D a v i d   V e s s

I remember feeling completely helpless and lost during the chaotic events of 2020. It felt like every month there was some new catastrophe that emerged, each one compounding the last. In all of this chaos, I wanted to create a work that stood against the surrounding darkness, one that focused on the joy and possibilities of life. I wanted to recapture the feeling I had when I was younger, when I felt that the future was an amazing place of wonder and potential. With that feeling as my guide, I would spend the rest of 2020 creating Of Yet and Yonder. The piece was composed with a specific dedicatee in mind: David Maslanka. As an uncertain undergraduate tuba major, I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Maslanka during his residency at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where my ensemble performed his Fourth Symphony. His presence and guidance during that visit were pivotal — they helped me find my footing as a composer and set me on the path I walk today. This piece is written in homage to the uplifting spirit found in many of his works for wind ensemble. The work is held together by a four-note gesture heard in the opening bar. It functions as a small cell that infiltrates nearly every passage, transforming and mutating as it travels. The piece moves through a series of episodes: an opening march, a quiet percussion lullaby, and a wildly energetic section marked "Rollicking'" that launches from a saxophone soli. The climax arrives at a passage marked "Like clouds revealing the sky," where the motion slows to a final, heartfelt statement of the main theme before the work roars to its close in a burst of unrestrained joy. To anyone listening from a place of uncertainty: I ask you to believe in your own possibility, to trust your potential, and to boldly go and create a world 'Of Yet and Yonder'.