UMS Concert Program, Tuesday Oct. 30 To Nov. 08: University Musical Society: 2001 Fall - Tuesday Oct. 30 To Nov. 08 --

Season: 2001 Fall
University Of Michigan

University Musical Society
of the University of Michigan
Event Program Book Tuesday, October 30 through Thursday, November 8, 2001
General Information
Children of all ages are welcome at UMS Family and Youth Performances. Parents are encouraged not to bring children under the age of three to regular, full-length UMS performances. All children should be able to sit quietly in their own seats throughout any UMS perfor?mance. Children unable to do so, along with the adult accompanying them, will be asked by an usher to leave the auditorium. Please use discretion in choosing to bring a child.
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While in the Auditorium
Starting Time Every attempt is made to begin concerts on time. Latecomers are asked to wait in the lobby until seated by ushers at a predetermined time in the program.
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In the interests of saving both dollars and the environment, please retain this program book and return with it when you attend other UMS performances included in this edition. Thank you for your help.
St. Petersburg Conservatory Chamber Ensemble 5
Tuesday, October 30, 8:00pm Michigan Theater
Philip on Film:
Dracula 21
Wednesday, October 31,8:00pm Michigan Theater
Shorts 23
Thursday, November 1, 8:00pm Michigan Theater
Koyaanisqatsi 25
Friday, November 2, 8:00pm Saturday, November 3, 8:00pm Michigan Theater
Nederlands Kamerkoor 37
Thursday, November 8, 8:00pm
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church
Dear UMS patrons,
Welcome to tonight's performance. After fourteen years of work at UMS, I am happy to have this opportunity to thank all members of our concert-going com?munity for their immeasurable support both of UMS and the artists we invite into our performance venues. I can think of few places in the country with such a vibrant, informed and devoted audience. It is an honor to work with the UMS staff and board in designing each concert season of music, dance and theater. Our Michigan audience allows us each year to take them on an exploration of both the known and unknown work that inhabits today's diverse concert stages and theaters...and that is a rare a wonderful relationship! Thank you.
In the next ten days we are presenting two unique events:
Philip Glass has a long and rich relationship with Ann Arbor, the Michigan Theater...and film. This week's four-day festival entitled Philip on Film gives us all the opportunity to reflect on his history as an important American composer of art music. His unique vision for his music and its relationship to the cinema leaves us with a vast catalogue of seminal works that leave an indelible mark on the late twentieth century.
The Netherlands Chamber Choir opens the 20012002 UMS Divine Expressions Series at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. UMS is happy to continue this very special series of church and spiritually-based music con? certs in Ann Arbor. This program continues to be a truly distinctive initiative for the southeastern Michigan region. We at UMS are especially thankful for all the support and energy we receive from the tireless leadership of the St. Francis parish...we could not make these meaningful musical events happen without them!
I encourage you to learn more about UMS, our performance venues, and our upcoming music, dance and theater events, by reviewing the pages of this program.
Finally, I'd like to know your thoughts about this performance. I'd also like to learn from you about anything you feel we can do at UMS to make your experi?ence with us the best possible. You can reach me via e-mail at mkond@umich.edu.
With best regards,
Michael J. Kondziolka Director of Programming
UMS Educational
through Thursday, November 8, 2001
All UMS educational activities are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted ($). Please visit www.ums.org for complete details and updates.
St. Petersburg Conservatory Chamber Ensemble
Brown Bag Lecture
"St. Petersburg: Architectural Image," by Nina Zonina, Russian Cultural Historian and Professor of English Literature, St. Petersburg State University. Wednesday, October 31, 12:00-1:00 p.m. International Institute, U-M School of Social Work Building, First Floor, Room 1636, 1080 S. University. In col?laboration with the U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies.
LectureDemonstration
The Music of Schabin: Pyotr Laul Pyotr Laul on Alexander Scriabin: "Peculiarities of the Style and Performing Problems" Thursday, November 1, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Recital Hall, U-M School of Music, North Campus. In collabo?ration with the U-M School of Music Piano Department.
LectureDemonstration
The Art of Russian String Quartets: Nevsky String Quartet The Nevsky String Quartet will lead a lecturedemonstration focusing on string quartet music of St. Petersburg composers Shostakovich, Teeshchenko, Bassner, and Slonimsky. Friday, November 2, 2:30-4:30 p.m. Recital Hall, U-M School of Music, North Campus. In collaboration with U-M School of Music Strings Department.
Philip on Film
Master of Arts Public Interview
Philip Glass
A conversation with one of America's leading contemporary composers on his twenty-five years in film. Led by James Tobias, Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Media Studies, Program in Film and Video. Thursday, November 1, 4:00-5:30 p.m. Screening Room, Michigan Theater
Netherlands Chamber Choir
Choral Conducting Workshop
Tonu Kaljuste
Acclaimed Estonian vocal con?ductor Tonu Kaljuste will lead a workshop with U-M graduate conducting and choral students. For observation only. Thursday, November 8, 11:30-1:00 p.m. Room 2032, U-M School of Music, North Campus.
UMS
and
Edward Surovell Realtors
present
St. Petersburg Conservatory Chamber Ensemble
Vladislav Chernushenko, Conservatory Rector
Pavel Popov, Violin Piotr Laul, Piano
Piotr Migunov, Bass Alexandra Kovaliova, Soprano Tatiana Bezzubenkova, Piano
Nevsky Quartet Tatyana Razumova, Violin Anna Tchizhyk, Violin Vladimir Bystritsky, Viola Dimitry Khrychev, Cello
Program Tuesday Evening, October 30, 2001 at 8:00
Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sergei Prokofiev String Quartet No. 1 in b minor, Op. 50 (excerpt)
Finale
Nevsky String Quartet
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Redeyet oblakov (The clouds begin to scatter).
Op. 42, No. 3
Piotr Tchaikovsky Arioso: Atchevo eta prezhde ne znale (Why, until now,
have I not shed tears), from Iolanta
Kovaliova, Bezzubenkova
Alexander Scriabin Sonata for Piano No. 5, Op. 53
Laul Sergei Rachmaninoff Utro (Morning), Op. 4, No. 1
Tchaikovsky Den' li cant (Does the Day Reign), Op. 47, No. 6
Migunov, Bezzubenkova
George Gershwin and Igor Frolov
Concert Fantasia on the Themes of Porgy and Bess
Popov, Laul
INTERMISSION
Antonin Dvorak
Rachmaninoff Rachmaninoff
Rodion Shchedrin Rachmaninoff
Rachmaninoff Ernest Chausson
String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 (excerpt) Lento
Nevsky String Quartet
Etude-Tableau in C Major, Op. 33, No. 2 Etude-Tableau in e-flat minor, Op. 39, No. 5
Laul
Imitation of Albeniz
Popov, Laul
Scene of Zemphira and Aleko, from Aleko
Kovaliova, Migunov, Bezzubenkova, Nevsky String Quartet
Cavatina of Aleko, from Aleko
Migunov, Bezzubenkova, Nevsky String Quartet
Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21 (excerpt) Finale
Popov, Laul, Nevsky String Quartet
Tenth Performance of the 123rd Season
Thirty-ninth Annual Chamber Arts Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
This performance is sponsored by Edward Surovell Realtors.
Special thanks to Edward Surovell for his generous support of the University Musical Society.
The Steinway piano used in this evening's performance is made possible by Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia, Michigan.
The St. Petersburg Conservatory Chamber Ensemble appears by arrangement with David Eden Productions.
The St. Petersburg Conservatory Tour is presented in cooperation with CEC International Partners.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Introductory Note: Tonight's program will feature a variety of works. Where there is more than one work of any one composer appearing in different parts of the program it will be annotated under the heading of the composer rather than in its order of presentation.
String Quartet No. 1 in b minor.
Op. 50 (excerpt) Sergei Prokofiev
Born April 27, 1891 in Sontsovka, near
Ekaterinoslav, Russia Died March 5, 1953 in Moscow
Sergei Prokofiev started composing at the tender age of nine under the encouragement of his mother. His early study was with Gliere, and at the age of thirteen he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, Tcherepnin and Liadov and piano with Annettee Essipov. From the time he was a student and throughout his career as pianist and composer, Prokofiev was considered ' enfant terrible in Russia, the US and Western Europe. Prokofiev would finally overcome the resistance to his works and gained inter?national recognition and acceptance. He left Russia during World War I and returned in 1933 to live in Moscow where he taught at the Moscow Conservatory for many years. He attempted to become an active advocate of Soviet music to get new Soviet music heard in France, England and Italy. However, his efforts in this respect and his own work in composition were disrupted by the ideo?logical storm that brewed in the 1940s, and the composer suffered wavering acceptance of his work until his death in 1953.
In 1930, Prokofiev returned to the US for an extended tour during which he received
even greater acclaim than he had during his earlier visit from 1918 to 1921. On this occasion he was commissioned by the Boston Symphony to write his Symphony No. 4, which premiered on November 14, 1930. He left the 1930 tour with a commis?sion for a string quartet from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation of the Library of Congress. The new String Quartet, Op. 50 had its premiere in Washington on April 25, 1931 by the Brosa Quartet.
The composer had not produced much in the way of chamber music, preferring larger works with bigger sound; he recalled his studies with Rimsky-Korsakov, regarding the problem of orchestrating a Beethoven quartet: "A string quartet seemed lacking in tone color--possibly because we weren't able to get the maximum out of it." Thus, accepting the commission to write a string quartet was a challenge to Prokofiev. Before starting on the work, he "studied Beethoven's quartets chiefly in railway car?riages on my way from one concert to another.... Perhaps this explains the some?what 'classical' idiom of the first movement of my quartet." However, Prokofiev gave his own work the distinction of having its slow movement as the finale. This deliberate choice was something he considered the most significant part of the Quartet No. 1.
The "Finale" of the three-movement quar?tet is a long, emotionally fervent andante. Its Russian style plaintive melodies have a softly throbbing accompaniment that helps to unify the music. Although the prevailing mood seems to be rather melancholic, there is a sense of determination and strength that counters any note of despair.
Redeyet oblakov (The clouds begin to scatter). Op. 42, No. 3
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Born March 18, 1844 in Tikhvin, near
Novgorod, Russia Died June 21, 1908 in Liubensk, near
St. Petersburg
Rimsky-Korsakov, noted for his colorful orchestral writing and operas, was upset when the Tsar Nicolai II rejected the opera Sadko (1898) because he wanted "something a bit merrier." The composer responded to this setback by throwing himself into song-writing, producing more than forty songs during that year. These were over half of his total output of songs during his career! Some of the songs take on a declamatory nature following the text of the poems being set to music. In such instances Rimsky-Korsakov was guided by the tenets of real?ism held by the group of five composers, "The Mighty Handful," of which he was one. The results were often like recitatives, but in many other instances his songs were in the vein of the Russian romances. He had previously demonstrated his flair for the lyrical melody in arias written for operas. The song we are to hear tonight is in this Romantic style.
"The clouds begin to scatter," set to a poem by Alexander Pushkin, is about a girl gazing at the evening star as distant memo?ries are evoked in her, including one "when my heart was in torment."
Arioso: from Iolanta
Den' Li carit (Does the Day Reign), Op. 47, No. 6
Piotr Tchaikovsky
Born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk,
Viatka district, Russia Died November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg
Tchaikovsky is represented in tonight's pro?gram by an aria from one of his operas and one of his many romantic songs. Iolanta, Tchaikovsky's last opera, was written at a time when the composer was going through the best and the worst times of his life. His relationship with Mme. Von Meek came to an end in the middle of 1890. His opera The Queen of Spades was a success and he was invited to make a conducting tour of the US during the spring of 1891. Just before this invitation was made, some time in December 1890, Tchaikovsky received a commission by the directorate of the Russian imperial theaters to write a one-act opera and a ballet to be presented in 1892 as the two halves of a double bill. The ballet was to be based on the story of E.T.A Hoffman's The Nutcracker but the libretto of the opera was left up to Tchaikovsky. The composer asked his brother, Modest, to pre?pare the libretto using the play King Reni's Daughter (written in 1845 by the Danish dramatist and poet, Henrik Hertz). The play is the story of the beautiful princess Iolanta who is protected in a secret place to keep her from realizing that she is blind. Placed there since birth by her well-intentioned father, King Rene, the princess is surround?ed by people who conspire to keep her in her state of ignorance by never mentioning light or the fact that they can see. However, she eventually learns about her blindness when a young nobleman who has fallen in love with her tells her of her condition.
Tchaikovsky had become acquainted with the play in 1883 and never forgot it. Eight
years later when he had the opportunity to have it set to an opera, he wrote to his brother, "I shall write music that will bring tears to everyone's eyes." He started writing the music to the opera in July 1891 and did not finish it to his satisfaction until November 1892, a month before its premiere in St. Petersburg. He had been sidetracked by many ups and downs in his career during the intervening period. While the public welcomed the work, it was severely criticized by the press.
The Arioso presented in tonight's program occurs in the opening scene of the opera. In this passage, Iolanta reveals uneasiness about her sheltered life and, with increasing intensity, begins to question its value.
The Romance, "Does the Day Reign," was set to the poem by Alexei Nikoleiovich Apukhtin (1841-1893). Here the singer rap?turously exalts a love that is all consuming: "Everywhere I go, I am filled entirely with one thought alone: Only of you!"
Sonata for Piano No. 5, Op. 53
Alexander Scriabin
Born January 6, 1872 in Moscow Died April 27, 1915 in Moscow
Alexander Scriabin, now considered one of the outstanding composers of the twentieth century, entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1888. During his four years at the Conservatory he was noted to be hot-tem?pered, controversial, and did not hesitate to argue with his professors, particularly Arensky, his composition teacher. His bril?liant piano playing earned him the "Little Gold Medal" (Rachmaninoff won the "Big Gold"). When Arensky refused to sign his diploma in composition, Scriabin, although granted a diploma as a "Free Artist" (1892), left the school in a huff. He took up a career as a concert pianist and struggled to win recognition as a composer as well as a
pianist. With the aid of his patron, the Russian publisher Mitrofan Belaieff, who gave him a stipend, he was able to publish his early works and grudgingly accepted a position to teach at the Moscow Conservatory. The piano sonata form attracted him and his life began to change. When it seemed that he would become just another Chopin, he dramatically changed his style of playing and modes of expressing himself in his compositions. About the time he finished writing his Sonata for Piano No. 3, he was drawn to eroticism, the feeling of languor, the sensation of flying and the idea of lumi?nosity. When he worked on Sonata for Piano No. 4 he was already obsessed with mysticism and the philosophy of Eastern religions. The changes in his moods and thinking not only influenced his piano playing and composi?tion but also led to the creation of huge orchestral works. He wrote poems and long philosophical tracts to accompany his music. After he became an established celebrity, he toured extensively worldwide to present his works. Wherever he went he caused controversy and a flurry of excite?ment about his playing and the nature of his compositions. Back in Russia after one of his tours, he died unexpectedly on April 27, 1915, from blood poisoning following attempts to treat a "carbuncle" or tumor on his lip.
Scriabin's musical legacy consists of three symphonies, the Poem of Ecstasy, Prometheus (The Poem of Fire), and numerous compo?sitions for the piano, among which are ten sonatas, etudes and ninety preludes. The creative works of Scriabin are distinguished by their great emotional richness and depth and reflect the original religious and philo?sophical conceptions of the composer.
The Sonata for Piano No. 5 appeared in 1907 very shortly after the symphonic Poem of Ecstasy and has been called a "glorious afterthought" to the orchestral work. The relationship between the two compositions
in Scriabin's thinking is manifested by the fact that he headed the printed text of the Sonata with an excerpt from his Poem of Ecstacy.
I call you to life, O mysterious forces! Drowned in the obscure depths Shadows of life, to you I bring audacity.
The Poem of Ecstasy (originally titled "Orgiastic Poem") is a long erotic-philo?sophical work written by the composer as a literary illustration of his symphonic poem of the same title. Scriabin had 500 copies of the text printed in Russian and distributed among his friends. He did not want the poem to be included in the score of the orchestral work but specified that copies should be on sale in the concert hall lobby when the piece was performed.
The Sonata is in one continuous move?ment although marked in three major sec?tions: "Allegro," "Impetuoso," and "Con extravaganza." Scriabin provided a profu?sion of directions in Italian notation scat?tered throughout the printed score of the Sonata that reveal his intentions. The nota?tions in their English equivalents include: "impetuously, with extravagance," "languid?ly," and "caressingly," where he attempts to describe and personify feelings of ecstasy, "divine joy" and sexuality as "an answer to the call of life." As the music becomes faster and more intense, one finds: "imperiously," "mysteriously," "breathlessly," "like trum?pets," "lightly flying," "in fantastic rapture," "dizzily, with fury," and inevitably the key word, "ecstatically." The work ends in a blaze of high intensity representing the luminosi?ty and burning sensations apparently expe?rienced by the composer. As he tried to explain later, he had "seen" the entire Sonata as a vision that had an independent exis?tence outside his body. It is no wonder that "when Scriabin played the Fifth Sonata for
the first time in Moscow in February 1909 and backstage afterwards, people fell on their knees before him" (Faubion Bowers).
Concert Fantasia on the Themes of Porgy and Bess
George Gershwin and Igor Frolov
Born September 26, 1898 in New York Died July 11, 1937 in Los Angeles
Gershwin, the idol of American music in the 1920s and 1930s, became a friend of Jascha Heifetz. The two often played music together and it was inevitable that Heifetz would ask Gershwin to write a work for him. However, Gershwin was always preoccupied with many projects and especially the writing of his opera Porgy and Bess, which premiered in 1935. Two years later, Gershwin died at the age of thirty-nine from a brain tumor, never having written a major piece for the violin. However, Heifetz made up for this lack by making arrangements of the Three Preludes, written for piano, and for five songs from Porgy and Bess. It was natural for these songs to be used for other instru?mental and orchestral arrangements. Such was the fate of Bizet's Carmen when Sarasate wrote his famous Fantasy based on the melodies of the opera.
It is not surprising that a violinist or a composer for the instrument would either improvise upon the Heifetz arrangements or choose to write an original set of arrange?ments using the Porgy and Bess songs. The songs literally beg to be played with the sen?suous tones that can be gleaned only from the violin. Thus, one would anticipate hear?ing variations of "It ain't necessarily so," "I got plenty of nuttin," "Summertime," "Bess, you is my woman now," "There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York" and perhaps more.
Redeyet oblakov (The clouds begin to scatter). Op. 42, No. 3
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Aleksander Pushkin)
Redejet oblakov letuchaja grjada. Zvezda pechal'naja, vechernjaja zvezda! Tvoj luch oserebril
uvjadshije ravniny, I dremljushchij zaliv, i chjornykh
skal vershiny.
Ljublju tvoj slabyj svet v nebesnoj vyshine On dumy razbudil usnuvshije vo mne. Ja pomnju tvoj voskhod, znakomoje svetilo, Nad mirnoju stranoj, gde vsjo dlja serdca milo,
Gde strojno topoli v dolinakh vozneslis', Gde dremlet nezhnyj mirt i
tjomnyj kiparis,
I sladostno shumjat poludennyje volny. Tam nekogda v gorakh, serdechnoj
dumy polnyj,
Nad morem ja vlachil
zadumchivuju len', Kogda na khizhiny skhodila
nochi ten', I deva junaja vo t'me
tebja iskala I imenem svojim podrugam nazyvala.
The clouds begin to scatter; a sad star, star of evening, your beam casts a silver glow on
the faded plains, and on the slumbering bay and the summits
of the black cliffs;
I love your pale light on the heights of heaven: it rouses thoughts asleep within me. I recall your rising, familiar star, over the peaceful land where everything is dear to my heart,
where slender poplars have risen in the valleys, where doze the tender myrtle and the
dark cypress,
and sweetly roll the midday waves. Once, there in the hills, deep in heartfelt meditation,
I dragged out my thoughtful indolence
on the sea, while the darkness of night descended
on the hut -and a young maid in the gloom
searched for you and called her girlfriends by name.
Arioso: Atchevo eto prezhde ne znala (Why, until now, have I not shed tears), from Iolanta
Piotr Tchaikovsky (Modest Tchaikovsky)
Atchevo eto prezhde ne znala Ni toski ja, ni gor'a, ni slyoz, I vse dni protekali, byvalo, Sredi zvukov nebesnyh i roz Chut' uslyshu ja ptits sh'ebetan'je, Chut' teplo ozhyvit dal'nij bor I vezde zazvuchit likovan'je, Ja vstupala v torzhestvennyj hor! A teper" vs'o mne dn'om navevajet
nepon'atnyj, Glubokij upr'ok, I ukory sud'be posylajet Ptichek hor i sc'um'ash'ij potok. Ot chego eto nochi molchan'je i prokhlada Mne stali milej,
Ot chego ja kak bud-to rydan'ja slyshu tarn, Gde pojot solovej Ot chego Ot chego Skazhy, Marta
Why, until now, have I not shed tears,
Not known feelings of longing or sorrow,
And why were my days all spent
Amid roses and sweet sounds worthy of heaven
Whenever I heard birds twitter,
Or the distant pine forest coming to life,
Joyful noise would ring out everywhere,
As though I stood with an exultant choir!
Yet now, each day, I sense in everything
a Mysterious And deep reproach
Which seems to be scolding fate for sending The chorus of birds and rushing stream. The stillness of the night and its coolness: Why are they much dearer to me now Why do I seem to hear the sound of sobbing, Whenever the nightingale sings Why, why Tell me, Martha!
Utro (Morning), Op. 4, No. 1
Sergei Rachmaninoff (M. L. Yanov)
"Ljublju tebja!"
Shepnula dnju zarja
I, nebo obkhvativ, zardelas'
ot priznan'ja,
I solntsa luch, prirodu ozarja, S ulybkoj posylal jej zhguchije lobzan'ja. A den', kak by jeshchjo ne doverjaja, Osushchestvleniju svojikh
zavetnykh grjoz, Spuskalsja na zemlju,
s ulybkoj utiraja Blestevshije vokrug rjady almaznykh sljoz.
"I love you!"
Daybreak whispered to day
And, while enfolding the skies,
blushed from that confession, And a sunbeam, illuminating nature, With a smile sent her a burning kiss. And the day, as if still doubting The fulfillment of his most
cherished dreams, Descended over the land,
and with a smile drying Her glittering tears like rows of diamonds.
Den' li tsarit (Does the Day Reign), Op. 47, No. 6
Tchaikovsky (Aleksei Apukhtin)
Den' li carit, tishina
li nochnaja, V snakh li [bessyjaznykh],
v zhitejskoj bor'be,
Vsjudu so mnoj, moju zhizn' napolnjaja, Duma vse ta zhe, odna rokovaja, Vsjo o tebe!
S neju ne strashen mne prizrak bylogo, Serdce vosprjanulo snova ljubja... Vera, mechty, vdokhnovennoje slovo, Vsjo, chto v dushe dorogogo, svjatogo, Vsjo ot tebja!
Budut li dni moji
jasny, unyly,
Skoro li sginu ja, zhizn' zagubja! Znaju odno, chto do samoj mogily Pomysly, chuvstva, i pesni, i sily, Vsjo dlja tebja!
Whether day dawns or in the
stillness of night, Whether in a dream
or awake,
Everywhere I go, filling my life entirely With one sole yet fateful thought: Only of you!
The ghost of the past does not frighten me, My heart has come back to life with love! Faith, dreams, and inspired word, All that my soul cherishes and deems holy, It is all because of you!
Whether the rest of my days pass in
joy or in sadness, Whether my life ends soon or late, I know that, till death takes me under, Thoughts, feelings, and songs, and my might, All is for you!
Scene of Zemphira and Aleko, from Aleko
Rachmaninoff
(Libretto by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, based on Alexander Pushkin's poem, "The Gypsies")
Zemphira
Staryi muzh, groznyi muzh,
Rezh menya, zhgi menya:
Ya tverda, ne boius,
Ni nozha, ni ognya.
Nenavizhu tebya,
Preziraiu tebya:
Ya drugogo lyublyu,
Umiraiu, lubya.
Aleko
Dusha tomitsia grustiu tainoi
Gde-zh radosti lubvi sluchainoi
Zemphira
Rezh menia, zhgi menia,
Ne skazhu nichevo,
Staryi muzh, groznyi muzh,
Ne uznaesh evo.
Aleko
Molchi! Mne penye nadoelo.
Ya dikikh pesen ne lublu.
Zemphira
Ne lubish Mne kakoe delo
Ya pesnyu dlia sebya poyu.
On svezhee vesny, Zharche letnevo dnya. Kak on molod, kak on smel! Kak on lubit menya!
Zemphira
Graying man, cruel man,
Stab you can, burn you can,
Firm I am--spurn your strife,
Your love I deny--I hate you.
Your wrath I defy and
I despise you.
For another I do love,
For his love, I would die.
Aleko
Your singing wearies me
Where is the happiness of fleeting love
Zemphira
Stab you can, burn you can,
I will not say a word,
Old man, graying man,
You will not find out who he is.
Aleko
Quiet! I am tired of your singing.
I don't like those wild songs.
Zemphira
You don't like them What do I care
I'm singing this song for you.
He is fresher than spring, Hotter than a summer's day. He's so young and so bold! How he loves me!
Aleko
Molchi, Zemphira, ya dovolen
Zemphira
Tak ponyal pesnyu ty moyu
Aleko Zemphira!
Zemphira
Ty serditsa volen.
Ya pesnyu pro tebya poyu!
Kak laskala evo ia v nochnoi tishine! Kak smeyalis togda my tvoei sedine!
On svezhee vesny, Zharche letnevo dnya; Kak on molod, kak on smel! Kak on lubit menya!
Kak laskala evo
Ia v nochnoi tishine!
Kak smeyalis togda my tvoei sedine!
Aleko
Quiet! Zemphira, that's enough.
Zemphira
Did you understand my song
Aleko Zemphira!
Zemphira
You are free to be as angry as you wish.
I am singing this song about you!
How I loved him in the still of the night! How we laughed at your gray hair!
He is fresher than spring, Hotter than a summer's day; He's so young, and so bold! How he loves me!
How I caressed him
In the still of the night!
How we laughed at your gray hair!
Cavatina of Aleko, from Aleko
Rachmaninoff
(Libretto by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, based on Alexander Pushkin's poem, "The Gypsies")
Ves tabor spit. Luna
nad nim
Polnochnoi krasotoyu bleshchet. Shto-zh sertse bednoye trepeshchet Kakoyu grustyu ya tomim Ya bez zabot, bes sozhalenia Vedu kochuyushchie dni. Prezrev okovy prosveshchenia, Ya volen tak zhe, kak oni. Ya zhil, ne priznavaya vlasti Sudby kovarnoi i slepoi. No, bozhe, kak igraut strasti Moei poslushnoyu dushoi! Zemfira! Kak ona lubila! Kak nezhno, priklonias ko mne,
pustynnoi tishine Chasy nochnye provodila! Kak chasto milym lepetaniem, Upoitelnym lobzanyem Zadumchivost moyu
minutu razognat umela!
Ya pomnu: s negoi, polnoi strasti,
Sheptala mne ona togda:
"Lublu tebia! V tvoei ya vlasti!
Tvoia, Aleko, navsegda!"
I vsyo togda ya zabyval,
Kogda recham eyo vnimal
I, kak bezubnyi, tseloval,
Eyo charuyushchie ochi,
Kos tchudnykh pryad, temnyee nochi,
Usta Zemfiry...A ona,
Vsya negoi, strastyu polna,
Prilnuv ko mne, v glaza gliadela.
I shto zh Zemfira neverna!
Moya Zemfira okhladela!
The camp is asleep. The moon above
in midnight Splendor shimmering.
Why is my poor heart yearning and suffering What is this pain and sorrow Without cares or regrets, I lead a nomad's life. Having scorned the shackles of civilization I am as free as they are--I lived
not recognizing
The power of treacherous blind fate! But, God! How passion took hold of
my obedient soul. Zemphira--how she loved me! How tenderly she caressed-In that desert quiet, Those long night hours, Those sweet murmurs, Those passionate kisses--
made gloomy
Thoughts disappear in an instant. I remember her caresses. Full of passion, she Would whisper to me: "I love you! I am in your power! I am yours, Aleko, forever!" I would forget everything, hearing her words, And mad with love, I would kiss her Bewitching eyes and tresses blacker than night, and her lips. And she, passionately
huddled against me, Gazed into my eyes And now Zemphira is unfaithful! My Zemphira has become cold!
String Quartet No. 12 in F Major,
Op. 96 (excerpt) Antonin Dvorak
Born September 8, 1841 in
Muhlhausen, Czechoslovakia Died May 1, 1904 in Prague
Dvorak came to New York from Prague in 1892 to serve as director of the National Conservatory of Music thanks to an invita?tion by Jeanette Thurber, who founded the Conservatory in 1885. At the end of his first season at this post, while he fulfilled the many obligations imposed upon him as a visiting celebrity, Dvorak completed his Symphony No. 9 (The New World). By the beginning of the summer of 1893, unhappy with New York, he eagerly accepted an invitation instigated by his friend Joseph Kovafik to visit the small farming commu?nity of Bohemian immigrants in Spillville, Iowa. The entire Dvorak family, accompa?nied by personal servants, arrived there early on June 5. Three days later, the com?poser began work on a new string quartet. Ordinarily a slow worker, Dvorak finished the sketches for the quartet by June 11. On June 23, the composer, playing the violin, and three students read through the final score. Refreshed and happy with himself, Dvorak returned to New York to complete his second season in the city. The Kneisel Quartet gave the formal "official" premiere in Boston on January 1, 1894.
The String Quartet in F Major, following closely upon the heels of Symphony No. 9, is one of Dvorak's best-known chamber works. It is constructed in the classical four-move?ment form of the traditional string quartets set by Haydn.
The "Lento" is like an emotional but wistful aria whose underlying pulsating sounds impart a sense of longing. The music starts quietly, and builds gradually to an im?passioned climax before fading quietly away.
Utro (Morning), Op. 4, No. 1 Etude-Tableau in C Major, Op. 33, No. 2
Etude-Tableau in e-flat minor. Op. 39, No. 5
Aleko: Two Scenes Sergei Rachmaninoff
Born April 1, 1873 in Semyonovo, Russia Died March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills
Rachmaninoff was a remarkable artist who gained international distinction early in the twentieth century as a virtuoso pianist, composer and conductor. Today he is remembered as a composer of symphonic music, piano concerti, and solo piano pieces that are widely performed and recorded. However, there is another dimension of Rachmaninoff as a composer of romantic songs and opera that we shall be privileged to sample in tonight's program.
Rachmaninoff came from an aristocratic musical family. Both his grandfather and father were accomplished amateur pianists. As a talented young boy, Sergei was encour?aged to study the piano and prepare for a professional career when the family fortunes began to disappear. He won a scholarship to the St. Petersburg Conservatory at age nine and studied there, rather half-heartedly, for the next three years. With the threat of the loss of his scholarship at age twelve, Rachmaninoff, on the instigation of his mother, shifted to study with Nikolay Zverev (1832-93). Zverev, a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, was recommended as one who could instill the extra discipline needed by the youngster for serious study to develop a musical career. After taking con?trol of his education for the next several years, Zverev enrolled Rachmaninoff as his pupil in the Moscow Conservatory in 1888 at age fifteen. There, Rachmaninoff studied composition with Taneyev and Arensky and had the opportunity to meet Tchaikovsky,
whom he impressed with his talents. By the age of twenty, Rachmaninoff had already composed some piano pieces, his first piano concerto, two trios for piano and strings, an opera (Aleko), some orchestral works (includ?ing The Rock), and a set of songs (Op. 4), from which we will hear the second.
"Morning," Op. 4, No. 2, is set to a short poem by M.L. Yanov. "I love you, daybreak whispered to the day" as the sun rises and one's "most cherished dreams" are fulfilled.
The next set of Rachmaninoff's works to be presented tonight are pieces he had written for the solo piano, one from each of the two sets of Etudes-Tableaux. The first, Etude-Tableau in C Major, Op. 33, No. 2, was written around a lyrical melody. Despite the flying fingers, the piece has an airiness and bell-like quality. The second, Etude-Tableau in e-flat minor, Op. 39, No. 5, is a longer work with a sonorous base in the vein of the composer's popular preludes. The music takes on a melodic character in its middle section which overlays the clusters of chords before the music slows to its end.
The last of the Rachmaninoff works pre?sented tonight are from his one-act opera, Aleko. This opera was written by Rachmaninoff as a final examination for his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892. Three Moscow Conservatory students, qual?ified to graduate from the Conservatory, had been given the assignment to compose a work to the libretto by Vladimir Nemirovich-Dachenko (1853-1943), dramatist of the Moscow Art Theater, based on Pushkin's dramatic poem The Gypsies. Rachmaninoff, who was already fascinated with gypsy music and gypsy musicians, eagerly took hold of the assignment and completed the task in less than twenty-four days, well ahead of his fellow students. The opera had its premiere on April 27, 1893, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
The story is about the tragic emotional experience of its hero, Aleko, who, disillu-
sioned with society, seeks life closer to nature as a member of a wandering gypsy tribe. He falls in love with the gypsy girl Zemfira but eventually kills her in a fit of jealousy. The tribal elders punish him by casting him out of the company of "free" men, condemning him to return to the formal society that he so hates.
The first excerpt to be heard is the duet from the scene at the cradle after Zemfira sends off her young lover before the jealous Aleko appears. She confesses her love for the young gypsy and her hatred for Aleko, her husband. She is defiant and does not fear the death that faces her. Aleko, disturbed by Zemfira's vehement confession, expresses' exasperation over her openly admitting to her betrayal as if she were merely singing a cradlesong to calm the baby.
The famous "Cavatina" by Aleko follows after Zemfira leaves. In this aria, Aleko recalls his joy in the freedom of gypsy life and the early passion of his love with Zemfira. He is pained and bewildered by her coldness.
Imitation of Albeniz
Rodion Shchedrin
Born December 16, 1932 in Moscow
Shchedrin, who taught at the Moscow Conservatory in the late 1960s, was a student at the Conservatory from 1950-55 where he studied composition under Yuri Shaporin (1887-1966). He is considered a specialist in Russian folk music of the various regions of the Federation but was known outside of Russia chiefly for his ballets and a popular Carmen Suite that he transcribed from Bizet's opera for strings and percussion. In addition to the ballets, his principal compo?sitions include two operas, two symphonies and other orchestral works, piano concerti, chamber works, piano pieces, and a variety
of vocal and choral compositions. More recently, the composer has experimented with avant-garde techniques in a number of his works.
The Imitation ofAlbeniz is a brief work originally written for piano. It has been arranged for trumpet and piano (by T. Dokshizer) and, as will be heard tonight, for violin and piano in an arrangement by Tsyganov. It has also been arranged for orchestra featuring a percussion ensemble. The work, as its title suggests, attempts to capture the intricate Spanish rhythmic patterns of the music by Albeniz.
Concerto for Violin, Piano and String
Quartet, Op. 21 (excerpt) Ernest Chausson
Born January 20, 1855 in Paris, France Died June 10, 1899 in Limay, near Mantes
Chausson was the son of a wealthy, land?owning contractor. At the urging of his par?ents he earned a degree in law in 1877 at the University of Paris, but being financially independent he had no need to earn his living. His interests seemed to lie in the arts and, after hearing the music of Wagner at a concert in Munich, he decided on music as a possible career. In 1879 he entered the Paris Conservatory to study composition under Massenet and organ with Cesar Franck. After a few months he withdrew from the Conservatory and enrolled as a private student of Franck. By 1880 he was involved with a group of composers identi?fied as the "bande a Franck''
After his marriage in 1882 and settling down in an elegant Parisian estate to raise a family, Chausson began to host artists and musicians and began promoting the publi?cation of the works of the members of National Music Society (founded by Saint-Saens). Still, he struggled with his own com-
positions and their publication. He had an obsessive drive for perfection and suffered from an enveloping fear that he could not find the "right note." He often wrote about the "horror of the blank page." As a result he published fewer than fifty works during his entire career of almost twenty years, which was brought to a sudden end in a bicycle accident in 1899. Among his published works are the Symphony in B-flat Major, Poeme, eleven groups of songs, pieces for piano, cello, and clarinet and four chamber works. The Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, one of these chamber works, was begun in 1889 and is considered by many to be one of Chausson's masterpieces.
In tonight's concert we shall hear the "Finale" of this four-movement work. Marked Tres anime, the movement offers variations built around a single theme. The breathless first section is dominated by the piano. The music works through the varia?tions with alternate emphases by strings and piano that hint of the music of Cesar Franck. A triumphant-sounding coda concludes the piece, notwithstanding the composer's remark that he is said to have uttered when he finished writing the final measure: "Encore une oeuvre rateer (Another fail?ure!). Posterity judges otherwise.
Program notes by Arthur Canter.

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chaikovsky. Rimsky-Korsakov. Rachmaninoff. Prokofiev. Shostakovich. Names that resonate and stir with echoes of the Russian spirit. A heritage unimaginable to most societies embodied in one singular institution--a seminal proving ground for the some of the greatest musical talents and visionaries of the past two centuries--the St. Petersburg Conservatory. The current virtuosi of this venerable academy are par?ticipating in a rare North American tour in anticipation of the 300th anniversary of the founding of St.'Petersburg by Tsar Peter the Great. A select delegation of twelve repre?sentatives who embody the passion, spirit and soul of this incredible legacy are partici?pating in a dynamic program dedicated to the tradition and artistry of St. Petersburg and Mother Russia.
Established in 1862, the St. Petersburg Conservatory claimed among the members of its first graduating class Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Generations of prodigious talents would follow, each embarking on a rigorous and demanding course of study and instruction blending the high ideal of preserving tradition with a progressive exploration of musical styles from the folkloric to the radically modern. The Conservatory's alumni have successively garnered interna?tional renown as some of the world's most influential and important musical talents-as composers, conductors, musicians, and singers. Maestri Yuri Temirkanov, Valery Gergiev, Vladislav Chernushenko, Maris Yanson, and Yuri Simonov; pianist Grigory Sokolov; and singers Olga Borodina, Galina Gorchakova, Yelena Obraztsova, and Yevgeny Nesterenko are just a few of the countless stars of music who trace their roots to the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
The 2001 commemorative tour consists of a series of exclusive residencies at academic and cultural institutions across America, featuring an exceptional group of advanced
and graduating students from the Conservatory, as well as postgraduates. Each three-day residency comprises lecture-demonstrations and workshops, as well as pedagogic and musicology programs, culmi?nating in an evening-length concert that showcases the richness of the Conservatory's history and the St. Petersburg musical style, as well as the specific musical talents of the touring ensemble. Musical selections range from well-known recital pieces to selections of the Russian repertoire in tribute to the Conservatory's lasting compositional legacy and influence. Performing as soloists and in traditional chamber settings, these dynamic young people offer a mainstage program ? that captures the energy, romance, and spirit of St. Petersburg and its distinguished Conservatory.
@@@@V
ladislav Chernushenko is a unique personality in the world of music conductors. His talent and enormous efficiency allow him with equal success to conduct opera and ballet presentations, symphony, chamber, vocal and instrumental, and choir concerts, as well as to deliver lectures, to run a conducting class, to organize and manage festivals and competitions, and to lead the two oldest Russian professional musical institutions--the St. Petersburg Capella and the State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory.
Vladislav Chernushenko was born in 1936 in Leningrad. He acquired his musical edu?cation in the Choir College at the Leningrad Capella and in the Leningrad Conservatory, which he graduated from in 1958 having specialized at the choir-conductor faculty. In 1967 he finished the faculty of opera and symphony conducting and completed his postgraduate course work in the same department under the guidance of Professor I. Mussin in 1970. In 1962 Mr. Chernushenko organized the Leningrad Chamber Choir,
which gained European recognition with time. He headed this choir ensemble for seventeen years. In those years he often appeared as a conductor of symphony and chamber concerts, produced a number of performances in the Opera Studio of the Conservatory, and for five years worked in the position of second conductor of the Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera and Ballet Theatre (now the Mussorgsky Opera Theatre).
In 1974, Vladislav Chernushenko became Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Capella of St. Petersburg. Over a short period of time he virtually revived the cele?brated Russian singers' group, which was then surviving a deep crisis in its creative activity. It is mainly Chernushenko's merit that has raised prohibitions and brought back Russian spiritual music to concert per?formance activity within Russia. Under the leadership of Chernushenko, the Capella's repertoire regained wealth and diversity: oratorios, cantatas, masses, concert produc?tions of operas, works of composers of vari?ous epochs and styles and, especially, modern Russian composers. A special place in the choir's repertoire belongs to the music of Sviridov.
Since 1979, Chernushenko has been Rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the oldest of Russia's higher music schools.
Alongside with the most distinguished contemporary Russian musicians, Chernushenko has been the recipient of the highest and honorary national titles and prizes.
Tonight's performance marks Vladilav Chernushenko's UMS debut.
The Nevsky Quartet was founded in 1995 by students of the St. Petersburg Conservatory: Tatyana Razumova, Anna Tchizhyk, Vladimir Bystritsky, and Dimitry Khrychev.
Since its founding, the members of the Quartet have extensively concertized in Russia and Europe. They have actively participated in many prestigious musical festivals, summer music academies, and competitions, such as the Joseph Ioachim Competition in Weimar and the Chamber Music Competition in Enschede the Netherlands. Their awards include "Third Prize" and "Special Prize" for the best per?formance of Russian music from the Fourth International Shostakovich Competition for String Quartets, the "Second Prize" and "Special Prize" for the best performance of select Schubert compositions from the Third International Competition entitled "Franz Schubert and Twentieth Century Music" held in Graz, Austria. The Quartet studied at the Amadeus Summer Masterclass in London and participated in the Edinburgh Festival of Music and Art. In Great Britain the Quartet made record?ings for BBC Radio. In May 1998 the Nevsky Quartet recorded their first CD in Sweden.
Currently the members of the Nevsky Quartet are postgraduate students of Professor Andrei Drogadin, who serves as Artistic Director of the ensemble.
Tonight's performance marks the Nevsky Quartet's VMS debut.
Piotr Laul was born in Leningrad to a family with strong musical backgrounds in 1977. At the age of six, he began his musical edu?cation at the Children's Musical School 9 studying piano with Yuschenko. From 1990 to 1995 he continued to major in piano at the Special Music School (attached to the Conservatory) under the tutelage of Sandier. He remained a student of the Special Music School after he entered the St. Petersburg
Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in 1995.
Mr. Laul regularly performs in the best concert halls of St. Petersburg as well as in other cities of Russia. He has worked with such renowned orchestras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has also extensively concertized in many European countries including Germany, Finland, Estonia, Spain and Belgium.
In 1995, Mr. Laul became a laureate at the International "Virtuosos of the Year 2000" in St. Petersburg. Among his other awards are "Third Prize" and "Special Prize" for the best performance of a Bach composition at the International Bremen Piano Competition in 1995, and "First Prize" and "Special Prize" for the best performance of select Schubert compositions at the same competition in 1997. In 1996 he received a scholarship from The Wagner Society (Beyreut, Germany).
Tonight's performance marks Piotr Laul's UMS debut.
Piotr Migunov was born in Leningrad in 1974. He began to study music at the Glinka Choral School where he majored in choral singing and conducting. Later, from 1992 to 1998, he studied vocal singing with Lebed at the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. Since 1993 Piotr Migunov has performed as a soloist and choral singer with St. Petersburg State Capella, one of the most renowned choruses in the world.
In collaboration with such famed orches?tras as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg State Capella Orchestra, Morav's Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Hungarian Philharmonic, Piotr Migunov has performed solo pieces in the repertoire ranging from requiems by Verdi and Mozart and Bach's Magnifikat to Messe Solennelle by Gounod, The Bells by Rachmaninoff, and operas by Tchaikovsky and Ravel.
In 1996, Piotr Migunov took part in the International Festival Gergiev-Philips in Rotterdam where he performed a solo part in The Wedding by Stravinsky. Some of his awards include "First Prize" at Tokyo International Vocal Competition in 1997 and "Fourth Prize" at the Salzburg vocal competition in 1999.
Currently, Piotr Migunov is a postgradu?ate student at the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory.
Tonight's performance marks Piotr Migunov's UMS debut.
Pavel Popov was born on April 15,1975 in Novosibirsk to a family with strong musical traditions. In 1982 he entered the Special Musical School (attached to the Conservatory) in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where he studied violin with Ivaschenko. While a stu?dent there, he began to give concerts and also to participate in international music festivals in Russia as well as abroad.
In 1993, Pavel Popov entered the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory to continue to major in violin with Professor Ivaschenko. In 1994 he became one of the prize winners of the "Virtuosos of the Year 2000" international musical competition in St. Petersburg. From 1994 to 1996 he completed a postgraduate course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied violin with Professor Neaman. In 1997, Pavel Popov became a laureate of the Tenth All-Russian Violin Competition (one of the most prestigious in Russia) and received a scholarship from the Richard Wagner Society (Beyreut, Germany). Later, he was accepted as a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which he graduated from in 1998.
Recently, Mr. Popov has extensively per?formed as a soloist in Russia, Europe, the Far East and the US. His performances have been featured on radio and on TV as well as
on several recordings. Currently, Mr. Popov is a postgraduate student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Tonight's performance marks Pavel Popov's UMS debut.
Finland and Germany and in 2001 she makes her debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Tonight's performance marks Tatiana Bezzubenkova's VMS debut.
Alexandra Kovaliova was born in St. Petersburg in 1977. She started taking music lessons at the age of six and in 1995 entered the vocal department of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory. She is currently in her third year studying in the class of Gorokhovskaya.
In 2000 she became a laureate (Third Prize) of the Dvorak International Vocal Competition in Karlovy Vary (the Czech Republic). She successfully combines studies with concert activities. She performs in the concert halls of St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia and takes part in the perfor?mances of the Opera and Ballet Theater of the conservatory.
Tonight's performance marks Alexandra Kovaliova's UMS debut.
Tatiana Bezzubenkova was born into a family of musicians in St. Petersburg in 1977. She began taking piano lessons when she was six years old. From 1983-1995 she was a student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory music school. From 1995-2000 she was a student of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory (class of Yegorov).
Currently, Ms. Bezzubenkova is taking a post-graduate course of studies specializing in chamber ensemble performance. She often performs as a soloist in recitals and ensemble concerts in St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia. She also performs together with her father Gennady Bezzubenkov, a soloist of the Mariinsky Theater. Tatiana Bezzubenkova has toured
Lidia Volchek is a graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Her teacher Vitaly Margoulis, the acclaimed pianist, pedagogue and music expert, is presently a teaching professor at Los Angeles University.
Ms. Volchek's professional career has been pursued in three directions: pedagogies, concert activities and concert management. She has obtained recognition as pedagogue and methodologist, teaching music to stu?dents of different ages for over thirty years. Her students have become laureates of dif?ferent children's and youth competitions many times. Ms. Volchek has publications on numerous issues of piano pedagogy, teaching methods and criticism. She has given lectures and made reports as well as held master classes in many cities of Russia as well as in Germany, France, Israel and America. Since 1988, Ms. Volchek has been head of the Practice Department of the St. Petersburg Conservatory and Director of the School-Studio of the Conservatory, the major base of teaching practice of the Conservatory students.
Ms. Volchek has performed with different chamber ensembles, and has made guest appearances in Germany, France and the US. In 1994-1998, in collaboration with the Catgut Acoustical Society (CAS), she was the founder, manager and concertmaster of a unique chamber ensemble called the Hutchins Violin Octet. Ms. Volchek has taken part in all of the ensembles concerts and recordings.
Since 1988, she has appeared on the Music Series of the St. Petersburg Conservatory as author, performer and manager. She has also participated in various concert projects
as well as arranged tours of the conservatory professors and students abroad. Since 1998, Ms. Volchek has been Rectors Deputy for Concert Events and Director of the Glazunov Hall.
Nina Zonina was born in St. Petersburg and graduated from St. Petersburg University, where she specialized in the history of English Literature. Her doctoral dissertation was devoted to the English drama of the seventeenth century. She currently teaches at the same university, lecturing on European literature of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. Concurrently she arranges inter?national cultural and touring programs in St. Petersburg aimed at promoting the rich cultural heritage of St. Petersburg.
David Eden is a leading producer of inter?national cultural attractions and events, who recently, in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, toured the full Bolshoi Ballet to Washington, DC, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Orange County, California, marking the company's first US tour since the end of the Soviet era. In 2000, Eden also organized the Kennedy Center's "Island: Arts from Ireland" Festival, which was applauded by critics and audiences alike, presenting premiere works and reper?tory pieces selected across the spectrum of Irish culture and art. He recently completed an independent tour of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Krapp's Last Tape fea?turing the Gate Theatre of Dublin in a month-long American visit.
As a producer of dance, theater, music, and performing arts for twenty years, David Eden has a long and distinguished history of creating cultural projects, with a particular focus on Russian music, dance, theater, and poetry. For the Kennedy Center, Eden brought the play A Hotel in the Town ofNN, based on Gogol's Dead Souls, from Moscow
to the US in the spring of 1999. In 1994, Eden toured the Maly Drama Theater of St. Petersburg in Gaudeamus to the US, includ?ing a New York City engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival. Eden also was responsible for the company's return with Brothers and Sisters for the Lincoln Center Festival 2000. Other notable recent Russian projects spearheaded by Eden include the 1998 Brooklyn Academy of Music presentation of "Tradition and Continuity," a joint program featuring principal dancers of the Kirov Ballet with the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and the 1997 Russian Village Festival, also at BAM and on a national US tour, presenting a sixty-five-person company comprising five indigenous performing ensembles sharing with American audiences the rituals, songs, music and dance of Russia's rich folk heritage.
Eden's other recent projects have included both the initiation of the Russian-American Ballet Repertory Workshop which took place at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and in Moscow, Perm, and Varronezh in Russia, as well as two three-week festivals of contemporary American dance in Moscow for the American Dance Festival, which included such companies as Pilobolus and the Paul Taylor Dance Co. He conceived and directed Silenced Voices: The Poetry of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva a series of poetry readings by the Russian actress Alia Demidova and the American actress Claire Bloom, which he toured to many US venues, and also presented students of the Moscow Conservatory in a 1998 US tour.
As artistic director of the New York City World Financial Center's Arts and Events Celebrate Russia series he produced the "St. Petersburg Festival" in 1997. In 1991 he helped produce the Soviet Theater Festival at River Arts Theater in Woodstock, NY. In a 1990 cultural exchange he presented six Russian folk arts groups at US venues such as Wolf Trap and the New York
International Festival. Other projects have included a series of Moscow residencies by prominent American modern dance artists including Martha Graham teacher Diane Gray and Merce Cunningham. In 1995, Eden was responsible for the revival of Nijinska's Les Noces for the Maly Ballet, staged in St. Petersburg and affording Russian audiences with their first opportu?nity to see this seminal ballet.
From 1987-89 Eden directed the Israel-North American Cultural Exchange, a $4 million performing arts project that brought Israeli music, theater, and dance troupes to major North American venues. During the same period he served as director of special projects for the Israel Festival in Jerusalem. David Eden was artistic director of Dance Umbrella of South Florida (1984-89) where he introduced a series of avant-garde artists to the Miami public. In Miami he also orga?nized two major dance conferences: Modernism in Dance in the Twentieth Century (1987) and the Balanchine Conference (1989). From 1987-2000, Eden served as producer of special projects at the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York City, for which projects include A Broadway Salute to Israel at the Shubert Theater, as well as the Foundation's annual awards presentations.
Eden holds a BA in Russian History and Slavic Studies from Hunter College, an MA in Russian History from Columbia University, and an MA in Slavic Studies from Yale University.
St. Petersburg Conservatory US Tour Staff
David Eden Paul W. Ruppert Lori Harrison Arthur Canter Rosie Vergilio Scott Eckas
Lidia Volchek
Nina Zonina
Producer
Tour Coordinator
Travel Arrangements
Program Notes
Visas
Legal Contracts
Head of the Department of Concert Activity, St. Petersburg Conservatory Tour Liaison and Cultural Consultant
Special thanks to Michael Brainerd, Barbara Niemczyk, Jessica Carideo, Richard Lanier, Wendy Newton, and anonymous others.
The US Tour of the St. Petersburg Conservatory is dedicated to the 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg.
Dracula
Original Music by
Philip Glass
Performed by
Philip Glass
and the
Philip Glass Ensemble
Philip Glass, Dan Dryden, Jon Gibson, Richard Peck, Michael Riesman, Eleanor Sandresky, Andrew Sterman
Sound Design Kurt Munkacsi Conducted by Michael Riesman
Program Wednesday Evening, October 31, 2001 at 8:00
Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Universal Pictures' 1931 film classic
IDracula
Dracula runs approximately eighty minutes and will be performed without intermission.
Eleventh
Performance
of the 123rd Season
Fourth Annual New Directions Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Support for this performance provided by media sponsors WEMU, WDET and Metro Times.
Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble appear by arrangement with Pomegranate Arts, Inc. For more information, please visit www.pomegranatearts.com.
Dracula, The Music and Film has been made possible with the generous support of Universal Family and Home Entertainment Productions.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Dracula
Universal Studios Presents
Bela Lugosi
in
(Dracula
with
David Manners, Helen Chandler, Dwight Frye,
Edward Van Sloan
@@@@Directed by Tod Browning
Screenplay by Garrett Fort
Based on the
novel by Bram Stoker
From the play
adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston
Produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. and Tod Browning O1931, 1999 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Please refer to page 26 for complete biographical information for Philip on Film.
Shorts
Composed by
Philip Glass
Featuring Film Shorts by
Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway, Shirin Neshat,
Godfrey Reggio and Michal Rovner
Performed by
Philip Glass
and the
Philip Glass Ensemble
Philip Glass, Dan Dryden, Jon Gibson, Richard Peck, Michael Riesman, Eleanor Sandresky, Andrew Sterman
Guest Musicians Frank Cassara, Marie Mascari,
Alexandra Montano, Mick Rossi, Peter Stewart
Sound Design Kurt Munkacsi Musical Direction Michael Riesman
Conceived and
Developed by Linda Greenberg-Brumbach
Thursday Evening, November 1, 2001 at 8:00 Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Shorts
The Man In The Bath (2001)
Peter Greenaway
Passage (2001)
Shirin Neshat
Diaspora (2001)
Atom Egoyan
Excerpts from America America by kind permission of Elia Kazan.
Evidence (1995)
Godfrey Reggio
Notes (2001)
Michal Rovner
Anima Mundi (1992) Godfrey Reggio
Shorts runs approximately eighty minutes and will be performed without intermission.
Please refer to page 26 for complete biographical information for Philip on Film.
Twelfth Performance of the 123rd Season
Fourth Annual
New Directions Series
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such pho?tographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Support for this performance provided by media sponsors WEMU, WDET and Metro Times.
Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble appear by arrangement with Pomegranate Arts, Inc. For more information, please visit www.pomegranatearts.com.
The live performance of Shorts was commissioned in part by the Barbican Centre, London; the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland; and with the generous support of Leslie Durst.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Koyaanisqatsi
Music Composed by
Philip Glass
Directed by
Godfrey Reggio
Photography by
Ron Fricke
Edited by
Alton WalpoleRon Fricke
Performed by
Philip Glass
and the
Philip Glass Ensemble
Philip Glass, Dan Dryden, Jon Gibson, Richard Peck, Michael Riesman, Eleanor Sandresky, Andrew Sterman
Guest Musicians Marie Mascari, Alexandra Montano, Mick Rossi, Peter Stewart
Sound Design by Kurt Munkacsi Conducted by Michael Riesman
Film Produced by IRE
Program Friday Evening, November 2, 2001 at 8:00
Saturday Evening, November 3, 2001 at 8:00 Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi runs approximately eighty-five minutes and will be performed without intermission.
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Performances of the 123rd Season
Fourth Annual
New Directions Series
Support for this performance provided by media sponsors WEMU, WDET and Metro Times.
Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble appear by arrangement with Pomegranate Arts, Inc. For more information, please visit www.pomegranatearts.com.
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Large print programs are available upon request.
P
hilip Glass (Composer, Keyboards), born in Baltimore, Maryland, dis?covered music in his father's radio repair shop. Glass began studies on the violin at age six and became serious about music when he took up the flute at eight. During his second year in high school, he applied for admission to the University of Chicago, was accepted and, with his parent's encouragement, moved to Chicago where he supported himself with part-time jobs waiting tables and loading airplanes at airports. He majored in mathe?matics and philosophy.
By the time he was twenty-three, Glass had studied with Vincent Persichetti, Darius Milhaud and William Bergsma. He had rejected serialism and preferred such maver?ick composers as Harry Partch, Charles Ives, Moondog, Henry Cowell and Virgil Thomson, but he still had not found his own voice. Still searching, he moved to Paris and had two years of intensive study under Nadia Boulanger.
In Paris, he was hired by a filmmaker to transcribe the Indian music of Ravi Shankar. In the process, Glass discovered the techniques of Indian music and promptly renounced his previous music and began applying eastern techniques to his own work. By 1974, he had composed a large collec?tion of new music, much of it for use by the theater company Mabou Mines (co-founded by Glass), and most of it composed for his own performing group, the Philip Glass Ensemble. This period culminated in Music in 12 Parts, a four-hour summation of Glass' new music, and reached their apogee in 1976 with the Philip GlassRobert Wilson opera Einstein on the Beach, the four-and-a-half-hour epic now seen as a landmark in twentieth-century music-theater.
Glass' output since Einstein has ranged from opera, to symphonic and chamber works, to music for dance, theater, and film. Recent critically acclaimed film projects
include: Kundun, directed by Martin Scorsese and scored by Philip Glass (1998 LA Critics Award; Academy, Golden Globe and Grammy nominations for "Best Original Score") and original music for The Truman Show directed by Peter Weir (1999 Golden Globe Award for "Best Score").
Current projects include: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, commissioned for Julian Lloyd Webber's fiftieth birthday, world premiere at the Beijing Festival in October 2001; Symphony No. 6, libretto from poetry by Allen Ginsberg, world premiere at Carnegie Hall by the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies in February 2002; Galileo, a collabo?ration with director Mary Zimmerman, commissioned by the Goodman Theater in Chicago, world premiere June 2002; and Naqoyqatsi, the third film of the GlassReggio trilogy, scheduled for release in fall 2002.
Philip on Film marks Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble's third, fourth, fifth, and sixth appearances under UMS auspices.
Frank Cassara (Percussion) has performed around the world with groups such as the New MusicConsortPULSE, Newband Harry Partch Ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the Philip Glass Ensemble, including festivals in Japan, Iceland, Taiwan, Mexico, Hong Kong, Europe, South America and Australia. He is a member of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and Riverside Symphony, and is principal of the Connecticut Grand Opera. He has appeared as soloist with the NorthSouth Consonance and Inoue Chamber Ensemble, and has performed with the Manhattan Marimba Quartet, Talujon Percussion Quartet, and for the Broadway shows Sound of Music, Lion King and The Music Man. He is on the faculty of Long Island University and Vassar College. Mr. Cassara has recorded for Nonesuch, Albany, Point, Mode, and CRI Records, played for major film releases and appears in a documentary about John Cage.
Dan Dryden (Live Sound Mix) has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1983. He has mixed performances of PGE concerts, The Photographer, Descent into the Maelstrom, Einstein on the Beach (1984,1993), WOO Airplanes on the Roof, Koyaanisqatsi (Live), Powaqqatsi (Live), La Belle et La Bete, Les Enfants Terribles and Hydrogen Jukebox. In other live performance work he has worked with Lloyd Cole, Laurie Anderson, Ravi Shankar, the Raybeats and others. In the studio, he has recorded The Photographer, Satyagraha and Mishima as well as the works of other artists. As curator, he over?sees the collection of Emery Blagdon, the late visionary artist who created his Healing Machines in Nebraska from 1954-1986.
Jon Gibson (Woodwinds) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist who has taken part in numerous landmark musi?cal events over the past three-and-a-half decades. He has performed in the early
works of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young and Philip Glass, with whom he con?tinues to perform and collaborate in various configurations, along with a host of other musicians, choreographers and artists including Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, Nancy Topf, JoAnne Akalaitis and Simone Forti. Current projects and perfor?mances include collaborations with the Nina Winthrop Dance Company, Harold Budd, David Behrman, Thomas Buckner, Elisabetta Vittoni, Hetty King and Maria Sanchez. Gibson recently received a NYSCA grant to compose a music-theater work about the inventor Tesla, with libretto by Miriam Seidel. Gibson's music and visual work has been performed and exhibited throughout the world. His music can be heard on the New Tone, Point Music, Lovely Music, EarRational Records and Einstein Records labels. Additional information and his visual work can be found online at www.artabounds.com.
Marie Mascari (Keyboards, Voice) is pleased to continue her association with Philip Glass that began with the 1998 world tour oi Monsters of Grace. She has also performed in La Belle et la Bete, Koyaanisqatsi (Live) and excerpts from Symphony No. 5. Recently Ms. Mascari performed Judy GarlandSiamese Twin 1 in the Lincoln Center's US premiere of the GlassWilson collaboration White Raven. Past perfor?mances include Servilia (La Clemenza di Tito) and Papagena {Die Zauberflote) with the Wolf Trap Opera Company, and Lillian Russell (The Mother of Us All) with Glimmerglass Opera. In concert, she has appeared as a soloist at Avery Fischer Hall, Merkin Hall, and at the TodiMusicFest in Todi, Italy. A Metropolitan Opera regional finalist, Ms. Mascari is a recipient from the Shoshana Foundation.
Alexandra Montano (Keyboards, Voice) sings frequently in opera houses and on concert stages on four continents. A cham?pion of contemporary music, she toured the role of Belle in Philip Glass' La Belle et la Bete in the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe, and sang the title role in Tan Dun's opera Marco Polo in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and recorded it for Sony Classics. An extremely versatile artist, she made her Broadway debut in the fall of 1996 in Juan Darien and sang The Difficulties in Crossing the Field composed by David Lang for the Kronos Quartet at the San Francisco Repertory Theater in April 1999. She has performed and toured music of the medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods with the Waverly Consort, Voices of Ascension, and Concert Royal. This past season she performed Rameau's Pygmalion and a Clerambault Cantata with Concert Royal in Florence Gould Hall, Messiah at The Cathedral St. John The Divine and per?formed Into the Fire, a new piece by Phil Kline, at the Kitchen. This past spring marked her debut at Avery Fischer Hall singing Bach's Mass in b minor with Musica Sacra. This summer Ms. Montano played keyboards and sang for Philip Glass in Singapore and at the Lincoln Center Festival, and was featured in performances of contemporary chamber music in Austria with the Paul Klee String Quartet.
Kurt Munkacsi (Sound Design), president of Euphorbia Productions, has been on the leading edge of music for the past thirty years. His long-time association with com?poser Philip Glass is well known. Mr. Munkacsi has produced all of Glass' com?mercial recordings. He also designed the sophisticated sound systems used for such Glass theatrical works as Einstein on the Beach, Koyaanisqatsi, La Belle et La Bete and Monsters of Grace. Euphorbia Productions is involved in all aspects of contemporary
music: producing soundtracks for such noted directors as Martin Scorsese, Peter Weir, Errol Morris, Paul Schrader and Godfrey Reggio; a joint venture with Polygram International, Point Music; build?ing a state-of-the-art forty-eight track digi?tal recording studio in New York City, Looking Glass Studios; and producing CDs for companies such as Sony Classical, Nonesuch Records, Elektra Entertainment, Virgin Records, Island Records, and A&M Records. In 1998, the musical score he pro?duced for Scorsese's Kundun, received Academy Award and Golden Globe Nominations for "Best Original Score," and won the L.A. Film Critics award for "Best MusicScore." For Munkacsi's complete discography, please visit www.allmusic.com.
Richard Peck (Woodwinds), saxophonist, composer and visual artist, arrived in New York City in August of 1971. He soon met Philip Glass and joined the Philip Glass Ensemble. Mr. Peck has performed in the premieres of Einstein on the Beach, Dance, The Photographer, Descent Into the Maelstrom, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, Hydrogen Jukebox, Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Beauty and the Beast and Monsters of Grace. Mr. Glass uses Mr. Peck not only as a section player but also in the role of improviser in selected pieces. As a composer, Mr. Peck's activities have includ?ed scoring the Eye and Ear Theatre's staging of Picasso's Desire Caught By the Tail, two soundtracks for the Marc Kazamarak videos Life of the Imagination and Tai Chi New York, music for performances by the dancer Nancy Lewis and a score for Susan Osberg's SideShow. In addition to the previously mentioned activities, Mr. Peck has per?formed andor recorded with David "Fathead" Newman, Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, Michael Oldfield, Public Enemy, Lexi, Richard Landry, Jon Gibson, Paul Schaeffer, The Raybeats, Mickey Roker, Ron
McClure, Michael Gibb, Leo Smith, Ricky Sebastian and Paul Butterfield. He studied music at Hunter College.
Michael Riesman (Conductor, Keyboards) is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, and record producer, and has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1974. He has conducted many Glass works including Einstein on the Beach (both recordings), Glassworks, The Photographer, Songs From Liquid Days, Dance Pieces, Music in 12 Parts (both recordings), Passages, Koyaanisqatsi (both recordings), Mishima, Powaqqatsi, The Thin Blue Line, Anitna Mundi, A Brief History of Time, Candyman, Kundun and The Truman Show. He has received two Grammy nominations as conductor, for The Photographer and for Kundun. He has con?ducted and performed on albums by Paul Simon {Hearts and Bones), Scott Johnson {Patty Hearst), Mike Oldfield {Platinum), Ray Manzarek {Carmina Burana), David Bowie (BlackTieWhite Noise), and Gavin Bryars {Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet). Mr. Riesman released an album, Formal Abandon, on the Rizzoli label, which origi?nated from a commission by choreographer Lucinda Childs. He collaborated with Robert Wilson on Edison (New York, Paris, and Milan). His film scores include Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Pleasantville (1976), and Christian Blackwood's Signed: Lino Brocka. Mr. Riesman studied at Mannes College of Music and Harvard University, where he received a PhD, and has taught at Harvard and SUNY-Purchase. He was Composer-in-Residence at the Marlboro Music Festival and at the Tanglewood Festival, where he has conducted performances of his own works.
Mick Rossi (Keyboards, Percussion), pianistcomposerpercussionist, has per?formed and recorded with Alex Acuna, Steve
Bernstein, Billy Drewes, Dave Douglas, Kermit Driscoll, Peter Erskine, Vinny Golia, Eddie Gomez, Pat Martino, Leo Smith and Cuong Vu. He has also toured andor recorded with popular artists Angela Bofill, Natalie Cole, Ry Cooder, Roger Daltry, Hall and Oates, Jewel, Randy Newman and Carly Simon. Critically acclaimed new releases as leader include They Have A Word For Everything (Knitting Factory Works) and Inside The Sphere (Cadence Jazz). Three new recording projects include his score for the film Nosferatu, Abstractus with Gerry Hemingway and Todd Reynolds, and New Math with Russ Johnson. Broadway credits as keyboardistconductor include The Who's Tommy and Jekyll and Hyde. He has also scored andor orchestrated films for ABC, NBC, FOX and A&E and has made appear?ances on PBS, Lifetime, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, VH-1, MTV and Late Night with David Letterman.
Eleanor Sandresky (Keyboards, Voice) is a composer and pianist. Her compositions range from solo instrumental virtuoso works and larger concert works, to cabaret songs and evening-length collaborations. She performs evenings of her own music for solo piano and multi-media at venues around New York and throughout the US. Her extensive involvement with dance has resulted in collaborative, commissioned, and improvisational works that have been pre?sented by a variety of New York venues. Her music is performed regularly in New York, and has recently been performed in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The Village Voice described her music as "...witty, liber?ating..." Since 1991, Eleanor has performed extensively in the US and abroad with the Philip Glass Ensemble, and has served as guest music director for the new-music group Twisted Tutu. Currently, she is co-producer with Lisa Bielawa, of the new-music series MATA (Music at the
Anthology), and a founding member of the performance collective Exploding Music.
Andrew Sterman (Woodwinds) has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1991. In 1995, Mr. Sterman gave the world premiere of a thirty-minute piece by Philip Glass for unaccompanied saxophonist. He has also performed or recorded with the Houston Grand Opera, EOS Orchestra (soloist), International Society for Contemporary Music (featured soloist), American Composers Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, and the New York Festival of Song, as well as with Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Aretha Franklin, The Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Rashied Ali, Fred Hersch, Pharaoh Sanders, Ron Carter, Wallace Roney, Teo Macero, and Dr. John. Mr. Sterman composes music for his own chamber ensemble. He has lectured on woodwind techniques, improvisation and his own innovative breathing practices at the Universities of Miami, Melbourne and Western Australia, Oberlin Conservatory, and at the City University of New York Graduate School of Music. Mr. Sterman has recorded for Sony Classical, CRI, Columbia, Vox, ElektraNonesuch, Koch and Warner Brothers.
Peter Stewart (Keyboards, Voice) For the past few seasons, baritone Peter Stewart has created many new works in collaboration with composers. He has toured extensively in Europe, Australia, Asia and North America with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in Einstein on the Beach, Monsters of Grace, The White Raven, and La Belle et la Bete; and has joined the Philip Glass Ensemble at the keyboards in Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Anima Mundi. Mr. Stewart has also created roles and recorded many new operas for Gavin BryarsRobert Wilson,
Julius Hemphill, Anthony Braxton, Meredith Monk, Fred Ho, Harry Partch and Hans Werner Henze. Mr. Stewart has performed with many orchestras and opera companies, including the Calgary Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the New Haven Symphony, Santa Fe Opera and Opera Roanoke. Mr. Stewart has also per?formed early music for many years, partici?pating frequently in festivals in Holland, Germany, Italy, Belgium and North America. He has toured and recorded with the Waverly Consort, Pomerium and Concert Royal. He lives with his wife, dancer and writer Maria de Lourdes Davila.
Tod Browning (Director, Dracula), once considered to be "the Edgar Allen Poe of the cinema," turned to directing after working in the circus, vaudeville and as a film actor. His early films, for Metro and Universal, have been described as routine melodramas and did little to advance his career. It was Browning's collaborations with Lon Chaney that pulled him from the rank and file to a position as one of Hollywood's bankable directors. Much of Browning's reputation as one of the top directors of horror films rests on the Chaney Silents (The Unholy Three, 1925; The Road To Mandalay, 1926; The Unknown, 1927; etc.). With his expressive makeup and physical contortions, little doubt remains that the creative force behind the films was Chaney himself. Dracula (1931), originally planned as a Chaney vehi?cle before his untimely death, succeeds largely because of a performance: Bela Lugosi's distant, stylized portrayal of the vampire conveys an elegance that is unri?valed among horror-film villains. Similarly, Freaks (1932) achieved its early infamy and current cult status through its use of real circus "freaks," who command a voyeuristic appeal.
Browning's other sound horror films include: Mark Of The Vampire (1935); A Remake Of London After Midnight, featuring Mr. Lugosi and the ethereal Carol Borland as a "vampire" couple; and The Devil-Doll (1936), starring Lionel Barrymore. He retired from the cinema in 1939 and died in 1962.
Atom Egoyan (Director, Diaspora) was born in Cairo in 1960, and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. He moved to Toronto in 1978 to study classical guitar and interna?tional relations at the University of Toronto's Trinity College. Egoyan has writ?ten and directed a body of work in film, television and theatre, which has been acclaimed throughout the world. He has won many awards, including the Grand Prix and the International Critics' Award at the Cannes Film Festival, five Genies, and two Academy AwardO nominations. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier dans VOrdre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and a recipient of the Anahid Literary Award from the Armenian Centre at Columbia University.
Egoyan's most recent work includes the feature films Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Felicia's Journey, as well as the screen adaptation of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, shot in Dublin, starring John Hurt. His operas include Salome for the Canadian Opera Company, which was also mounted by Houston Grand Opera and Vancouver Opera. He wrote the libretto for, and direct?ed the opera Elsewhereless (composed by Rodney Sharman) for Tapestry Music Theatre and directed Dr. Ox's Experiment for English National Opera. His films have been presented at numerous retrospectives internationally (including the National Film Theatre in London, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York), and his installations have been shown at the Venice Biennale, the
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Le Fresnoy, and the Oxford Museum of Modern Art.
Egoyan is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has received honorary doctorates from universi?ties across Canada. He lives in Toronto with actress Arsinee Khanjian.
Peter Greenaway (Director, The Man in the Bath) was born in England, where he trained as a painter. In 1965, he began work?ing as a film editor for the Central Office of Information, making his first film the fol?lowing year. He directed a number of short films, including A Walk Through H (1978, awarded the Chicago Hugo Award) and Act Of God (1981), which won prizes at the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals. His first feature film The Falls (1980) received the BFI Award and the L'Age d'Or in Brussels. Greenaway's best-known films include The Draughtsman's Contract (1982); A Zed and Two Noughts (1986); The Belly of an Architect (1987); Drowning by Numbers (1988, nominated for "Best Artistic Contribution" at the Cannes Film Festival); The Cook, The Thief His Wife and Her Lover (1989); Prospero's Books (1991); The Baby of Macon (1993); The Pillow Book (1995); and most recently 8 12 Women.
In 1991 he collaborated with Louis Andriessen for BBC and AVRO television on the six-episode musical documentary M is for Man, Music, and Mozart. He created the production Rosos, for which he was awarded the 1992 Dance Screen Prize at the Monnaie Theatre in Brussels, with choreography by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and music by Bela Bartok. In 1993 he made a documen?tary for English television on four American composers: John Cage, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, and Meredith Monk.
Greenaway has also created various installations, including 100 Objects to Represent the World (Vienna 1992), Some
Organizing Principles (Swansea 1993), Cosmology at the Piazza del Popalo (Rome 1996), and Flying Over Water (Barcelona 1997). Recent exhibitions have been pre?sented at the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery (New York), Case d'Arte (Milan), and the Istanbul Film Festival. His work was fea?tured in two separate group exhibitions in 1996, at Feezeframe (London) and the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
His most recent music-theater project is 100 Objects to Represent the World--A Prop Oprea to music by Jean Baptiste Barriere. This production was premiered in 1997 at the Zeittlluss Festival in Salzburg and subse?quently toured Europe and South America. The world premiere of Rosa, A Horse Drama marked Greenaway's debut both as a libret?tist and opera director. The production was revived and televised in an adapted version in 1998. His opera, Writing to Vermeer opened in Amsterdam in December 1999 with subsequent performance in Adelaide, Australia and the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City in 2000.
Shirin Neshat (Director, Passage) was born in Qazvin in 1957 and now lives in New York City. She is an Iranian visual artist who has gained recognition for her photography and film and video installations, working through a variety of textural material, to express complex philosophical ideas behind contemporary Islam. Winner of numerous awards, including most recently the Grand Prix of the Kwangju Biennale in Korea (2000), and the Golden Lion Award, the First International Prize at the forty-eighth Venice Biennale (1999).
Shirin Neshat has exhibited widely in major European and American cities. Among her most recent solo exhibitions include, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York (2001), Kanazawa Contemporary Art Museum, Kanazawa, Japan (2001),
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany (2001), the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2000), The Serpentine Gallery, London (2000), The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2000), The Art Institute of Chicago, (1999) and The Tate Gallery, London (1998). She has been included in numerous international exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial (2000), Biennale of Sydney (2000), Lyon Biennial (2000), Carnegie International (1999), and the Istanbul Biennale (1995, 1997).
Ms. Neshat regularly participates in film festivals internationally such as the San Francisco Film Festival (2001), the Rotterdam Film Festival (1998,1999) and the Telluride Film Festival (2000). She served as a member of the jury at the Locarno Film Festival (2000).
Shirin Neshat has won critical acclaim and has been featured in major internation?al publications such as The New York Times, Art Forum, Bomb Magazine, Flash Art, The Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, and Art News. Many of these reviews and articles have focused on Shirin Neshat's preoccupation with the representation of feminism, the veil and the interaction between so-called tradi?tional and modern values, which have led her to produce intense and sometimes explosive work. Shirin Neshat is currently represented by the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York City.
Godfrey Reggio (Director, Anima Mundi, Evidence, Koyaanisqatsi) is an inventor of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audi?ences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his Qatsi trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicles the destructive impact of the modern world on the environment. Reggio, who spent fourteen years in silence and prayer while studying to be a monk, has a history of service not only to the environment but also to youth street
gangs, the poor, and the community. Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in south?west Louisiana, Reggio entered the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic pontifical order, at the age of fourteen. He spent fourteen years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the sixties, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school and college. In 1963, he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe, and La Gente, a community organizing pro?ject in Northern New Mexico's barrios. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research. In 1974 and 1975, with funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior.
Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio's debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the Qatsi trilogy. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance." Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apoc?alyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds--urban life and technology versus the environment. Philip Glass composed the musical score.
Powaqqatsi, Reggio's second film, conveys a humanist philosophy about the earth, the encroachment of technology on nature and ancient cultures, and the splendor that dis?appears as a result. The film focuses on the modern way of life and the concept of the Global Village, entwining the distinctive tex?tures of ancient and Third World cultures. Powaqqatsi was co-written, co-produced and directed by Reggio with the score composed by Philip Glass between 1985 and 1987.
In 1991, Reggio directed Anima Mundi, a film commissioned by Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company, for the World Wide Fund for Nature that used the film for its Biological Diversity Program. Accompanied by the music of Philip Glass, the twenty-eight minute Anima Mundi is a montage of intimate images of over seventy animal species that celebrates the magnificence and variety of the world's fauna.
In 1993, Reggio was invited to develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media being founded by the Benetton Company. Called Fabrica--Future, Present, it opened in May 1995 in Treviso, Italy, just outside of Venice. While serving as the initial director of the school through 1995, Reggio co-authored the seven-minute film Evidence, which provides another point of view to observe the subtle but profound effects of modern living on children.
Godfrey Reggio is currently writing, co-producing and directing Naqoyqatsi, the final film of the Qatsi trilogy, and is a fre?quent lecturer on philosophy, technology and film. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For additional information, please visit www.koyaanisqatsi.org.
Michal Rovner (Director, Notes), born in Tel Aviv in 1957, studied cinema, television, and philosophy at Tel Aviv University and received a BFA in Photography from the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem. In 1978 she co-founded the Camera Obscura Art School in Tel Aviv, a leading school for pho?tography, video, cinema, and computer art in Israel. Since 1988 she has lived and worked in New York City.
Working on canvas, paper, plastic, photographic paper, and with paint, ink, computers, still and video cameras, Rovner produces objects that correspond to paint?ing, drawing, printmaking, photography and filmmaking. But, the work defies classi-
fication by medium. Like filmmaking, it involves staging, directing, producing, and editing. She places people in landscapes, staging and recording them on film or videotape. Images are printed on a variety of surfaces, then perhaps further edited, transformed, and manipulated. Her exacting experiments with new techniques and processes seek the fragile point of contact between reality and illusion.
Over the past years, Rovner's work has been exhibited extensively. Venues for her one-person shows have included The Art Institute of Chicago, The Tate Gallery, London, Bohen Foundation, New York, Pace Wildenstein, New York, a video installation at P.S. 1, New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, and the Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.
Between 1995 and 1996, she created several site-specific projects, including the large-scale images of Tel-Hill (27 x 147 feet long) by the market place in Tel Aviv and Co-Existence (13 x 64 feet long) in the desert of Mitzpe Ramon (the Syrian-African break).
In 1996-97, in times of fire exchange, Rovner went to the Israel-Lebanon border. After one year of filming and editing, she created the film Border. She used documen?tary footage to create a fiction. Both film?maker and central character, Rovner searched for the meaning of "border." Recently, Rovner re-edited her final version of the film.
In 1997, the first version of Border premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at The Tate Gallery, London.
In 1999, Rovner created Overhanging at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. This large-scale, multiple-projection video was shown in two versions. The daytime and nighttime installations were shown through the eighteen windows of the entire floor of the museum's New Wing (approximately 5382 square feet). Overhanging breaks through the language of video as the images
move freely from window to window, breaking the conventional space of video projection to take on an architectural scale.
In 2000, Rovner participated in the Whitney Biennial, for which she created Field I, a video piece. In conjunction with that exhibition, and produced by Deitch Projects, Rovner showed Overhang, a monu?mental video projection on the seventeen windows of the Chase Manhattan Bank at Park Avenue and 55th Street. This work was filmed in the intense heat of the Israeli desert and the winter of New York City. Also in 2000, Rovner created Co-Existence 2, a three-channel projection video installation shot in Israel and Russia for the Corcoran Gallery of Art's Forty-Sixth Annual Biennial: Media Metaphor. In 2002, the Whitney Museum of American Art will feature a mid-career survey exhibition of Rovner's work.
Pomegranate Arts (Touring Producer) was founded by Linda Greenberg-Brumbach in 1998, and is an independent production company based in New York City dedicated to the development of international con?temporary performing arts projects. Pomegranate Arts produced the worldwide tour of Dracula: The Music and Film with Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet, and is the American producer of Shockheaded Peter, a music-theater work based on the Struwwelpeter Tales by Heinrich Hoffman, directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch and featuring the music of Martyn Jacques and The Tiger Lillies. Other interna?tional projects include the North American 19992000 launch of Brazilian vocalist Virginia Rodrigues and The Screens, a con?cert featuring Philip Glass and West African griot Foday Musa Suso. Current projects include Philip on Film, a twenty-five year retrospective of Philip Glass' work for film featuring newly commissioned film shorts
by Atom Egoyan, Peter Greenaway, Shirin Neshat, Michal Rovner and Godfrey Reggio; the first international tour of Charlie Victor Romeo; and a new work by Laurie Anderson.
Philip on Film
Company Manager Jim Woodard
Production Manager Doug Witney
Head Sound Engineer Dan Dryden
Monitor Mix1 Stephen Erb
Stylist
Kasia Walicka Maimone
Producers (Shorts)
Linda Greenberg-Brumbach and
Alisa E. Regas
Associate Producers (Shorts) Rachel Chanoff and Laurie Cearley
Legal Council Timothy O'Donnell
Press Representation
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UMS Nederlands Kamerkoor
presents
(Netherlands Chamber Choir)
Tonu Kaljuste, Conductor
Program
Claudio Monteverdi
Olivier Messiaen
Benjamin Britten
Frank Martin
Thursday Evening, November 8, 2001 at 8:00
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sestina Madrigali
Lagrime d'Amante al Sepolchro dell'Amata
(Tears of a Lover at the Tomb of the Beloved)
Incenerite spoglie Ditelo, o fiumi Dara la notte Ma te raccoglie O chiome d'or Dunque amate
Cinq rechants
INTERMISSION
Choral Dances, from Gloriana
Time
Concord
Time and Concord
Country Girls
Rustics and Fishermen
Final Dance of Homage
Songs of Ariel, from Der Sturm (The Storm)
Come unto these yellow sands
Full fathom five
Before you can say
You are the three men of sin
Where the bee sucks
@@@@Joep Franssens
Harmony of the Spheres
Fifteenth Performance of the 123rd Season
Seventh Annual Divine Expressions Series
The Netherlands Chamber Choir appears by arrangement with Joanne Rile Artists Management, Inc.
The photographing or sound recording of this concert or possession of any device for such photographing or sound recording is prohibited.
Large print programs are available upon request.
Sestina Madrigali
Lagrime d'Amante al Sepolchro dell'Amata (Tears of a Lover at the Tomb of the Beloved)
Claudio Monteverdi
Born May 15, 1567 in Cremona, Italy Died November 29, 1643 in Venice
Michelangelo once observed that although he had served six popes, he was always his own master when it came to his art. A simi?lar thing may be said of Claudio Monteverdi who, through all his service to aristocratic patrons and church leaders, was uncompro?misingly bold in his musical imagination and revolutionary in his craft. The shift from a Renaissance to a Baroque aesthetic in European music can be largely credited to Monteverdi, who not only demonstrated complete mastery of the old practices or prima prattica, but also took music into new and vibrant pathways through his develop?ment of a seconda prattica, the "second" or new practice of composition at the start of the seventeenth century.
Nathan Broder writes that the madrigal was to the late sixteenth century what the German lied and the tone poem were to the nineteenth century: "the principle vehicle for the composer's most intimate thoughts as well as his chief medium for musical nar?ration and description." Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals (published in 1614) is a transitional collection, linked to the Renaissance in the choice of the madrigal genre, but forward-looking in it's use of continuo accompaniment and its grouping of madrigals in loosely-dramatic cycles.
Though published in 1614, several of the madrigals from the Sixth Book appear to have been written as early as 1610, including the first cycle in the book, the Sestina or Lagrime d'Amante, a work that stands at the apex of Monteverdi's "mannerist" style. In this six-part madrigal cycle for five voices,
features of earlier madrigal styles are some?what accentuated and fore-grounded. The differences between the Sestina and the works of earlier madrigalists are, therefore, largely one of degree. The opening and clos?ing madrigals in the Sestina could easily, however, have been written by an earlier composer such as Monteverdi's teacher in Mantua, Giaches de Wert, and the disso?nance of the fourth section is simply an extension of the kinds of harmonic experi?ments Gesualdo had been doing in earlier decades as well.
In each of the six laments that constitute the Sestina, a soloist is often pitted against the full group, prefiguring a concerto-like, texture that would become a hallmark of later Baroque music. But the harrowing poignancy of the harmonies indicates a Renaissance focus on close text-music rela?tionships. Monteverdi's mastery of poly?phonic form, melodic interplay, and poetic juxtapositions in this cycle create an arching emotional development that positions this work comfortably in the company of other great cycles such as J. S. Bach's Art of Fugue and Beethoven's late string quartets.
The text for the Sestina was written by Scipione Agnelli, son of Lord Count Lepido Agnelli, on the death of Signora Romanina. Monteverdi set the poem, intending it to form a trilogy of laments with the Lamento d'Arianna and a setting of Marino's lament of "Hero and Leander." It was composed in memory of Caterina Martinelli, who would have sung the role of Ariadne in Monteverdi's opera (which is now lost except for the "Lament") had she not died tragically young. That loss is mirrored in the laments of the Sestina, which focus on scenes of Glauco at the tomb of his beloved Corinna.
Cinq rechants
Olivier Messiaen
Born December 10, 1908 in Avignon, France Died April 28, 1992 in Clichy, Hants-de-Seine
During the mid-sixteenth century, the Renaissance French composer Claude le Jeune produced a collection of chansons entitled Le Printemps in which each of the songs alternate short verses with refrains: a typical form favored among Parisian chan?son composers. In this collection, Le Jeune titled the verses "chants" and the refrains "rechants", and it is his alternation of these sections, as well as the labels used to describe them, that prompted Olivier Messiaen to compose his Cinq rechants for twelve-voice mixed choir in 1948, in direct homage to Le Jeune's work.
The Cinq rechants form the final part of Messian's "Tristan" trilogy, which also includes the mammoth orchestral Turangalila Symphony and the cantata-like Harawi. The composer drew on similar sources for each of the three works, and even included cross-referenced melodic and rhythmic devices as a unifying feature among them. A great deal of the material in Cinq rechants is in fact derived from the subsidiary themes in Turangalila. Melodic sources include the harawi or yaravi (a love song from the South American region around Peru and Ecuador) and the medieval alba, the dawn song of a servant wishing to warn his master that the night of love is about to end. Some of the rhythms are bor?rowed from Indian classical music, one of the composer's most favored sources for rhythmic and melodic patterns throughout his career.
Messiaen's own text for the Cinq rechants is half in French and half in a freely invent?ed language that seems loosely based on Sanskrit. There is no explicit mention of God in the text, but the love expressed in these works is on a divine scale. The French
sections mention the names of Tristan and Isolde directly as well as other figures of mythological love, including Orpheus. But unlike in Harawi, the vocal noises in the non-French passages are not purely ono?matopoeic. Rather, the syllables are chosen for the softness or violence of attack, and for their aptness in delineating musical rhythms.
More compact than the other two works in the trilogy, each of the five sections in Cinq rechants alternates verse-refrain sections. The five movements move seamlessly between speech and song, creating a cumu?lative effect that Robert Henderson describes as "an almost Tristanesque ecstasy."
As well as being the last part of the Tristan trilogy, this work was also the last purely choral work Messiaen composed. The composer once remarked, "In spite of the work's fast tempo, in spite of the dramatic brevity of human life which this tempo sug?gests, the Beloved One is standing above Time, beyond any musical, rhythmical or literary technique, even beyond death."
Choral Dances from Gloriana
Benjamin Britten
Born November 22, 1913 in Lowestoft,
Suffolk, England Died December 4, 1976 in Aldeburgh
Benjamin Britten had just completed work on the premiere of his opera Billy Budd at Covent Garden in 1951 when the announce?ment of the forthcoming coronation of Queen Elizabeth II provided him with yet another opportunity to stage a new opera in that most famous theatre. Two new operas by the same composer at Covent Garden in the space of eighteen months was almost unheard of, and reflected the growing esteem in which Britten was held by his peers and audiences in the 1950s. But
Britten's Gloriana--an operatic study of the new queen's namesake, Elizabeth I--was always going to be regarded differently from his other stage works. The coronation was such a public event, and the sense of occa?sion so overwhelming that any work intend?ed to contribute to the festivities was more than likely to be overshadowed by the festiv?ities themselves. The ambivalent audience reaction to Gloriana at its Covent Garden premiere in 1953 was not so much a response to the work's inherent musical or dramatic value, but more an indication of the audience's disappointment that it was not more festive and optimistic.
Though later revivals of Gloriana have confirmed its quality, the work has not transferred well to non-English audiences. Perhaps as a function of the nationalistic subject matter and the very direct references to details of English political history, it remains the only one of Britten's operas that has not been translated for performance in other languages.
The libretto for Gloriana was written by the poet William Plomer, a friend and col?league of E. M. Forster, with whom Britten had worked on Billy Budd. Rather than tak?ing the angle that Lytton Strachey had emphasized in his work on Elizabeth I-the relationship between the Queen and Essex--Plomer aimed to explore the conflict between public and private realms of a monarch in a similar fashion to Boris Godunov.
The central second act of Gloriana begins and ends with a pair of tableux: a masque scene at the beginning offered by the citi?zens of Norwich to the Queen, and a court ball at the end. It is from the masque scene that the "Choral Dances" are derived. Although one might expect that this music, above all the rest in Gloriana, might be redolent of Elizabethan England with its folk songs and lively dances, the "Choral Dances" are set in a surprisingly non-nostal-
gic fashion. None of the dances seem to be modeled on madrigalian techniques, but as Peter Evans writes, "they are no less engag?ing for that." The sprightly "Dance of Time" begins in a somewhat declamatory manner, recalling Purcell perhaps, but the main part suggests a clanging of bells, representing the passage of minutes, hours, and whole life?times. The slower "Dance of Concord" is serene and sensuous, with diatonic melodies and pure triads. The graceful "Dance of Time and Concord" includes the kind of canonic imitation that Britten favored so much. Rapid dotted rhythms in "Country Girls" suggest vigorous dancing, while the "Rustics and Fisherman" are even livelier. The "Final Dance of Homage" reaches a rich and splendid conclusion through varied contrapuntal repetitions of the opening phrase.
Songs of Ariel, from Der Sturm
(The Storm) Frank Martin
Born September 15,1890 in Geneva, Switzerland Died November 21, 1974 in Naarden, the Netherlands
Frank Martin is one of the most prominent and talented composers to emerge from Switzerland in the twentieth century. The son of a Calvinist minister, Martin was at first discouraged from pursuing a career in music. He had only one music teacher dur?ing his youth (who taught him keyboard and composition but not counterpoint), never studied at a conservatory, and at his parents' urging took mathematics and sci?ence classes at university rather than music. But already at the age of sixteen, Martin had shown enough talent for composition that he decided that it had to be his path in life. Although unorthodox, Martin's musical training was eclectic and broad-based. He
was very involved, both as a student and later as a teacher, with rhythmic theory at the Jacques-Dalcroze Institute. Early in his career he worked in Geneva as a pianist and harpsichordist. But he developed a composi?tional voice that is distinctive in that it blends equal parts of French and German influences. He was impressed early in his youth with a performance of J. S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and held onto a fondness for baroque harmonic practice throughout much of his career. Other influences that emerge in Martin's early works include Schumann, Chopin, and Cesar Franck.
Martin experimented later with dode-caphony, non-western source materials, folksong, archaic counterpoint, and jazz. By the mid-1940s he had settled on a style that emphasized "harmony within an extended tonality." His music was championed almost from the outset by the conductor Ernst Ansermet, with whom Martin had formed a close working relationship, and who pre?miered most of Martin's compositions.
Sacred works dominate the last part of Martin's career, but his most famous choral piece--his setting of the Mass--was begun as early as 1922. It is one of the most impor?tant twentieth-century settings of the Mass text, as well as one of the most frequently performed and recorded.
Der Sturm (The Storm), composed between 1952-55, was the first of Martin's two operas (the other being Monsieur de Pourceaugnac from 1962). Though it was his first full-length staged musical drama, he had already written much instrumental music for the stage, including several Shakespeare productions, and had also com?posed a ballet and some "spectacles." The libretto for Der Sturm is based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, in its German translation by A.W. von Schlegel.
The songs of the supernatural sprite Ariel from The Tempest are some of the most popular Shakespeare texts in the musical lit-
erature. The play itself speaks of magic, fate, justice, love, and humor with an immediacy that has made its texts appealing to com?posers as diverse as Arne, Purcell, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Lukas Foss. Martin's setting of Ariel's songs evokes the magic of that character in a style not too distant from that of the French impression?ists Debussy and Ravel, a style that seems at once otherworldly yet strangely familiar and beautiful. As the composer himself once observed, "Whatever the movement of the soul, the spirit, the sensibility that are mani?fested in one's work, and whether the state is one of anguish or even despair, one's art inevitably bears the sign of...this liberation, this sublimation which evokes in us a fin?ished form, and which is, I think, what is called 'beauty'."
Harmony of the Spheres
Joep Franssens
Bom in 1955
The Dutch composer Joep Franssens belongs to a younger generation of musi?cians who are not ashamed of beauty in music. After studying composition in The Hague and Rotterdam with Louis Andriessen and Klaas de Vries respectively, Franssens developed a style that eschews the technical and intellectual pathways of the modernist avant-garde. Rather, he embraces a post-serialist style that exemplifies the kind of spirituality found in the work of Gorecki, Reich, and Part. He uses tonality and accessible idioms to express profound and powerful emotions, but without resort?ing to the easy tricks of neo-Romanticism. His music speaks to the heart, and as one Dutch music critic has written, "You need only listen to his music to become fully con?vinced of his truth."
Franssens also notes the pervasive influ-
ence of pop music on his own work, in the sense that it too speaks directly to a wide, almost universal audience. The ease of wide?spread communication that underpins pop music is a philosophy of composition that Franssens actively cultivates, and he doesn't shy away from citing vastly disparate influ?ences like Bach and Tangerine Dream as almost equals in his compositional language (perhaps leaning toward Bach a little!).
More recent works by Franssens demon?strate an increasingly radical austerity in materials. The static harmonies in Dwaallicht (1989) and the leisurely counter?point of Sanctus for orchestra (1996, revised in 1999) show his predilection for restricted musical materials that are couched in mon?umental forms (somewhat in the manner of early Ligeti). But in his choices of instrumen?tation, Franssens' has increasingly manifested a preference for warm, luxuriant timbres.
Franssens' Harmony of the Spheres is a five-part cycle for four-part mixed choir (often doubled to eight parts) composed between 1994-2000. The Latin text is by the seventheenth-century pantheistic philoso?pher Spinoza, a source Franssens had earlier used for the text of his cantata-like ensem?ble piece Dwaallicht. "Part II" of Harmony of the Spheres is the shortest of the five sections (the complete cycle lasts just under an hour), and was commissioned by the Eduard van Beinum Foundation.
Program notes by Luke Howard.
T
onu Kaljuste graduated from the Tallinn Conservatory in 1976 and completed his postgraduate studies at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1978. He has worked as the conduc?tor of the Estonia Opera and as a lecturer at the Tallinn Conservatory.
In 1981, Tonu Kaljuste formed the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC). In 1993 he founded the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. At present he is the artistic director and principal conductor of both of them, since 1994 he has been the principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir, and starting in the 19981999 season, he has been principal conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Tonu Kaljuste will occupy these posts until the end of the 20002001 season, and will continue in them as guest conductor.
Tonu Kaljuste has worked as a guest con?ductor with a number of choirs and orches?tras in Europe, Australia and North America and as a lecturer at international choral seminars and workshops. He was the artistic director of the Bridges of Song Festival in 1991 and choral festivals in Tallinn in 1988, Tallinn in 1991 and the Vox Est Fest in 1995, 1997 and 1999. Tonu Kaljuste has set up a number of concert series dedicated to Bach and other Baroque composers at home and abroad. He has conducted operas by Mozart, Britten, and Weber, has conducted traditional symphonic repertoire as well as the majority of contemporary Estonian music, and has conducted most of the com?positions of Veljo Tormis and Arvo Part. For services to Estonia's musical life, Tonu Kaljuste was awarded the Estonian State Cultural Prize for 1991 and for 1996. In 1998, Eesti Raadio, the state radio broad?casting company, voted Tonu Kaljuste "Musician of the Year." The ABC Music Foundation (supported by The Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, Osaka, Japan) presented to Tonu Kaljuste and the Swedish
Radio Choir the 1998 ABC Music Award for outstand?ing performance at Osaka Symphony Hall on September 30, 1998. In 1999, Tonu Kaljuste was chosen as a member of the Royal Music Academy of Sweden and awarded The
Robert Edler Prize for Choral Music. In 2000, he received The Maria Medal for expediting spiritual merits in Estonian cul?tural life.
Arvo Part's Te Deum (ECM), recorded by Tonu Kaljuste and EPCC, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Choral Peformance" in 1995. For the recording of Alfred Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance, Tonu Kaljuste received the 1999 Cannes Classical Award for "Best Choral Music of the Twentieth Century." In 2000, Tonu Kaljuste was awarded the Edison Prize for the recording of Robert Heppener's music with the Netherlands Chamber Choir (Donemus) as well as the 1999 Diapason d'Or de VAnnee of the French music maga?zine Diapason in the category of "Choral Music" for the recording of Litany to Thunder by Veljo Tormis with the EPCC (ECM Records).
Tonight's performance marks Tonu Kaljuste's fifth appearance under UMS auspices. Tonu Kaljuste last appeared under UMS auspices conducting the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir on February 13, 2000 in St. Francis ofAssisi Catholic Church.
T
he Netherlands Chamber Choir was founded in 1937 by the leg?endary conductor and pianist Felix de Nobel. It is now comprised of twenty-seven singers, all soloists in their own right, brought together for the purpose of making choral music at the very highest level. Most professional choirs are associated with a radio network, opera house, or other organizations. The Netherlands Chamber Choir, however, func?tions independently and its primary aim is to captivate listeners with the incredibly rich and diverse repertoire of music for a cappel-la choir. This mission is expressed in the highest standard of performance and has brought the choir tremendous acclaim throughout the world.
The conductor, Tonu Kaljuste, a native of Estonia, became principle conductor of the Choir starting with in 19981999 season. The English conductor Stephen Layton will succeed Kaljuste as principle conductor from 2002 until the summer of 2005. The Belgian early music specialist Paul Van Nevel is the Choir's principle guest conduc?tor. Also appearing regularly with the choir are conductors who specialize in a particular music style or period. These include such illustrious names as Eric Ericson, Uwe Gronostay, Ed Spanjaard and Dane Bo Holten, Paul van Nevel, Rene Jacobs, John Alldis, Renbert de Leeuw and Frans Bruggen. The choir performs an extraordi?narily wide repertoire and can move effort?lessly from medieval music to the most modern compositions. Composers such as Francis Poulenc, Zoltan Kodaly, Robert Heppener and Louis Andriessen have dedi?cated works especially to the choir.
In addition to its a cappella concerts, the choir also regularly performs with Holland's world-famous Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as other ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the Scheonberg Ensemble.
In the summer of 1998, the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the Budapest Festival Orchestra made their debut at the Salzburger Festpiele. Also in 1998, the choir and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century toured Japan, and in 1999 they performed together Bach's Weihnachts Oratorium in Israel, Spain, and Italy. Bach's St. John's Passion was recently performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Ton Koopman and broadcast on live television both in the Netherlands and aboard.
The choir has made numerous record?ings for radio and television. It has built up a library of CD titles which numbers more than fifty, and it is expanding steadily. Many of these have received major press awards in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Canada. In 2000, a CD of a cappella works by Robert Heppener, conducted by Tonu Kaljuste and Daniel Reuss, was awarded an Edison in the choral music category.
Foreign tours are a feature of every Netherlands Chamber Choir season. The choir is heard in many major European cities on a regular basis, and has made mul?tiple visits to Canada, Israel, and Japan.
Tonight's performance marks the Netherlands Chamber Choir's VMS debut.