2019 Season Two MOSTLY MODERN FESTIVAL 1 WELCOME WELCOME to SEASON TWO of the music has been on National Public Radio’s Best MOSTLY MODERN FESTIVAL! Picks of the Year, and Dark Mountains was played Welcome to our brand-new, beautiful, and on NPR’s Performance Today with JoAnn Falletta exciting endeavor of ‘mostly modern’ music and the Buffalo Philharmonic in 2018. in Saratoga Springs, New York at Skidmore College! Composer & Artistic Director Robert His works have been played by over one-hundred Paterson, and Violinist & Executive Director ensembles, including the Louisville Orchestra, Victoria Paterson have long envisioned starting a Minnesota Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, summer music festival and this June, 2019, American Composers Orchestra, Austin marks their second season with the Mostly Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Pittsburgh Modern Festival. With the success of their new New Music Ensemble, AME, New York New music group, the American Modern Ensemble, Music Ensemble, BargeMusic, California EAR now in its 15th season in New York City, two Unit, and Ensemble Aleph in Paris. Recent thriving indie record labels, and robust lives performances include the world premiere of as professional musicians on Broadway and Ghost Theater, commissioned by the Albany beyond, they have expanded AME’s mission and Symphony’s Dogs of Desire. have created a broad educational component in Saratoga Springs, that serves over 100 Highlights include The Nashville Opera world composers, singers and instrumentalists, ages premiere of Three Way in January, 2017 and 18 and older. Past summers have included time then a BAM production in Brooklyn, June, at other festivals, whether as directors, faculty 2017. The New York Premiere of his opera, or guest artists at the Aspen Music Festival, The Whole Truth with a libretto by Mark Atlantic Music Festival, Rocky Ridge Music Campbell, sold out in January 2016, at Dixon Center, and the Walden School, and have held Place in New York City. Walt’s America was adjunct professorships at esteemed institutions premiered for orchestra and chorus by the Gulf including New York University and the Eastman Coast Symphony, Moon Music by the Claremont School of Music. Trio, and Graffiti Canons by the Volti choir in San Francisco. His string orchestra work, entitled I See You was performed by an all-star orchestra ROBERT PATERSON conducted by Delta David Gier, with the Jack Described as a “modern day master” and the Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, PUBLIQuartet “highlight of the program” (The New York and American Modern Ensemble in 2015. Times), Robert Paterson’s music is loved for In Aspen,Shine received its world premiere by its elegance, wit, structural integrity, and a the American Brass Quintet and is being wonderful sense of color. Paterson was named performed at Juilliard, Princeton, and on their The Composer of The Year from the Classical national tours. Recording Foundation with a celebration at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in 2011. His music has ® Paterson is passionate about composing for been on the Grammy ballot yearly and in 2019, choir. An album of Paterson’s choral music was won Best Producer of a Classical Album for his recorded by Musica Sacra and Maestro Kent opera, Three Way with the Nashville Opera. His 2 MOSTLY MODERN FESTIVAL WELCOME Tritle, released in 2015. Paterson was one of VICTORIA PATERSON Volti Choir of San Francisco’s first Choral Arts Victoria Paterson is the Executive Director Laboratory composers, and won the Cincinnati of the Mostly Modern Festival. In addition to Camerata Competition for his setting of Do Not directing the festival, Victoria is a violinist in Stand at My Grave and Weep (text by Mary Frye). New York City, well-known and beloved for The panel chose his music for its “expressive her diversity and musicality. Recent shows on choral writing, text painting and imaginatively Broadway include performing first violin at; beautiful textures.” My Fair Lady, Sunset Boulevard, Heathers and The Addams Family. Having written over one-hundred works to date, Paterson has received accolades and won awards Equally comfortable with contemporary, for his works in virtually every classical genre. His awards include the Copland Award, a three-year classical, and pop music, Victoria performs Music Alive! grant from the League of American everywhere from Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and Orchestras and New Music USA, the American Madison Square Garden, to Late Night with Composers Forum, the Utah Arts Festival Seth Meyers and The Today Show. Highlights Commission Competition, Cincinnati Camerata include performing at Chelsea Clinton’s Composition Competitions, two ASCAP Young wedding, as well as for Pope Benedict XVI, Composer Awards, and fellowships to Yaddo, the Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Diane Sawyer, MacDowell Colony, the Aspen Music Festival, Nancy Pelosi, and the Chief Rabbi of Israel. and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Victoria toured with Barbara Streisand for two years in 2006 and 2007. Born in 1970, Paterson was raised in Buffalo, New York, the son of a sculptor and a painter. Victoria is also the Executive Director of the Although his first love was percussion, he soon American Modern Ensemble, and the founder discovered a passion for composition, writing of the Lumiere String Quartet, which performs his first piece at age thirteen. In the late 1980s, all over New York City. Her albums are top Paterson pioneered the development of a six- sellers in the classical genre on Amazon and mallet marimba technique. He presented the iTunes, and many of her tracks are in various world’s first all six-mallet marimba recital at the films, includingSocial Network, The Loft, and Eastman School of Music in 1993, and released The Secret Life of Pets. She also contracts for the first-ever album of six mallet music,Six opera companies, including On Site Opera, Mallet Marimba in 2012 (AMR) to a sold out American Opera Projects, Prototype, and many crowd at the Rubin Museum in Chelsea, NY. In others. Her favorite outreach work is performing 2005, Paterson founded the American Modern for Music That Heals at hospitals all around Ensemble (AME), which spotlights American New York City. music via lively thematic programming. He serves as artistic director for AME as well as house Victoria regularly gives masterclasses and lectures composer, frequently contributing new pieces to about entrepreneurship and the business of the ensemble, and he directs the affiliated record music. She has taught at the Eastman School of label, American Modern Recordings (AMR), Music’s Institute for Music Leadership, offering a which is distributed by NAXOS. class entitled Creating & Sustaining An Ensemble. Other schools where she has lectured include The He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Music (BM), Indiana University (MM), and the New York Youth Symphony, Broadway Cornell University (DMA). Paterson gives master Backstage, Broadway Inside, and Chamber classes at numerous colleges and universities, Music America. Paterson studied at the Eastman most recently at the Curtis Institute of Music, School of Music and Indiana University. Aspen Music School & Festival, University of Denver, New York University, and the Cleveland She resides in New York City, and now in Institute of Music. He resides in New York City Saratoga Springs, with her husband, Robert and in Saratoga Springs, with his wife, Victoria, and son, Dylan. Paterson, and their son, Dylan MOSTLY MODERN FESTIVAL 3 TH Monday June 10th 20 CENTURY 7:30 PM VOCAL MUSIC Arthur Zankel Music Center Saratoga Springs, New York FLORENCE PRICE – Beside the Sea Sunset Night Hold fast to dreams FRANCIS POULENC – La courte paille I. Le Sommeil ERICH KORNGOLD – Das Stänchen II. Quelle aventure! Liebesbriefchen III. La reine de coeur IV. Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu Versuchung V. Les anges musiciens VI. Le carafon Mond so gehst du wieder auf VII. Lune d’Avril INTERMISSION ISABELLE ABOULKER – Savoir vivre et usages mondains A propos de la chausette blanche JOHN METCALF – Plas Bodorgan (Caneuon y gerddi) Comment on offre le bras Plas y ward (Caneuon y gerddi) Et à propos de gants Y Foelas (Caneuon y gerddi) ELLEN REID – Comme les ailes d’un oiseau CHRIS DEBLASIO – All the Way Through Evening I. The Disappearance of Light II. Train Station III. An Elegy to Paul Jacobs IV. Poussin V. Walt Whitman in 1989 JEFF BLUMENCRANZ – Recuerdo ROBERT PATERSON* – Crossing the Hudson ARTISTS Rachel Shutz, soprano • Christopher Dylan Herbert, baritone • Timothy Long, piano 4 MOSTLY MODERN FESTIVAL BIOGRAPHIES RACHEL SCHUTZ Music Center, the Honolulu Chamber Music Hailed for her “diamantine high notes, witty Series, the Hawaii Concert Society, the Maui characterization, and giddily delirious coloratura” Arts and Cultural Center, and venues in China, (Boston Globe), Welsh-American soprano Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and Germany. Ms. Rachel Schutz is increasingly in demand Schutz has performed with famed artists such throughout the US, Asia and Europe for her as Dawn Upshaw, James Levine, James Conlon, sensitive and evocative performances and wide JoAnne Faletta, Keith Lockhart, Leon Botstein, range of repertoire. She enjoys a multi-faceted career which includes opera, concert, and recital Ms. Schutz is also a passionate supporter of new performances, and her upcoming engagements music and enjoys close working relationships include her debut with Opera Ithaca and with many young composers and new music Cornell’s Mayfest, and appearances at the Fall ensembles. She has premiered dozens of new Island Vocal Seminar, the Mostly Modern works, including pieces by Eugene Drucker (of Festival, and the Yellow Barn international the Emerson String Quartet), Michael-Thomas chamber music festival. Fumai, Jeff Myers, Thomas Osborne, and Peter Winkler, and has worked with composers Ms. Schutz has been praised for her “vibrant, Phillip Glass, George Crumb, Jonathan Dove, convincing stage presence” (San Francisco William Bolcom, Libby Larsen, and Augusta Examiner) and “vivacious spirit” (San Francisco Read-Thomas on their music.