EIGHTH BLACKBIRD. Saturday Evening, January 17, 2015 at 8:00 Rackham Auditorium Ann Arbor

Transcription

1 UMS PRESENTS EIGHTH BLACKBIRD Tim Munro, Flutes Michael J. Maccaferri, Clarinets Yvonne Lam, Violin and Viola Nicholas Photinos, Cello Doug Perkins, Percussion Lisa Kaplan, Piano Saturday Evening, January 17, 2015 at 8:00 Rackham Auditorium Ann Arbor 31st Performance of the 136th Annual Season 52nd Annual Chamber Arts Series Photo: eighth blackbird; photographer: Luke Ratray. 3

2 UMS PROGRAM I Bryce Dessner Murder Ballades Omie Wise Young Emily Wave the Sea Brushy Fork II Lisa Kaplan whirligig off-kilter merry-go-round boogie-woogie Ms. Kaplan, Ms. Lam, Mr. Photinos III Songs of love and loss The pieces in this section are played attacca (without pause). Richard Parry Duo for Heart and Breath Ms. Kaplan, Ms. Lam Claudio Monteverdi, Arr. Tim Munro Lamento della ninfa Carlo Gesualdo, Arr. Tim Munro Moro, lasso, al mio duolo Bon Iver, Arr. Lisa Kaplan Babys EIGHTH BLACKBIRD Supported by the Renegade Ventures Fund, established by Maxine and Stuart Frankel. Additional support provided by Ken and Penny Fischer. Media partnership is provided by WGTE 91.3 FM, WDET FM, WRCJ 90.9 FM, and Ann Arbor s 107one. 4

3 INTERMISSION BE PRESENT IV Gabriella Smith Number Nine V Tom Johnson Counting Duets/ György Ligeti Études Counting Duet No. 1 Étude No. 4: Fanfares (Arr. Kaplan) Counting Duet No. 2 Étude No. 11: En Suspens (Arr. Munro) Counting Duet No. 3 Étude No. 12: Entrelacs (Arr. Kaplan) Counting Duet No. 4 Étude No. 6: Automne à Varsovie (Arr. Munro) The movements in this section alternate between Johnson Counting Duets and Ligeti Études, as marked above. Following this evening s performance, please feel free to remain in your seats and join us for a post-performance Q&A with the artists. Special thanks to Kipp Cortez for coordinating the pre-concert music on the Charles Baird Carillon. Special thanks to Garrett Schumann for his participation in events surrounding this evening s performance by eighth blackbird. eighth blackbird appears by arrangement with David Lieberman Artists Representatives, Newport Beach, CA. 5

4 UMS Murder Ballades for sextet (2013) Bryce Dessner Born April 23, 1976 in Cincinnati, Ohio whirligig for piano four hands (2013) Lisa Kaplan Born November 5, 1974 in Detroit, Michigan EIGHTH BLACKBIRD UMS premiere: Bryce Dessner s Murder Ballades has never been performed on a UMS concert. The composer writes: When eighth blackbird asked me for a piece, I immediately knew what to do: let great American folk music inspire a great American new music ensemble. The murder ballad has its roots in a European tradition, in which grisly details of bloody homicides are recounted through song. When this tradition came to America, it developed its own vernacular, with stories and songs being told and retold over the generations. In Murder Ballades I re-examine several of these old songs, allowing them to inspire my own music. Omie Wise and Young Emily are classic murder ballads, tales of romanticallycharged killings that are based on real events. Brushy Fork is a Civil War era murder ballad/fiddle tune, and Wave the Sea is an original composition woven out of the depths of the many months I spent inhabiting the seductive music and violent stories of these murder ballads. Murder Ballades was commissioned by eighth blackbird and Lunapark and funded by The Doelen Concert Hall, Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw aan t IJ, Amsterdam, and Muziekgebouw Frits Philips, Eindhoven, with the financial support of The Van Beinum Foundation, The Netherlands, with additional support from Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. UMS premiere: Lisa Kaplan s whirligig has never been performed on a UMS concert. whirligig '(h)w rlēgig noun 1 a toy that spins around, for example, a top or a pinwheel. Another term for merry-go-round 2 a thing regarded as hectic or constantly changing: the whirligig of time. 3 a small black predatory beetle that swims rapidly in circles on the surface of still or slow-moving water and dives when alarmed. The composer writes: I only like to play four hands piano with people I really like. This genre, with two players at one keyboard, should make you laugh and curse, and delight in invading each other s space. (Otherwise, what s the point? You might as well be playing on two separate instruments!) Composer/ performer Nico Muhly and I wanted a four-hands piece to play together and, rather than find an existing work, he dared me to write something. That dare was an inspiration. whirligig is all about getting up in each other s business and relishing it. The first movement, off-kilter, is my tribute to Nico and his spunky, vibrant, and amazingly animated personality. merry-go-round is both silly wordplay and an homage to one of my favorite people. The third movement is an odd-metered boogie-woogie that was stuck in my head the whole time I was writing whirligig, and I thought it would be great fun to play. 6

5 Songs of love and loss Duo for Heart and Breath (2012) Richard Parry Born October 4, 1977 in Toronto, Ontario Lamento della ninfa (1638) Claudio Monteverdi Born May 15, 1567 in Cremona, Italy Died November 29, 1643 in Venice Arr. Tim Munro Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (1611) Carlo Gesualdo Born March 8, 1566 in Naples, Italy Died September 8, 1613 in Avellino Arr. Tim Munro Babys (2009) Bon Iver (né Justin Vernon) Born April 30, 1981 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Arr. Lisa Kaplan UMS premieres: Monteverdi s Lamento della ninfa was first performed in its original form in March 1992 by the Consorte of Musicke in Rackham Auditorium. Munro s arrangement of the Monteverdi, along with the other pieces in this section, have never been performed on a UMS concert. The wild vagaries of the heart unite these four Songs of love and loss. Richard Parry (of indie band Arcade Fire) connects the rhythms of the physical body to the rhythms of the musical performance in Duo for Heart and Breath. Musicians wear stethoscopes, which enable them to play in synch with their own heartbeats. At other times, players are in synch with their own individual breathing. According to the composer, The idea is less about performing and more about directly translating into music the subtle, naturally varying internal rhythms of the individual players. Two Italian madrigalists sing keening laments of love and loss. Claudio Monteverdi s Lamento della ninfa sighs in waves of resignation, anger and hope: I want him back, just as he was, if not, then kill me...love mixes fire and ice, sings the solo soprano (re-cast as viola) while three tenors (flute, clarinet, cello) rock her to sleep: poor woman, poor woman. Carlo Gesualdo s lament, Moro, lasso (originally written for small vocal ensemble), is altogether darker, bleaker, as a lover sinks into the dissonant, chromatic mire: I die in my suffering, and she who could give me life allows me to die. Bon Iver s anthem, Babys, shines welcome light: Summer comes to multiply, and I m the carnival of peace I ll probably start a fleet with no apologies And the carnival of scenes, it grows more and more appealing But my woman and I know what we re for. Number Nine for sextet (2013) Gabriella Smith Born 1991 in Berkeley, California UMS premiere: Gabriella Smith s Number Nine has never been performed on a UMS concert. The composer writes: Number Nine is inspired by the Beatles Revolution 9, their collagelike, musique-concrète-inspired, aural depiction of a revolution, positioned at the climactic point of The White Album. Inspired by the looped phrase number nine, number nine, number nine, etc. at the beginning of the Beatles song, I began my Number Nine with BE PRESENT 7

6 EIGHTH BLACKBIRD UMS 8 an instrumental version of that repeated phrase, and the rest of the piece evolves from its rhythmic and pitch contour. I also incorporated many other Revolution 9 references, weaving their collage fragments into Number Nine s continuously evolving arc. Number Nine was commissioned by percussionist Ted Babcock for his program Machine in the Garden and premiered in January 2014 at the Curtis Institute of Music. Gabriella Smith is a composer from the San Francisco Bay Area who currently attends Princeton University where she is a Naumberg and Roger Sessions doctoral fellow. Her current commissions include new works for the 2014 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the New York Virtuoso Singers, and Gabriel Cabezas. Her music has been performed throughout the US and internationally (in China, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey) by PRISM Quartet, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Azure Ensemble, Berkeley Symphony, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Classical Revolution, Contemporaneous, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble39, Friction Quartet, Monadnock Music, and Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. She received her BM from The Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with David Ludwig, Jennifer Higdon, and Richard Danielpour. Before beginning her studies at Curtis, Ms. Smith performed as a violinist in the Superdelegates (an improv avantgarde classical/blues string quartet), the Formerly Known as Classical new music ensemble, and the Young People s Symphony Orchestra. She currently sings in the Princeton University Georgian Choir. When she is not making music, she enjoys backpacking, birding, homebrewing, dancing Argentine tango, and working on her backyard farm in Northern California with her six chickens. Counting Duets for two performers (1982) Tom Johnson Born November 18, 1939 in Greeley, Colorado Études for solo piano, arranged for sextet ( ) György Ligeti Born May 28, 1923 in Târnăveni, Romania Died June 12, 2006 in Vienna, Austria UMS premieres: Ligeti s Étude for Piano, No. 4 was first performed by Yuja Wang in January 2008 in Hill Auditorium. Johnson s Counting Duets and the remaining Ligeti Études on tonight s program have never been performed on a UMS concert. Tom Johnson s obsessions are with simple forms, limited scales, and reduced materials, but this dry and dour-sounding list doesn t capture the light, satirical nature of many of his best-known works. Narayana s Cows is a musical translation of the work of a 14th century Indian mathematician, Narayana. The text begins, A cow produces one calf every year. Beginning in its fourth year, each calf produces one calf at the beginning of each year. How many cows and calves are there altogether after 20 years? Failing: a very difficult piece for solo string bass challenges a bassist to give live commentary on the difficulties of playing this very difficult piece. Johnson writes: Soldiers count the cadence as they march; agricultural surveyors count blades of grass; farmers count sheep; astronomers counts galaxies; lab technicians counts red blood cells; we all count money. The formalistic, religious, arithmetic, psychological, linguistic, and musical implications of counting interest me a great deal, and since I have a special love for patterns and numbers anyway, I have focused much of my work in this

7 direction. There must be countless ways of counting. And come to think of it, countlessness is another fascinating subject. Or is it the same subject? Born in Romania and trained in Hungary, György Ligeti ( ) fled post-war communism at the age of 30. Ligeti s solo piano Études reflect the radically varied musical passions of the composer s later years: the music of sub- Saharan African cultures; the complex wildness of Conlon Nancarrow s Studies for Player Piano; the harmonic freedom of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans; and the keyboard music of Scarlatti, Chopin, Schumann, and Debussy. Fanfares spins wildly around the instruments, flinging scale-like patterns (derived from Middle Eastern music) against irregular, fanfare-like flourishes. Two musical worlds float simultaneously through the calm skies of En Suspens ( suspended ): a soft, nostalgic waltz, and a darker, more impersonal tolling bell. Entrelacs, named for an intricate Celtic decorative pattern, spins layer upon layer upon layer of interlaced, complex musical ribbon around the listener. Automne à Varsovie ( Autumn in Warsaw ) sings an anxious, uncomfortable, rage-filled lament for the people of Poland, who suffered under the brutally oppressive communist regime of the 1980s. BE PRESENT ARTISTS eighth blackbird \'ātth 'blak-'b rd\ slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.). 1. verb. to act with commitment and virtuosity; to zap, zip, sock. 2. adjective. having fearless (yet irreverent) qualities. 3. noun. a flock of songbirds, common in urban areas since EIGHTH BLACKBIRD combines the finesse of a string quartet, the energy of a rock band, and the audacity of a storefront theater company. The Chicago-based, three-time Grammywinning super-musicians (LA Times) entertain and provoke audiences across the country and around the world. Colombine s Paradise Theatre is eighth blackbird s new staged, memorized production hailed as a tour de force by The Washington Post. Composer Amy Beth Kirsten challenges the sextet to play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing life into this tale of dream and delusion. The season kicks off with a performance at Chicago s Museum of Contemporary Art followed by a seasonopening performance at The Miller Theater in New York. The season s acoustic program, Still in Motion, features new works by The National s Bryce Dessner (the folk-inspired Murder Ballades), Lee Hyla, Sean Griffin, and rising star Gabriella Smith. eighth blackbird brings this show to Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Washington, and sunny Hawaii. Other highlights include the premiere of Hand Eye, a new work for eighth blackbird by the superstar composer collective Sleeping Giant, the ensemble s debut at Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with LA Dance Project, and a New Orleans-inspired romp with special guest singer-songwriteraccordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman at Symphony Space in New York. To top it off, the group will conduct guest residencies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and a multi-visit residency at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. 9

8 eighth blackbird holds ongoing Ensemble in Residence positions at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Richmond, and University of Chicago. A decade-long relationship with Chicago s Cedille Records has produced six acclaimed recordings. The ensemble has won three Grammy Awards, for the recordings strange imaginary animals, Lonely Motel: Music from Slide, and Meanwhile. eighth blackbird s members hail from America s Great Lakes, Keystone, Golden, and Bay states, and Australia s Sunshine State. There are four foodies, three beer snobs, and one exercise junkie. The name eighth blackbird derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens evocative, aphoristic poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1917). For more information, please visit eighth blackbird is ensemble-in-residence with Contempo. Michael Maccaferri is a Rico Performing Artist and Clinician. Doug Perkins endorses Black Swamp Percussion, Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments, Vic Firth Sitcks and Mallets, and Zildjian Cymbals. Lisa Kaplan is a Steinway Artist. UMS ARCHIVES This evening s concert marks eighth blackbird s second appearance under UMS auspices following their debut in April 2008 in two concerts at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. UMS welcomes Yvonne Lam and Doug Perkins, who make their UMS debuts tonight. UMS EDUCATIONAL & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EVENTS YOU CAN DANCE Ann Arbor Y (400 W. Washington Street) Ever wonder what it s like to be a dancer? Join dancers from each company on the UMS season for free beginner movement workshops exploring each of the company s movement styles. Ages 13+. Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Saturday, January 24, 1:30 3:00 pm Trisha Brown Dance Company, Saturday, February 21, 10:45 am 12:15 pm Abraham.In.Motion, Saturday, March 14, 1:30 3:00 pm Lyon Opera Ballet, Saturday, April 25, 1:30 3:00 pm UMS.ORG/LEARN