DOCSLIB.ORG

November 6, 2018 to the Board of Directors of the Voice Foundation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

November 6, 2018 To the Board of Directors of The Voice Foundation, This is a letter of interest in the Van L. Lawrence Fellowship, to be awarded in 2019. As I look through the bullet points to be included in this document, it’s clear to me that what I should really be submitting is simply a thank-you note, since attending the Annual Symposium has comprehensively re-shaped me as a vocal pedagogue since I began attending four years ago. The singers I teach (at the University of Missouri, and as of this year, at the Jacobs School of Music at IU-Bloomington) are music majors ranging from freshmen to young professionals, c. 18-26 years old. The freshmen arrive having had some introductory experience with vocal instruction, but are basically wide-open to the unknown. They leave after their first lesson knowing what vowel formants are and where they are located, understanding the contribution of harmonics to an expressive vocal color, and demonstrating a solid rudimentary understanding of resonance strategies (including divergence and off-resonance, aka inertance). I’ve been diligent in streamlining this information; I want them to gain fluency in these concepts before they even think twice. The rapidity with which these talented students assimilate a paradigm so squarely founded on acoustics and physiology is inspiring, and very exciting. As recently as three years ago, I felt obliged to defend the validity of these ideas, and my qualifications to present them as established fact. Now, that defensive stance (at least with these superlative students) is already obsolete. My primary areas of interest at the moment are threefold: The utility of off-resonance strategies as breath management, and via breath management, as the agent of musical phrasing. The proprioceptive sense of appoggio, a particular locus of physical contact in the body, correlated to the number of formants in play for a given vowel on a given pitch (“spoken,” at the VF, below fR2:fo; “balanced,” at the attachment of diaphragm to thorax, below fR1:fo; and “simple,” in which the air is managed exclusively by the singular resonance above fR1). I’ve introduced this guidance only this year, using hand-signals as prompts. The distinctions hold true regardless of voice type; these young students take this information completely in stride, as a corollary of timbral progressions relating to vowel formants. They make rapid improvements in stability and consistency of tone through a phrase, once they experience the benefits of correlating breath management to the harmonic spectrum at a given frequency. Predictive vs. non-predictive listening. This distinction was vividly presented at the 2016 Symposium; I would like to see comparative perceptions of octave-displaced, atonal vocal writing (Webern would be a great choice) between subjects firing in predictive vs. non-predictive areas, and also after subjects are conditioned to rely on either predictive or non-predictive brain centers. A possible area of study, pertaining primarily to the first interest listed above, involves a choral exercise used regularly by conductor Robert Shaw, in which a choral ensemble replaces the composed text with counts (“one- ee-and-a-two-ee-and-a-,” for instance). I observed a visiting choral scholar (and Shaw-apostle) advocating this exercise in master classes recently, admonishing the student conductors that “you can never work too much on rhythm.” I sang with Mr. Shaw in his summer tours through France, as a chorister as well as a soloist, and can certainly attest to the ubiquity of this exercise. Hearing it classified as rhythm-work did not ring true to me, however. I’m certain any of the voice professionals that benefit from the work of the Voice Foundation would also recognize that the skill being refined by this exercise is the ability as an individual, as a section member, and as a chorus member to sculpt the resonance profile of willfully random phonemes arrayed at regular increments along a vocal line—a profile they can then replicate when reverting to the nominally less-random phonemes of “agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi.” Noteworthy as well is the variety of opinions on the desirability of polishing choral lines to that uniformly high sheen. A clear understanding of the resonance strategies being recruited could equip a singer (alone, or en masse) to exercise informed agency in choosing any desired quality of legato for a given passage, whether legatissimo via mean resonance, or opting for a more Fauvist juxtaposition of vocal color. I propose working with individual singers (though a choral ensemble would also be interesting) to generate spectra comparing a passage 1) prior to conditioning via the Shaw counting exercise, 2) the passage after a set number of passes through the exercise, 3) the passage on the original text after conditioning, and 4) after integrating specific instances of expressive color designed to disrupt the resonance profile established through the conditioning exercise. Because this particular exercise is well- known to choral conductors and singers as a rhythmic etude, assessing an unexpected variable (gradated resonance) would stimulate discussion. Honestly, it’s difficult to imagine any area of voice research that would not benefit my teaching (and my singing). Year after year, I’ve attended presentations on topics I expected to be vanishingly remote from my own work. Each time, it’s invariably these presentations that open the most unexpected, enlightening vistas. I do often find myself called to reconcile an understanding of scientific data with the expressive, artistic impulse. Work as described above is situated directly on that false divide, promoting the re-conception of harmonic spectra as nothing other than the essential expressive medium. My current NATS membership is with the Central Region, where I began 2018 on the faculty at the University of Missouri, where I’ve presented at two regional conferences on using instrumental models in voice pedagogy, and where I received the NATS pedagogy award which allowed me to attend the Voice Foundation Symposium in 2018. When I renew for 2019, it will be as a member of the Great Lakes chapter. I conclude this application with appreciation (as I began). Teaching has taken on so much more revelatory excitement for me since engaging with the Voice Foundation. Your guidance and support in the form of the Van Lawrence Fellowship would be quite an honor—but I already rely on your guidance and support, and will continue to do so. Thanks! Julia Bentley Associate Professor of Voice and Graduate Art Song Literature The Jacobs School of Music, IU-Bloomington Julia Bentley, Mezzo-Soprano 739 Forest Ave. Member: NATS, CMS, Voice Foundation River Forest, IL 60305 tel: +1 (708) 955-0382 www.juliabentley.net [email protected] TEACHING EXPERIENCE Associate Professor of Voice and Graduate Song Literature, Jacobs School of Music (IU-Bloomington) 2018- Assistant Teaching Professor of Voice and Voice Pedagogy, University of Missouri 2016-2018 Voice faculty, Concordia University 2012-2015 Lecturer in Song Literature, North Park University 2012-2014 Voice faculty, DePaul University School of Music 2009-2014 Voice faculty, Music Institute of Chicago 2008-2012 Master classes at NIU, SIU, DePaul, North Park, UNY/Buffalo, Augustana, UW/Madison 1998- Vocal Director, BRAVO Summer Arts Camp 2005 Voice Faculty, Northern Illinois University, Applied voice, Diction, Song Seminar 1998-2001, 2005-06 Private Studio, Vienna, Austria 1986-1989 Graduate Assistant, Applied voice, Indiana University at Bloomington 1985-86, 1989-91 PRESENTATIONS / PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Anatomy and Action: vocal anatomy and acoustics for composers (most recently at IU and UMKC) A Sound Investment: using instrumental models to illuminate vocal physiology (NATS Central Region Conference) Imaginative and Intellectual Oscillation in George Crumb’s Apparition (20th- and 21st- Century Song Cycle Conference at Michigan State University; co-authored paper presentation and live performance with Dr. Peter Lea) Southern Harmony: a song re-cycle (2018 NATS National Conference) University of Missouri Faculty Scholars (selective interdisciplinary cohort), 2017-2018 planning and leading a series of freshman convocations at MU; my mandate was to create community and “not be boring” organizing and mentoring collaborative teams of students from the English Department, Composition area, and Voice area towards the creation and performance of original art songs leading a first Composer Focus project, as those I led at DePaul, culminating in a weekend of vocal and instrumental works of Olivier Messiaen in concert research at the Missouri Historic Society into popular song published in 1917; these will be performed throughout the year as part of the School of Music’s centenary celebration performances in collaboration with the student New Music Ensemble, the faculty woodwind quintet, the faculty new music ensemble, shared recitals with Dr. Warnhoff (clarinet), with Dr. Lara (cello), with Dr. Howe (trombone) and with Professor Rosenfeld (violin), and my own faculty recital as part of the Messiaen weekend launching a Student NATS chapter, for which I served as faculty advisor STUDY AND AWARDS NATS Pedagogy Award, 2018 Grammy-nominated artist, 2015 Indiana University School of Music, BM ‘85, MM ‘89, AD ‘90 NATSAA Finalist (St. Louis) Lyric Opera Center for American Artists Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Regional Finalist Santa Fe Opera Apprentice ’91, ’93 (Outstanding Young
Recommended publications
  • Stravinsky Oedipus

    Stravinsky Oedipus

    London Symphony Orchestra LSO Live LSO Live captures exceptional performances from the finest musicians using the latest high-density recording technology. The result? Sensational sound quality and definitive interpretations combined with the energy and emotion that you can only experience live in the concert hall. LSO Live lets everyone, everywhere, feel the excitement in the world’s greatest music. For more information visit lso.co.uk LSO Live témoigne de concerts d’exception, donnés par les musiciens les plus remarquables et restitués grâce aux techniques les plus modernes de Stravinsky l’enregistrement haute-définition. La qualité sonore impressionnante entourant ces interprétations d’anthologie se double de l’énergie et de l’émotion que seuls les concerts en direct peuvent offrit. LSO Live permet à chacun, en toute Oedipus Rex circonstance, de vivre cette passion intense au travers des plus grandes oeuvres du répertoire. Pour plus d’informations, rendez vous sur le site lso.co.uk Apollon musagète LSO Live fängt unter Einsatz der neuesten High-Density Aufnahmetechnik außerordentliche Darbietungen der besten Musiker ein. Das Ergebnis? Sir John Eliot Gardiner Sensationelle Klangqualität und maßgebliche Interpretationen, gepaart mit der Energie und Gefühlstiefe, die man nur live im Konzertsaal erleben kann. LSO Live lässt jedermann an der aufregendsten, herrlichsten Musik dieser Welt teilhaben. Wenn Sie mehr erfahren möchten, schauen Sie bei uns Jennifer Johnston herein: lso.co.uk Stuart Skelton Gidon Saks Fanny Ardant LSO0751 Monteverdi Choir London Symphony Orchestra Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) The music is linked by a Speaker, who pretends to explain Oedipus Rex: an opera-oratorio in two acts the plot in the language of the audience, though in fact Oedipus Rex (1927, rev 1948) (1927, rev 1948) Cocteau’s text obscures nearly as much as it clarifies.
  • Camera Lucida Symphony, Among Others

    Camera Lucida Symphony, Among Others

    Pianist REIKO UCHIDA enjoys an active career as a soloist and chamber musician. She performs Taiwanese-American violist CHE-YEN CHEN is the newly appointed Professor of Viola at regularly throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe, in venues including Suntory Hall, the University of California, Los Angeles Herb Alpert School of Music. He is a founding Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, member of the Formosa Quartet, recipient of the First-Prize and Amadeus Prize winner the Kennedy Center, and the White House. First prize winner of the Joanna Hodges Piano of the 10th London International String Quartet Competition. Since winning First-Prize Competition and Zinetti International Competition, she has appeared as a soloist with the in the 2003 Primrose Competition and “President Prize” in the Lionel Tertis Competition, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Santa Fe Symphony, Greenwich Symphony, and the Princeton Chen has been described by San Diego Union Tribune as an artist whose “most impressive camera lucida Symphony, among others. She made her New York solo debut in 2001 at Weill Hall under the aspect of his playing was his ability to find not just the subtle emotion, but the humanity Sam B. Ersan, Founding Sponsor auspices of the Abby Whiteside Foundation. As a chamber musician she has performed at the hidden in the music.” Having served as the principal violist of the San Diego Symphony for Chamber Music Concerts at UC San Diego Marlboro, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, and Spoleto Music Festivals; as guest artist with Camera eight seasons, he is the principal violist of the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and has Lucida, American Chamber Players, and the Borromeo, Talich, Daedalus, St.
  • Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor

    Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor

    Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor of Music, University of Toronto, 2012 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of French, the School of Music, and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought Mitch Renaud, 2015 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Tracing Noise: Writing In-Between Sound by Mitch Renaud Bachelor of Music, University of Toronto, 2012 Supervisory Committee Emile Fromet de Rosnay, Department of French and CSPT Supervisor Christopher Butterfield, School of Music Co-Supervisor Stephen Ross, Department of English and CSPT Outside Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Emile Fromet de Rosnay (Department of French and CSPT) Supervisor Christopher Butterfield (School of Music) Co-Supervisor Stephen Ross (Department of English and CSPT) Outside Member Noise is noisy. Its multiple definitions cover one another in such a way as to generate what they seek to describe. My thesis tracks the ways in which noise can be understood historically and theoretically. I begin with the Skandalkonzert that took place in Vienna in 1913. I then extend this historical example into a theoretical reading of the noise of Derrida’s Of Grammatology, arguing that sound and noise are the unheard of his text, and that Derrida’s thought allows us to hear sound studies differently. Writing on sound must listen to the noise of the motion of différance, acknowledge the failings, fading, and flailings of sonic discourse, and so keep in play the aporias that constitute the field of sound itself.
  • BALLET HISPÁNICO in Collaboration with the APOLLO THEATER

    BALLET HISPÁNICO in Collaboration with the APOLLO THEATER

    http://don411.com/ballet-hispanico-in-collaboration-with-the-apollo-theater-presents-the-world- premiere-of-annabelle-lopez-ochoas-tiburones-a-restaging-of-naci-by-andrea-miller-con-brazos- abiertos-by-michelle-manzana/#.XcBxLZJKjct BALLET HISPÁNICO in collaboration with THE APOLLO THEATER presents The World Premiere of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Tiburones A Restaging of Nací by Andrea Miller Con Brazos Abiertos by Michelle Manzanales November 22-23, 2019 at 8:00pm Views: 50 BALLET HISPÁNICO in collaboration with THE APOLLO THEATER presents The World Premiere of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Tiburones A Restaging of Nací by Andrea Miller Con Brazos Abiertos by Michelle Manzanales November 22-23, 2019 at 8:00pm Ballet Hispánico, the nation’s premier Latino dance organization, returns to the Apollo stage on Friday and Saturday, November 22 and 23, 2019 at 8:00pm with a program that continues its commitment to staging works by female, Latinx choreographers. Ballet Hispánico is sponsored by GOYA, which has sponsored the company since 1977. In the World Premiere of Tiburones, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa addresses the discrimination and stereotypes placed upon Latinx culture and the power the media has in portraying these themes by diminishing the voices of Latinx artists. Ochoa will deconstruct gender roles and identity to revitalize an authentic perspective of Puerto Rican icons appropriated within the entertainment industry. In this restaging of Nací (2009), choreographer Andrea Miller draws from the duality of her Spanish and Jewish-American background and employs her distinctive movement style to investigate the Sephardic culture of Spain, with its Moorish influence and profound sense of community, despite hardship.
  • The Late Choral Works of Igor Stravinsky

    The Late Choral Works of Igor Stravinsky

    THE LATE CHORAL WORKS OF IGOR STRAVINSKY: A RECEPTION HISTORY _________________________________________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia ________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts ____________________________ by RUSTY DALE ELDER Dr. Michael Budds, Thesis Supervisor DECEMBER 2008 The undersigned, as appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled THE LATE CHORAL WORKS OF IGOR STRAVINSKY: A RECEPTION HISTORY presented by Rusty Dale Elder, a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. _________________________________________ Professor Michael Budds ________________________________________ Professor Judith Mabary _______________________________________ Professor Timothy Langen ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to each member of the faculty who participated in the creation of this thesis. First and foremost, I wish to recognize the ex- traordinary contribution of Dr. Michael Budds: without his expertise, patience, and en- couragement this study would not have been possible. Also critical to this thesis was Dr. Judith Mabary, whose insightful questions and keen editorial skills greatly improved my text. I also wish to thank Professor Timothy Langen for his thoughtful observations and support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………...ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM OF STRAVINSKY’S LATE WORKS…....1 Methodology The Nature of Relevant Literature 2. “A BAD BOY ALL THE WAY”: STRAVINSKY’S SECOND COMPOSITIONAL CRISIS……………………………………………………....31 3. AFTER THE BOMB: IN MEMORIAM DYLAN THOMAS………………………45 4. “MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL”: CANTICUM SACRUM AD HONOREM SANCTI MARCI NOMINIS………………………………………………………...60 5.
  • The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg's Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908-1924 by Sarah Elain

    The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg's Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908-1924 by Sarah Elain

    The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg’s Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908-1924 by Sarah Elaine Neill Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ R. Larry Todd, Supervisor ___________________________ Severine Neff ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ John Supko ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2014 ABSTRACT The Modernist Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg’s Reception History in England, America, Germany and Austria 1908-1924 by Sarah Elaine Neill Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ R. Larry Todd, Supervisor ___________________________ Severine Neff ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ John Supko ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in the Graduate School of Duke University 2014 Copyright by Sarah Elaine Neill 2014 Abstract Much of our understanding of Schoenberg and his music today is colored by early responses to his so-called free-atonal work from the first part of the twentieth century, especially in his birthplace, Vienna. This early, crucial reception history has been incredibly significant and subversive; the details of the personal and political motivations behind deeply negative or manically positive responses to Schoenberg’s music have not been preserved with the same fidelity as the scandalous reactions themselves. We know that Schoenberg was feared, despised, lauded, and imitated early in his career, but much of the explanation as to why has been forgotten or overlooked.
  • Beckett As Marsyas

    Beckett As Marsyas

    Beckett as Marsyas The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Albright, Daniel. 1999. Beckett as Marsyas. In Samuel Beckett and the arts: Music, visual arts, and non-print media, ed. Lois Oppenheim, 25-49. New York: Routledge. Published Version http://www.routledge-ny.com/books/Samuel-Beckett-and-the-Arts- isbn9780815325277 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3356141 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Daniel Albright University of Rochester Beckett as Marsyas Let me begin with a story about the origin of wind music. There was a satyr named Marsyas, so pleased with his skill at playing the aulos, a reed instrument recently invented by Minerva, that he challenged Apollo to a music contest, to be judged by the muses. Apollo won, and was so enraged by Marsyas' temerity that he roped him to a tree and flayed him alive--his whole body was one wound, his raw nerves and lungs and quivering organs exposed to the air (as Ovid tells the story in the sixth book of the Metamorphoses). This suggests that a stringed instrument, such as a harp, has a character different from that of a wind instrument, such as an oboe. And it suggests that expression is a dangerous goal in the arts: the expresser may find himself most horribly exhibited, ex-pressed, pressed out.
  • Why Is Op. 6 Still So Difficult to Understand?

    Why Is Op. 6 Still So Difficult to Understand?

    Why is op. 6 still so difficult to understand? Among composers who hold that complexity alone is certain good, Alban Berg’s Drei Orchesterstücke are often invoked as a kind of foundational scripture. A glance at almost any page of the note-dense score would appear to support their view. Passages like bars 90–95 of the second movement, Reigen, or the climactic Höhepunkt of the third movement, Marsch, (bar 126) leave the advocates of complexity in no doubt: Berg has penetrated to the dark centre of the expressionist labyrinth. But how justified is this idea? In this essay, I will suggest that other aspects of op. 6 contradict it. For instance, Berg’s H and N signs, denoting main and subsidiary themes, run almost continuously throughout the work. This Ariadne’s thread (when it is made clear by the performance) makes listening to op. 6 surprisingly straightforward, at any rate melodically. In plain language, there is always a tune to hang on to. Furthermore, a short-score version of the work reveals a four-voice texture not more complicated for much of its duration than the orchestral textures of Mahler or Strauss. My observations here grew out of making a two-piano version of op. 6, and I would like to elucidate especially, though not exclusively, points that become clearer from examining the work in two-piano form. 1 The case for a basic simplicity may be overstated also, and one can begin by conceding that in some instances Berg’s relish for piling up notes has got the better of his musical 1 Alban Berg, Drei Orchesterstücke op.
  • For Immediate Release NEW WORLD SYMPHONY and MIAMI CITY

    For Immediate Release NEW WORLD SYMPHONY and MIAMI CITY

    For Immediate Release NEW WORLD SYMPHONY AND MIAMI CITY BALLET TO CELEBRATE LEGACY OF IGOR STRAVINSKY AND GEORGE BALANCHINE WITH LIVE-STREAMED WALLCAST® EVENT AT NEW WORLD CENTER, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1 AT 7:30 P.M. ET Collaboration inspired by NWS Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas’s and MCB Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez’s personal connections to Stravinsky and Balanchine WALLCAST® event to be projected live for audience attending free of charge at SoundScape Park; free webcast to be available on Medici.tv Left: New World Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Right: Miami City Ballet performance. MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA (November 25, 2019) — On Saturday, February 1, at 7:30 p.m. ET, the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy (NWS), and Miami City Ballet (MCB) come together for a special live-streamed WALLCAST® event celebrating Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine, two icons of the 20th century whose decades-long friendship proved to be one of the most prolific artistic pairings of their time. Led by NWS Co-Founder and Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT), this performance at the New World Center is projected live on the 7,000-sq.-ft. eastern façade of the building and may be experienced for free in adjacent SoundScape Park. Additionally, a free live- stream is available to viewers around the world via Medici.tv. Curated by MTT and MCB Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez, who as young artists worked with Stravinsky and Balanchine respectively, the program on both evenings comprises Stravinsky- Balanchine’s Apollon musagète; Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto, featuring violinist James Ehnes; and Stravinsky’s Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant, originally choreographed for circus elephants and ballerinas by Balanchine on commission from Ringling Bros.
  • —John Lahr Cussion

    —John Lahr Cussion

    1 figure, or what Duchamp termed “retinal art”? The answer is all of the above. This beautifully installed, CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK whip-smart exhibition features works such as a cracked and cloudy crystal ball that was rolled from AW NE DAWN its place of purchase to the gallery, a collaboration between Nina Beier and Marie Lund; a series of paintings by Pavel Büchler, composed of fragments When it was first produced, from found flea-market canvases; Nina Canell’s al- in 1946, Garson Kanin’s chemical assemblage, in which a bowl of water dis- solving into mist hardens a nearby bag of cement; “Born Yesterday” made a and Monica Bonvicini’s fractured safety-glass cube, star of Judy Holliday, who which gives the finger to minimalism. Destroy away: art rises, ever phoenixlike, from the ashes. Through played Billie Dawn, the May 8. (Swiss Institute, 495 Broadway, at Broome bimbo turned bookworm. 1St. 212-925-2035.) The splendid new revival, directed by Doug Hughes DANCE at the Cort, makes a star NEW YORK CITY BALLET The company goes back to basics, with seven days of Balanchine’s “black-and-white” dances, modern- ist masterpieces that have come to define the style and look of twentieth-century American ballet. In “Apollo” (1928)—set, like many of these works, to music by Igor Stravinsky—a “wild, untamed youth,” the dancer Jacques d’Amboise says, “learns nobility through art.” “Episodes,” from 1959, began as a double bill shared by Martha Graham and George Balanchine, and hasn’t been performed here in four years. And “Concerto Barocco” (1941), for two violins and two ballerinas, comes as close to revealing the essence of Bach as any dance ever will.
  • Download Program Notes

    Download Program Notes

    L’Oiseau de feu (The Firebird) (complete ballet score) Igor Stravinsky s musicians go, Igor Stravinsky was a Nightingale (1914), Pulcinella (1920), Mavra A rather late bloomer. He didn’t begin pia- (1922), Reynard (1922), The Wedding (1923), no lessons until he was nine, but these were Oedipus Rex (1927), and Apollo (1928). soon supplemented by private tutoring in The Ballets Russes made a specialty of harmony and counterpoint. His parents sup- pieces inspired by Russian folklore (pri- ported his musical inclinations, all the more meval Russian history being a cultural ob- laudable since they knew what their teenag- session of the moment) and The Firebird er was getting into. (Stravinsky’s father was a was perfectly suited to the company’s de- bass singer at the opera houses of Kiev and, signs. The tale involves the dashing Prince later, St. Petersburg; his mother was an accom- Ivan (Ivan Tsarevich), who finds himself plished amateur pianist.) One of Stravinsky’s one night wandering through the garden friends at school was the son of the celebrat- of King Kashchei, an evil monarch whose ed composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. When power resides in a magic egg that he guards Stravinsky’s father died, in December 1902, in an elegant box. In Kashchei’s garden, the Rimsky-Korsakov became a mentor, both per- Prince captures a Firebird, which pleads sonal and musical, to the aspiring composer. for its life. The Prince agrees to spare it if By 1907 Stravinsky (already 25 years old) was it gives him one of its magic tail feathers, ready to bestow an opus number on one of his which it consents to do.
  • CHAN 6654 BOOK.Qxd 22/5/07 4:18 Pm Page 2

    CHAN 6654 BOOK.Qxd 22/5/07 4:18 Pm Page 2

    CHAN 6654 Cover.qxd 22/5/07 4:17 pm Page 1 CHAN 6654(5) CHAN 6654 BOOK.qxd 22/5/07 4:18 pm Page 2 Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) COMPACT DISC TWO TT 79:14 Le Chant du Rossignol (1917) 20:56 COMPACT DISC ONE TT 76:46 1 Presto – 2:20 Symphony in E flat, Op. 1 (1905–07) 34:12 2 Marche chinoise 3:32 1 I Allegro moderato 9:42 3 Le Chant du Rossignol – 3:36 2 II Scherzo. Allegretto 6:03 4 Le Jeu du Rossignol mécanique 11:28 3 III Largo 9:42 Stephen Jeandheur trumpet solo 4 IV Finale. Allegro molto 7:38 Symphony in Three Movements (1942–45)* 21:19 5 Violin Concerto (1931) 21:54 I = 160 9:09 5 I Toccata 5:28 6 II Andante – Più mosso – Tempo I 6:08 6 II Aria I 4:58 7 III Con moto 5:58 7 III Aria II 5:27 8 IV Capriccio 5:50 Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1949)* 16:56 Lydia Mordkovitch violin 8 I Presto 6:40 9 II Andante rapsodico 5:05 Symphony of Psalms (1930) 21:52 10 III Allegro capriccioso ma sempre giusto 5:11 9 I Exaudi orationem meam, Domine 3:02 Geoffrey Tozer piano 10 II Expectans expectavi Dominum 7:02 11 III Alleluja, laudate Dominum 11:15 Concerto for Piano and Wind Chœur de Chambre Romand Instruments (1950) 19:31 Chœur Pro Arte de Lausanne 11 I Largo – Allegro – Più mosso – Maestoso Société chorale du Brassus (Largo del principo) 7:14 André Charlet chorus master 12 II Largo – Più mosso – Doppia valore – Tempo primo 7:21 13 III Allegro – Agitato – Lento – Strigendo 4:50 Boris Berman piano 2 3 CHAN 6654 BOOK.qxd 22/5/07 4:18 pm Page 4 COMPACT DISC THREE TT 66:36 Tableau II 24:25 Petrushka (1911) 33:03 16 Apollo’s Variation 2:48 Tableau I: The Shrovetide Fair 9:31 17 Pas d’action 4:17 1 The Crowds 5:03 18 Calliope’s Variation.