String Music by Women Composers Anna Cromwell, Violin Lisa Nelson, Violin and Viola Mira Frisch, Cello

The Department of Music presents The Faculty & Friends Concert Series String Music by Women Composers Anna Cromwell, violin Lisa Nelson, violin and viola Mira Frisch, cello Relays: a duet for two violins Rain Worthington A Dance of Two: duet for two violins Elegy: for violin and cello Adrienne Albert String Trio Julie Mandel I. Contentment II. Longing III. Joyous Dancing on Glass Victoria Bond This concert is sponsored in part by a 2017 Seed Grant from the New York Women Composers. Rowe Recital Hall Monday, September 18, 2017 | 7:30 pm arts.uncc.edu Program Note Dancing on Glass is based on the Chinese folk song Liu Yang River. This song has a fascinating history. It originates from the Hunan Province and was a favorite of street musicians who often sang it accompanied by a drum. However, it became the melody of a famous patriotic song celebrat- ing the most well-known citizen who came from the Hunan province, Mao Ze-Dong. The song makes reference to the nine turns that the Liu Yang River makes before it flows into the lake which is its final destination. Because this work was commissioned by The Jade String Trio, I decided to use both the melodic contour of the folk song and the number 3 as the basic materials. There are 9 sections, consisting of 3 solos, 3 duets and 3 trios. The title derives from the dance of light on the surface of the glass- like river. The sections which flow into each other without a break reflect the changing character of the river as follows: 1. Dancing 2. Capricious 3. Rapids 4. Tranquil 5. Dripping 6. Ice 7. Accompanied by a Drum 8. Swirling 9. Splash Victoria Bond April 24, 2003 About the Composers Award-winning composer Adrienne Albert (ASCAP) has had her chamber, choral, vocal, orchestral and wind band works performed throughout the US,and around the world. Having previously worked as a singer with composers that include Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, and Gunther Schuller, Albert began composing her own music in the 1990s. Her music has been supported by noteworthy arts organizations including the NEA, ACF, MTC/Rockefeller Foundation, Subito, MPE Foundation, ACME, and ASCAP. Recent commissions include works for Cornell University Chorus, Holyoke Civic Symphony, MPE Foundation, Palisades Virtuosi, Pennsylvania Academy of Music, Chamber Music Palisades, Pacific Serenades among others. A graduate of UCLA, Albert studied composition with Stephen Mosko, orchestration with Albert Harris. Her music is recorded on MSR, Naxos, Navona, Centaur, Little Piper, Albany, and ABC Records, published by Kenter Canyon Music (ASCAP), and also through FluteWorld, TFML, and Trevco-Varner Music. Visit: www.adriennealbert.com. Victoria Bond leads a dual career as composer and conductor. Her compositions have been praised by The New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding,” and her conducting has been called “impassioned” by The Wall Street Journal and “full of energy and fervor” by The New York Times. Bond has been commissioned by the American Ballet Theater, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Houston Symphony, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Nyack College. Her compositions have been performed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and musicians from the New York Philharmonic. Honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award and the Miriam Gideon Prize, Ms. Bond was the first woman appointed Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with a major orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony. She has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China and was profiled inThe Wall Street Journal, People magazine, The New York Times, and on NBC’s TODAY. The first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from The Juilliard School, Bond served as music director of the New Amsterdam and Roanoke Symphony Orchestras, artistic director of Opera Roanoke, Harrisburg Opera, and Bel Canto Opera, music adviser of the Wuhan Symphony in China and assistant conductor of New York City Opera. She currently is adjunct professor at Nyack College, principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago and Artistic Director of Welltone New Music, Inc. She has worked with André Previn, Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sixten Ehrling, Leonard Slatkin, James Conlon, Herbert Blomstedt and Herbert von Karajan Julie Mandel writes chamber music and music and lyrics for theatre. Her chamber works have recently been performed by the American Chamber Ensemble, The Seattle Chamber Players, The Englewinds Wind Quartet, the Stony Brook String Quartet and The Motyl String Quartet. E. B. Marks publishes her Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp, and her String Quartet #3 which received the Burton Award for Contemporary Music. Her setting of a short story by I.L.Peretz, The Pious Cat has been recorded and is available on iTunes and Amazon, as is her most recent recording of 24 Piano Pieces titled Intervals played by pianist Hadassah Guttmann. Her one-act opera, I Wish, I Wish, I Wish was produced at the Thalia Theatre in NYC. Her theatre works include A Glorious Day, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play, Getting Married, which was produced by the Blue Grass Opera Co.; Subway Suite which explores a day’s events on the subway, produced at Queens College; Presidents which had two national tours; 2, a musical revue produced by Actor’s Equity at Lincoln Center Library Theatre, and Le Grand Café, about Monet, Renoir and Degas, produced by the National Music Theater Network. Her children’s opera, Pari and the Prince, based on a William Saroyan story has been produced nationally. She recently completed a one act opera, The Story About The Ant Eater, based on a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet. She has received several ASCAP Awards; is Concert Director of The Long Island Composer Alliance, and Treasurer of New York Women Composers. She studied composition with Ernst Krenek and Eric Zeisl. Performances of Rain Worthington’s compositions have spanned the globe from Brazil to Iceland to Armenia, with premieres in Tokyo, Oxford University, and Delhi Music Society in India. Her work takes “. ideas of American musical style to a new place – like a walk in a familiar, yet very different park.” - Chamber Music. American Record Guide noted “There is a deep interiority to this music . a composer of considerable imagination, emotional expressiveness, and poetic sensibility.” Her catalog includes works for orchestra, mixed chamber ensembles, violin duo, marimba and even a miniature for oud. Self-taught in composition, Rain says impulses for new pieces have ranged from the sounds of “NYC garbage trucks backing up late in the night, to the two-note expression of a sigh, to a dream of a careening bike ride through dark fog.” Navona Records released a CD of Worthington’s orchestral works DREAM VAPORS in 2016 to critical acclaim. She was a guest composer-in-residence at Missouri State University 2016 and 2017 for two MSU Symphony premieres of her orchestral works, Tracing a Dream and In Passages. In addition to composing, Worthington serves as Artistic Administrator/Composer Advocate for the New York Women Composers. Biographies Anna Cromwell is Associate Professor of Violin and Viola at Eastern Illinois University. She has been on faculty at Western Kentucky University, Minnesota State University, Bravo! Summer String and Keyboard Institute, and Tennessee Valley Music Festival. Cromwell can be heard performing in Duo XXI with cellist Dr. Mira Frisch on the CD, Quest: New Music for Violin and Cello. Duo XXI’s second CD, Metal Cicadas, was released by Albany Records in 2014. As an avid teacher and lecturer, Dr. Cromwell has given numerous presentations at state and national conferences including the Music Teachers National Association Conference, the American String Teachers Association National Conference, and the Kentucky Music Educators State Conference. In addition, Dr. Cromwell’s articles have appeared in the NCASTA online journal and the Illinois ASTA journal The Scroll. She co-authored the article “Strings: Ideal Secondary Instruments for College Pianists,” which appeared in American Music Teacher. Mira Frisch, Associate Professor of Cello and Director of String Chamber Music at UNC Charlotte, previously taught cello and chamber music at Truman State University in Missouri and at the summer festival Musicale della Toscana in Italy. She has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician throughout the United States and in Bermuda, Italy, and France. Her recordings as a member of Duo XXI, with violinist Anna Cromwell, were released on the Albany Records label in 2010 and 2014. The ensemble’s performance was called “beautifully played” by American Record Guide and their “precise ensemble playing” was noted by Fanfare Magazine. Dr. Frisch can also be heard on the album There Lies the Home, produced by Cantus; the Albany recordings Songs of the Fisherman, an opera for tenor, dancer, and chamber ensemble; and Dark Dances, a recording of the chamber music of John Allemeier. She has presented at national conferences of the American String Teachers Association, College Music Society, Music Teachers National Association, and the Society of Composers. Lisa Nelson is Visiting Assistant Professor of viola, violin, and string pedagogy at Illinois Wesleyan University, coordinator of the IWU String Preparatory Department, and faculty of the Illinois Chamber Music Festival. As an active chamber musician, she regularly appears in recitals throughout the U.S., Canada, Bulgaria, Italy, Israel, and the Czech Republic. Lisa Nelson finished her doctorate in Viola Performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and holds a double-degree (BM in violin performance and BA in mathematics) from St. Olaf College, Minnesota, where she graduated summa cum laude with departmental distinction in music. Dr. Nelson is a member of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and is on faculty of the International Chamber Music Academy in Kyustendil, Bulgaria for young talented musicians.

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