Festival Opening Night Wednesday, June 4, 2008 7:30pm The American Composers Alliance presents: The New York Virtuoso Singers Harold Rosenbaum, conductor Christopher Oldfather, piano FIVE LIVE CONCERTS MORE THAN 30 COMPOSERS Festival Schedule: Wednesday, June 4 at 7:30 PM Leonard Nimoy Thalia Thursday, June 5 at 7:30 PM at Peter Norton Symphony Space Friday, June 6 at 7:30 PM 2537 Broadway (at 95th St.) Saturday, June 7 at 4:00 PM New York City Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 PM The American Composers Alliance is a not-for-profit corporation. This event is made possible in part, with funds from the Argosy Foundation, BMI, the City University Research Fund, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the NYU Arts and Sciences Music Department, and other foundations, businesses, and individuals. 1 The American Composers Alliance Festival of American Music 2008 (9th Annual) The New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, Conductor Christopher Oldfather, piano Mark Zuckerman Two Browning Settings (1998/99) Brian Fennelly Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil (1994) Robert Ceely Five Contemplative Pieces (2000) Gregory Hall April (2005) Jody Rockmaker Yiddish Choruses (2006) Intermission *Presentation of the ACA Laurel Leaf Award to Harold Rosenbaum Hubert S. Howe, President, ACA Louis Karchin To the Stars (2003) John Eaton Duo (1977) Soprano solo: Cynthia Richards Wallace Edward Jacobs When Time (2007) Elliott Schwartz Two Watterson Poems (2004) Percussion: Adam Forman, Paul Kerekes Steven R. Gerber Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought (2003/04) The New York Virtuoso Singers Sopranos: Cynthia Richards Wallace and Julie Morgan Altos: Hai Ting Chinn and Nancy Wertsch* Tenors: Neil Farrell and Michael Steinberger Basses: James Gregory and Nicholas Hay *choral contractor Many of the works performed at this year's Festival of American Music are published and distributed by the American Composers Alliance. If you would like to inquire about any of these works, please contact us: [email protected] 2 TEXTS AND PROGRAM NOTES Mark Zuckerman Two Browning Settings: Grow Old Along With Me (1998) and Because (1999) These two choral settings of poetry by Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were written for my wife, Judith. Grow Old Along With Me was sung at our wedding. This piece is actually a joint effort with Judith, since we both selected the text. It was her idea to use Robert Browning, and she chose as our theme the famous first lines from Browning’s poem, Rabbi Ben Ezra. We then read through several volumes of Browning’s work until we discovered Any Wife to Any Husband, the second stanza of which we felt captured exactly how we felt about each other. In the resulting composite text the lines from the first poem frame the excerpt from the second, a relation reflected in the music. Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be! I have but to be by thee, and thy hand Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand The beating of my heart to reach its place. When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone? When cry for the old comfort and find none? Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face. Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be! Because was a first anniversary gift, presented with the help of the Gregg Smith Singers at their summer workshop in Saranac Lake, New York, close after the actual event. Because sets the Sonnet XXXIX of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her collection of forty-four Sonnets from the Portuguese. She wrote these in secret, presenting them to her husband Robert in 1847. Although she never meant them to be published, she was, fortunately, persuaded to put them in print. According to Louis Untermeyer (the editor of The Love Poems of Elizabeth and Robert Browning, currently published by Barnes and Noble): The title was something of a mystery; it was a modest, and misleading, attempt to conceal the unimpeded confessions of an impassioned heart. The poems were obviously not translations; the title was merely one more token of domestic intimacy. At first Mrs. Browning suggested “Sonnets translated from the Bosnian.” But the title finally chosen was another homage to Browning; it was an acknowledgment of her husband’s playful way of calling her his “own little Portuguese” because of her olive skin. Because is heavily influenced by the music of Lili Boulanger – in particular her Psalm settings – which 3 highlights nuances in the text with dramatic awareness and sensitivity. The title, Because, comes from the first word which is repeated twice in key positions within the poem and distills the thrust of the text. Within the poem’s rigorous sonnet structure lies a wealth of dramatic and contrasting images and thumbnail sketches evocative of deep feeling and long experience. Consequently, Because shifts moods rapidly along with changes in the text and imagines the emotional foundation for each declaration. Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace To look through and behind this mask of me (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly With their rains), and behold my soul's true face, The dim and weary witness of life's race,-- Because thou hast the faith and love to see, Through that same soul's distracting lethargy, The patient angel waiting for a place In the new Heavens,-- because nor sin nor woe, Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighbourhood, Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed,-- Nothing repels thee,… Dearest, teach me so To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good! Brian Fennelly Soon Shall the Winter’s Foil (1994) This is the single setting completed of a planned set of nature poems by Walt Whitman for Harold Rosenbaum and the New York Virtuoso Singers. It was written for a now-abandoned recording project of some years ago involving all my choral music. Soon shall the winter’s foil be here; Soon shall these icy ligatures unbind and melt -- A little while, And air, soil, wave, suffused shall be in softness, bloom and growth -- a thousand forms shall rise From these dead clods and chills and low burial graves. Thine eyes, ears -- all thy best attributes -- all that takes cognizance of natural beauty, Shall wake and fill. Thou shalt perceive the simple shows, the delicate miracles of earth, Dandelions, clover, the emerald grass, the early scents and flowers, The arbutus under foot, the willow’s yellow-green, the blossoming plum and cherry; With these the robin, lark and thrush, singing their songs -- the flitting bluebird; For such the scenes the annual play brings on. 4 Robert Ceely Five Contemplative Pieces (2000) The Five Contemplative Pieces for chorus is receiving its first New York performance. The poems express the meanings and character of each song as well as the mood of the composer while writing them. 1. On Solitude by Alexander Pope 3. My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold by Wordsworth Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, My heart leaps up when I behold Content to breath his native air A rainbow in the sky: In his own ground. So was it when my life began; So it is now I am a man; Whose herds with milk, whose fields with So be it when I shall grow old, bread, Or let me die! Whose flocks supply him with attire; The Child is father of the Man; Whose trees in summer yield him shade. And I could wish my days to be In winter fire. Bound each to each by natural piety. Blest, who can unconcern’dly find 4. Fall, Leaves, Fall by Emily Bronte Hours, days, and years slide soft away In health of body, peace of mind, Fall leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Quiet by day. Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Sound sleep by night; study and ease Fluttering from the autumn tree, Together mix’d; sweet recreation, I shall smile when wreaths of snow And innocence, which most does please Blossom where the rose should grow; With meditation I shall sing when night’s decay Ushers in a drearier day. Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; 5. Age by Walter Savage Lander Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie. Death, tho I see him not, is near And grudges me my eightieth year. 2. Eternity by William Blake Now I would give him all these last For one that fifty have run past. He who binds to himself a joy Ah! He strikes all things, all alike, Does the winged life destroy; But bargains: those he will not strike But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise. 5 Gregory Hall April (2005) April is from W.S. Merwin’s, The Lice. The composition of this work was a case in point for my relationship to the poetry of Merwin. Having set many of his texts in the past—I deliberately turned to the works of several other poets. However, this poem jumped out at me in the way that Merwin’s poems tend to do, and I had no choice, as the music came quickly as well. Specifically, the music was almost immediately inspired by the line “April, April”, and I took the liberty of using it as a recurring refrain. Other musical devices inspired by the poem include lengthy solo melismas, and staggered entrances on the words “sinks” and “you”. When we have gone the stone will stop singing April April Sinks through the sand of names Days to come With no stars hidden in them You that can wait being there You that lose nothing Know nothing "April" from The Lice Copyright © 1967 by W.S.