Suite, Dvorak Slavonic Dances, Scriabin Five Piano Preludes from Opus 11, and Suite of Early American Protest Songs. We recently recorded many of these arrangements; they are now available on cassette. Some of the arrangements, Carmen, Slavonic Dances, Suite Early American Protest Songs, and many of the Christmas Carols, started out as trio arrangements. Mark is always at work adding more excellent arrangements to our repertoire.

Arcadian Winds is proud to have commissioned and premiered 14 original works for quintet, or quintet plus one instrument. Working directly with composers has let us see into, and participate, in the creative process. Five of these works are included in our first CD, Bay of Dew: David Cleary's Berkshire Quintet is a lengthy, powerful piece in four movements, featuring long dramatic sweeps and poignant lyricism; Michael Leese's Music for Winds and Harp is a one-movement work with unique textures (woodwind quintet plus harp) and intense "jazzy" solo work, featuring the Dilling harp; James Russell Smith's Ballet is a one-movement work with driving rhythms and complex ostinatos; Owen Underhill's Bay of Dew, a multi-movement work for quintet and piano, which juxtaposes different characters, such as solo versus ensemble or klangfarben versus rhythmic outbursts; and Scott Wheeler's Village Music, an energetic multi-movement work with clear textures and reoccurring fanfares.

Some other interesting Arcadian premieres are: Paul Brust's Quintet, a moody riveting work, whose textures are similar to the John Harbison quintet; Vuk Kulenovich's Game of Infinite Numbers, a unique work, incorporating extended techniques and modal "Baltic" melodies over a drone; and Michael Weinstein's Chanson d'Espoir, a neo-classic, three-movement work reminiscent of Irving Fine. Other works championed by Arcadian Winds are: Chen Yi's Woodwind Quintet, a unique work that recreates the sounds of Chinese folk instruments; Robert Carl's A Fork in the Road, a beautiful atmospheric work, dedicated to an AIDS victim; Christof Neidhöfer's Wind Quintet, reminiscent of the Darmstadt school and heavily relying on extended techniques; and Rodney Sharman's Level, a short and interesting minimalist work.

The works that have been the most successful in general audience concerts are the Wheeler, Weinstein, Carl and Underhill. The composers who have used the woodwind quintet to create ground-breaking textures are Chen Yi, Kulenovich, Neidhöfer and Sharman. The Leese in using the new Dilling harp also creates a unique sound world. All of the works mentioned are well worth future performances.

Arcadian Winds has also been experimenting with different seating arrangements. We initially started with the traditional square seating arrangement of two facing two, with the fifth person in the back. When we were working on the last movement of the Harbison quintet, we found it was hard to hear every voice clearly enough to get the ensemble "tight". I had noticed the way brass quintets stood in a shallow arc, so we tried a similar approach; from right to left flute, oboe, clarinet and horn stood, with the bassoon seated at the far left. Immediately we could hear and see more clearly, and we could interact with the audience more directly. This seating/standing arrangement held until we became more involved in recording projects; switching the oboe and bassoon facilitated a better low to high blend. On longer works, such as the Schönberg quintet, we will sit in a arc, otherwise we have had great success standing (the bassoon is on a raised chair).

If you would like any more information about Arcadian Winds, our repertoire or Mark Miller's arrangements, contact Janet Underhill at 94 Bourne St. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, or Mark Miller at 29 Village Gate Drive, Bridgewater, MA 02324

You can e-mail some of the composers mentioned in this article:

• David Cleary
• Michael Leese
• James Russell Smith
• Owen Underhill
• Scott Wheeler

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