Are You Brave ? Festival V.5.0  10.22.02

 Brave New Works

 

Kerrytown Concert House

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10.22.2002

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V.5.0



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October 22, 2002
Tuesday
8 pm concert

 picture of one
ONE

Andrew Mead's picture
Andrew Mead
Let the Air Circulate
Jennifer Goltz, voice

Schulamit Ran's picture
Schulamit Ran
East wind
Emily Perryman, flute

Mark Kilstofte's picture
Mark Kilstofte
You (Unfolding)
Katri Ervamaa, cello

joan Tower's picture
Joan Towers
Wild Purple
Tim Christie, viola



Grazyna Bacewicz

Sonatina per violino solo
Maria Sampen, violin

Elliott Carter's picture
Elliot Carter
90+
Winston Choi, piano

Christian Wolff's picture
Christian Wolff
Eleven Preludes for Piano
Winston Choi, piano

Admission $25 rows 1-2, $15 rows 3-5, $10 general and $5 for students


Program Notes

Andrew Mead
Let the Air Circulate
In many of her poems, Amy Clampitt wrote about a part of the coast of Maine that coincidentally I know intimately, both from the shore and from having spent many summers cruising its waters on my dad's sailboats.  'Tit Manan light is a lighthouse some miles offshore on a small rocky island that can be seen from a considerable distance in all directions. 
        -- Andrew Mead
Andrew Mead, Chair of the Music Theory Department, earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has published analytical and theoretical articles on music of the twentieth century in Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives of New Music, The Journal of Music Theory and elsewhere. His book, An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt, is published by Princeton University Press. He is a recipient of the Young Scholar Publications Award from the Society of Music Theory, and has received the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Institute/Academy of Arts and Letters. Recent compositions include concertos for alto saxophone and cello, as well as works for various chamber ensembles.

East Wind by Shulamit Ran
East Wind was commissioned by the National Flute Association in 1987 for its annual Young Artists Competition and was first performed by the six semi-finalists at the 1988 San Diego NFA Convention. The composer dedicated the work to the memory of Karen Monson, a writer, critic, and friend, who died in February 1988 at the age of 42. It may or may not have been Ran's intention to embody a biblical force when she composed this piece, but one cannot deny the connection to the east wind as found in many scripture passages of the bible. It is the fiercest of all winds, the one in Exodus that brought the eighth plague of locusts and was powerful enough to part the Red Sea for Moses and his people. Ran's East Wind is also remarkably ferocious (and certainly uncharacteristic of the flute), but it is the so-called "calm after the storm" that the composer describes as East Wind's central image: "from within its ornamented, inflected, winding, twisting, at times convoluted lines, a gentle melody gradually emerges." --Notes by Emily Perryman

Shulamit Ran was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she received her early training in music. She came to the U.S. at the age of fourteen to study, having received scholarships from The Mannes College of Music in New York and the America Israel Cultural Foundation. Among her numerous awards, fellowships and commissions are those from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, and many more. In 1990, Ms. Ran was appointed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim to be Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position she held for seven seasons. From 1994 to 1997, Ran also served as Composer-in-Residence with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is presently the William H. Colvin Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago, where she has taught since 1973.

You [unfolding] by Mark Kilstofte (commissioned by Theodore Antoniou and Alea III and dedicated to cellist Leslie Nash)
You [unfolding] is a one-movement work comprising three contrasting sections. It reflects, through form and process, the richness of discovery and understanding at deeper and deeper levels-deliberately, yet imperceptibly-as if through an extended correspondence. The opening features a series of statements in expanding variations form in which each subsequent phrase can be heard as an elaboration and amplification of the former. In other words, each new phrase not only embellishes what has been played previously, but also introduces new structural material. In this way the variations increase in length and complexity, moving from the succinct to the sublime. In contrast to the slow, improvisatory character of the first section, the central portion of the work is suddenly brisk and terse, replete with syncopation. Here the notion of unfolding is depicted by ever-widening intervallic wedges and ever-contracting rhythmic cells which propel the piece to an abrupt, but lingering climax. On the heels of this suspended caesura the piece reclaims the tempo and character of the beginning. Here, however, each statement is condensed or abridged (rather than elaborated on) as the work makes its way to what seems its inevitable conclusion.-Notes by Katri Ervamaa

"Mark Kilstofte is admired as a composer of lyrical line, engaging harmony, and strong, dramatic gesture, beautiful linear writing, expert text setting, and keen sensitivity to sound, shape and event." So reads a recent citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters describing his music-qualities stemming, in part, from years of vocal study. Winner of the 2002-03 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, Kilstofte holds degrees from St. Olaf College and the University of Michigan where he studied with William Albright, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom and Eugene Kurtz, and served as assistant conductor of the Contemporary Directions Ensemble. He is currently associate professor of composition and music theory at Furman University. In addition to the Frederick A. Julliard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize Fellowship, Kilstofte is also the recipient of the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and Charles Ive's Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Award. His music is published by the Newmatic Press.

Wild Purple by Joan Tower
"I always thought of the viola sound as being the color purple. Its deep, resonant and luscious timbre seems to embody all kinds of hues of purple. I never thought of the viola as being particularly wild. So I decided to try and see if I could create a piece that had wild energy in it and meet the challenge of creating a virtuosic piece for solo viola."-Joan Tower "Wild Purple" was written for the violist Paul Neubauer who premiered the work at Merkin Concert Hall, New York City, September 1998.

Joan Tower is one of this generation's most dynamic and colorful composers. Her bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences.  For nearly thirty years, Tower was active as founder and pianist with the 1973 Naumburg Award-winning ensemble the Da Capo Chamber Players. They commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works including: Platinum Spirals, Hexachords, Wings, Petroushskates, and Amazon I.  Also active as a conductor, Tower has conducted at the White House, the Scotia Festival in Canada, and the American Symphony Orchestra.  She was the recipient of the Delaware Symphony's 1998 Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composers and Conductors, and was inducted into the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972. She is also co-artistic director of the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and composer-in-residence at the Summit Institute for the Arts and Humanities in Utah.



90+ by Elliott Carter
90+ for piano is built around ninety short, accented notes played in a slow regular beat. Against these the context changes character continually. It was composed in March of 1994 to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of my dear and much admired friend, Goffredo Petrassi, Italy's leading composer of his generation.-Notes by the composer
Born in New York City on 11 December 1908, Elliott Carter attended Harvard University where he studied with Walter Piston, and later went to Paris where for three years he studied with Nadia Boulanger. He then returned to New York to devote his time to composing and teaching. With the explorations of tempo relationships and texture that characterize his music, Carter has been one of the prime innovators of 20th-century music he has been recipient of the highest honors that a composer can receive: the Gold Medal for Music awarded by the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Medal of Arts, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and honorary degrees from many universities. He has received two Pulitzer Prizes and commissions from prestigious organizations.

Eleven Preludes for Piano by Christian Wolff
This is a collection of self-contained pieces, each representing one principal idea or process. Among his most accessible pieces, many of these preludes are quite tuneful, with popular or politically connected American songs being the influences. There is a lot of freedom in the interpretation of these pieces, as they are left free of tempo, articulation, dynamic and phrase markings. Yet, they are very spirited and outgoing; it is music that speaks in a very direct way.

The French-born American musician Christian Wolff came to prominence in the 1950s as an associate of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and the other American experimentalists of that period, later working with Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski. His work has gone through many transformations, including minimalism (the early 1950s), indeterminacy, open form and works connected with political issues. His academic training in classics and comparative literature at Harvard University lead him to professorships in classics at Harvard and, since 1971, at Dartmouth College, where he also teaches comparative literature and music. His academic training in classics and comparative literature at Harvard University lead him to professorships in classics at Harvard and, since 1971, at Dartmouth College, where he also teaches comparative literature and music. Concert No. 2


 

 

 

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