QUINCY SYMPHONY CHORUS   
March 1, 2008

PROGRAM NOTES
Compiled by Dr. Lavern Wagner


100 Years of Broadway  …………………………………………  Arranged by Mac Huff     
   
Mac Huff, the arranger, has included the following statements in his 100 Years of Broadway, pertaining to the development of the American musical:

    “It was one-hundred years ago when the American Theater opened for business on 42nd Street in the heart of Manhattan.  It was to be the first of many theaters on the famed street that became known around the world as Broadway.  Broadway is a celebration of life.  Its attraction is worldwide and its style uniquely American, uniquely representative of no business like show business. 

    “Our musical journey begins with the early years of Broadway, where a group of talented composers and lyricists began writing and selling their songs from the famous New York district known as Tin Pan Alley.  With the likes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and George M. Cohan, these musical wizards dominated 42nd Street and gave the world some of its most treasured Broadway melodies.     

    “It was 1943 when the opening of a new Broadway show featured a cowboy ambling on to the stage singing about a beautiful morning.  It was the beginning of a show that changed Broadway forever--a show where the plot and drama were developed in the music and dance as well as in the spoken word.  It was different, it was new, it was Oklahoma, penned by the up-and-coming songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.  

    “Today musical theater continues to thrive all over the world with exciting new works and novel recreations of the classics.  Yet, 42nd Street remains the heart and home of the Broadway musical.”

    Mac Huff’s arrangement, 100 Years of Broadway, is laid out in several sections.  Some, but not all, of the tunes in each section may be noted.  Hearing all these tunes, the listener has the pleasure of recognizing and recalling many musical memories. 

1. Opening, includes “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Do-Re-Me,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”. 
2. The Early Years—The Music of Tin Plan Alley, presents “Button Up Your Overcoat,” “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody,” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. 
3. Setting the Standards—Rogers and Hammerstein, offers “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning,” “Anything You Can Do,” and “My Favorite Things”. 
4. The Golden Years—Traditional Broadway, includes “Wilkommen,” “Luck Be A Lady,” “Hello Dolly,” and “76 Trombones”. 
5. Breaking New Ground, presents “The Ballad Of Sweeny Todd,” “Broadway Baby,” and  “Greased Lightnin’.” 
The entire arrangement concludes with reprises of “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” and “Give My Regards to Broadway”.

    The arranger Mac Huff grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin in a musical family, his father being a barbershop quartet arranger. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he wrote entire shows for the university show group, the Wisconsin Singers.  Receiving his bachelor’s in piano performance from UW, he went on for his master’s at the University of Texas-Austin, then to Los Angeles where he began a doctorate in piano performance at the University of Southern California.  In 1979 he published his first piece of choral music. 

    Since then, his works have been printed extensively by many music publishers, and he became an exclusive writer for Hal Leonard Publications over twenty years ago.  He worked on countless shows for ABC, NBC, Disney, Hallmark, and so on.  He opened the Union Station in Indianapolis with four different shows, wrote shows for Six Flags, arranged and played cabaret acts on the West Coast and in Las Vegas. For several years he originated and wrote the opening for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  He has arranged Broadway shows, and Disney spectaculars.  At present he has over 900 musical works in print.


Les Misérables, medley    ………………….……….  Claude-Michel Schönberg (b.1944)
                            Lyrics by Alain Boubil and Herbert Kretzmer.  Arranged by Ed Lojeski.         
   
    Les Misérables traces its origin to the French novel of that name, written by Victor Hugo in 1862, dealing with the downtrodden, hopeless and oppressed lower class   citizens of Paris.  Among the several characters in the musical, the convict, Jean Valjean, is central.  After spending 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread, he is paroled, but fails to find work as an honest man, so then breaks his parole.  The police inspector Javert becomes obsessed with finding Valjean. 
   
    This arrangement chooses tunes from the musical which best sustain its message.  Eight years after his parole from prison, Valjean has now become Monsieur Madeleine, a factory owner and mayor of the small town, Montreuil-sur-Mer.  Fantine, one of the factory workers and whose daughter Valjean later adopts, gets into a fight when the other workers discover she is sending money to her secret illegitimate child, Cosette, now living with an innkeeper and his wife.  This gives rise to Fantine’s rather gloomy song, “At the End of the Day.”  Fantine is thrown out of her job at the factory, and sings about her broken dreams and about the faithless father of her illegitimate daughter, in “I Dreamed a Dream.” 
   
The scene shifts to the inn outside Montreuil, run by the Thénadiers where the little girl Cosette is living.  She has been abused, and dreams of a better life in “Castle on a Cloud.”  Madame Thénadier sends her in the dark to fetch water; Valjean finds her and pays the Thénadiers to let him take Cosette away.

    Nine years pass, and there is trouble in Paris when the popular General Lamarque--the only man in the government who shows any compassion for the poor--is ill and may die soon.  At a political meeting in a small café, a group of idealistic students gather to prepare for the revolution they are sure will occur upon the death of General Lamarque.  When the news arrives of the General’s death, the students march out into the streets to whip up popular support for their cause, singing “Do You Hear the People Sing?” 
   
    As the students build barricades in the street, Marius sends Eponine to take a letter to Cosette, whom he loves.  Eponine grew up with Cosette and also loves Marius.  Valjean intercepts the letter, and realizes he must eventually tell Cosette about her past.  Despite the shaky relationship Eponine now has with Marius, she rejoins him on the barricades, and expresses her dreams for a serene life in “Castle on a Cloud.” 
   
The police inspector Javert has infiltrated the student revolutionaries as a spy, and betrayed their cause.  Valjean is also at the barricades, and knows that the onslaught from the French army will come in the morning.  He prays to God to save Marius in the battle he knows will occur in “Bring Him Home.”  At the battle, Valjean saves Marius from death by carrying him, still alive, in the manner similar to a corpse, into the sewers after the barricades fall.

    Feeling he has nothing further to live for, Valjean now prepares for his own death.  The ghosts of Fantine and Eponine arrive to take him to heaven.  Cosette and Marius rush in, just in time to bid farewell to Valjean, and Marius thanks him for saving his life. Valjean tells Cosette all about her past.  There is a reprise for the finale, “Do You Hear the People Sing?”