PROGRAM NOTES
by Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Fantasma
Jack Fortner (born in 1935)

Composed in 2006.
World Premiere.

Composer, conductor and teacher Jack Fortner was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1935 and received his bachelor’s degree in music from local Aquinas College in 1959. He began studying composition the following year at Juilliard with composer and jazz pianist Hall Overton (who had grown up in Grand Rapids), but completed his master’s degree (1965) and doctorate (1968) at the University of Michigan, where his teachers included Ross Lee Finney, Niccolo Castiglioni, Leslie Bassett and George Wilson. Fortner was conductor of the Contemporary Directions Ensemble and a member of the composition faculty at the University of Michigan from 1966 to 1970, when he joined the faculty of California State University, Fresno. By the time he retired from CSUF in 1998, he had served as Chair of the Department of Music, Professor of Composition, Director of CSUF Electronic Music Studio and Conductor of the CSUF Symphony Orchestra; he was named Professor Emeritus in 2004. Fortner has also been Music Director of the Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra in Grand Rapids (1964-1967) and the Merced (California) Symphony (1971-1976) and Assistant Conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony (1964-1965). He has appeared frequently as a guest conductor and lecturer throughout the United States, Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, as well as in programs of his own music in Germany and Romania. In 1978, he founded Orpheus, a professional chamber music ensemble in Fresno dedicated to the presentation of unusual music of all eras; he continues to serve as Artistic Director. Fortner has received numerous distinctions for his compositions, including the 1966 International Composition Prize from the Fondation Royaumont of France, 1967 Rome Prize Fellowship, grants from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation, three awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and a commission for the celebration of the 1,200th anniversary of the founding of the city of Münster, Germany.

Fortner writes of Fantasma, “Early in 2006, I found the following disjointed suggestions for an orchestra piece in my sketchbook dating from 1995: ‘1. Using the overtone series as a basis for registers, build melodic strands of octave & 5ths, 4ths, M[ajor] 3rds, m[inor] 3rds, M2nds, m2nds. The strands can pile up in a pyramid … then can join to form denser complexes and then break apart. Mostly slow moving at first, starting with cellos and basses. 2. Clusters of various densities overlapping and in different registers ...’

“These phrases were the starting point for Fantasma.
“One should perceive the piece as a long, rectangular canvas. There is a line that traverses the canvas from lower left all the way to the upper right corner. This line is not precisely a straight line but is constantly undulating and changing in density as it proceeds from lower left to upper right. This line also changes colors during its slow peregrinations. Beginning with the burnt umber and ochre tones of contrabasses, cellos, low brass and the dark sounds of low drums, it progresses through a spectrum of hues until it reaches the bright canary and silver colors of solo violins, piccolos and high metal sounds of triangles and crotales.

“Meanwhile, this canvas is delineated by another line on the horizon. All melodic events occur on this plane. The events expand one by one from this central axis until the total register of the orchestra has been utilized. One of the challenges of Fantasma is that there is only one dynamic in the score: ‘Play as quietly as possible.’ A sense of dynamic change had to be created only by the careful use of instrumentation and register. Permeating the whole of this six-and-a-half minute composition is a somber shadow from the past peering over the shoulder of all creative artists of today.
“Fantasma was completed in São Paulo, Brazil in August 2006 and is dedicated to Theodore Kuchar.”

MORE NOTES ON THIS PROGRAM

COPLAND - Billy the Kid Suite
GERSHWIN - Variations on "I've Got Rhythm"
ADAMS - The Chairman Dances
CRESTON - Symphony No. 2
GERSHWIN - Rhapsody in Blue

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