National Association of Composers/USA
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National Association of Composers/USA 2018 Conference March 16-18, 2018 Greetings from Dr. Brad Cutcliffe, president of the Great Plains chapter of NACUSA, and from each of its members. We welcome you to this momentous occasion as we celebrate the 85th anniversary of the organization. The Great Plains chapter was expanded in 2015 to include nine states within that region: Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Our goal is to increase composer cooperation and performance opportunities in a vast area that is musically rich and diverse but underrepresented nationally. We would like to thank the staff and faculty of William Jewell College and the National World War I Museum and Memorial. Fellow NACUSA and KcEMA members John Chittum, Dr. Ian Coleman, Daniel Morel, and Greg Steinke deserve special appreciation. Without your combined efforts this conference would not have been possible. We hope that the next three days will give you much to reflect upon and celebrate. Your enthusiasm, participation, and creativity is vital not only to the organization but to new American art music. We look forward to thought-provoking discussions and amazing new music. Thank you for attending. National Conference Schedule Friday, March 16th 7:00pm Concert #1, J.C. Nichols Auditorium Saturday, March 17th Papers/Presentations, William Jewell College, Gano Chapel 9:00am Greg A Steinke: Music and the Poetry of Lawson Fusao Inada 9:45am NACUSA Business Meeting 10:30am Tetsuya Takeno: cheating, lying, stealing by David Lang -Musical effect of permutation construction and its rhythmic structure 2:00pm Concert #2, Gano Chapel on William Jewell campus 7:00pm Concert #3, Gano Chapel With KcEMA; Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance Sunday, March 18th Papers/presentations; William Jewell College, Gano Chapel 9:00am Richard Derby: Jan Karlin: What’s Next? Creativity in the Age of Entertainment 10:30am Jeff Morris: Intermedia techniques for acoustic composition 2:00pm Concert #4, YCC Competition Winners, Gano Chapel Concert #1 Friday, March 16 - 7:00pm J.C. Nichols Auditorium, WWI Museum Kelly Birch, mezzo-soprano Dorothy Glick Maglione, flute Madelyn Moore, clarinet Josh Draves-Kellerman, bassoon Jen Oliverio, trumpet Esther Seitz, cello TBD, violin The Second Coming William Hooper Yeats was an Irish poet who had lived through tough times during World War 1. He had seen unprecedented slaughter, such as several Irish Nationalists had been executed in the struggle for freedom and the upheaval of the Russian revolution. This poem is a picture of Yeats struggling with the horror and cruelty of World War I. Things might fall apart, systems collapse and spiritual refreshment can only be achieved through the second coming: a Christian concept involving the return of Jesus Christ on Earth. Except that this second coming would be no holy birth of an infant Christ in a lowly manger. Something far sinister is in prospect; an antithetical creature, sphinx-like in nature, a rough beast, slouching its way, about to be born en route to a symbolic Bethlehem. Yeats poetically predicted the rise of a rough beast that manifested chaos and upheaval in the form of Nazism and Fascism, bringing Europe to its knees. This piece was originally written for flute, piano, and voice and has been orchestrated. It utilizes some non-traditional notation and a 12-note harmonic base. The form is dictated by the text. The soloist sings, shouts, and song-speaks. At some points the soloist has only indications of approximate pitches to be sung, leaving it to him or her to sing what pitches seem appropriate at the time. The rhythm is both periodic and free. Turning and turning in the widening gyre Surely some revelation is at hand; The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert The ceremony of innocence is drowned; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, The best lack all conviction, while the worst A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Are full of passionate intensity. Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989) Via Nocturna Ben Stevenson The Latin title of this piece can broadly be translated in a number of ways—as either “the way of the night” or “by night” or most broadly as “night road.” The piece was partially inspired by the fifth movement of Benjamin Britten’s “Nocturnal” for solo guitar, which is marked “march-like.” In the Britten, as well as in this piece, a rhythmic motive is almost obsessively repeated while the other musical material attempts to break away. The image I most returned to as I was writing “via nocturna” was one of soldiers marching down a road in the dark, towards an uncertain future. In the last third of the piece the mood changes; lyrical melodic material appears—including a veiled reference to Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a piece written in the aftermath of the First World War—but, finally, the martial material returns, and the music trudges toward oblivion. 1914 Richard Montalto Composed in November 2017, 1914 is a setting of a sonnet by Wilfred Owen. As one of the major English poets of the First World War, Owen’s works reflect his first-hand experiences of the conflict. Owen was tragically killed by gunfire one week before the end of the war. Owen scholar Dorothy Mountford states, “In the octet the tone is one of despair and horror at the destruction wrought by the war. In the sestet Owen moves away from the present against which he raves to become reflective and celebratory of past times. The final couplet however returns to the cold despair of present winter and the horror of the blood/seed which will have to be spilt to ensure a future.” In this setting, the voice does not dominate the texture, but is treated as an equal part of the ensemble. War broke: and now the Winter of the world For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece, With perishing great darkness closes in. And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome, The foul tornado, centred at Berlin, An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home, Is over all the width of Europe whirled, A slow grand age, and rich with all increase. Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed. Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin. The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled. A Memorial Greg Steinke Dedication: In Memoriam: To those who died and suffered in World War I Prologue: A Prelude to War Of Home and War: Send Off Remembering Home War Comes and Goes Epilogue: Remembrances ~ Intermission ~ Ich habe geschwiegen Daniel Morel Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran pastor whose pacifism and anti-war efforts have touched people throughout the 20th century. Imprisoned by the Nazi regime, his body of writings and speeches reflected on the inevitability and disenfranchisement of those who did not speak out against atrocities. These speeches were eventually distilled into his famous poem "First they Came for the Jews." The threat of oppression is not unique to any time or place. Nor is the humanist reaction to defend friends, families, and even strangers, against such encroachment. This dramatic work for solo soprano touches on just a few of the many reactions to oppression, from Europe to Latin America and the Middle East. Ich habe geschwiegen weaves together texts from multiple languages. An original speech by Martin Niemöller forms the core of the text, woven together with chants from the Arab Spring uprisings and Latin American resistance songs. When the Nazis When the Nazis came for the communists, When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I remained silent; I was not a communist. I wasn’t a Jew. When they locked up the social democrats, When they came for me, I remained silent; There was no one left to speak out. I was not a social democrat. El pueblo unido jamás será vencido… When they came for the trade unionists, (The people united will never be defeated…) I did not speak out; Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam I was not a trade unionist. (The people want to bring down the regime) Eulogy Roger Briggs Eulogy is a ritual for the living that acknowledges the importance of lives that have been lived. It reminds us of their memories, their love, their contributions, sacrifices, and their legacies. The work begins with a simple Robin mourning the loss of a loved one. Eventually, the entire world of nature seems to join the grieving process. A time of reflection emerges followed by acceptance, admiration, thankfulness, and memories. Hearts Paul Lombardi “Hearts” is a poem written by John Witte from his 2005 collection The Hurtling. Witte’s father was Jewish and emigrated with his family to America in the turmoil immediately following World War I, part of a huge diaspora.