Brave New Works composers workshop at Tufts University June 1-9, 2003

Program notes

Caprices for Solo Violin: Earl Kim (1920-1998)
Earl Kim was born in Dinuba, California, the third son of immigrant Korean parents. He was educated at Los Angeles City College, the University of California-Los Angeles, and Harvard University. His principal teachers included Arnold Schoenberg, Ernest Bloch and Roger Sessions.

Throughout his career, Mr. Kim received considerable recognition as a composer, including commissions from the Fromm, Koussevitzky and Naumburg Foundations, from the University of Chicago and Boston University, from individuals and performing organizations; grants from the Ingram Merrill and Guggenheim Foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts; and awards including the Prix de Paris, National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, Brandeis Creative Arts Medal and the Mark Horblitt Award of the Boston Symphony.

Mr. Kim served terms as Composer-in-Residence at the Princeton Seminar in Advanced Musical Studies and at the Marlboro, Dartmouth, Tanglewood, Cape and Islands, and Aspen Music Festivals. In addition to his work as a composer and teacher, he was active as a pianist (including lieder recitals with Bethany Beardslee, Benita Valente and Dawn Upshaw), vocal coach and conductor, and was a co-founder and past president of Musicians Against Nuclear Arms.

Beginning in 1967, Mr. Kim was Professor of Composition at Harvard University, where he served for 23 years until his retirement. Earl Kim died of lung cancer at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday, 19th November, 1998, at the age of 78.

Earl Kim's Violin Caprices were composed in the spring of 1980. There are twelve in the set, but I have selected a handful to perform this evening. Rather than caprices in the Paganini or Rode sense, which suggest a skill to practice and drill, Kim's approach is much more simple. Each of the caprices is short and employs a tremendous economy of rhythmic and harmonic ideas. Kim's vocal style is omnipresent in these caprices, but he also adds virtuosic runs, double-stops, and pizzicatos to decorate his motives. The Violin Caprices were commissioned by Itzhak Perlman with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The first performance was given by Perlman on December 5, 1982, at Avery Fisher Hall.

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Rain at the eaves just right for sleeping: Ryan Vigil
Graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in 2000 with a degree in composition and working towards a Masters degree at Tufts University, Ryan Vigil is active as a composer, pianist and teacher in the Boston area. Ryan’s principal teachers have been Marti Epstein, John McDonald and Elias Tanenbaum; his compositions – ranging from chamber music to orchestral works – have been performed throughout New York and the Boston area. As pianist, in addition to numerous solo and collaborative recitals, Ryan has been engaged as accompanist by the New England Conservatory, Rivers Music School and Tufts University, amongst others. Since January 2002 Ryan has served as the Director of Music at the United Methodist Church of Newton, Massachusetts.

As Toru Takemitsu’s work had already been occupying my thoughts, it seemed natural that "Rain at the eaves just right for sleeping" become an homage to that great composer when he passed away during it’s composition. Aside from a single chord the piece contains no specific references to Takemitsu’s music. The title – discovered after the composition was complete – comes from a line of eighteenth century kanshi by Rokunyo.

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Seven Tunes Heard in China, The Drunken Fisherman: Bright Sheng
The Drunken Fisherman is the fourth song in Bright Sheng's Seven Songs Heard in China. It is a depiction of the fisherman returning home at sunset from a hard day at work. He is drunk and so the boat is not quite steady. The piece imitates a chinese zither by using pizzicato, which at its most regular form is done by plucking the string with the finger, and in this case sometimes with a guitar pick, nail or credit card.

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Indoors Again - Three Songs for Voice and Piano: Kristin Kuster
Indoors Again was composed for soprano Jennifer Goltz by Kristin Kuster to poetry of Manu Samriti Chander. It was premiered by Ms. Goltz in Ann Arbor, Michigan in March of 2001, with the composer at the piano.

I.
My apartment is large
Enough and quiet.
I take strolls around my living room,
Often late at night,
And sometimes find the odd
Surprise: a chip in the paint
Or similar blemish.

My apartment still
It is large and quiet,
With space enough for three
Ovens, a bookshelf, a desk, a desktop
Computer, and a TV so big screened
It could house the world
If it had to.

Sometimes I hear fruit flies in the kitchen,
Clustering around the trash
That is rightfully mine.

II.
The newspaper tells the story:
Floods ravage the South
Atlantic causing incalculable damage, and
Home delivery brings it all inside.
I flip past full-color front page photos of floating
Houses, floating statues, floating
Cars , et cetera on my way to the Sunday Crossword.
I stir half and half into my morning coffee, spread cream cheese evenly on my
bagel, salt my eggs, et cetera.
My bathrobe fits more snug today than yesterday.

Somewhere in Georgia someone tosses her slicker from a rooftop
into the street flowing below
And hollers, "Fat lot of good."
Rain presses upon her resignation
The way I press my pen to the empty spaces before me, filling them
With nouns, verbs,
Adjectives, et cetera.
Tonight I will cozy up with a splash
Of whisky, maybe two splashes.

III.
The earth groans.
A hummingbird flaps.
It seems I am
Indoors again.

Summer again.
Everything has hatched.
It seems I am
Indoors again.

Boiling in
The absence
Of central air
Conditioning.

The earth flaps.
A hummingbird groans.
I am
Indoors again.

Sonata per Violino Solo: Grazyna Bacewicz
Bacewicz is generally known as composer of instrumental music, usually labeled "neoclassical" but with a discernible stylistic evolution from early influence of Szymanowski and assimilation of French neoclassicism (Boulanger), to her own mature "neoclassical style" created in her second period, 1944-1958 and to a period of stylistic experimentation with sonorism, 12-tone techniques, aleatoricism, and collage. She was one of the founders of the Warsaw Autumn Festival; became the first woman vice president of the Union of Polish Composers (since 1960) and a professor of composition at the Warsaw PWSM (since 1966). She served as Jury member at the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition in 1953, Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1958, and International Competition in Naples in 1967, International Quartet Competition in Budapest in 1968, as well as the Chair of the jury at Wieniawski International Violin Competitions in 1957 and in 1967. In Poland, there are schools and streets bearing her name, while sculptures portraying her adorn urban parks.

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The Crown of Ariadne: R. Murray Schafer
“The Crown of Ariadne”, for solo harp with percussion, was first performed in R. Murray Schafer’s hometown of Toronto on March 3, 1979. It was written for and premiered by harpist Judy Loman. “The Crown of Ariadne” strives to combine elements of music, ritual, myth and even theater to create an experience that Schafer calls “the Theater of Confluence”. This concept is fleshed out completely in his on going “Patria” series. The suite of six dances that makes up “The Crown of Ariadne” is drawn from music intended for “Patria 5” which explores the myths of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. In the complete concert version of this work the harp would accompany dancers depicting the story. As a solo, the harpist is, in a sense, a dancer performing with ankle bells in “Ariadne’s Dance” and following instructions to make various elaborate gestures with the percussion instruments. These suggestions of choreography are enhanced by Schafer’s creative use of extended techniques that help to tell the story. Examples range from sliding a tuning key along the string evoking insect sounds to the use of a differently tuned, pre-recorded harp that winds in and out of the live part depicting the tangled maze of the “Labyrinth Dance”. Percussion partners with the harp throughout the work to create an array of sounds and images.

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Charanga (1993): Michael Colquhoun
Composer/Flutist, Michael Colquhoun is a solo recitalist and president of the Composer’s Alliance of Buffalo. He earned his Ph.D. from SUNY at Buffalo where he studied with Robert Dick, Morton Feldman, Cheryl Gobbetti, Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit. His works draw upon both the Classical and Jazz traditions, and often involve a mixture of composed and improvised elements.

Michael Coloquhoun explains Charanga in the following words:
Salsa is a popular Hispanic American urban dance music with deep African and Cuban roots. Charanga is a style of salsa which was popular from the 1920’s through the 1970’s. What made charanga unique was that along with the usual percussion section, (congas, bongos/cowbell, timbales, maraca/guiro and clave) there was a string section and a flute lead. When the music was cocinando or “cooking” the percussion, piano, bass, and strings would play a powerfully swinging, polyrhythmic pattern over which the Charanga flutist was free to improvise complex and intricate riffs. These days, while salsa is as popular as ever, the Charanga as a separate entity is rare. The flute, however, continues to be an important solo instrument. This piece is a cubist portrait of Charanga, and is dedicated to all great Latin Charanga flutists.

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Carny: John Zorn
This is a music that seems to be a random sequence of quotes, references and allusions: a collage more than a composition. Discontinuity is this excerpt's only constant as it is, indeed, throughout the entire twelve-minute duration of the piece. But this is not just a discontinuity of atonal collections, or time signatures, or pulse (species of discontinuity which are, after all, familiar from contemporary piano repertoires): virtually every bar is cast in a different genre, style, or topic. This passage (in a strategy typical of the whole work) makes a discontinuous play of the referentially of different music.
- Stephen Drury