Images: Music of Jeff Tyzik – 2018 CD Release

Images: Music of Jeff Tyzik Features The Eastman Wind Ensemble with Mark Scatterday, Conductor, and Michael Burritt and Charles Ross, Soloists

GRAMMY Award winner Jeff Tyzik has released a new CD, featuring The Eastman Wind Ensemble, Mark Scatterday, conductor, with Eastman faculty members Michael Burritt and Charles Ross featured as soloists. Images: Music of Jeff Tyzik was released on October 19, 2018 by Summit Records, Fanfare said the release is ”…presented at the highest possible artistic level by Mark Davis Scatterday and his Eastman Wind Ensemble…”

One of America’s most innovative and sought-after pops conductors, Tyzik began his association with the Eastman Wind Ensemble (EWE) under the direction of Donald Hunsberger at the Eastman School of Music in 1970. Tyzik considers his time in the EWE as one of the most important influences in his 40-year career in music. Through his association with the EWE’s current director Mark Scatterday, Tyzik has composed several new works for the ensemble and has enjoyed producing EWE recordings. Jeff Tyzik is currently the Principal Pops Conductor with the Detroit, Dallas, Oregon, and Florida Orchestras and has held the Principal Pops Conductor position with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) for the past twenty-five seasons.

Images features the performances of more than 150 Eastman students over a four-year period and features four different works. Images: Musical Impressions of an Art Museum, was commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the Memorial Art Gallery. Each work in the movement highlights a work of art on display at the museum; for example, Albert Paley’s sculpture Convergence serves as the inspiration for the first movement of the piece. The wind ensemble version of this work was premiered by the EWE under the direction of Mark Scatterday in 2017.

“Working with Jeff Tyzik has always been an inspiration for me and the players in the EWE,” states Mark Scatterday, Professor of Conducting. “He brings so much knowledge, experience, professionalism, and enthusiasm to the process. I can’t think of a better role model for our young musicians at Eastman!”

The Concerto for Timpani and Wind Ensemble was composed in 2009 for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and performed that season featuring its principal timpanist (and Eastman Assistant Professor of Timpani), Charles Ross. The Wind ensemble transcription was completed in 2013 and premiered that year by Charles Ross and the Eastman Wind Ensemble. This three-movement piece features strong jazz influences, reflecting the musical backgrounds of Tyzik and Ross.

Triology was commissioned in 2000 by then Eastman School of Music Dean James Undercofler, for Eastman Wind Ensemble to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the University of Rochester. When Tyzik was an Eastman student, the prominent American composer Howard Hanson (1896-1981) was still teaching at the school, and Tyzik became very interested in his music. This work features thematic material from Hanson’s Second and Sixth Symphonies as a departure point, paying great attention to Hanson’s harmonic usage.

Riffs was composed in 2009 at the request of Mark Scatterday to feature Eastman Professor of Percussion Michael Burritt in a work for solo drums and wind ensemble. This work combines jazz and contemporary music elements including a fast swing, a heavy medium swing, and an Afro-Cuban finale that turns the wind ensemble into a huge jazz ensemble with the jazz drum soloist leading the way.

“It has been a joyful artistic adventure creating music with Mark Scatterday and The Eastman Wind Ensemble over the past five years. I’m proud of all of the wonderful Eastman students who performed brilliantly and were extremely professional during the recording sessions,” Tyzik shares. “Thanks to Mark Scatterday and all of these amazing young musicians, this experience has been one of the greatest joys of my musical life.”

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As only the fourth director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Mark Davis Scatterday joined a prestigious line of conductors in the past sixty-plus years of the famed ensemble: Frederick Fennell, A. Clyde Roller, and Donald Hunsberger. He has led the EWE on tour to Japan, Taiwan, and China, and conducted the ensemble in highly acclaimed performances at Carnegie Hall, Canadian National Musicfest, and the Midwest Clinic. He has recorded five CDs with the EWE, Eastman Virtuosi, and Eastman Musica Nova, and led the Eastman Harmonie on a highly acclaimed tour of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic in the summer of 2016.

Having performed on four continents and more than forty states Michael Burritt is one of the World’s leading percussion soloists. He is in frequent demand performing concert tours and master classes throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. Mr. Burritt has three solo as well as numerous chamber recordings. In 2006 he recorded the Joseph Schwantner Percussion Concerto with the Calgary Wind Ensemble on the Albany label and is soon to release a new recording of solo and chamber works by Alejandro Viñao. Mr. Burritt released a recording project with the world renown percussion group Nexus titled Home featuring his new work Home Trilogy, commissioned by the group. Mr. Burritt is also active as a composer, with three concertos to his credit as well as numerous solo and chamber works for marimba and percussion. His works for solo marimba have become standard repertoire for the instrument and are frequently required repertoire on international competitions.

Charles Ross has been the Principal Timpanist of the Rochester Philharmonic since 2003. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he has performed, toured, and recorded as timpanist with many orchestras in the U.S. and abroad; among them include the Philadelphia Orchestra, La Scala Opera, Baltimore Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, RAI (Radio Orchestra) of Torino, (Italy), Chautauqua Festival Orchestra, and the Moscow and Philadelphia Chamber Orchestras, as well as with acclaimed Baroque ensembles, New York Collegium, VOX Amadeus, and the Philadelphia Classical Symphony. Charles is on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music and the Brevard Music Center. He has also taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, Drexel University, and has given clinics and master classes for the Percussive Arts Society. Charles is also the creator and manufacturer of RossTimp Kettledrum Mallets, currently used by professionals and students throughout the world. He is an affiliate artist and clinician with the Pearl/Adams Corporation, Evans/Daddario, JG Percussion, and Mike Balter Mallets.