Jon Lehrer (MSU & GVSU) "Double Takes" 7/1/2026: MSU Muelder Summer Concert Series

Double Takes

1. Summer
   
   Summer Song Terry Vaughan 1915-1996)
   
   Summer Fanfares Roy Hamlin Johnson (1929-2020)

1. Love
   
   Salut D’Amour Edward Elgar (1857-1934) arr. G. D’hollander
   
   Habanera from Carmen Georges Bizet (1838-1875) arr. C. van Ulft “L'amour est un oiseau rebelle”

Ghibli Heroines

1. Music of Studio Ghibli Joe Hisaishi (1950) arr. R. Perfecto
   
   Mei is Missing from My Neighbor Totoro
   
   One Summer’s Day from Spirited Away
   
   Merry-Go-Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle

Instrumental Dialogues

1. Impressionist Monuments
   
   Pavane pour une Infante Défunte Maurice Ravel (1835-1937) arr. B. Wely
   
   Sonatine Stefano Colletti (b. 1973)

1. Romantic Waltzes
   
   Valse Romantique Jon Lehrer (b. 1982)
   
   The Second Waltz Dmitri Shostakovich (1909-1975) arr. F. Steijns

1. Songs of the Gondoliers
   
   Barcarolle (June) from The Seasons Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) arr. J. Haazen
   
   Barcarolle from Serenade I for Carillon Ronald Barnes (1927-1997)

Program Notes

Our first segment, Double Takes, presents contrasting visions of summer and love. Terry Vaughan served as musical director of the New Zealand military entertainment unit and was later commissioned to write for the Queen Elizabeth II’s 1970 dedication of the Australian National Carillon in Canberra. Vaughan grew up with the cold winters and mild summers of Christchurch, New Zealand, and his Summer Song captures the sunny, breezy ease of a perfect summer day.

Johnson, in contrast, composed Summer Fanfares in the notoriously challenging summers of Lawrence, Kansas, musically evoking endless heat and humidity with ominous thunderstorms gathering on the horizon. Johnson was an American pioneer of octatonic writing for carillon, using an atonal scale that aligns strikingly well with the instrument’s overtone series. It’s a modern atmospheric imagery piece and so for listeners who prefer traditional melody and harmony, perhaps the program’s greatest challenge. Listen for rippling heat, distant lightning, scattered raindrops, and thunderous strikes before the storm recedes. 

Salut d’Amour, originally for violin and piano, was written by Elgar as a wedding gift for his wife Alice. It portrays the warmth, stability, and tenderness of enduring love, a stark contrast to the Habanera from Carmen’s celebrating love’s passions, infatuations, dangers and fickle unpredictabilities: “Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame… Nothing to be done, threat or plea… if you don’t love me, I love you; if I love you, beware!”

The animated films of Studio Ghibli often explore magical realism, tension between tradition and modernity, humanity’s relationship with nature, and the bittersweetness of growing up. Their heroines are famously brave, self-sufficient, and deeply human, triumphing through curiosity, empathy, and personal growth rather than force. As co-founder Hayao Miyazaki observed, “They need a friend or supporter, but never a savior.” 

Mei is Missing plays while the protagonist of My Neighbor Totoro and her family search for her missing young sister. One Summer’s Day returns throughout Spirited Away and serves to link us back to the program’s recurring summer theme. The piece plays at the opening of the movie while the protagonist’s family drives from their old home to an unfamiliar one. Merry Go Round of Life plays at the start of Howl’s Moving Castle, initially as the protagonist walks through bustling streets of her town; then (as the waltz swells), as the titular magical walking castle traverses the mountains and meadows of the nearby countryside.

Instrumental Dialogues pairs carillon works with related masterpieces from the broader classical repertoire. Ravel’s impressionist music displays profound lyricism, extraordinary precision and structural clarity, leading Stravinsky to compare him “the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers.” Pavane pour une Infante Défunte for piano, and later orchestra, (sometimes translated Pavane for a Dead Princess) takes its title not from tragedy but simply because Ravel loved the sound of the phrase in French.

Stefano Colletti studied composition at the Paris Conservatory and directed the French carillon school. His playing and his hands appeared in the highest-grossing film in French cinema, Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks), where he was the musical double for Antoine, the endearing troubled postman / carillonist of a small French town.

Colletti’s neo-impressionist Sonatine may be my favorite carillon piece. Its sweeping arpeggios span the instrument, shimmering tremolos ring out in the high bells, and cascading runs build toward overwhelming sweetness before returning to the initial less-settled theme. A colleague noted that we both hear the journey between dreaming and waking life here, but we disagree on which section represents which. What do you hear?

The “Romantic” in Romantic Waltzes refers not to love, but to the 19th-century musical tradition of intensely emotional, dramatic, individualistic expression. Both works were composed much later but the stylistic influences are unmistakable. We begin with a piece I wrote for my final examination at the Belgian Carillon School, followed by Shostakovich’s Second Waltz (often called the “Jazz Waltz”), a ubiquitous piece in film and popular culture hear everywhere from Eyes Wide Shut and Anna Karenina to Bad Santa and Batman v Superman.

Classical music has an entire subgenre devoted to the gondoliers of Venice who sang as they ferried passengers through the canals. Chopin’s Barcarolle is often regarded as one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire, and many other composers wrote in this style, including Fauré, Offenbach, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Bartók, Gershwin, and Price. Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle, the sixth movement of his Seasons suite, represents June and returns us once again to the program’s summer motif. Here, Tchaikovsky leans toward wistfulness and melancholy, tempered by moments of warmth and triumph.

Ronald Barnes, the most influential carillon composer of the twentieth century, helped shape an entire generation of composers while serving as carillonist at the University of Kansas — including Roy Hamlin Johnson of Summer Fanfares. In contrast to Tchaikovsky’s somber introspection, Barnes’ Barcarolle is pure sunshine, a fitting conclusion for this — hopefully fair-weather — summer day.