Program
Notes and Composer Biographies
April
29 , 2002
The Green Room at the War
Memorial Performing Arts Center
401 Van Ness Avenue, 2nd floor, San Francisco
David
Rakowski , Two can play that game
Peter
Josheff, clarinet
Jessica Van Oostom, marimba
BIO:
David Rakowski was
born and raised in St. Albans, Vermont, and studied at New England Conservatory
and Princeton with Robert Ceely, Milton Babbitt, Peter Westergaard, and
Paul Lansky. He also studied with Berio at Tanglewood. He has received
the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and other awards, and has twice
been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music: in 1999 for Persistent
Memory, commissioned and premiered by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra,
and in 2002 for Ten of a Kind, commissioned and premiered by ÒThe
President's OwnÓ U.S. Marine Band. He teaches composition and theory at
Brandeis University, was formerly on the faculties of Stanford and Columbia,
and has also taught at Harvard. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife
Beth, and together they own a red canoe.
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Yu-Hui
Chang, Perplexing Sorrow (Earplay
Commission)
Tod
Brody, flute
Ellen Ruth Rose, viola
Marja Mutru, piano
NOTES:
Perplexing SorrowÑWatching
the unfolding of events last September was one of the most dreadful experiences
a person could have. For those of us who did not lose someone, what has
become seemingly insurmountable are the waves of questions pounding our
minds. Questions about how in the same day, the good and bad of human
nature were shown in such extreme ways; about finding truth among such
vastly opposing perceptions of it; doubts about humankindÕs repeated mistakes,
and about the meaning of life. The compositional ideas of Perplexing
Sorrow were planned out when I was wrapped up in these thoughts. It
is not a melancholy elegy, but a sorrowful expression with moments of
intensity, and a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty throughout.
BIO:
Yu-Hui ChangÑcomposer,
conductor, pianist, and singerÑis currently an Assistant Professor in
composition at the University of California, Davis, and the co-director
of the Empyrean Ensemble. Ms. Chang began her professional music training
in performance and music theory at the age of six and started composing
seriously at the age of fourteen. This early professional training, and
constant involvement in music making since, has fostered in her writing
a natural and unpretentious flow. The materials and language of Ms. Chang's
music are contemporary, yet the spirit is lyrical and filled with humanity.
She believes that good music resonates with its audience regardless of
its style.
Ms. Chang holds degrees
from the National Taiwan Normal University (BFA), Boston University (MM),
and Brandeis University (Ph.D.). She has received awards from the Council
for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (Taiwanese government agency),
Music Taipei Composition Competition, and the 12th ACL - Yoshiro Irino
Memorial Prize. Her works have been heard in cities such as Amsterdam
(Nieuw Ensemble), Seoul, Shanghai, Boston (Alea III; AUROS Group for New
Music), Taipei (Taipei Symphony Orchestra), and Sacramento (Sacramento
Philharmonic Orchestra), and selected for the 19th Conference and Festival
of the Asian Composers' League, and the 2002 Asian Contemporary Music
Festival in Seoul. She is currently working on a commission for the Alexander
String Quartet and pianist Lara Downes, to commemorate the opening of
the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts in the Fall of 2002.
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Paul
Siskind, Duo Bagatelles (in five movements)
Peter
Josheff, clarinet
Thalia Moore, cello
NOTES:
Duo-Bagatelles,
composed in 1990, displays an important aspect in the development of my
musical style: a penchant for a terse and aphoristic sense of drama. Each
of its five movements presents a concise, self-contained mood or gesture,
with focus on the coloristic possibilities of the instruments rather than
on motivic development. As virtuosic, show-pieces, the Bagatelles present
numerous challenges to the performers.
BIO:
Paul Siskind's music
encompasses many genres, and has been performed across the country and
abroad by renowned ensembles such as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Omaha
Symphony, the Arditti String Quartet, the New Amsterdam Singers, Continuum,
the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, and soprano Cheryl Marshall. His
major honors include the 1995 G. Schirmer Young American's Art Song Competition,
the 1994 Omaha Symphony Guild Prize, and a Composition Fellowship from
the McKnight Foundation in 1993. He has also received awards and grants
from ASCAP, Meet The Composer, the Puffin Foundation, the American Music
Center, and the National Federation of Music Clubs. His commissions include
the Dale Warland Singers, the Leif Ericksson International Festival, the
Monmouth Civic Chorus, and the Gotham Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Siskind was
invited to attend the first international conference on Words and Music
in 1994, sponsored by the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University;
he has also been a guest composer at the University of Delaware's New
Music Delaware 1999 Festival and the University of Colorado's Artsweek
'92. His music is published by G. Schirmer Inc. and Sweet Child Music,
and has been recorded on Innova and New Ariel labels.
Dr. Siskind is on
the faculty of the Crane School of Music, SUNY-Potsdam; prior to this
position, he taught at a number of other schools throughout the Midwest.
He completed his Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Minnesota,
after studies at Queens College, the Crane School of Music, and Tufts
University (where he completed a degree in biology); his teachers included
such diverse figures as Dominick Argento, Thea Musgrave, Pauline Oliveros,
Robert Starer, and T. J. Anderson. Along with teaching, Dr. Siskind has
worked as a composer-in-residence for the Education Department of Minnesota
Opera, Twin Cities Chapter Coordinator for the American Composers Forum,
Music Director of One Voice Mixed Chorus, and as an Auditor for the New
York State Council on the Arts.
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Betsy
Jolas, Quatuor VI
Peter
Josheff, clarinet
Terrie Baune, violin
Ellen Ruth Rose, viola
Thalia
Moore, cello
NOTES:
Quatuor VIÑSome
thirty years ago, I had named quartet a work for string trio and voice
with reference to such pieces by Mozart with flute or oboe. Indeed I recall
that among my concerns at the time was the need to confront three members
of a given instrumental family with a unique representative of another.
I was then already seeking answers to questions that are today among my
most foremost preoccupations and which might be classified as organizational:
who does what, when, where; who leads, who follows, etc, etc...?
The choice in this
case of a clarinet to represent winds versus strings meant naturally remembering,
not only Mozart, but also BrahmsÑand remarking that both masterpieces
are quintets, not quartets. Four strings to one clarinet, as if this instrument
was worth more, weighed more than a flute or an oboe. I knew somehow that
I would have to take this fact into account: compensate as if it were
the missing violin by giving the clarinet more importance, by making it
in a wayÑand what was still in questionÑprincipal.
BIO:
Betsy Jolas, a dual
citizen of the United States and France, was born in Paris in 1926. She
received her B.A. from Bennington College in 1946. At the same time, she
sang in the Dessof Choir in New York, which she also accompanied as organist
and as pianist, thus discovering the polyphonic repertory of the Renaissance,
which was to have a profound influence on her. She returned to Paris in
1946, and studied under Messiaen and Milhaud at the Conservatoire National.
She was appointed professor of analysis at the Conservatoire de Paris
in 1975 and professor of composition in 1978. She also taught in the United
States, notably at the universities of Yale, Harvard, University of California
at Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as Mills College (the
Darius Milhaud chair).
Ms. Jolas has been
awarded prizes by the American Academy of Arts, the national music Grand
Prix, the Maurice Ravel International Prize and the SACEM Prize for the
best creation. Betsy Jolas is a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; she was made
Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1985, made ÒChevalier de
la Legion d'HonneurÓ in 1997, and named "Personality of the Year" for
France in 1992. She was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy
in Berlin during fall semester 2000. During this time, she worked on two
compositions: a piano concerto for pianist Jay Gottlieb (Paris/New York)
and chorus, and the orchestration for an excerpt from the opera Schliemann.
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Ross
Bauer , Motion
Terrie
Baune, violin
Thalia Moore, cello
Marja Mutru, piano
NOTES:
Motion, commissioned
by and dedicated to the Triple Helix Trio, was written in the spring and
summer of 1998. They premiered it on December 5, 1998 at Brandeis University.
The piece is in three movements played without pause.
The first movement
begins with a statement, played in octaves by the strings, which will
prove to be important throughout. This two measure statement is responded
to by a hushed five note chord in the piano. This opening, fragmented
and minus its first two notes, returns to end the piece. The
first movement is full of octave and double octave tunes by the strings.
It ends with a high, lyrical cello line, which provides a transition to
the second movement.
The second movement,
which has a restrained, inward quality for most of its short duration,
begins with solo piano. Lois Shapiro's expressively lyrical playing was
very much in my ear while writing this passage. The sense of dialogue
between piano and strings, somewhat downplayed in the first movement,
comes to the fore here.
The third movement,
perhaps the most wide-ranging of the three, has a strong sense of pulse
much of the time. In 12/8 and 9/8 meter for most of its length, it switches
to fast 4/4 near the end in an octave passage reminiscent of that which
occurred near the end of the first movement. This music is meant to tie
the piece together through the completion of what was left unfinished
at the conclusion of the first movement.
BIO:
Ross Bauer (born 1951)
teaches composition at the University of California, Davis and has also
taught at Stanford and Brandeis Universities. He attended New England
Conservatory and Brandeis and studied composition with John Heiss, Martin
Boykan, Arthur Berger, and Luciano Berio (at Tanglewood). A founding member
of BostonÕs Griffin Music Ensemble, and founder and director (from 1988-2001)
of Empyrean Ensemble (a professional ensemble in residence at Davis),
heÕs remained active in the performance, recording and promotion of contemporary
music, conducting over one hundred performances including numerous premieres.
BauerÕs honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fromm Foundation commissions,
a Koussevitzky commission, an NEA Composition Fellowship, the Walter Hinrichsen
Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, prizes
from the International, National, and New England sections of the ISCM,
and winning the 1997 Speculum Musicae National Composers Competition.
His work has been performed and recorded by the Radio Orchestras of Hilversum
and Slovakia, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Berkeley, Rohnert
Park and Santa Cruz Symphonies, Speculum Musicae, the New York New Music
Ensemble, the New Millenium Ensemble, Ensemble 21, the San Francisco Contemporary
Music Players, Earplay, sopranos Susan Narucki and Christine Schadeberg,
violinist Curt Macomber, Paul Hillier, and many others. His music is published
by C.F. Peters, and a CD including his Along The Way for ten players
is available on GM Records. Other recordings include Octet (Centaur
Records), and Tributaries, recorded by the Core Ensemble on New
World Records. He was Guest Composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference
in the summer of 2001.
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