Kronos Quartet
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Sunday, January 18, 2015, 7pm Hertz Hall Kronos Quartet David Harrington, violin John Sherba, violin Hank Dutt, viola Sunny Yang, cello Brian Scott, lighting supervisor Brian Mohr, audio engineer with special guest Wu Man , pipa PROGRAM Kevin Volans (b. 1949) White Man Sleeps (1986)* in five movements David T. Little (b. 1978) AGENCY (2013)* ACT I: γένεσις I. Uluru Rising — a. Yulara/In the Dreamtime — b. Cipher I — Coordinates I — c. Cipher 2 — Negative Cartography — II. Auscannzukus Rising — a. Constructions — b. Cipher 3 — Coordinates II — c. Cipher 4 — Complicitous List — d. Cipher 5 — No Way In ENTR ’ACTE III. A Quiet Song of Secret Lessons (Cipher 6 [Log 324]) — CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM ACT II : ἀποκάλυψις IV. Leviathan Rising and the All-Seeing Eye — a. Introduction/Early Warnings — b. Cipher 7.1 — Fact/Fiction (Beneath) — c. Cipher 8.1 — Ben, Then (Above) — d. Cipher 7.2 — Fact/Fiction (Beneath) — e. Cipher 8.2 — Ben, Then (Above) — f. Cipher 8.3 — (O)GOD(O)GOD(O) (Orwell I) — g. Cipher 9 — Coordinates III — h. Yulara/In the Dreamtime (Orwell II) INTERMISSION Terry Riley (b. 1935) The Cusp of Magic (2004)* I. The Cusp of Magic II. Buddha’s Bedroom III. The Nursery IV. Royal Wedding V. Emily and Alice VI. Prayer Circle with Wu Man , pipa The program is subject to change. * Written for Kronos Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Kevin Volans (b. ;C>C) quartet for the Callino Quartet, and three White Man Sleeps (;CB@) books of small piano pieces. About White Man Sleeps , Volans writes: Kevin Volans was born in Pietermaritzburg, “The light, the textures, the colors of Africa South Africa. After completing a B.Mus. at the and the African landscape and the sounds of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, birds and the insects are totally different from he went on to study in Cologne, principally Europe. And the music draws on those ele - with Karlheinz Stockhausen (later becoming ments. It’s not so much cultural as environ - his teaching assistant), Mauricio Kagel, and mental. You can switch cultures, in a way, but Aloys Kontarsky. In the mid-1970s, his work you can’t deny your environmental background. became associated with the Neue Einfachheit “When Kronos asked me to do White Man (“New Simplicity”), the beginnings of post- Sleeps for them, I became interested in the modernism in music. issue of translatability. I have come to conclu - In 1979, following several field recording sion that the color of the instruments, or the trips to Africa, he embarked on a series of color of the sound that they produce, is as im - pieces based on African compositional tech - portant for the meaning of the music as the niques which quickly established Volans as a pitch, or they rhythms, or anything else.” distinctive voice on the European new music Kevin Volans’s White Man Sleeps was writ - circuit. During this time, he was active as a ten for the Kronos Quartet and recorded on the concert pianist and made several trips to Nonesuch CD Pieces of Africa . Ireland. His love of the country made him de - cide to settle there, and he took up a post as David T. Little (b. ;CAB) Composer-in-Residence in Belfast. In 1989 he AGENCY (<:;=) moved to Donegal, and in 1994 his request for citizenship was granted. David T. Little’s music is potent and dramatic, After moving to Ireland, Volans began a drawing as much upon his experience as a productive collaboration with the Kronos punk-metal drummer as his classical pedi - Quartet. White Man Sleeps (1986), Hunting: gree. In his work, he often undertakes politi - Gathering (1987), The Songlines (1988), and cal and existential themes, most recently String Quartet No. 8, “Black Woman Rising” gaining attention for success writing for larger (2004), were all written for them. In the 1990s, forces. Little’s opera Dog Days (Peak Volans gave increasing attention to writing for Performances/Beth Morrison Projects) was dance, collaborating with Siobhan Davies, widely acclaimed; Fort Worth Opera and Los Jonathan Burrows, Shobana Jeyasingh in Angeles Opera will present Dog Days in 2015. Britain, as well as companies around the His multimedia music-theater work, Soldier world. In 1999, London’s South Bank Centre Songs , based on interviews with veterans of hosted a 50th birthday celebration of his work five wars, received its première on the inau - in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Latterly, he has gural PROTOTYPE Festival in New York and turned his attention to writing for orchestra was later presented by the Holland Festival. and collaborating with visual artists. In 2009, Recent and/or upcoming works include for his 60th birthday celebrations, there were CHARM (Baltimore Symphony and Marin concerts in Dublin, Madrid, London (the Alsop), Hellhound (Maya Beiser), Haunt of Wigmore Hall’s “Kevin Volans Day”), and Last Nightfall (Third Coast Percussion), the South Africa. Recent commissions include a opera JFK with Royce Vavrek (Fort Worth piano concerto (No. 3) for Barry Douglas and Opera and American Lyric Theater), a new the BBC Symphony (BBC Proms), a triple opera commissioned by the Metropolitan percussion concerto for SISU and the Opera–Lincoln Center Theater new works Kringkastensorkestret (Oslo), a new string program, and the music-theater work Artaud CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES in the Black Lodge with Outrider legend Anne fiction, and fantasy surrounding them. Waldman (Beth Morrison Projects). His Likewise, this work is riddled with clues and music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, the secret messages—including nine labeled ci - Park Avenue Armory, the Bang on a Can phers, and many others not indicated—which Marathon, and elsewhere. must either be found or decoded in order to He holds degrees from Susquehanna access the meaning of the piece. In some cases, University (2001), the University of Michigan the answers to these riddles must be found in (2002), and Princeton University (Ph.D., the score itself—hidden via substitution ci - 2011), where his research explored the inter - phers, redactions, translation from various spy section of music and politics. His primary codes, etc.—while in other cases the clues only teachers have included Osvaldo Golijov, exist in the electronic backing track and must Steven Mackey, Paul Lansky, William Bolcom, be detected through audio manipulation— and Michael Daugherty. Little is co-founder time expansion, reversal, filtering, etc. These of the annual New Music Bake Sale, has hidden messages together include ideolog- served as Executive Director of MATA, and is ical texts, map coordinates, lists of ‘guilty par - currently Director of Composition at ties’ to international spy conspiracies, and Shenandoah Conservatory and Composer-in- philosophical, religious, and poetic quota - Residence with Opera Philadelphia. The tions. Other messages are audible, but unclear: founding artistic director of the ensemble often abstracted to obscure meaning, while Newspeak, his music can be heard on the New also amplifying their poetry. These messages Amsterdam and Innova labels. He is pub - together express the core meaning of lished by Boosey & Hawkes. AGENCY , but must first be deciphered before About AGENCY , Little writes: they can be understood. “a•gen•cy (ˈeɪ dʒə n si) “There are two master scores, each of which 1. an organization, company, or bureau that serves as a key for deciphering the codes provides a particular service. found in the work: one is held in the archives 2. a government bureau or administra- of the Kronos Quartet, and the other is held tive division. in the composer’s archives. There is no other 3. a means of exerting power or influence; in - key for deciphering the messages embedded strumentality. within the work.” 4. t he capacity for human beings to act inde - AGENCY was commissioned for the Kronos pendently and to make their own free choices. Quartet by the University Musical Society of the “AGENCY is a work about the presence or University of Michigan and the David absence of choice in society, explored through Harrington Research and Development Fund. the tension between faith-based indigenous cultures and modern information-based spy Terry Riley (b. ;C=?) agencies. Specifically focusing on the tension The Cusp of Magic (<::>) between the Aboriginal holy site Uluru in cen - tral Australia (also known by the colonial Composer and performer Terry Riley is one name Ayers Rock) and Pine Gap, a massive of the founders of music’s Minimalist move - American spy center of top-secret function, ment. His early works, notably In C (1964), pi - which sits just five hours to the north, oneered a form in Western music based on AGENCY seeks to ask: to what degree are we structured interlocking repetitive patterns. autonomous agents in the world, and to what The influence of Riley’s hypnotic, multilay - degree are we acted upon by outside, un - ered, polymetric, brightly orchestrated known, and potentially more powerful agents? Eastern-flavored improvisations and compo - “Both Uluru and Pine Gap are shrouded in sitions is heard across the span of contempo - great mystery, with a fantastical mix of fact, rary and popular music. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Born in Colfax, California, Riley studied at Banana Humberto 2000 (2000), premièred Shasta College, San Francisco State University, and toured by Riley and the Paul Dresher and the San Francisco Conservatory before Ensemble; Bruce’s Traveling Machine (2005 ) earning an M.A. in composition at UC for cello and tape, commissioned by the artist Berkeley, studying with Seymour Shifrin and Bruce Connor; The Heaven Ladder, Book 6 Robert Erickson. At Berkeley, he met La (Night Music) (2006) for piano four-hands, Monte Young; together, they worked with the commissioned by Sarah Cahill and premièred dancer Anna Halprin. During a sojourn to by Ms.