The Baltimore Symphonic Band (BSB)

Established in 1981, the Baltimore Symphonic Band, in residence at The Community

College of Baltimore County Essex, utilizes the skills and talents of an all-volunteer membership
to provide its audiences with the opportunity to hear quality band music ranging from marches to
symphonic works. Musicians of all ages with a variety of musical backgrounds are provided with
the opportunity to broaden and apply their musical performance skills. They participate in the
band out of the love of playing and performing music.

The Band has performed all over the state of Maryland, including the Baltimore Inner
Harbor Concert Series, the Bel Air Concert Series, the Perry Hall Concert Series, the Aberdeen
Concert Series, the Havre de Grace Concert Series, Charlestown Retirement Community, Oak
Crest Village, Riderwood Village, St. Joseph’s Church and at The Music Forum at the Maryland
Boychoir Center for the Arts. In 2008, 2005, and 1999, the band embarked on international tours
which included Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia, where it performed
several concerts.

Abhinn Malhotra, Conductor

Originally from Long Island, Abhinn began his undergraduate education at Hofstra
University as a Euphonium Performance major studying with Michael Salzman. He was the
recipient of the Stephen P. Saltzman Endowed Scholarship, an annual award for undergraduate
Euphonium players demonstrating excellence in performance. During his time at Hofstra, he also
began studying independently and performing as a soloist under the guidance of Aaron
Vanderweele. Abhinn transferred to the Peabody Institute of Music to complete his
undergraduate Euphonium studies with Dr. Steven Kellner. He has performed at Peabody as
principal Euphonium of the Peabody Wind Ensemble, and Brass Band, and as a member of the
Peabody Concert Orchestra, Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble, Brass Ensemble, and Trombone
Ensemble. It was at the Peabody Institute that he also began formally studying Wind Conducting
with Dr. Harlan D. Parker.

After graduating with his Bachelor’s Degree in Euphonium Performance, Abhinn

returned to Peabody and began pursuing two Master’s degrees in Wind Conducting and
Euphonium Performance, continuing his studies with Dr. Harlan D. Parker, and Dr. Steven
Kellner respectively.

After completing his Graduate degrees in 2018, Abhinn returned to the Peabody Institute
as a Doctoral Candidate in Wind Conducting, and was awarded the Wind Conducting Graduate
Assistantship. He teaches Beginner conducting courses, assists with intermediate and advanced
conducting courses taught by Dr. Harlan Parker, and continues to give recitals and conducts the
Peabody Wind Ensemble along with his duties as the music director for the Johns Hopkins Wind
Ensemble. Outside of music, Abhinn enjoys cooking, road trips, and is an avid hockey and
baseball fan.
 Program Notes

Mt. Everest Rossano Galante (b. 1967)

O Magnum Mysterium Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943)

Trans. H. Robert Reynolds

Suite No. 2 In F-Major Gustav Holst (1873-1934)

1. March
2. Song Without Words
3. Song of the Blacksmith
4. Fantasia on the Dargason

Riften Wed Julie Giroux (b. 1961)

Hobbits Johan de Meij (b. 1953)

From Symphony #1, The Lord of the Rings

Fairest of the Fair John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)

 Comprised of robust brass melodies, sweeping woodwind lines, and rhythmic
ostinatos, this composition captures the epic grandeur and beauty of Everest, the highest
mountain on Earth.

Morten Lauridsen’s choral setting of O Magnum Mysterium (O Great Mystery)

has become one of the world’s most performed and recorded compositions since its 1994
premiere by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. About his setting, Morten Lauridsen writes:
"For centuries, composers have been inspired by the beautiful O Magnum Mysterium text
with its depiction of the birth of the newborn king amongst lowly animals and shepherds.
This affirmation of God’s grace to the meek and the adoration of the Blessed Virgin are
celebrated in my setting through a quiet song of profound inner joy."
Recordings of Lauridsen’s music have received numerous GRAMMY
nominations, and the composer was a 2007 recipient of the National Medal of Arts. H.
Robert Reynolds arranged the symphonic wind version of this popular work with the
approval and appreciation of the composer.

The Second Suite consists of four movements, all based on specific English folk songs.
Movement I: March: Morris dance, Swansea Town, Claudy Banks. "The "March"
of the Second Suite begins with a simple-five note motif between the low and high
instruments of the band. The first folk tune is heard in the form of a traditional British
brass band march using the Morris-dance tune "Glorishears". After a brief climax, the
second strain begins with a euphonium solo playing the second folk tune in the
suite, Swansea Town. The theme is repeated by the full band before the trio. For the trio,
Holst modulates to the unconventional sub-dominant minor of B-flat minor and changes
the time signature to 6/8, thereby changing the meter.
Movement II: Song Without Words, 'I'll Love My Love'. Holst places the fourth
folk song, I'll Love My Love, in stark contrast to the first movement. The movement
begins with a chord from French horns and moves into a solo of clarinet with oboe over a
flowing accompaniment
Movement III: Song of the Blacksmith. Again, Holst contrasts the slow second
movement to the rather upbeat third movement which features the folk song A
Blacksmith Courted Me. The brass section plays in a pointillistic style depicting a later
Holst style. There are many time signature changes (4/4 to 3/4) making the movement
increasingly difficult because the brass section has all of their accompaniment on the up-
beats of each measure. The upper woodwinds and horns join on the melody around the
body of the piece, and are accompanied with the sound of a blacksmith tempering metal
with an anvil called for in the score.
Movement IV: Fantasia on the Dargason. This movement is not based on any
folk songs, but rather has two tunes from Playford's Dancing Master of 1651. The finale
of the suite opens with an alto saxophone solo based on the folk tune Dargason, a 16th
century English dance tune included in the first edition of The Dancing Master. The
fantasia continues through several variations encompassing the full capabilities of the
band. The final folk tune, Greensleeves, is cleverly woven into the fantasia by the use of
hemiolas, with Dargason being in 6/8 and Greensleeves being in 3/4. At the climax of the
movement, the two competing themes are placed in competing sections.

Riften is a city in Skyrim located in the expansive world of Elder Scrolls, the fifth
installment of an action role-playing video game saga developed by Bethesda Game
Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Skyrim is an open world game that by any
video game standard is geographically massive and more closely related to an online
mmorpg (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) than to its console and pc
competition.
Skyrim is a beautiful world, from mountainous snowy regions to open tundra
plains, sea coasts, beaches, thick woods, lakes and hot spring-fed swamps. Large cities,
villages, forts, ancient ruins, caves, lone houses, sawmills and abandoned shacks dot the
atlas. One can spend hours just walking or riding horseback from one side of the
continent to the other doing nothing but experiencing its wondrous environment and lore.
It is truly a game worthy of total immersion. Oh, and I should mention that it is also a
deadly world, torn apart by civil war and dragons who have resurfaced after thousands of
years, not to mention the cult of vampires that are also threatening to take over the world.
Riften is a seedy, crime-filled and nearly lawless city. Located on a waterfront
with skooma-addicted dock workers and corrupt guards, it also boasts the headquarters of
the Thieves Guild. Sadly enough, it is also the location for the world's orphanage and the
Temple of Mara, the place where the good citizens of Skyrim have to go to get married,
you included.
Weddings in Skyrim are about survival as much as fondness or imagined love.
Courtship can be as simple a dialogue as “Are you interested in me? Why yes, are you
interested in me? Yes. It’s settled then.” Sometimes the dialogue is more along the lines
of “You are smart and strong. I would be lucky to have you. I would walk the path of life
beside you ‘til the end of time if you will have me.” Although this game feels somewhat
like the iron age with magic and dragons, it has a progressive, flourishing society.
In Skyrim, if so desired, your spouse can and will fight beside you. They will die
for you or with you. For most of them, that death is permanent. You cannot remarry (not
without cheating anyway). What was is over and there will be no other. Being the
hopeless romantic that I am, I found the whole situation intriguing and heart wrenching,
especially if related or injected into real world circumstances. In one instance while
playing the game, I emerged from the chapel with my brand new husband only to have
him killed later that evening in a vicious full-on vampire attack right outside the temple.
(Hey! No fair! I knew I should have married a warrior and not a merchant. I restarted the
game.) Skyrim weddings are happening in the middle of a world full of violence, disease,
war and death, something Earth is all too familiar with.
Riften Wed is the music for loves and unions, past and present such as this. A
love, a wedding, a lifetime shared by two people in the middle of a storm that threatens to
tear them apart. Where “‘til death do us part” is not only a reality, it’s a given. Where
love is a gift worthy of all the joy and pain it demands. One life, one love, one ending.
This music is for those that are truly Riften Wed.
 Extracted from the Composers Symphony #1, The Lord of the Rings, the fifth
movement expresses the carefree and optimistic character of the Hobbits in a happy folk
dance; the hymn that follows emanates the determination and noblesse of the hobbit folk.
The symphony does not end on an exuberant note, but is concluded peacefully and
resigned, in keeping with the symbolic mood of the last chapter, The Grey Havens, in
which Frodo and Gandalf sail away in a white ship and disappear slowly beyond the
horizon.