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BLAIR Vanderbilt University NEIL BRAKE Vanderbilt Opera Theatre’s spring production, Lyric Opera Scenes, included the Act I finale from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte with, from left, Regan Lackey, Patrick McMurrey, Jena Carpenter and Justin Emmert. Vanderbilt University Non-profit 2201 West End Avenue U. S. Postage Nashville, TN 37235 PAID Nashville, TN Permit No. 23 A Complement of Composers page 12 SUMMER 2006 From the Dean Music for the 21st Century An update on the Blair Commissioning Project hree new pieces to be created for the Blair School’s Lowell Liebermann has been chosen to write a trio signature faculty ensembles and two of the three for horn, violin and piano for faculty member Leslie Norton Cover photo of Blair School composers (from left) Stan Link, Tcommissions for featured faculty solo performers (horn). Michael Rose, Michael Kurek and have now been determined. The ensemble commissions are Liebermann’s compositions have been performed inter- Michael Slayton by Daniel DuBois his issue of the BLAIR QUAR- generously funded by a gift from the James Stephen Turner nationally by orchestras such as the Metropolitan Opera TER NOTE features the Family Foundation. Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Cincinnati Or- T creation of music—com- chestra and the Baltimore Symphony among others. Artists The BLAIR QUARTER NOTE, the news- position itself. The Blair School’s Hungarian composer György Kurtág has been chosen to who have performed his works include James Galway, letter of the Blair School of Music, is published twice a year in coopera- faculty includes several outstanding FELVEGI write a string quartet for the Mstislav Rostropovich, James Levine, Leonard Slatkin, Ken- tion with the Office of Advancement composers of national and interna- Blair String Quartet. neth Schermerhorn and Joshua Bell. Communications for alumni, current tional renown. You will find their Kurtág studied piano with His Second Piano Concerto was premiered by the National students and their parents, and other friends of the School. profiles and the different ways they Magda Kardos and compo- Symphony with Stephen Hough, and his Flute Concerto was go about composing music. We also sition with Max Eisikovits commissioned by James Galway and premiered by him with The BLAIR QUARTER NOTE, Vol. 30, report on an exciting new exchange before enrolling in Buda- the St. Louis Symphony and Leonard Slatkin. Galway also No. 2, Summer 2006 program between Blair student per- © 2006 by Vanderbilt University. pest’s Academy of Music performed the work with the Metropolitan Orchestra and formers and composers and those All rights reserved. in 1946. He later studied in James Levine at Carnegie Hall. at the Royal Academy of Music in DUBOIS DANIEL Paris, attending the courses Editor, Bonnie Arant Ertelt London. Director of External Affairs, Cindy Steine of Messiaen and Milhaud. American Peter Schickele will compose a woodwind Contributors, Lisa DuBois, Kara Furlong, In addition, the Blair School has He retired as professor of quintet for the Blair Woodwind Quintet. MiChelle Jones, Ben Skinner Art Director, Donna DeVore Pritchett embarked on an important, excit- chamber music at the Acad- Composer, musician, author, satirist—Peter Schickele is Designer, Amy Blackman ing project of commissioning music from some of the world’s leading composers. emy of Music in Budapest in internationally recognized as one of the most versatile artists Perhaps you read about this project in our last issue. In this issue, we provide an 1986, though he continued teaching there until 1993. in the field of music. His works number well in excess of 100 Precollege, adult, and undergraduate alumni are encouraged to send their update on the composers who have been selected for these works, which will start He has worked as composer-in-residence with the Berlin for symphony orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles, professional or personal news to: to appear on our Concert Series in 2008. Philharmonic, with the Vienna Konzerthaus and in Paris for voice, movies and television. His recent premieres include the the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Cité de la Musique and Concerto for Cello and Orchestra “In Memoriam F.D.R.;” the The BLAIR QUARTER NOTE 2400 Blakemore Avenue Finally, we present a report on the Blair School’s outstanding BMI Composer-in- the Festival d’Automne. Kurtág won the prestigious 2006 New Century Suite, commissioned by the New Century Sax- Nashville, TN 37212-3499 Residence series, which has been an important part of our concert life and educa- Grawemeyer Award for his ‘...concertante...’. ophone Quartet and premiered by them with the North tional mission since the first composer came in 1992. Or by e-mail to: Carolina Symphony; the New Goldberg Variations for cello [email protected] Susan Botti, who is on the composition faculty of the PETER SCHAAF and piano, performed by In all these endeavors, the Blair School reaffirms its commitment not merely to the University of Michigan, has been commissioned to write three Yo Yo Ma and Emanuel teaching and performance of music, but to its very creation—to the music of the pieces of 20 minutes each, forming one hour-long dramatic Ax; and Symphony No. Undergraduate alumni news now future. I hope you will enjoy reading of these composers and their important work. appears in Vanderbilt Magazine’s arc. These pieces will be for, respectively, (a) violin and piano; 1 “Songlines,” premiered class notes section. Any news sent by (b) violin, piano, and cello; and (c) violin, piano, cello and by the National Sym- undergraduate alumni is forwarded to Vanderbilt Magazine. singer (Botti herself). This is for the Blakemore Trio with the phony under Leonard first piece specifically for violinist Carolyn Huebl. Slatkin. Visit us on the Web at Botti won a coveted Rome Prize and has been in residency Among his ongoing www.vanderbilt.edu/Blair/ at the American Academy in Rome since last September; she projects is a weekly, syn- Vanderbilt University is committed also received a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her newest dicated radio program, to principles of equal opportunity orchestral work, Translucence, premiered in May with the Schickele Mix, which has and affirmative action. Cleveland Orchestra. Her EchoTempo (for soprano, percussion been heard nationwide Printed on recycled paper & orchestra), was commissioned and premiered by Maestro over Public Radio Inter- Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic (with Ms. Botti national since January and Christopher Lamb as soloists). The European premiere 1992. of EchoTempo (occurred soon after in the “Music im 21. Jahrhudert” Festival in Saarbrücken, Germany. 2 BLAIR Quarter Note can easily cloud understanding. The Arts are ambiguous…. So Skaerved handed Blair sophomore Micah Claffey the “Mar- the attempt at understanding is lent a certain tragic humor by quis de Coberon,” perhaps the greatest Stradivari cello on the reality that every musician knows that the listener will have the planet, and asked him to play. Rose says, “Micah is still to embark on the same act of creative misunderstanding.” in shock. He said it changed him forever. He said he could Two years ago, Blair School of Music hosted Sheppard feel every person coming through who’d ever played that Skaerved as a visiting professor in a recital of music by George instrument in all its hundreds of years.” Rochberg, who had been Rose’s mentor. During the visit, Oliver Waespi, from Switzerland, majoring in composition the violinist also conducted a series of workshops on col- and classical guitar at RAM, was profoundly struck by an laborations between composers and performers. From that exercise in which the musicians passed a single note around experience emerged a friendship between Sheppard Skaerved all the players to make a musical statement. “It was striking and Rose, and the genesis of a plan for a two-week exchange to observe that this single note, as soon as it was born, started program between students at Blair and the Royal Academy to lead a very rich musical life, changing constantly its color of Music. and weight…. Blues works in quite the same way…. Thus, a Sheppard Skaerved returned to Blair last November to musical tale was recounted with a single note, a very fragile audition students for the exchange program, and selected note though, with an inner life audible only to those who violinists Preetha Narayanan and David Repking, cellist Micah want to hear it.” Claffey and composition and piano student Gary Shields. This mixture of improvisation, experimentation and clas- A Tale During spring break of 2006, these four students plus Ben sical performance required a leap of faith by students who’ve Skinner, BMus’06 in musical arts and English, who served been tutored under a more structured process. “I personally as photographer and documenter, traveled to London where am not one for uncertainty, and I think that this made me they spent a week composing, performing, jamming, experi- uncomfortable at first,” wrote David Repking. “At first I was of Two menting, talking and creating with four Royal Academy of expecting to create something tangible to say that I had done Music students, all of whom were from various countries in it…. I had to change my expectations to something more Europe. The following week, the four RAM students spent abstract.” a similar week in Nashville, in an educational and creative In fact, as the students became friends, they found a com- Cities exchange at Blair. mon ground by hanging out together after hours and playing The key to the process was this: they had no specific the blues, a genre that lends itself easily to improvisation aim, no end goal in mind. According to Sheppard Skaerved, and abstraction. the conversations veered from very precise and exhaustive During the pedagogical portion of the exchange program, explorations of musical color and structure, to politics, ideas Sheppard Skaerved observed how the students avoided “free- and a lot of laughter.