WORKS BY David Felder Eric Moe Paolo Cavallone Steven Ricks James Primosch Jason Eckardt Harvey Sollberger extreme measures JEAN KOPPERUD clarinet STEPHEN GOSLING piano WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM TROY1217/18 ALBANY RECORDS U.S. 915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207 TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643 ALBANY RECORDS U.K. BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD TEL: 01539 824008 © 2010 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA DDD WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL. David Felder _ Rare Air David Felder has long been recognized as a leader in his bass clarinet and piano sounds were energetically extended through their electronic doubles. As well, generation of American composers. His works have been featured at many of the leading international Kopperud’s theatricality encouraged me to form the compositions with humorous schtick in the back- festivals for new music including Holland, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, Ars Electronica, Brussels, ISCM, ground—beneath the compositional surface there are sight gags, and an ‘over the top’ atmosphere North American New Music, Geneva, Ravinia, Aspen, Tanglewood, Music Factory, Bourges, Vienna that is reminiscent of certain comedians…and politicians of every kind. Modern, IRCAM, Ars Musica, and many others, and earns continuing recognition through perfor- mance and commissioning programs by such organizations as the New York New Music Ensemble, Eric Moe _ Grand Prismatic Arditti Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, American Brass Quintet, and Eric Moe (b. 1954), composer of what the New York many others. Felder’s work has been broadly characterized by its highly energetic profile, through Times calls “music of winning exuberance,” has received numerous grants and awards for his work, its frequent employment of technological extension and elaboration of musical materials (including including the Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim his work with video collaborators) and its lyrical qualities. Felder has received numerous grants and Fellowship; commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Fromm Foundation, the commissions including many awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, two New York State Koussevitzky Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, and Meet-the-Composer USA; fellowships from the Council Commissions, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim, Koussevitzky, two Wellesley Composer’s Conference and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; and residencies at the Fromm Foundation Fellowships, two awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Meet the Composer “New MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Bellagio, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ucross, the Millay Colony, Residencies” (1993-1996) with the Buffalo Philharmonic, two commissions from the Mary Flagler the Ragdale Foundation, the Montana Artists Refuge, and the American Dance Festival. All-Moe CDs Cary Trust, the Siemens Foundation, and many more. Felder is Birge-Cary Chairholder in Composition may be found on the Naxos, Albany, Koch, and Centaur labels. His recent ”one-woman opera” Tri-Stan at SUNY Buffalo, and has been Artistic Director of the “June in Buffalo” Festival since 1985. Since was hailed by the New York Times as “a tour-de-force” that “subversively inscribe[s] classical music 2006, he has been Director of the Center for 21st Century Music at the University, an organization he into pop culture”; a CD is available from Koch International Classics. A founding member of the San founded. From 1992 to 1996 he was Meet the Composer “New Residencies”, Composer-in-Residence Francisco-based EARPLAY ensemble, he co-directs the Music on the Edge new music concert series in to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and WBFO-FM. In 1996, he formed the professional chamber Pittsburgh. Moe was educated at the University of California at Berkeley (M.A., Ph.D.) and at Princeton orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta, and has been Artistic Director since that time. In 2008, he was named University (A.B.) He is Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh and has held SUNY Distinguished Professor. He has taught previously at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the visiting professorships at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. More information is University of California, San Diego, and California State University, Long Beach, and earned a Ph.D. available at his website, . from the University of California, San Diego, in 1983. His works are published by Theodore Presser, and recorded on Albany, Mode, Bridge, EMF, and others. Grand Prismatic is named after Yellowstone Park’s Grand Prismatic Spring, one of the most striking of the wonders of nature in the park. The prismatic brightness of the colors of the spring are the result Rare air was composed for Jean Kopperud’s “Rated X” project. The premise of the project provided of thermophiles, microorganisms that only thrive in extreme environments (in this case, boiling water). me with an opportunity to do something that had long intrigued me —to write some small movements The listener is invited to meditate on the similarities between thermophiles and other creators of breath- intended to be interspersed within a program, rather than played as a continuous work. In working taking beauty who toil away in apparently hostile environments. The work was written for Jean Kopperud, with Kopperud, I proposed a small set of two pairs of pieces; near duplicates in raw material, but with one of the extraordinary musicians of our time, whose playing I have had the pleasure of hearing and very different manifestation. In thinking of one pair to open and close the program, a ‘proto-clarinet’ admiring for several decades. I am grateful also to the Montana Artists Refuge, where the work was was the desired sonic object (the first one with surround electronics), and in creating the other pair, composed in the summer of 2007. Paolo Cavallone _ (Dis)tensioni Steven Ricks _ Amygdala Paolo Cavallone (b. 1975) has been described Steven L. Ricks (b. 1969) received his early musical train- among the new generations of composers as “one of the most interesting talents in the contemporary ing as a trombonist in Mesa, Arizona. He holds degrees in composition from Brigham Young University music scene” (Rondò). His music, which Musikbox magazine called as “fascinating and complex,” (BM), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MM), and the University of Utah (PhD), and also has been performed in the United States and abroad in many renowned venues such as the “June in received a Certificate in Advanced Musical Studies from King’s College London in 2000. Ricks has Buffalo” Festival; New York’s Merkin Hall, Los Angeles’ Zipper Hall; Sacramento’s “New Music Festival”; appeared as a guest composer at the 2008 TRANSIT Festival in Leuven, Belgium, and has also been San Diego’s Mandeville Recital Hall; Siena’s Accademia Chigiana; Rome’s Auditorium “Parco della featured in a “spotlight” radio interview and article by Frank Oteri in NewMusicBox and Counterstream musica” and Festival “Nuovi Spazi Musicali” at the American Academy among others. His music and Radio of the American Music Center. His May 2008 Bridge Records release Mild Violence has received radio programs dedicated to him have been broadcast by RAI (the Italian broadcasting corporation), numerous favorable reviews, including a five-star review in BBC Music Magazine. He has received four Radio Capodistria, and other regional radio stations. His works are published by RAI Trade and Domani Barlow Endowment commissions, a Utah Arts Council Established Artist Grant, and has been a fellow Musica and have been released on CDs produced and published by Rai Trade, Suono Sonda, VDM at June in Buffalo and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. His works have been featured Records, and Domani Musica labels. He completed his doctoral studies in Music Composition under at numerous festivals, including SEAMUS 06 and 08, ICMC 06, and the 2008 Festival of New American the guidance of David Felder at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, graduating Music in Sacramento, and at venues including Merkin Hall in New York City and REDCAT/Disney Hall in with high distinction as well as being the recipient of a Presidential Fellowship. He has also taken Los Angeles. Ensembles that have commissioned Ricks or have performed his music include: California Composition lessons and attended seminars and specialization courses at the “June in Buffalo” EAR Unit, Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, Earplay, fEAR no MUSIC, Flexible Music, New York New Festival; at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (where he earned scholarships and a merit diploma); at Music Ensemble, Talujon Percussion Quartet, and Utah Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra. Ricks is cur- the Festival N.E.O.N (Nevada Encounters of New Music) in Las Vegas at which he was awarded the Max rently an Associate Professor in the BYU School of Music where he directs the Electronic Music Studio. Di Julio Prize; and at the “Bartók Festival” in Szombathely (Hungary) among others. For more information visit: www.stevericks.com (Dis)tensioni is a collection of eight short pieces. The oxymoron expressed by the title (Dis)tensioni The amygdalae are two almond-shaped neuron clusters in the brain that, among other things, deal (Italian for tension and relaxation) describes the main peculiarity of the entire work. The musical with processing and remembering emotional stimuli, such as fear and pleasure. I was drawn to the fragments, which represent tiles of an idealized “sonorous mosaic,” influence one another generating word itself, as well as its singular version: amygdala. Following additional research, I felt that many different “objects” simultaneously complementary one to another. From a broader perspective, with a characteristics of the amygdalae related to ideas I was exploring in the piece I was writing for Jean wider zoom, the ambiguity of each consequent configuration (coming from the continuous “opening” Kopperud and Stephen Gosling, so the title stuck. Rather than a direct mapping of scientific data, my of gestural proliferations) tends to generate a sort of palette constituted by “archetypes/colors” (there- piece is an abstract, emotional response to my study of the amygdalae and my personal reflection on fore, open to the unknowable in its relation with the “history/culture”). Thereby, the “short” pieces—or its functions. The first four movements of Amygdala are relatively short, and are conceived of as better, “compressed” pieces – gain an abstract/metaphysical and improvisative character. I think that works that are intimately intertwined and (almost) closed off in their formal structure. The fifth move- only in a metaphysical environment – therefore in an abstract and hypothetically superior dimension ment is much longer, and is meant to suggest a less rational and more emotional “way” of dealing with in comparison with actual reality—it is possible to overcome the “thing itself” (gesture, idea and its things. A sort of symmetry permeates the piece—between clarinet and piano, between live instru- realization) and achieve self-strengthening and liberation. This piece has been commissioned by Jean ments and electronics, and between various sections of the piece—but it is an unbalanced, crippled Kopperud for “Extreme Measures,” a Jean Kopperud and Stephen Gosling project. symmetry that seems connected (in my mind) to the effect emotions have on the human experience. Times Like These consists of five brief studies played without pause, embodying challenging times Amygdala was commissioned by the Utah Arts Council for Jean Kopperud and Stephen Gosling, and in their mercurial rhythms. I wrote these with confidence in the extraordinary virtuosity of the players is dedicated to them. It was premiered at the TRANSIT Festival of New Music in Leuven, Belgium, in who would bring the piece to life. But any piece involves multiple contexts, more than just the frame- October 2008. work created by its performers. How much the work is about the times of the music and how much about the music of the times I leave for the listener to decide. James Primosch _ Times Like These When honoring him with its Goddard Jason Eckardt _ Rendition Lieberson Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters noted that “A rare economy of means Jason Eckardt (b. 1971) played guitar in jazz and metal and a strain of religious mysticism distinguish the music of James Primosch... Through articulate, bands until, upon first hearing the music of Webern he immediately devoted himself to composition. transparent textures, he creates a wide range of musical emotion.” Andrew Porter stated in The New Since then, his music has been influenced by his interests in perceptual complexity, the physical and Yorker that Primosch “scores with a sure, light hand” and critics for the New York Times, the Chicago psychological dimensions of performance, and self-organizing processes in the natural world. Out of Sun-Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Dallas Morning News have characterized his music as Chaos, a CD of Eckardt’s chamber music, is available on the Mode label and his music is published “impressive,” “striking,” “grandly romantic,” “stunning” and “very approachable.” Born in Cleveland, by Carl Fischer. He teaches composition at City University of New York’s Graduate Center and Brooklyn Ohio in 1956, James Primosch studied at Cleveland State University, the University of Pennsylvania, College and lives in the Catskill Mountains. and Columbia University. He counts Mario Davidovsky, George Crumb and Richard Wernick among his principal teachers. Primosch’s instrumental, vocal, and electronic works have been performed Rendition: Beginning in the mid 1990s, the CIA instituted a program of extraordinary rendition, throughout the United States and in Europe by such ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the wherein foreign nationals suspected of terrorist activity were detained, without legal process, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Collage, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Twentieth Century then covertly transported to countries where regulations for interrogation were less stringent than Consort. His Icons was played at the ISCM/League of Composers World Music Days in Hong Kong, and those imposed in the United States and elsewhere or completely absent. The program was dramatically Dawn Upshaw included a song by Primosch in her Carnegie Hall recital debut. Commissioned works by escalated after the September 11 attacks and was defended vigorously by the Bush administration. Primosch have been premiered by the Chicago Symphony, Speculum Musicae, the Cantata Singers, and Former CIA agent Robert Baer describes renditions bleakly: “If you want a serious interrogation, you pianist Lambert Orkis. Among the honors he has received are a grant from the National Endowment send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two prizes from the American Academy-Institute of Arts and to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt.” The etymology of “extraordinary Letters, a Regional Artists Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, rendition” can perhaps be traced to the meaning of the verb rend: to tear, to remove from a place by the Stoeger Prize of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a fellowship to the Tanglewood violence, to wrest. Other meanings include to tear (the hair or clothing) as a sign of anger, grief, or Music Center where he studied with John Harbison. Recordings of eleven compositions by Primosch despair, to lacerate with painful feelings, and to pierce with sound. have appeared on the Albany, Azica, Bard, Bridge, CRI, Centaur, and New World labels, with new discs of vocal and choral works planned. Harvey Sollberger _ Nemesis The Performers Harvey Sollberger is a composer, conductor and “The American clarinetist Jean Kopperud was absolutely smash- flutist who has been active in many world musical centers. Performers of his music have included ing” (New York Post). Reviewers have called Kopperud “superhuman,” “magnificent,” “unforgettably the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, Tanglewood, June in Bufffalo, Interlink visual,” “staggering,” “sensational,” “dazzling,” “wonderful,” “the total clarinetist” and the list (Tokyo), Radio France and Pierre Boulez’s Domaine Musical (Paris), TRANSIT (Belgium) and Incontri goes on. But possibly Allan Kozinn of the New York Times says it best. “It began brilliantly, with an di Musica Sacra Contemporanea (Rome). Sollberger has received the Award of the National Institute overdriven, virtuosic clarinet line that Jean Kopperud played with the power, texture and coloration of Arts and Letters, two Guggenheim Fellowships and commissions from the Fromm, Naumberg and that have become her trademark… Ms. Kopperud has the technique and imagination to make nearly Koussevitzky foundations, and has taught at Columbia University, the Manhattan School of Music, anything sound interesting.” Indiana University and the University of California, San Diego. His output as composer and performer is documented on more than 150 commercial CDs. Harvey Sollberger lives in Iowa where he feeds hum- A graduate of The Juilliard School and former student of Nadia Boulanger in France, Kopperud has mingbirds, grows arugula, and is at work on plans for a 30-acre sound garden. toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, the Caribbean and Australia as concert solo- ist and chamber musician. She performs with The New York New Music Ensemble, Omega, Ensemble Nemesis: In Greek mythology, Nemesis is the goddess of retribution who punishes human transgres- 21, Washington Square Chamber Players and University at Buffalo’s sion of the natural, right order of things and the arrogance that causes it. Nemesis, the composition, Sinfonietta. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Bridge reflects concerns of mine incident to the direction and tenor of life in the United States in recent years. Records, CRI, Albany Records, Mode, G M Recording, Koch, Musical It is not a “political piece” in the sense of setting a marching beat; rather, it leaves its mark in the Heritage, New World Records and Centaur Records. sand—or the air?—to be read by anyone who should happen to pass by and witness its witnessing. Overall, Nemesis is a large metaphor enacted in time through a process of decay and corruption Kopperud is also a performer on the cutting edge of the Music-Theater applied to an unassuming little Lutheran hymn attributed (erroneously) to J.S. Bach. In the course of genre. National acclaim for her presentations of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s this dissolution many contrasting notes—rage, melancholy, deviltry, rapt absorption and humor are “Harlekin,” the demanding performance work for dancing clarinetist, a few—are struck. All of this, though, leads implacably in one direction which takes as its motto a resulted in her Avery Fisher Hall debut presented by the New York phrase borrowed from Virgil: facilis descensus Averni (the way to hell is easy). Nemesis was composed Philharmonic. Each holiday season, she takes part in the Twelfth Night for Jean Kopperud in 2007 and 2008. Festival in Westerly, Rhode Island, where she is seen starring in unusual performance art roles. Working with Broadway director, Tom O’Horgan, Jean Kopperud developed “CloudWalking” a music-theater work that previewed at ClarFest in 1988 and toured for three years. “Cloud Walking” is a reference to Kopperud’s passion for skydiving. She found a way to include even that in her show, which amused and amazed audiences with her very special combination of musical and athletic abilities. Ms. Kopperud is a tenured Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo. (Formerly on the New York University and Columbia faculties and 18 years with Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program.) She also teaches a class called “On the Edge” in the Evening Division at the Juilliard School. “On the Edge” is a course to practice performing that is also done in workshop around the country. “Extreme Acknowledgments This recording has been generously supported by the Morris Creative Measures” is the first project in the Rated X series. It is seven clarinet and piano works written for Arts Fund Grant, the Ditson Foundation Recording Grant and the University at Buffalo. (Funding from Kopperud asking composers to dare to stretch the medium. The Winnipeg Free Press reviewed a past both the College of Arts and Sciences, Bruce McCombe, Dean, as well as the music department) project that Kopperud toured, which might best describe Rated X. “You can expect to have your head bent a little. You will stay awake. You will be fascinated and infuriated . . . and exhilarated by what The New York New Music Ensemble generously produced and advertised the New York City concert at you have heard.” Rated X (“Extreme Measures”) premiered in the fall of 2008 on the West coast and Merkin Concert Hall on February 23, 2009. University at Buffalo’s Robert and Carol Morris Center for was recorded in the spring of 2009. Rated X II is six commissions for clarinet and percussion and 21st Century Music presented the project on February 12, 2009. premieres in the fall of 2010. Piano by Steinway and Sons Recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY, NY in February 2009. Pianist Stephen Gosling is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso, Producer and Engineer_Judy Sherman American Modern Ensemble, the Orchestra of the League of Composers/ISCM, and Ne(x)tworks. He is additionally a frequent guest artist of many other groups, including the New York Philharmonic, PUBLISHERS Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, American David Felder _ Theodore Presser Composers Orchestra, and Sepculum Musicae. His work has garnered Eric Moe _ Dead Elf Music consistent critical acclaim, and he was profiled by the New York Times Paolo Cavallone _ RAI Trade, Milan, Italy in October 2005. Steven Ricks _ Steve Ricks Music ([email protected]) James Primosch _ available direct from the composer ([email protected]) Mr. Gosling earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the Jason Eckardt _ Carl Fischer Juilliard School, garnering the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence Harvey Sollberger _ available direct from the composer ([email protected]) and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship. He was also featured as concerto soloist an unprecedented four times, In 2006 the University at Buffalo offered me a job as associate professor of clarinet. With the position in works by Stravinsky, Schnittke, Schoenfield and Corigliano (the latter came explicit permission, expectation and encouragement to create projects for my personal artistic conducted by Leonard Slatkin). development. I found the stimulus inspiring; Extreme Measures, the first project in my Rated X series, was my response. Mr. Gosling has collaborated with numerous American and European composers, including Adams, Babbitt, Boulez, Carter, Ferneyhough, Knussen, Reich, Ruders, Wurorinen Thanks to UB and its faculty for their support both financial and otherwise. _ Judy Sherman, what and Zorn. He has also worked extensively with New Zealand’s pre-eminent composer, John Psathas, can I say? Thank you so much! You rock! _ Many thanks to the seven composers on this project who recording two award-winning CDs of his work (Rhythm Spike and Fragments) and premiering his piano took a chance and agreed to be a part of this project before any funding was in place. Even more concerto Three Psalms with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He has performed throughout the thanks for the hours of composition, listening, encouragement and advice in preparation for the Americas, Europe and Asia, and made more than 30 recordings to date. concerts, recording and editing of Extreme Measures. _ How can I express my gratitude to Stephen Gosling for the pleasure of his company on stage and off? _ And last of all, this CD project is dedi- cated to my parents, James and Bernice Kopperud, as a thank you for a lifetime of support. jean kopperud _ Ex treme measures extreme troy1217/18 measure JEAN KOPPERUD s clarinet CD1 STEPHEN GOSLING David Felder Steven Ricks piano 1 Rare Air: blews [1:33] Amygdala Eric Moe 12 1 [1:45] 2 Grand Prismatic [10:12] 13 2 [2:16] 14 3 [2:45] Paolo Cavallone CD2 15 4 [2:09] (Dis)tensioni 16 5 [6:59] David Felder 3 Con rigore ritmico [:34] 1 Rare Air: boxmunssun [3:30] 4 Espressivo [:41] James Primosch Times Like These Jason Eckardt 5 Fluido [:37] 2 Rendition [6:49] 6 Cantabile [:37] 17 1 [1:37] Harvey Sollberger 7 Teso [:28] 18 2 [1:26] 3 Nemesis [26:59] 8 Composto [1:06] 19 3 [:44] 9 Incalzante con bravura [:48] 20 4 [2:45] David Felder 10 Senza tempo - rarefatto [1:57] 21 5 [2:04] 4 Rare Air: aria da capo [:29] David Felder Total Time = 47:00 Total Time = 37:57 11 Rare Air: boxmunsdottir [3:44] troy1217/18

www.albanyrecords.com TROY1217/18 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008 © 2010 Albany Records made in the usa DDD warning: copyright subsists in all recordings issued under this label. jean kopperud _ Ex treme measures