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Concert 6 – “Smoke on the Water”
Saturday, April 5, 2025 @ 7:30 PM
Nola Starling Recital Hall
Jennifer Campbell, soprano | Jefferson Campbell, bassoon | Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
PROGRAM
Where Mittens Disappear by Mary Ellen Haupert
1. One
2. Play
3. Green
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Mary Ellen Haupert: This song cycle was inspired by a series of stories relayed to daughter Mary Ellen by her mother, Mary Louise Patnaude. Mary Ellen commissioned Marci Madary to write poems based on the recorded stories; Marci listened to several of the recordings before composing three lovely poems that captured the youthful innocence and vigor of Mary Lou’s childhood and young adulthood. Where Mittens Disappear is Mary Ellen’s 90th birthday gift to her mother, who would have turned 96 this April 15, 2025. The song cycle was premiered by Jennifer Campbell and Mary Ellen Haupert at the Tuesday Summer Concert Series in Grand Rapids, MN on July 23, 2019, with commentary by Mary Louise Patnaude. A bassoon part for "Green" was written for Jefferson Campbell's performance on this concert.
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Libby Larsen
Poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1. I thought once how Theocritus had sung
2. My letters!
3. With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
4. If I leave all for thee
5. Oh, Yes!
6. How do I love thee?
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Libby Larsen: I met Arleen Auger in 1988 through our mutual friend, Joel Revzen. It was April, morel mushroom hunting time in Minnesota, and that is what we talked about for the better part of our first meeting - mushroom hunting, nature, the human spirit, music, and the energy which takes us beyond our natural lives. Arleen spoke to me about her love of the art song repertoire. She talked about love, and life, and her desire that I compose a work which spoke about the finding of mature love. She wished to create with me a cycle of songs which were in contrast to the young girl's feeling for the promise of love in Frauen Lieben und Leben. Arleen told me that the poetry she most loved was Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. She admired the fact that within the stylized and romantic language, lived a creative woman grappling with issues seem still to engulf modern women. What part of her voice must she sacrifice to the lover and the world? Will the sacrifice be reciprocated? Can her essence survive? Browning at times soars to heights of daring - demanding the world take her as she is - at other moments her self-confidence wavers. Ultimately she realizes - as we must - that love and death demand constant faith in the leaps life requires.
Over the next months, Arleen and I read the Sonnets and decided together on a grouping that represented Browning's growth in mature love and at the same time touched the artist in Arleen. We worked by mail and in person. I most remember the meeting in my living room when we both had our copies of the Sonnets spread out on the floor and we lay on our stomachs for the better part of two hours struggling over a line in "My Letters" trying to understand what it meant. Celia Novo, Arleen's wonderful friend, and my daughter Wynne brought us food and added their thoughts to the discussion. For me that afternoon was the essence of why a composer lives to work.
In our last correspondence, Arleen wrote this: “Finally I have been able to find enough peace and quiet, rest and concentration time... to listen to the tape of our piece… Oh, Libby, every time I hear our piece the more I fall in love with it. You have really written something very special which touches my heart and speaks my intentions from our project. I only regret that I will not be able to debut (premier) it and that someone will have that pleasure and honor because it will and must be performed!” (March 1993)
INTERMISSION
Sonata for Bassoon and Piano (in three movements) by Nancy Galbraith
I. Lilting and Lively
II. Tranquil and Meditative
III. Sprightly and Dance-like
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Nancy Galbraith: Movement I is lilting and lively in nature with jazzy, syncopated interplay between the bassoon and piano. Some of these thythmic materials employ mixed meters and hemiolas, while the harmonic and melodic materials make use of whole-tone scales and polytonality. The piano opens Movement II slowly with a series of polytonal and cluster chords to establish an air of meditative serenity. The bassoon enters with a sighing motive in the high register, gradually expanding to a broader expression of the theme, supported by frenetic arpeggios in the piano. the movement concludes with a return to a mood of tranquil, meditative melancholy and wistful peace. The fast and sprightly final movement is played, for the most part, in a light, staccato, and dance-like perpetual motion. The two voices again engage in playful syncopated exchanges thoughout, and a brief cadenza provides momentum for the reeling conclusion.
Sea Smoke on Gitchigami by Jenni Brandon
Poetry by Linda LeGarde Grover
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes: This work by composer Jenni Brandon and author/poet Lind LaGarde Grover was premiered in 2022 by Jefferson Campbell, his wife, soprano Jennifer Campbell, and pianist Alexander Sandor. Sea Smoke on Gichigami, was inspired by the weather phenomenon over Lake Superior and the Ojibwe stories connected with it.
Text: Little Spirit Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Bear Moon and Snow Crust Moon the four moons of winter Sunrise these coldest mornings of gelid moons sears the horizon, slicing dawn from night red-orange light captured on facets of ice crystals that spin and glitter in the air, falling to the caul of translucent marble that covers Gichigami.
Beneath that frozen vastness the lake world stirs with the earth; light diffused to the palest of golds rouses spirits curled in sleep on the valleyed lake floor; awake they push with scaled claws and rise, These coldest mornings of gelid moons, their breath white steam and silver mist rises from the vastness of ice. sea smoke on Gichigami.
On the shore an old man watches the song gray white silver drifting, rolling across the lake. He lifts a palm in morning prayer; tobacco scatters in four directions. The song begins with spring and the Creator who made the earth streams rivers lakes oceans grass plants flowers trees the medicines the seasons birds animals insects and finally the first man, born to the granddaughter of the moon.
Shimmering cold in summers of the past the lake carried them weightless buoyant floating Sun glinting on wet scales and claws on the shore they rested against gabbrous rock heated by the sun, this before rancor reached the world before the Great Flood and finally redemption and the retreat to the underwater, the cold darkness of the valley a grace of sorts.
Since then, in early autumn when skies reflect gentian waters of the lake they rise with the tide, lured by the colors of the hillside water-blurred red orange yellow leaves against the black of rocky cliffs yet obliquely they gaze, cautiously remembering the spirit who dazzled by the brilliance drifted lost toward an inlet where a young woman rowing alone in a green-painted wooden boat recoiled, her hair whitening. Late autumn ice forms and breaks heavy on the surface of the lake slowing the movements of the spirits whose scales and claws gray and dull starving for the sun reach above Gichigami to grasp the wind. on the shore waves collide with rocks and trees to crush those fragilities built by man. Winter subdues the waters to ice; below, the spirits sleep lightly dreaming of the song they will sing at sunrise.
These coldest mornings of gelid moons. Little Spirit Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Bear Moon and Snow Crust Moon the four moons of winter.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Saturday, April 5, 2025 @ 7:30 PM
Nola Starling Recital Hall
Jennifer Campbell, soprano | Jefferson Campbell, bassoon | Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
PROGRAM
Where Mittens Disappear by Mary Ellen Haupert
1. One
2. Play
3. Green
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Mary Ellen Haupert: This song cycle was inspired by a series of stories relayed to daughter Mary Ellen by her mother, Mary Louise Patnaude. Mary Ellen commissioned Marci Madary to write poems based on the recorded stories; Marci listened to several of the recordings before composing three lovely poems that captured the youthful innocence and vigor of Mary Lou’s childhood and young adulthood. Where Mittens Disappear is Mary Ellen’s 90th birthday gift to her mother, who would have turned 96 this April 15, 2025. The song cycle was premiered by Jennifer Campbell and Mary Ellen Haupert at the Tuesday Summer Concert Series in Grand Rapids, MN on July 23, 2019, with commentary by Mary Louise Patnaude. A bassoon part for "Green" was written for Jefferson Campbell's performance on this concert.
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Libby Larsen
Poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1. I thought once how Theocritus had sung
2. My letters!
3. With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee
4. If I leave all for thee
5. Oh, Yes!
6. How do I love thee?
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Libby Larsen: I met Arleen Auger in 1988 through our mutual friend, Joel Revzen. It was April, morel mushroom hunting time in Minnesota, and that is what we talked about for the better part of our first meeting - mushroom hunting, nature, the human spirit, music, and the energy which takes us beyond our natural lives. Arleen spoke to me about her love of the art song repertoire. She talked about love, and life, and her desire that I compose a work which spoke about the finding of mature love. She wished to create with me a cycle of songs which were in contrast to the young girl's feeling for the promise of love in Frauen Lieben und Leben. Arleen told me that the poetry she most loved was Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. She admired the fact that within the stylized and romantic language, lived a creative woman grappling with issues seem still to engulf modern women. What part of her voice must she sacrifice to the lover and the world? Will the sacrifice be reciprocated? Can her essence survive? Browning at times soars to heights of daring - demanding the world take her as she is - at other moments her self-confidence wavers. Ultimately she realizes - as we must - that love and death demand constant faith in the leaps life requires.
Over the next months, Arleen and I read the Sonnets and decided together on a grouping that represented Browning's growth in mature love and at the same time touched the artist in Arleen. We worked by mail and in person. I most remember the meeting in my living room when we both had our copies of the Sonnets spread out on the floor and we lay on our stomachs for the better part of two hours struggling over a line in "My Letters" trying to understand what it meant. Celia Novo, Arleen's wonderful friend, and my daughter Wynne brought us food and added their thoughts to the discussion. For me that afternoon was the essence of why a composer lives to work.
In our last correspondence, Arleen wrote this: “Finally I have been able to find enough peace and quiet, rest and concentration time... to listen to the tape of our piece… Oh, Libby, every time I hear our piece the more I fall in love with it. You have really written something very special which touches my heart and speaks my intentions from our project. I only regret that I will not be able to debut (premier) it and that someone will have that pleasure and honor because it will and must be performed!” (March 1993)
INTERMISSION
Sonata for Bassoon and Piano (in three movements) by Nancy Galbraith
I. Lilting and Lively
II. Tranquil and Meditative
III. Sprightly and Dance-like
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes by Nancy Galbraith: Movement I is lilting and lively in nature with jazzy, syncopated interplay between the bassoon and piano. Some of these thythmic materials employ mixed meters and hemiolas, while the harmonic and melodic materials make use of whole-tone scales and polytonality. The piano opens Movement II slowly with a series of polytonal and cluster chords to establish an air of meditative serenity. The bassoon enters with a sighing motive in the high register, gradually expanding to a broader expression of the theme, supported by frenetic arpeggios in the piano. the movement concludes with a return to a mood of tranquil, meditative melancholy and wistful peace. The fast and sprightly final movement is played, for the most part, in a light, staccato, and dance-like perpetual motion. The two voices again engage in playful syncopated exchanges thoughout, and a brief cadenza provides momentum for the reeling conclusion.
Sea Smoke on Gitchigami by Jenni Brandon
Poetry by Linda LeGarde Grover
Jennifer Campbell, soprano
Jefferson Campbell, bassoon
Mary Ellen Haupert, piano
Notes: This work by composer Jenni Brandon and author/poet Lind LaGarde Grover was premiered in 2022 by Jefferson Campbell, his wife, soprano Jennifer Campbell, and pianist Alexander Sandor. Sea Smoke on Gichigami, was inspired by the weather phenomenon over Lake Superior and the Ojibwe stories connected with it.
Text: Little Spirit Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Bear Moon and Snow Crust Moon the four moons of winter Sunrise these coldest mornings of gelid moons sears the horizon, slicing dawn from night red-orange light captured on facets of ice crystals that spin and glitter in the air, falling to the caul of translucent marble that covers Gichigami.
Beneath that frozen vastness the lake world stirs with the earth; light diffused to the palest of golds rouses spirits curled in sleep on the valleyed lake floor; awake they push with scaled claws and rise, These coldest mornings of gelid moons, their breath white steam and silver mist rises from the vastness of ice. sea smoke on Gichigami.
On the shore an old man watches the song gray white silver drifting, rolling across the lake. He lifts a palm in morning prayer; tobacco scatters in four directions. The song begins with spring and the Creator who made the earth streams rivers lakes oceans grass plants flowers trees the medicines the seasons birds animals insects and finally the first man, born to the granddaughter of the moon.
Shimmering cold in summers of the past the lake carried them weightless buoyant floating Sun glinting on wet scales and claws on the shore they rested against gabbrous rock heated by the sun, this before rancor reached the world before the Great Flood and finally redemption and the retreat to the underwater, the cold darkness of the valley a grace of sorts.
Since then, in early autumn when skies reflect gentian waters of the lake they rise with the tide, lured by the colors of the hillside water-blurred red orange yellow leaves against the black of rocky cliffs yet obliquely they gaze, cautiously remembering the spirit who dazzled by the brilliance drifted lost toward an inlet where a young woman rowing alone in a green-painted wooden boat recoiled, her hair whitening. Late autumn ice forms and breaks heavy on the surface of the lake slowing the movements of the spirits whose scales and claws gray and dull starving for the sun reach above Gichigami to grasp the wind. on the shore waves collide with rocks and trees to crush those fragilities built by man. Winter subdues the waters to ice; below, the spirits sleep lightly dreaming of the song they will sing at sunrise.
These coldest mornings of gelid moons. Little Spirit Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Bear Moon and Snow Crust Moon the four moons of winter.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Jennifer Campbell, soprano, is a versatile performer, music educator, and choral director who is a recent transplant to Central Michigan from Duluth, Minnesota. Over the past two decades, she has enjoyed a rich performing life on the stage in opera and musical theater productions, as a jazz singer and classical concert soloist, and in chamber music and choral ensembles in the Upper Midwest. Her credits include: Nedda in Pagliacci, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Nannetta in Falstaff, Cosette in Les Misérables, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, the world premier of Severin Behnen’s Messiah: An American Oratorio, Talbot’s Path of Miracles, and Haydn’s Missa Brevis. As a founding member of the acclaimed Twin Ports Choral Project, she has been an enthusiastic performer of choral music, appearing with the group at MN State and North Central Regional ACDA conventions and on Minnesota Public Radio.
She was most recently the Director of Music and Choir Director at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth. As a voice instructor, she maintained a busy private studio, taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth and The College of Saint Scholastica, and was an adjudicator for the MN State High School League vocal music contests. Ms. Campbell has received accolades from the MN State High School League, National Association of Teachers of Singing, and the Schubert Club. For her substantial contributions to Duluth’s choral music community, she was recognized with the 2017 Advocate for Choral Excellence Award from the American Choral Directors’ Association of Minnesota as well as the 2024 Lake Superior Youth Chorus Jerry Kaldor Outstanding Service Award.
She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Luther College and received her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She now enjoys a slightly slower-paced life as a homemaker, wife, and mother of two amazing and curious little boys on the banks of the Chippewa River in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
Dr. Jefferson Campbell has built a career as a bassoonist and pedagogue of high demand who has performed on stages throughout the United States and the world. Among his four compact disc recordings, Nostalgia (Innova), which features Dr. Campbell as soloist and chamber musician, was a Grammy Award semifinalist in 2009. He has performed with orchestras in Kentucky, North Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Virginia, Illinois, China, France, Germany, and is currently a tenured member of the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Campbell has presented master classes in Chengdu, China, Paris, France, Lyon, France, Tatui, Brazil, Petrozavodsk, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kentucky, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He has performed as a recital soloist in Florida, California, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina, Nebraska, Minnesota and also Germany, France, Brazil, Russia and China. Dr. Campbell has been published in the Double Reed, and has been selected to perform and present at the IDRS Annual Conferences in 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2015 (Tokyo, Japan). Dr. Campbell has appeared many times on NPR/PBS radio and television in Nebraska, Michigan, and North Carolina. His instructional text Training Wheels for the Bassoon was revised in 2020 for its 15th Anniversary, and in 2019, he released Pocket Grooves, a compact disc recording of newly-recorded music for the bassoon on the MSR label to rave reviews.
In 2022, Dr. Campbell, his wife, soprano Jennifer Campbell, and pianist Alexander Sandor, premiered a newly- commissioned work from composer Jenni Brandon and author/poet Linda LaGarde Grover entitled Sea Smoke on Gichigamee, based on the weather phenomenon over Lake Superior and the Ojibwe stories connected with it. His academic research interests lie in the areas of bassoon performance, pedagogy and technology and music for film, where he developed and instructed a course on this topic. He is an advocate of film music and raising audience awareness of its importance as an element of storytelling and for its own artistic merit.
He holds the Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree from Western Kentucky University, the Master of Music degree in Bassoon Performance and Chamber Music from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Bassoon Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His dissertation topic was a performance and theoretical analysis of the Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons by Sofia Gubaidulina. It was the first academic paper on that composer’s work for bassoon. Dr. Campbell was appointed Dean of the College of the Arts and Media at Central Michigan University in 2022, and has previously held the positions of Professor of Bassoon, Director of Graduate Studies in Music, Chair of the Department of Music, Associate Dean of the School of Fine Arts, and Associate Dean for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Jennifer Campbell, soprano, is a versatile performer, music educator, and choral director who is a recent transplant to Central Michigan from Duluth, Minnesota. Over the past two decades, she has enjoyed a rich performing life on the stage in opera and musical theater productions, as a jazz singer and classical concert soloist, and in chamber music and choral ensembles in the Upper Midwest. Her credits include: Nedda in Pagliacci, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Nannetta in Falstaff, Cosette in Les Misérables, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, the world premier of Severin Behnen’s Messiah: An American Oratorio, Talbot’s Path of Miracles, and Haydn’s Missa Brevis. As a founding member of the acclaimed Twin Ports Choral Project, she has been an enthusiastic performer of choral music, appearing with the group at MN State and North Central Regional ACDA conventions and on Minnesota Public Radio.
She was most recently the Director of Music and Choir Director at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth. As a voice instructor, she maintained a busy private studio, taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth and The College of Saint Scholastica, and was an adjudicator for the MN State High School League vocal music contests. Ms. Campbell has received accolades from the MN State High School League, National Association of Teachers of Singing, and the Schubert Club. For her substantial contributions to Duluth’s choral music community, she was recognized with the 2017 Advocate for Choral Excellence Award from the American Choral Directors’ Association of Minnesota as well as the 2024 Lake Superior Youth Chorus Jerry Kaldor Outstanding Service Award.
She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Luther College and received her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She now enjoys a slightly slower-paced life as a homemaker, wife, and mother of two amazing and curious little boys on the banks of the Chippewa River in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
Dr. Jefferson Campbell has built a career as a bassoonist and pedagogue of high demand who has performed on stages throughout the United States and the world. Among his four compact disc recordings, Nostalgia (Innova), which features Dr. Campbell as soloist and chamber musician, was a Grammy Award semifinalist in 2009. He has performed with orchestras in Kentucky, North Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Virginia, Illinois, China, France, Germany, and is currently a tenured member of the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Campbell has presented master classes in Chengdu, China, Paris, France, Lyon, France, Tatui, Brazil, Petrozavodsk, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kentucky, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He has performed as a recital soloist in Florida, California, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina, Nebraska, Minnesota and also Germany, France, Brazil, Russia and China. Dr. Campbell has been published in the Double Reed, and has been selected to perform and present at the IDRS Annual Conferences in 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2015 (Tokyo, Japan). Dr. Campbell has appeared many times on NPR/PBS radio and television in Nebraska, Michigan, and North Carolina. His instructional text Training Wheels for the Bassoon was revised in 2020 for its 15th Anniversary, and in 2019, he released Pocket Grooves, a compact disc recording of newly-recorded music for the bassoon on the MSR label to rave reviews.
In 2022, Dr. Campbell, his wife, soprano Jennifer Campbell, and pianist Alexander Sandor, premiered a newly- commissioned work from composer Jenni Brandon and author/poet Linda LaGarde Grover entitled Sea Smoke on Gichigamee, based on the weather phenomenon over Lake Superior and the Ojibwe stories connected with it. His academic research interests lie in the areas of bassoon performance, pedagogy and technology and music for film, where he developed and instructed a course on this topic. He is an advocate of film music and raising audience awareness of its importance as an element of storytelling and for its own artistic merit.
He holds the Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree from Western Kentucky University, the Master of Music degree in Bassoon Performance and Chamber Music from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Bassoon Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His dissertation topic was a performance and theoretical analysis of the Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons by Sofia Gubaidulina. It was the first academic paper on that composer’s work for bassoon. Dr. Campbell was appointed Dean of the College of the Arts and Media at Central Michigan University in 2022, and has previously held the positions of Professor of Bassoon, Director of Graduate Studies in Music, Chair of the Department of Music, Associate Dean of the School of Fine Arts, and Associate Dean for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
