Public Domain Day

Public Domain Day 2022: Jazz Music and Remarks

Recreating Louis Armstrong’s “Hot Five” Combo of 1926

Friday, October 7, 2022   4:00 PM

Thompson Library, 11th Floor Campus Reading Room

This event features performances of public domain jazz tunes composed by Louis Armstrong, Lillian Hardin, and others, in versions recorded by Armstrong and his New Orleans-style combos in the 1920s.  New public domain editions of Armstrong and Hardin’s music, transcribed and arranged by Alan Green from manuscript sources and recordings, are highlighted.  You can read more about Lillian Hardin here. You can also hear performances of the tunes Cornet Chop Suey and Flat Foot recorded at the event.

OSU almunus Dr. Jeremy E. Smith is the coordinator an ensemble of musicians for this special event:

Alto Sax/Clarinet – Jerrod Shackelford

Tenor Sax/Clarinet – Ben Syme

Bb Trumpet – Alex Sanso

Trombone – Mike Foley

Bass Trombone/Tuba -Jeremy Smith

Piano – Drew Powell

Drums – Jakob Stephens

Jeremy E. Smith is a professional musician and brass educator located in Central Ohio. As a performer, Jeremy is the bass trombonist for the Huntington Symphony Orchestra. In addition to playing with Huntington, he has performed with numerous ensembles including the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Iowa, Central Ohio Symphony, Opera Project Columbus, and the orchestras of Springfield (OH), Westerville, Youngstown, Mansfield, New Albany, and Knox County.  As a chamber musician, Jeremy has traveled with brass ensembles throughout the United States, China, and South Korea. Fluent in various styles, Jeremy has performed with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, Tim Zimmerman and the King’s Brass, Vaughn Wiester’s Famous Jazz Orchestra, and the Knox Community Jazz Orchestra. Jeremy has also had the privilege of sharing the stage with artists such as Jeff Hamilton, Byron Stripling, Mary Wilson, Michael W. Smith, All-4-One, Sean Jones, Martha Wash, Theo Peoples, and Steve Green.

As an educator, Jeremy currently teaches in the brass areas at Ohio Wesleyan University and Kenyon College, and Mount Vernon Nazarene University He has given clinics and recitals at Capital University, Marshall University, Indiana Wesleyan University, and the North Carolina Trombone Festival. An advocate for all styles of brass music, Jeremy is a member of the Jazz Education Network (JEN), the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA), and the International Tuba Euphonium Association (ITEA). Also a member of the International Trombone Association (ITA), Jeremy currently serves as the Events Coordinator and Web Assistant for the Association. In addition to serving the ITA, Jeremy is the Founder and Editor of Last Row Music. With over 10,000 monthly visitors, Last Row Music contains an online listing of brass audition listings as well as news, events, links, and articles read by brass musicians and enthusiasts around the world.

Jeremy recently completed a DMA in performance at The Ohio State University where he studied with Dr. Sterling Tanner and Jim Masters, and served as a Graduate Associate for the Jazz Studies area and Trombone Studio. He holds music performance degrees from both Carnegie Mellon University and Grace College. His primary instructors include Peter Sullivan and James Kraft with additional studies from Denson Paul Pollard, John Kitzman, Graeme Mutchler, and Amanda Stewart.

 

Public Domain 2021 Chamber Music and Remarks

Friday, October 22, 2021   4:00 PM

Thompson Library, 11th Floor Campus Reading Room

JANUS STRING QUARTET:

Devin Copfer and Kelsey Shaheen, violins

Nancy Nehring, viola

Mark Rudoff, cello

 

Four Indiscretions for String Quartet, Op. 20                         Louis Gruenberg (1884–1964)

I. Allegro con spirito

II. Lento sostenuto e espressivo

III. Moderato grazioso e delicato

IV. Allegro giocoso

 

Paysages, B. 62                                                                                            Ernest Bloch (1880–1959)

I. North

II. Alpestre

III. Tongataboo

 

String Quartet No. 1                                                                                 Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)

I. Presto con fuoco

II. Allegretto con moto e con malinconia grotesca

III. Allegro giocoso all Slovacca

IV. Andante molto sostenuto

 

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Discussion Notes by Mark Rudoff

To look back at music composed in the 1920’s is to step up to the rich smorgasbord of styles and influences at play among composers inventing a string quartet repertory for the new century. The mashup is unmistakable in this program of 1925 quartets. The Indiscretions of Louis Gruenberg get up in the face of conventional musical pulse and tonality. Ernest Bloch honors his French compositional heritage in Paysages: Satie’s protominimalism in the construction and language; Debussy’s pictorialism and fascination with the exotic (note that “Tongataboo” is an old spelling for the Pacific island now known as Tongatapu); Ravel in the string colors. Tasting notes in Erwin Schulhoff’s First Quartet might include Bartók (note the edgy sounds from alternative string techniques), Stravinskian polytonality, and zesty Slavic nationalism that reaches back to Dvořák.

One question teased us as we curated this program: how did these three brilliant, original pieces fall out of the quartet repertory—and for that matter, why is music by Gruenberg and Schulhoff barely heard at all? Of course, aesthetic ideals are always up for grabs, fame is illusory, the public is fickle—those are the hard truths if you are an artist, and maybe that is the whole story. But the connecting thread of this program is these three European Jewish composers working between the world wars. Which leads to a nagging question: was the work of 20^th century Jewish composers marginalized?

First, it should be said that what we think of as 20th Century American Music (not just the compositions, but also the great orchestras and conservatories) was built by European Jews who emigrated to the United States. A 1930’s study found that Jewish musicians accounted for one-quarter of the players in major American orchestras, as well about half of the conductors and concert artists. Gruenberg’s parents left Russia for New York City, where Louis became a brilliant piano student at New York’s National Conservatory of Music. By 1925 Gruenberg was well established, winner of the New York Philharmonic’s Flagler Prize, and even more widely known and performed in Europe. Bloch found immediate success when he emigrated to the United States in 1916. He taught at New York’s Mannes School and in 1925 he was serving as director of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Major orchestra works were performed in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and Schirmer’s publishing house created a special Bloch imprint for their editions.

But in the minds of some the important question was not, “Is this good music?” but rather, “Is this American music?” Through much of the 20^th century, avant-garde composers organized around a shared preoccupation with creating true, purely American music. Leading the campaign was the International Composers Guild and its successor organization, the Pan-American Association, a cadre of composers and performers dedicated to promoting concerts, recordings and broadcasts of their members’ work. Founder Edgard Varèse (yes: a French immigrant), offered this ugly comment: “Jazz is not America. It’s a negro product, exploited by the Jews. All of its composers from here are Jews.” Carl Ruggles wrote to Henry Cowell, “…it is a great mistake to have that filthy bunch of Juilliard Jews in the Pan American. They are cheap, without dignity, and with little, or no talent… .”

The Schulhoff case is more straightforward, though tragic. In the 1920’s he was the brightest star in Prague’s new music circle, active as a composer, concert pianist, music critic, and radio and recording artist. Universal Music, the leading European publisher of new music, had him under contract, and his works appeared at the premier European festivals. Schulhoff was also a committed communist on the front lines of anti-Nazi political activism. In the late 1930’s Germany began to occupy Czech territories, taking Prague in 1940. Schulhoff was arrested in 1941 and would die in a concentration camp at Wülzburg. Before his arrest he had applied to emigrate to the United States. The application was rejected.

If you want to read further:

• Rachel Mundy, “The ‘League of Jewish Composers’ and American Music,” The Musical Quarterly, 96, no. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 50-99. [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43865480]
• Robert F. Nisbett, “Louis Gruenberg’s American Idiom,” American Music, 3, no. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 25-41. [Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3052115]
• Robert Nisbett also wrote his PhD dissertation on Gruenberg’s life and work at The Ohio State University in 1979: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487089166024932
• The Orel Foundation has an excellent biography of Erwin Schulhoff at http://orelfoundation.org/composers/article/erwin_schulhoff

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JANUS STRING QUARTET takes its name and inspiration from Janus, the Roman god of time and transitions, presenting faces that look to the past and the future. Janus brings together rising stars Devin Copfer and Kelsey Shaheen with veterans Nancy Nehring and Mark Rudoff. They share the artistic mission of tugging on threads that connect old and new musics, and weaving those threads into the broad tapestry of the humanities. Recent Janus work includes appearing on stage in Ballet Met‘s production of Cacti, and video performances of works by Haydn and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson for the First Community Church Easter season Meditations on the Crucifixion: An Evening of Transfiguration.

DEVIN COPFER (she/her/hers) is a violinist, vocalist, recording musician, registered Suzuki teacher, and arts entrepreneur based in Columbus, OH. Her musical collaborations range from classical to avant-garde pop, from arranging Jazz standards to hiring string ensembles. Devin’s work spotlights and grows her community of incredible musicians through purposeful concert design and meaningful audience connection.

KELSEY SHAHEEN (she/her/hers) is a passionate performer and private violin and viola instructor based in Columbus. Kelsey collaborates and performs regularly with her husband, Ben Shaheen in their violin and percussion duo, Summit Ridge. In their duo, Kelsey and Ben work to expand the violin and percussion repertoire and bring new music to unique spaces. Kelsey holds a deep interest in the mind-body connection that fuels music making and she currently teaches at Pure Barre Columbus.

NANCY NEHRING (she/her/hers) started out as a piano major but ended up with a Masters in Viola from Michigan, later playing with orchestras in Oklahoma, California, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, Mexico & Canada. An experienced arts administrator, Nancy has taught viola at every level and performed with chamber ensembles across the Midwest. She is currently assistant principal viola and personnel manager of the Newark-Granville Symphony, and serves as a collaborative pianist for an OSU voice studio and many Columbus-area string students.

MARK RUDOFF (he/him/his) is Associate Professor of cello and chamber music at The Ohio State University. A respected chamber and orchestra musician, Mark performs with Janus and the Galileo Trio, and served as principal cello of the Calgary Philharmonic and Saskatoon Symphony Orchestras. Away from OSU he has served on faculties at Interlochen Summer Arts Camp, Zephyr International and Florentia Consort Chamber Music Festivals, and is currently Music Director of the Cincinnati Community Orchestra. Mark is a recipient of the Ronald and Deborah Ratner Distinguished Teaching Award in Arts and Humanities in the OSU College of Arts and Sciences.

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Public Domain Day, celebrated January 1^st of each year, is the day we recognize new works that have entered the public domain. In 2021, we welcome works first registered or published in the United States in 1925. Works published during that time that met all required formalities enjoyed a maximum term of copyright protection of 95 years. With copyright term running to the end of the calendar year, works first published in 1925 officially entered the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2021. Now, as public domain works, these creative materials are free of copyright protection in the U.S.

About the Project

The Public Domain Day Project is a collaborative project between University Libraries, the School of Music, and other units across the University, planned to coincide with Public Domain Day. The Public Domain Day Project at The Ohio State University began in 2019 in celebration of a special event, January 1, 2019, which marked the first time in many years that works first registered or published in the U.S. entered the public domain in the U.S. due to expiration of their copyright term. For 20 years, the works remained protected by copyright due to a retroactive extension of copyright under the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act.  Now, with published works once again entering the public domain on a rolling basis, new works will enter the public domain in the U.S. every year on January 1st.

With this project, we hope to bring attention to works whose term of copyright protection has expired and contribute new works to the public domain. Contribution to this project will help to support future learning, scholarship, and creative endeavors from members of the OSU community and beyond.