DESCRIPTION:
Artists: Jan Boland, flute / John Dowdall, guitar / Carey Bostian, cello

Red Cedar Chamber Music commissioned fifteen composers with strong Iowa ties to participate in a group commission project designed to celebrate the centennial of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904). The result was Spillville Variations on a Theme by Dvorak, which was premiered in October 2004 at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This was followed by October performances in the Czech Republic including a concert on the grand staircase of the National Museum in Prague.

Flutist Jan Boland arranged the opening theme from the Scherzo, the third movement of Dvorak's American Quartet, for flute, viola & guitar. Each composer provided a one-minute variation on this theme. Dvorak wrote and premiered the American Quartet while living in Spillville, Iowa for three-months in 1893. The theme from the Scherzo is inspired by the call of the Scarlet Tanager, a native bird Dvorak heard as he walked along the Turkey River in Spillville.

The composers were selected for the quality of their compositions and for the diversity of their style and backgrounds. Although all composers have strong Iowa connections, they were living in California, Michigan, Vermont, and Oregon as well as in Iowa -- some are primarily professional composers, but others are jazz musicians, doublers, film score arrangers, orchestra conductors, and college professors. In 2009, a few years after the initial project was launched, two additional variations were contributed by Andrew Earle Simpson and Joshua Reznicow.

The original set of 15 Spillville Variations on a Theme by Dvorak completed in 2004 appears on Red Cedar Chamber Music's 2005 Czech-Inspired compact disc, Fleur de Son Classics 57974.

The idea for this group commission came from several sources. Flutist Jan Boland had recently become intrigued by, and subsequently performed, a work by Anton Richa, 18 Variations and a Fantasie Op. 51, which consisted of eighteen one-minute variations on a theme by Mozart. Another inspiration was a book project led by Greg Shanley of KUNI-FM radio; he hired a series of Iowa authors to create an Iowa mystery book by passing the book from author to author. And finally, the most important inspiration came from the beautiful music by Antonin Dvorak himself.

List of variations from Spillville Variations on a Theme by Dvorak (2004-2009) performed on October 7, 2012 and posted to YouTube.

Theme arr. Jan Boland
Untitled Michael Gilbertson (b. 1987)
The Scarlet Tanager Harvey Sollberger (b. 1938)
Joyful Steady Groove Andrew Earle Simpson (b. 1967)
American Sketch Joshua Reznicow (b. 1975)