Saturday, April 25, 2015, 8pm Hertz Hall

eco ensemble David Milnes, conductor

PROGRAM

Philippe Leroux (b. 1959) De la texture (2006)

Tod Brody flute Peter Josheff clarinet Hrabba Atladottir violin Ellen Ruth Rose viola Leighton Fong cello Travis Andrews guitar Ann Yi piano Daniel Kennedy percussion

Edmund Campion (b. 1957) Auditory Fiction II (2014) West Coast première

Loren Mach percussion I Daniel Kennedy percussion II

INTERMISSION

PLAYBILL PROGRAM

Franck Bedrossian (b. 1971) Epigram I (2009) & Epigram II (2013) Performed without interruption. United States première

Stacey Pelinka flute Peter Josheff clarinet I Annie Phillips clarinet II Alex Camphouse horn Hrabba Atladottir violin I Dan Flanagan violin II Ellen Ruth Rose viola Leighton Fong cello Ann Yi piano Loren Mach percussion Dan Levitan harp Donatienne Michel-Dansac soprano

Special thanks to the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT).

eco ensemble

Executive Director Richard Andrews Scheduling and Production Coordinator Robert Yamasato Program Development Coordinators Matthew Schumaker and Sivan Eldar Technical Production John MacCallum

Artistic Advisory Committee Edmund Campion David Milnes Matías Tarnopolsky Cindy Cox Franck Bedrossian

Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES

Philippe Leroux (b. 9A=A) verse articulations...) define the different sur - De la texture (:88>) roundings of the journey (from where one is leaving/to where one is going).” For more than 20 years, Philippe Leroux has Even without delving into the technical opened ears worldwide with music that radi - components of Leroux’s style, one can appre - ates energy, revealing the inner life of individ - ciate the emphasis on motion in the titles of ual sonorities against a musical background so me of his best known works: the chamber that is always buoyant and in flux. Already piece Fleuve (“River,” 1988 ), the quintet central to France’s contemporary music scene, Continuo(ns) (“Continuo/Let’s Continue,” Leroux writes spontaneously playful, yet care - 1994) and the Violin Concerto (d’)ALLER fully constructed scores that are winning him (“(on)GOING,” 1995 ). Underlying these ever greater recognition from ensembles in evocative titles are myriad ways of creating the United States. and dispelling momentum. In (d’)ALLER, for Born in Boulogne, Leroux took up the example, rapid scales and arpeggios seem to piano and the guitar before entering the Paris shrink and expand as notes are added or re - Conservatoire to study composition with Ivo moved, forming a shimmering backdrop for Malec and electro-acoustic music with Guy the contest between soloist and ensemble. Reibel and Pierre Schaeffer; his other teach - This concerto is the central panel in Leroux’s ers have included Olivier Messaien, Franco triptych Continuo(ns)–(d’)ALLER–Plus Loin Donatoni, Betsy Jolas, and Iannis Xenakis. (1999–2000), whose title collectively spell out Leroux’s thoughts on harmony and tone color what might be considered an artistic credo: have been linked to the experiments in “spec - “Let us go further.” tral music” carried out by Murail and Grisey, Much of Leroux’s recent music involves the who sought to derive musical material gradual transformation of sound sources. from the internal structure of sounds. His Sometimes these transformations are con - music also distinguishes itself through its at - crete, as in the chamber work AAA (1996), tention to pulse, rhythm, and momentum. which takes a quotation from Baroque com - According to Dominique Druhen, an expert poser Jean-Philippe Rameau’s La Poule (“The on Leroux’s work, the composer is preoccu - Hen”) as the springboard for a voluble chatter pied with “movement—its birth, its death, and of variations. Typically, however, Leroux’s the conservation of that energy which enables sound modulations are more abstract; for ex - its continuation.” ample, the 1998 trio De l’épaisseur (“On Pondering such abstract concerns suggests Density”) explores the title concept by creat - a certain philosophical—almost mystical— ing a “tangle of lines” that change over time, depth below the sparkling surface of his presenting different intensities of tone color, scores. Indeed, the composer’s commentary register, texture, and dynamics. Even more on the creative process often resembles prose strikingly, in M (1997, for two pianos, percus - poetry as much as musical analysis: “Sound sion, and electronics), the composer analyzed actions ( élans , races, downfalls, surges, pulsa - the attack and decay of selected piano sonori - tions...)...are then set in motion by processes ties to generate electronic sounds intimately of transformation which are more or less con - related to their acoustic roots, creating a re - tinuous (compression/dilation, accelera - markable fluidity between electronic and non- tion/deceleration, shifting of a pitch or timbre, electronic timbres. dephrasing/rephrasing, accumulation/filter - Leroux’s works have been commissioned by ing, substitution, emerging/submerging, the French Ministry of Culture, the Orchestre mimicry…) And whose limits (beginnings Philharmonique de Radio France, IRCAM, and ends of the processes, cadences, stages, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Festival Musica, changes of harmonic mode, mirror axes, di - Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Norway’s

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

BIT 20, and the Belgian group Ictus. His To achieve this, I’ve constructed textures music has been heard around the world at the based upon the superimpositions of layers, re - Tempo, Music Today, Agora, Roma-Europa, calling rhythmic formulas of the French mili - Nuove Synchronie, Bath, and numerous other tary drum (even though I’m not particularly festivals, as well as in performance by New militaristic myself). There are flams, coups York’s New Music Ensemble and the BBC anglais .... I’ve used around 30 formulas just as Symphony Orchestra. In 1994, he received I did in my piece De la vitesse for six percus - SACEM’s Hervé Dugardin prize, and two sionists [ 2001 ]. years later, he won their second prize for “In a way, De la texture is the tale of a Big (d’)ALLER. He has since received SACEM’s Bang. There is an explosion. A material that “prix de compositeurs,” the André Caplet consists of a multitude of sonic particles, of prize of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de grains and rhythmic micro-cells is about to l’Institut de France, the Paul and Mica Salabert spread, moved by an energy that makes it con - prize for Apocalypsis, and the Arthur sume the space of the concert hall, until it Honegger prize from the Fondation de forms a spatial figure modeled after the square France. Leroux’s Continuo(ns) was the subject of the autumn constellation Pegasus. The of a book published by L’Harmattan, and the three spaces that are the space of writing composer himself has written many articles (canons/delays, resonance/reverberation), the on contemporary music. From 1993 to 1995 acoustical space (concert hall), and the space he was Resident at the Académie de France in of interpretation (the positions of the musi - Rome, and from 2001 to 2006 he taught com - cians in the hall) come together to form only position and computer music at IRCAM. In one space.” 2005–2006, he was also Professor of Composition at McGill University in © <;;= Beth Levy Montreal as part of the Fondation Langlois, Reprinted by permission of the and from 2007 to 2009 he was Composer in San Francisco Contemporary Music Players Residence at the Arsenal de Metz and with the Orchestre National de Lorraine. Describing De la texture , Leroux explains Edmund Campion (b. 9A=?) that the work and its title spring from Baroque Auditory Fiction II (:89<) ideas of texture and the composite rhythms of superimposed lines or voices: “By playing and Edmund Campion spent his formative years listening to Jean-Philippe Rameau and at Columbia University and IRCAM (Institut François Couperin, I became aware that the de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/ connotations of decorative order that gener - Musique) in Paris. At IRCAM, he composed ally suggest the notion of ornamentation don’t Losing Touch for vibraphone and electronics represent at all the immense rhythmic rich - (1995 ). He was eventually commissioned by ness and polyrhythmic activity of this music. IRCAM for the full-scale ballet Playback , the The superimposition of ornamental figura - meta-compositional environment for piano tions (in different fingers of both hands play - and computer Nat-Sel , and a work for impro - ing the harpsichord, for example) generate vising saxophone and interactive computer complex rhythmic encounters that possess a system, Corail . In 2012, as the Composer in definite musical function. Residence with the Santa Rosa Symphony, and “In addition, my music has always involved to celebrate the opening of the Green Music the decomposition of rhythmic figures in a su - Center, he composed The Last Internal perimposition of different meters. In this Combustion Engine , a full-scale Concerto piece, I have thus attempted to combine orna - Grosso with electronics and the Kronos mentation, figures, and polyrhythmic strata. Quartet. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES

Chronicle called the piece “a vivid and richly auditory timing instructions to the perform - imagined concerto.” In 2014 , the American ers via headphones. With the click-tracks in Composers Orchestra released a CD of his place, the musicians are enabled to perform work Practice , for orchestra and electronics. any independent tempo relationship: acceler - Renowned international ensembles have ate, decelerate, change phase, and at any rate. collaborated with Mr. Campion, including Les The techniques involved depend on recent Percussions de Strasbourg, which commis - software tools designed and developed at sioned and released Wavelike and Diverse on CNMAT by John MacCallum, Matt Wright, their 50th-anniversary CD set. Other pre - Mr. Campion, and others. mières include Auditory Fiction (2011 ), com - Mr. Campion explains the ideas behind the missioned by Société Générale for Radio Auditory Fiction series: France; Small Wonder (The Butterfly Effect) “In 1970 , Steve Reich created Drumming (2012 ), commissioned by the Serge (Part I) , a piece for four percussionists who Koussevitzky Foundation for the San use a West African-inspired performance Francisco Contemporary Music Players; and practice, in which the musicians play at Auditory Fiction II , written for the eco slightly different and dynamically shifting ensemble for the 2014 Venice Music Biennale. tempi. This difficult-to-master technique cre - In 2012, Mr. Campion was awarded the ates fascinating and ever-changing patterns Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, given by the derived from simple base rhythms. Auditory American Academy of Arts and Letters to a Fiction formalizes this approach, and allows “composer of exceptional gift.” Other prizes independent and dynamically flexible tempi to from a long list of accolades include the be designed and executed by human perform - American Rome Prize and the Lili ers. Computers and digital sound have been Boulanger Prize. capable of calculating and performing in this Mr. Campion is currently Professor of manner for decades; but the story is evolving, Music Composition at UC Berkeley and now that these special affordances are shaped Director at the Center for New Music and into tools for music composition and live per - Audio Technologies (CNMAT). A monograph formance. Yet even as the software open ups CD of the works of Mr. Campion by the San new vistas in music timing, it also provokes Francisco Contemporary Music Players, with new questions and creates new difficulties in David Milnes, is available on Albany records. performance practice and aesthet ics. Current projects include Cluster X , a co- “Alternate models of music time that move commissioned piece written for the Ensemble beyond the single master-clock paradigm cer - Intercontemporain in collaboration with au - tainly exist. But the problem for the Western- diovisual artist Kurt Hentschläger. Cluster X trained composer is how to write down the will be premièred in Paris on October 9, 2015, results, how to compose with it, and how to and will tour to the United States for transmit the performance instructions. performances at Cal Performances on Auditory Fiction combines aural support (in- November 9, 2015, and in Chapel Hill, North ear clicks) with new scoring methods that to - Carolina, on November 10, 2015. gether enable fine-grain control over multiple Composed for eco ensemble percussionists and simultaneous streams of time. Dan Kennedy and Loren Mach, Auditory “In Auditory Fiction , the musicians become Fiction II was premièred at the Venice capable of performing feats of temporal Biennale for Music in 2014 . Each piece in the magic—acts that defy perceptual logic and Auditory Fiction series features live musicians sometimes cause the listener to hear things that performing with the aid of computer- are not actually present. All the while, the per - generated in-ear click-tracks. Inaudible to the formers must remain tethered to the digi tal audience, the special cueing sounds provide clockwork as they act out the instructions and

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES on schedule. This tension between the human SACEM and the Prix Pierre Cardin from the and the technological, the musical and the Institut de France. Bedrossian was a Rome nonmusical, is what creates the Auditory Prize Fellow at the Villa Medicis from 2006 to Fiction . In tonight’s performance, the two per - 2008. In September 2008, he joined the music cussionists play only two amplified wooden depart ment at UC Berkeley, where he has since drums. This is my small homage to Steve served as Assistant Professor of Composition. Reich and a reminder that new ways of doing About Epigram I and Epigram II , he writes: things should start simply. Outside of ampli - “In following the path of Emily Dickinson’s fying the instruments, there is no other elec - work, the reader is always on his or her own, tronic or digital processing in the piece. An because Dickinson has never presented her attentive listener might hear something un - poems within cycles or chapters that can real, fictitious, or even suspicious. For me, the guide us through or direct our progression in unseen technological force drives the musical a clear and explicit way. And if, among all of outcome into the realm of fiction. The musi - her poetry, the resonances do exist, they are cians are actors who deliver a message relat - often secret and mysterious. ing as much to computation and perception “I was reminded of this unique experience of time as to what it means to be and remain in developing the musical form of Epigram I human in a hyper-technological era.” and Epigram II , and thought that its temporal To learn more, visit edmundcampion.com progression should return this peculiar feeling. and cnmat.berkeley.edu. “So I chose poems whose succession is not the consequence of an organizing will, but rather an ensemble of poetic associations, Franck Bedrossian (b. 9A?9) where the themes of loneliness and search for Epigram I (:88A) & Epigram II (:89;) identity are constantly reappearing. In this way, the whole puzzle formed by the isolated Throughout his career, Franck Bedrossian has poems should never give an impression of embraced a sonic phenomenon categorized by uniformity. To achieve this sensation, most of saturation, or an excess accumulation of matter, the texts were not chosen a priori , but more energy, movement, and timbre. His composi - often during the composition and depending tional training at the Paris Conservatoire with on the poetic atmosphere created by the flow Gérard Grisey and Marco Stroppa— of the music itself. Then, transitions, instru - and later with Philippe Leroux, Brian mental interludes, and silences appeared that Ferneyhough, Tristan Murail, and Philippe suggest connections between the different Manoury at IRCAM—have helped him ex plore poems. Eventually, I wanted to develop a potential uses of electronics toward the creation musical form that could possibly embody the of saturated sounds and to transition between poetry of Emily Dickinson that is complex, them. Bedrossian’s works have been performed dramatic, unpredictable, and ambiguous. in Europe and more recently in the United “Epigram I and Epigram II are the first two States by a number of prestigious new music episodes of a cycle for instrumental ensemble ensembles, including l’Itineraire, 2e2m, Ictus, and soprano voice currently being written. Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Orchestre The set will feature six movements in total, for National de Lyon, and the San Francisco a duration of 40 minutes. Contemporary Music Players. Many prominent “Epigram I is dedicated to Donatienne festivals have seen perform ances of his works, Michel-Dansac, and Epigram II to Françoise and he has been the recipient of numer ous and Jean-Philippe Billarant.” awards, such as the Hervé-Dugardin prize at

CAL PERFORMANCES TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS

Franck Bedrossian With Taints of Majesty— Epigram I Till I take vaster attitudes— Texts by Emily Dickinson And strut upon my stem— Disdaining Men, and Oxygen, :@@ For Arrogance of them—

I’m nobody! Who are you? My splendors, are Menagerie— Are you nobody, too? But their competeless Show Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell! Will entertain the centuries They’d banish us, you know. When I, am long ago, An Islandin dishonored Grass— How dreary to be somebody! Whom none but Beetles—know. How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day :A? To an admiring bog! It’s like the Light— 9>A= A fashionless Delight— It’s like the Bee— There is a solitude of space A dateless—Melody— A solitude of sea A solitude of death, but these It’s like the Woods— Society shall be Private—Like the Breeze— Compared with that profounder site Phraseless—yet it stirs That polar privacy The proudest Trees— A soul admitted to itself— Finite Infinity It’s like the Morning— Best—when it’s done— :== And the Everlasting Clocks— Chime—Noon! To die—takes just a little while— They say it doesn’t hurt— It’s only fainter—by degrees— Bedrossian And then—it’s out of sight— Epigram II Texts by Emily Dickinson A darker Ribbon—for a Day— A Crape upon the Hat—

PLAYBILL TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS

And lean—and view it sidewise— And add “How cold—it grew”— And “Was it conscious—when it stepped In Immortality?”

I am alive—because I do not own a House— Entitled to myself—precise— And fitting no one else—

And marked my Girlhood’s name— So Visitors may know Which Door is mine—and not mistake— And try another Key—

How good—to be alive! How infinite—to be Alive—two-fold—The Birth I had— And this—besides, in—Thee!

;@@

Take your Heaven further on— This—to Heaven divine Has gone— Had You earlier blundered in Possibly, e’en You had seen An Eternity—put on— Now—to ring a Door beyond Is the utmost of Your Hand— To the Skies—apologize— Nearer to Your Courtesies Than this Sufferer polite— Dressed to meet You— See—in White!

@?9

The Sun and Moon must make their haste— The Stars express around For in the Zones of Paradise The Lord alone is burned—

His Eye, it is the East and West— The North and South when He Do concentrate His Countenance Like Glow Worms, flee away—

Oh Poor and Far— Oh Hindred Eye That hunted for the Day— The Lord a Candle entertains Entirely for Thee—

Texts from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.)

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS

HE ECO ENSEMBLE is a group of experi - studying with Otto-Werner Mueller, Herbert Tenced, highly skilled Bay Area musicians Blomstedt, Erich Leinsdorf, and Leonard dedicated to performing new music from es - Bernstein, he won the prestigious Exxon tablished and emerging composers. Its mission Assistant Conductor position with the San is to enrich and serve the Bay Area’s cultural Francisco Symphony, where he also served as life through the creation, performance, and Music Director of the highly acclaimed San dissemination of new music by composers Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, which he from Berkeley and around the world. led on its first European tour in 1986 . What does “eco” stand for? Like other art Mr. Milnes has conducted frequently in forms, new music doesn’t exist in a vacuum— Russia and the Baltics, serving as Music it is part of the fabric that makes up our cul - Director of the Riga Independent Opera tural landscape. The San Francisco Bay Area Company and as a principal guest conductor generally (and Berkeley in particular) plays an of the Latvian National Symphony. Recent en - essential role in the eco ensemble’s formation: gagements have included appearances at the our musicians, composers, media, and audi - MANCA Festival in Nice, France, with the ence are all part of the region’s vibrant cultural Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice; in Mexico, at scene. We are both influenced by—and exert the Festival Internacional El Callejón del influence on—the artistic ecology within Ruido with the Guanajuato Symphony which we exist. The name “eco” acknowledges Orchestra; and in Russia, with the Novosibirsk this ecology and locates our work as part of Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated in the Bay Area’s abundant cultural community. performances with Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Bill T. Jones, Paul Hillier, James David Milnes serves as conductor of the eco Newton, David Starobin, and Chanticleer, and ensemble, Berkeley’s professional new music en - has appeared at the Santa Fe, Tanglewood, semble in residence, as well as Music Director Aspen, and Monadnock music festivals. A of the UC Berkeley University Symphony dedicated proponent of new music, from 2002 Orchestra since 1996. In his early years, he to 2009 Mr. Milnes was Music Director of the studied piano, organ, clarinet, cello, and voice, San Francisco Contemporary Music Playe rs, and briefly entertained a career as a jazz pianist, with whom he commissioned and premièred appearing with Chuck Mangione, Gene Krupa, many new works from around the world. He Billy Taylor, and John Pizzarelli. After receiving has made recordings of music by John advanced degrees in conducting from SUNY Anthony Lennon, James Newton, Edmund Stony Brook and the Yale School of Music, and Campion, Jorge Liderman, and Pablo Ortiz.

PLAYBILL