I. Volcán

II. The Baptism of Momotombo

III. Stolen Things

IV. Promesas

V. Coronach en Río Mar

PROGRAM NOTE

In the winter of 2022-23, my mother and I returned to Nicaragua for the first time since the civil uprisings began in April 2018. We returned to a country of extraordinary natural and cultural beauty rocked by an increasingly dictatorial government and pandemic-fueled loss where profound courage and generosity are mingled with grief and pain, joy and hope, life and ash.

Cenizas for wind ensemble traces the images evoked by the essential connection between life and ash: the volcanoes central to the Nicaraguan landscape; the friars who set out to baptize the volcano Momotombo and who never returned (a practice documented by E. G. Squier, special chargé d'affaires of the United States to the Republics of Central America in 1853); the ashes left when rights and time and possessions and lives are stolen; of promises kept and of things left undone; the ashes of my father—whom we lost during the pandemic—that we will release in our home in Río Mar this winter with the blessing “Vuela ya. Descansa en paz.” (“Fly now. Rest in peace.”). In five movements, Cenizas invites the performers to offer up their own voices both through their instrumental performances and through shouts, stomps, unpitched percussive sounds and chant, in a meditation on loss, life, and grace. —GL

Cenizas was commissioned by the Mid-American Conference Band Directors Association for premiere at the 2023 College Band Directors National Association National Conference performed by the Ball State University Wind Ensemble, Thomas Caneva, Director, and with subsequent performances at Bowling Green State University, Bruce Moss, Director; Central Michigan University, Christopher C. Chapman, Director; Eastern Michigan University, Mary K. Schneider, Director; Kent State University, Benjamin Lorenzo, Director; Miami University, Gary Speck, Director; Northern Illinois University, Thomas Bough, Director; Ohio University, William Talley, Director; University of Akron, Galen Karriker, Director; University of Toledo, Jason Stumbo, Director; Western Michigan University, Scott Boerma, Director.