DEXTER COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA

HOUSE OF FOUNTAINS PROGRAM NOTES

I don't have many dreams that I remember, but one of the most beautiful ones I've ever had saw me walking into a forest clearing with my grandmother and seeing so many ancient water fountains, all flowing and sparkling, covered with moss and age. My grandmother and I are very close, and she is one of the most brilliant composers I know, though not many people have heard her music. After college she married my grandfather and became a mother, only composing in the summers—these beautiful Gershwin-like pieces— just for herself. In this dream she and I were looking for a house together, and this was the house we decided on, this magical clearing and all of its fountains. I like to think of each one of those fountains as a metaphor for the pieces she and I have both written: emblems of the continuity of creativity. For this piece I decided to use the orchestra as a palette on which to paint a fragment of a piece we used to play together along with melodies I've created, and a take on my favorite melody of hers as well, so that the audience (and the performers!) may walk through an art gallery of melody in much the same way that she and I walked amongst the fountains in that dream. 

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About the Artists

Dr. David Schultz enjoys a diverse career as a conductor, violist, and composer based in Michigan. Equally at home in front of an orchestra of professionals, amateurs, or students, he has been lauded for his inviting demeanor, efficient rehearsals, and dynamic performances. An advocate for contemporary composers, he has conducted several world premieres by composers Marjan Helms, Daniel Tressel, Kevin Wilt, and more. An ardent lover of music genres aside from classical orchestral repertoire, he has collaborated with musicians in manifold styles such as Jazz, Blues, Rock, Hip Hop, Bluegrass, Klezmer, classical Arabic, and African drumming. David values music as a means of human connection and transformation, and is passionate about sharing the experience of making music with both performers and audiences alike.

Dr. Schultz is the music director and conductor of the Dexter Community Orchestra, the Livingston Symphony Orchestra, and the Mason Symphony Orchestra. Previous conducting positions include associate conductor of the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, conductor of the Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of the contemporary-music ensemble Musique 21 at Michigan State University. As a guest conductor he has worked with high school orchestra programs in Chelsea, Dexter, Jackson, and Okemos. In 2019 he was awarded Honorable Mention for the Respighi Prize in Conducting.

As a violist, David performs with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra among other orchestras in mid-Michigan. He also performs with the Chelsea Chamber Players, and is a violist and co-founder of the Lansing-based contemporary-music ensemble ConTempus Initiative.

As a composer, his original works and arrangements have been performed by the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Jackson Youth Symphony Orchestra, Livingston Symphony Orchestra, and Northwest Repertory Singers in Tacoma, WA. He has also scored films for Sisbro Studios’s “Riddle Solvers” series, and has arranged for artists such as Laith Al-Saadi and Stephanie Anne Johnson, both finalists on NBC’s “The Voice.”

David received his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Orchestral Conducting from Michigan State University, and holds a Master of Music in Viola Performance from Michigan State University, and a Bachelor of Music in Viola Performance from Lawrence University. He has studied music in Vienna, Austria, at the Aspen Music Festival, and has conducted in workshops with the Chamber Orchestra of New York, Boulder Chamber Orchestra, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, at Bard College, and at the Cabrillo Contemporary Music Festival. His conducting mentors include Leon Gregorian, Raphael Jimenez, and Markand Thakar.

David lives in Dexter, Michigan with his wife Emily and their two children, Elinor and Julian.

About the Composer

Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd (b. 1990) writes melodic music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette, Ashley Bouder, NYCB soloist Peter Walker, and XAOC Contemporary Ballet’s Eryn Renee Young. Eero, a ballet commissioned by Access Contemporary Music and Open House New York, was written for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Stephanie’s music has been praised as “a racing, brassy score” (New York Times), “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP), and “wide ranging, imaginative” (Portland Press Herald). 

Boyd is the 2021/2022 Peoria Symphony Orchestra Composer in Residence, a position culminating in an entire concert of her works, including her violin concerto Sybil, her cantata Sheltering Voices, and a new work inspired by Betty Friedan entitled Everywoman, with Deborah Rutter, Michelle DeYoung, and Sirena Huang as soloists. The 2021/2022 season also includes the premiere of Julia Louisa Esther: a Suffragette Symphony with the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christopher Dragon; Alleluia Olora commissioned by Astral Artists for cellist Tommy Mesa; Aurora, commissioned by the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others. 

Boyd’s music has been commissioned and performed by concertmasters of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the Des Moines Symphony, the Faroe Islands Symphony, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, and principal players in the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.  Her music has been commissioned and/or played by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the New England Conservatory Philharmonic, the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, the New York Jazzharmonic, the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, the Roosevelt University Orchestra, the Eureka Ensemble, the JVL Festival Orchestra, the Texas State University Symphony, the Cremona International Academy Orchestra, the UW La Crosse Symphony, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and the El Paso Youth Symphony. Her work has been presented by the Thalia and her Sisters concert series, the Moirae Ensemble, and Sandcastle New Music in New York City; Æpex Contemporary Music in Michigan; Juventas New Music, Collage New Music, and the New Gallery Concert Series in Boston; Cincinnati Soundbox, and others. Stephanie has worked with conductors such as Andrew Litton, Lina Gonzales, Earl Lee, Nathan Aspinall, Cliff Colnot, Gill Rose, Julian Benichou, Kristo Kondakci, and Kevin Fitzgerald.

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