Honanki Dances
Honanki Dances was composed after a fantasy brought on by a visit to the cliff dweller ruins north of Sedona. My concept of the piece is that of a ceremonial dance performed by an ancient tribe (the Honanki) of Native Americans that lived north of Sedona around 1000 AD. They were part of an extensive cliff dweller community that existed in the region for thousands of years---mainly agricultural. I was there in late November, so I was thinking of a harvest festival, thanksgiving, and a religious celebration. I was not trying for authentic music, just my take on the vision of a ceremonial Dance in terms of the music language that I know, and how a dance might be for these people. I think of my piece as a tribute to the memory of these ancient people, but there is no pretense of authenticity. The first and last parts are a step dance performed in a circle by colorfully dressed men. The women are dressed in long robe-like gowns of white or neutral hue. They form a line or semi-circle, swaying and singing. From time to time the men and women cry out and shout. The middle section is performed by the women. It is a stately, swayingly sensual dance. The men, of course, are entranced and inspired to dance even better in the final section, and they convince the women to join them. The dancers are rather youthful. The audience is made up of elders, children, parents, and various leader types.

Orbital Mechanics
Orbital Mechanics is an experiment. It is a trio for flute, viola and guitar, a monologue embraced by a dialogue between two sequential strings of notes, with a resemblance to our Solar system, its planets and neighbor stars, and a voice that remains in the search of truth, goodness and beauty. There are two particular sequential strings of notes - ‘musical rows of intervals’ – which accord with research on the ‘music of the spheres’ and in parallel with “guitar-istic” intuition.

Orbital Mechanics is a small product of fourteen years of experimentation with music composition around ‘the spheres’ and one of many experiments on the characters involved. Much literature has inspired this research and has given me the opportunity to find a clear motive and voice as an artist. It is my intention, as a composer, to test here a way to ‘put into orbit’ this interest, much like modern satellites are sent into orbit. I hope you enjoy what has been a very interesting way of expressing music. Thank you for listening to new music. It is one important aspect in the creation and development of human kind.

785 (Jihad)
The piece concerns the tragic London subway and bus bombings last summer. As a composer I was unable to make a musical response to 911, but somehow I felt moved to compose music reflecting the feelings that London evoked in my soul recalling my experience with the Muslim world that I had there as a child. The music is in three sections, the first being Mothers’ Lament reflecting the anguish of the mothers from both sides of this conflict. The second section is the Striking in which the ones we consider terrorists view themselves as heroes or martyrs, the third section, Shalom, is for those wishing that there can be peace, but seeing the endless hatred that will continue to fuel the schism between the two worlds. The music makes use of the word, jihad as a basis for letter-class derivation of motivic material, or, if you will, the motive of the motives. I dedicate this music to the victims and to those working for a resolution to the age old struggle.

Vanishing Perspectives
Vanishing Perspectives was commissioned by cellist Craig Hultgren in 2003 and premiered in 2005. After considering many of the new innovations and new works written for solo cello, I realized that I wanted to write a piece that would readdress the cello’s more traditional role as a robust and singing baritone instrument. I thought that that perspective was vanishing in much of the new music I was seeing, especially for an instrument that is tuned in fifths, often plays bass lines, and has such a strong tradition of playing tonal music. This work is also built on fragments of an earlier piece of mine (Cycles and Myths) and uses the idea of the half-step fall as a strong tonal force that shapes both small and large scale motion. The amplification and reverberation help add a spatial dimension to the vanishing sounds and gestures.

Trio for Flute, Violin & Violoncello
Trio for Flute, Violin & Violoncello is initially designed for traditional piano trio because of intensive and equally balanced dialogue among three instruments. After expressing the attractive characters of each instrument as almost like a monologue, I tried to combine persistent rhythmic and thematic motives with convincing structure. The last section develops and extends the repetitive dotted rhythm and minor 6th into dense harmonies of the augmented triads with double stops in string parts.

Small Blue Marble
The initial inspirations for Small Blue Marble were a picture and a dream. The picture is the famous image of the Earth as seen from the moon by the Apollo astronauts, an image of a small planet hanging vulnerably in the darkness of space. The work begins with this image, with a cold, sustained chord of outer space, but at its core, the piece is a travelogue for the planet inspired by a dream of flying toward the Earth, entering its atmosphere (the first rhythm of the piece – the breath of life), and proceeding around the globe, flying fast over land, maybe 50 feet off the ground, fields and mountains and all, plunging into the sea, crossing one ocean, coming back again to land on the other side of the globe, picking up more speed, and finally coming back to water, but this time falling slowly into the ocean’s deepest depths. Here, at the end, in another world without air, the opening music returns to draw the parallel between deep space and the deep sea. We live on a cracker between these two inhospitable worlds, an even more fragile situation than the picture which inspired this piece presents.

Allyson Dawkins, Principal Violist of the San Antonio Symphony, has won consistent admiration for her playing as both orchestral soloist and recitalist. Critics have praised the "great sensitivity and intelligence" of her playing, as well as her "full-bodied, velvety tone." The San Antonio Express-News described her solo performance of Britten’s Lachrymae as "delicate and compelling...with poise, technical security, and in-the-groove freedom." Of the Ginastera Variaciones concertantes the Express-News said "Top marks go to Allyson Dawkins for a spitfire performance in her demanding solo."

Ms. Dawkins is on the faculty of Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and is highly sought after and widely respected as a private teacher. During the summer she serves as Dean of Students, teaches viola, and coaches chamber music at the Quartet Program at State University of New York at Fredonia. She is co-author, with Charles Castleman, of a technical instruction book for both viola and violin titled Fingerboard Memory. She has performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Colorado Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Victoria Bach Festival, and as Principal Violist of the Peninsula Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin and the Sunriver Music Festival in Oregon. She is currently a member of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. Dawkins received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York at Purchase, and a Master of Music degree and Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music.

Strongly committed to community service, Ms. Dawkins is director of the San Antonio Symphony Caroling Project, a program that takes musicians to area hospitals, hospices, correctional institutions, and shelters during the December holiday season.

Marilyn de Oliveira, a native of Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil began learning cello at age six. Her orchestral playing began early as well at age 12 in the Orchestra Jovem UFRGS (RS, Brazil) and ate age 15 she began teaching cello and chamber music at the Conservatorio do Instituto Adventista de Ensino (SP, Brazil). Ms. De Oliveira came to the United States in 1997 to continue her studies at Indiana University where she received her Bachelor of Music Degree under cellist Emilio Colon and then joined the studio of Norman Fischer at Rice University where she received her Master of Music Degree. While in school, Marilyn attended several prestigious American music festivals such as Tanglewood Music Center (where she received the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Prize), Spoleto Festival USA, Kent/Blossom Music Center, the Youth Orchestra of the Americas as well as European Music Festivals. After graduating from Rice University in 2003, Marilyn joined the New World Symphony under the direction of Micheal Tilson Thomas were she was a principal cellist during tours to Teatro Santa Cecilia, Rome and Carnegie Hall, NYC. Since September of 2005, Marilyn has been in the San Antonio Symphony as the acting Assistant Principal. In February of this year she was the Bronze Award Winner in the Senior Division of the 9th Annual Sphinx Competition.

Charles Goodhue is currently retired from a career of research and invention in chemistry and biology and has turned toward composing to realize his musical dreams and aspirations. Although vowing not to early on, he is piano teacher to many pianists young and old and also active in some local musical organizations in addition to CASA, namely SAMTA and SAIPC (San Antonio International Piano Competition).

Mary Ellen Goree, principal second violin of the San Antonio Symphony, began playing the violin at age five in a Suzuki class. She received the BM in violin performance and BA in mathematics from Oberlin College in 1982, where she studied violin with Stephen Clapp, piano with Sanford Margolis, and chamber music with Marilyn McDonald, Stephen Clapp, and Denes Koromzay. While at Oberlin, she was awarded the Louis and Annette Kaufman Prize in violin, and was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda. She continued her education at Indiana University as a student of Paul Biss, receiving the M.M. with distinction in violin performance in 1984.

Following a six-month appointment as associate concertmaster of the Yamagata Symphony in Japan, Mary Ellen Goree accepted a position as co-concertmaster of the Shreveport Symphony in Louisiana and violinist in the symphony's Premier Quartet. In 1988, she joined the San Antonio Symphony as a member of the second violin section, moving to the assistant principal second chair in 1989 and receiving her current appointment in 1991. Ms. Goree is also the principal second violin of the Colorado Music Festival orchestra in Boulder, a position she has held since 1994. Her solo playing has been described as "delicate, inspired work" in the Shreveport Times, and as "highly polished, confident solo work" in the San Antonio Express-News.

Ms. Goree is a member of the violin faculty at UTSA, a sought-after private teacher, and an active performer in the San Antonio area. She and her husband David Goree, a teacher at Edison High School, are the parents of three children.

David Heuser's music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the US and abroad. He has won a variety of awards, grants and commissions including an ASCAP Young Composer Award, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, the Delius Composition Contest Chamber Music Award, and a Texas Music Festival “New Texas Overture” Commission. Michael Souther in the Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) called Heuser's orchestral work Cauldron “an exciting, dynamic tour-de-force,” and Charles Ward of the Houston Chronicle called A Screaming Comes Across the Sky (also for orchestra) “all-American music at its most dynamic and visceral.” Reviewer Mike Greenburg, writing in the San Antonio Express-News, called Cúchulainn's Warp-Spasm (for spoken voice, effects and tape) “harrowing,” and went on to write: “Technical details aside, the piece is just plain compelling. It fully and effectively conveys the dark, violent, monstrous atmosphere of the text.” And Andrew Druckenbrod, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reviewing a performance of Heuser’s Immaculate, Bored, Off-key and Vain, said “This work is just the sort of music classical music needs more of.” A product of New Jersey, Heuser’s degrees are from Eastman and Indiana University, and he currently resides in San Antonio, where he is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His music is published by Non Sequitur Music, and works of his can be found on recordings on the Albany (Cauldron), Capstone (Still Life With Fruit), and Equilibrium (Deep Blue Spiral) labels.

Misook Kim (1963) received her B.A. cum laude from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. She entered the graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in composition and certificate in piano performance. As a pianist and composer, Kim has presented concerts of her own works from solo to larger ensemble compositions in U.S. and Korea. She teaches at the University of the Incarnate Word and at Trinity University. She will be moving to Chicago this summer.

Timothy Kramer's works have been performed throughout the United States and Europe, in Mexico, Argentina, and Taiwan, including performances by the Indianapolis, Detroit, Tacoma, and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras, the Winters Chamber Orchestra, North/South Consonance, the SOLI Ensemble, the ONIX Ensemble (Mexico), Luna Nova, and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings.

He has received grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, Meet the Composer, BMI, ASCAP, the American Guild of Organists, and the American Music Center among others. His degrees are from Pacific Lutheran University (B.M.) and the University of Michigan (M.M., D.M.A.), and he was a Fulbright Scholar to Germany in 1988-89. He is currently Associate Professor at Trinity University in San Antonio where he also runs CASA (the Composers’ Alliance of San Antonio), a group he founded in the late 1990s. His works are published by Southern, Earnestly Music, Hinshaw, and Selah and recorded on Calcante and North/South.

Composer Ken Metz is an associate professor of music at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. There he teaches music theory, composition, and other theory related courses. In addition to CASA, he is a member of the College Music Society, the Society of Composers, Inc., and ASCAP.

A native of San Diego, California, Tallon Sterling Perkes began his professional career as a teenager substituting with the Pacific Symphony and the San Diego Symphony while studying with their respective principal flutists, Sylvia Greenfield and Damian Bursill-Hall. Mr. Perkes continued his studies obtaining his B.M. and Performer’ s Certificate at the Eastman School of Music with Bonita Boyd where, in his first year, he won a position with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and played principal flute on the Eastman Philharmonia’s recordings for Mercury Records. Subsequently, he finished his studies in European courses with such renowned flutists as Alan Marion, Peter Lucas Graf, William Bennett, Peter Lloyd and James Galway, was a three-time prize winner of the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition and has since gone on to an international career as orchestral flutist, soloist, chamber musician and clinician.

Before assuming his present positions as Principal flute of the San Antonio Symphony and Flute instructor at Trinity University, Mr. Perkes was for five years Assistant principal and Acting principal flute of the City Orchestra of Barcelona, Spain. Mr. Perkes has been a concerto soloist with orchestras in Kumamoto Japan, Lima Peru, Mexico and on several occasions with the San Antonio Symphony. He is a member of the Olmos Chamber Ensemble and has been a guest artist with the Cactus Pear Music Festival and Camarata San Antonio. In past summers Mr. Perkes has been the Principal Flutist of the Santa Fe Opera and the Colorado Music Festival and a performer and adjudicator at four National Flute Association Conventions. In 03-04 Mr. perkes was Instructor of flute at the Interlochen Arts Academy and continues to teach at the Interlochen Arts Camp in the summer.

Juan Luis de Pablo Enríquez Rohen was born in Mexico City, in 1971. Among his family there has been prominent figures in music composition, (Aniceto Ortega), in literature, (Isidoro Enríquez Calleja) and in theater and poetry, (José Ramón Enríquez). Juan has taught music for theater at the ‘Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’, UNAM. He has also conducted numerous representations of his music at major theaters of the ‘Centro Cultural’, and the ‘Centro Nacional de las Artes’, CNA.

Amy Beth Venticinque began her musical education with piano lessons at age 5. Studies in her first love, the violin, began at age 11. She received her undergraduate training in Maryland and in the Netherlands. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Violin Performance from the University of Maryland, where she studied violin with Gerald Fischbach and Daniel Heifetz. While at Maryland, she also studied chamber music with Arnold Steinhardt, John Dalley, Michael Tree, and David Soyer, members of the Guarneri String Quartet. She performed in master classes in Baroque performance practice for Jean Lemond and Ton Koopman. While at Maryland, she won the undergraduate division of the Homer Ulrich Concerto Competition, was elected to the Pi Kappa Lambda Honors Society, and graduated summa cum laude.

Mrs. Venticinque’s musical studies then brought her to Texas, where she received a Masters Degree in Violin Performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, studying with Kathleen Winkler and Raphael Fliegel.

Before moving to San Antonio, Mrs. Venticinque performed with the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, the Houston Ballet Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the National Repertory Orchestra, and the National Orchestral Institute. She has been a member of the San Antonio Symphony violin section since 1999. In addition to her position with the Symphony, she performs regularly as the Assistant Concertmaster of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of San Antonio. She devotes the rest of her professional time to her private violin students. She and her husband, Dr. Steven Venticinque, are avid animal lovers and contribute much of their time, energy and resources rescuing to stray dogs and cats off the streets of San Antonio.