Monday Evening, October 30, 2017, at 7:30

The presents AXIOM Jeffrey Milarsky , Conductor Derek Wang , Piano

JACOB DRUCKMAN (1928 –96) Bo- (1979)

String Quartet No. 3 (1981) Variations 1 –3; marcia-ritornello; scherzo; marcia-ritornello Variations 4 –6 Marcia-ritornello; scherzo 2; variations 7 –9

Intermission

DRUCKMAN The Seven Deadly Sins (1955) Pride, Envy, Anger Sloth Avarice, Gluttony, Carnality DEREK WANG , Piano

Come Round (1992)

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium.

Information regarding gifts to the school may be obtained from the Juilliard School Development Office, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, ext. 278 (juilliard.edu/giving).

Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. Notes on the Program something essential—his scores endure as testimony to a time when his positions by Matthew Mendez were not at all safe ones.

JACOB DRUCKMAN Yet as Druckman was later at pains to Born June 26, 1928, in Philadelphia, emphasize, he was far from encouraging Pennsylvania his peers to start writing like Brahms again Died May 24, 1996, in New Haven, nor for them to simply wish away the very problems the avant-garde had arisen to con - front in the first place. In 1992 he insisted: Renowned as a shrewd tastemaker, a “When I say romantic, everybody imagines much sought-after educator, and a charis - effete late 19th-century, Biedermeier, senti - matic administrator, Jacob Druckman was mental music. That’s not at all what I’m one of the leading lights of the late 20th- talking about. It was leaning toward a trust century American concert music scene. At of things intuitive, that things intuitive tran - the height of his career, he was arguably scend things intellectual.” As such, a large even the inheritor of the mantle of dean of part of Druckman’s career was spent find - American composers, an accolade once ing ways to recalibrate the balance between held by one of his teachers, Aaron expressive, instinctual impulses and stereo - Copland. Perhaps best remembered for typically modernist problems of organization. Horizons— the series of much-talked about The graceful equilibrium of opposites— or new music festivals he curated during the counterpoise, to borrow the title of one of mid-1980s as composer in residence for Druckman’s final works—was an abiding the —Druckman concern. But if a rapprochement with the was one of the nation’s most vocal spokes - spirit of romanticism undeniably became persons for the stylistic trends converg - central to Druckman’s compositional mis - ing under the umbrella of the New sion, technically and stylistically, his works Romanticism, which he felt had been a actually tended to owe more to things like distinguishing feature of the zeitgeist since the gestural rhetoric of early modernism, the late 1960s. Indeed, while Druckman’s jazz harmonic thinking (he had once been a own creative output has sometimes been big-band trumpeter), and especially, the overshadowed in the years since his death coloristic textures of French impression - by the legacy of his work as a programmer, ism. In many ways he was indeed the presenter, and de facto aesthetician, his great musical conjurer of his time (multiple music nevertheless remains the most per - Druckman scores probed themes of sor - suasive manifestation of the aims and cery and illusion), his stock-in-trade being ideals vested in his New Romanticism sonic ecstasy and enchantment. “Generous, label, with its implication that alternatives tough, raffish, sophisticated, elusive, earthy,” to party-line modernism were newly avail - mused Harbison, Druckman’s music was able to composers. (As his colleague John unabashedly in the line of Claude Debussy, Harbison put it in a heartfelt obituary, striving always to fashion “a luxurious world Druckman “possessed the generosity of of intricately detailed sound whose origins someone whose own creative house was are direct and primitive.” in order, who always had something left to give for the health and survival of the musi - Bo- cal culture.”) While Druckman’s points of Written in 1979 for the composer’s per - view no longer require any special pleading cussionist son, Daniel (the longtime chair today—proof perfect that he was onto of Juilliard’s percussion department), Bo- (“Waves”) can certainly be construed as two systems of ripples cross each other, an homage of sorts to Debussy, whose the circles co-exist and do not disturb each music was indeed critically important to other.” Druckman further admitted that the the young Druckman. Bo- ‘s poetic inspira - compositional problem Bo- posed was how tions were twofold. Firstly, there were har - to render these subtle lapping patterns rowing newspaper images of the so-called using only six performers. Yet it is precisely boat people, Chinese refugees displaced as this limitation that gives the score its a result of the conflicts in Southeast Asia, uniquely spare, distilled flavor—like water - and secondarily, recollections of an experi - color brushstrokes rendered in sound. ence of the ocean at first hand. The com - poser wrote: String Quartet No. 3 Before taking up the trumpet Druckman We sailed across the line and into the had been a violin player, and as a result, Gulf Stream and as we did, we got into a the string quartet was a medium to which doldrum that lasted an entire day. An he long felt an affinity. But while his first entire day of sea so calm it was like a quartet was a student work and his second, mirror, absolutely unruffled by waves of from 1966, was a serial score predating his any sort. Sails just hanging down like wet defection from strict constructivism, only laundry, the sky milky. We all began to the third, written and premiered in 1981, speak in a half-whisper for no reason at was representative of Druckman’s idiom in all. […] The memory of this silence kind its mature phase. Even by that late date, of got mixed up with my strong reaction many composers continued to steer well to the photo of the boat people. clear of the string quartet, an instrumental formation that had been more or less Intensely delicate and allusive, Bo- captures shunned by the midcentury avant-garde, something of that numinous, suspended due to its strong associations with the ambiance, while its lone climax, which Austro-German tradition. In this regard, it stands in stark relief from the otherwise is significant that the commissioner of unrelieved hush, can perhaps be taken as Druckman’s Third was the Concord String an eruption of the composer’s humanitar - Quartet, a group that did much (especially ian anger. In addition to percussion, bass via its association with George Rochberg, clarinet, and harp, the score calls for three another convert to neo-romantic thinking) female singers who produce a variety of to encourage American composers to reen - vocal effects while intoning dissociated gage with the medium. The result is a score syllables from the “Rhapsody on the Sea,” in which the Debussyian pedigree once by Jin dynasty poet Mu Hua (ca. 300 C.E.). again looms large—though hovering in the Though they’re not unlike the wordless background are also seminal 20th-century chorus in Debussy’s Sirènes (another sea quartets by the likes of Berg, Bartók, and piece, and a Druckman favorite), their func - Dutilleux—but the end product is a synthe - tion is largely atmospheric. sis all Druckman’s own, by turns reticent, vigorous, and hedonistic. Structurally, Bo- takes its cue from the gen - tlest of wave-like movements. As Druckma n The Third Quartet is in a unique three- later averred, he “was fascinated with the movement form Druckman very much idea that you can throw a stone into water made his own, and which he reserved for and create ripples, and while they are still pieces “of considerable substance and going, throw a stone somewhere else. The weight” (he later observed that the form seemed to “crop up in my life every dozen that “some sins are easier to commit in years as though in response to some large music than others,” but especially in the biorhythmic wave”). Here, as in the other final movement, Druckman hit upon inge - works in the family, Druckman interleaves nious solutions: for example, the busy, a set of continuous variations over the “acquisitive” right-hand motion of “Avarice,” three movements; in this case, they are and the play between unison melodies and distributed equally—three apiece. Unevenly thick, rich chord complexes in “Gluttony.” scattered throughout are also relatively literal Here Druckman establishes a distinctive reprises of an aggressive Marcia-ritornello, as tension between the static, the variation well as a pair of quasi-perpetual motion subject (the clangorous, Copland-like chords scherzos, both of which Druckman describes first announced at the beginning of “Pride”) , in terms of “a shadowy structural skeleton” and the changeable, the illustrative con - of material elaborated in the variations. The texts of each sin. result pits the fixity of the ritornellos against the perpetual flux of the variations, in which Come Round all manner of shimmering, will-o’-the-wisp This tension also animates Come Round , a textures (harmonics, tremolandos, trills) virtual compendium of Druckman’s later come to the fore, quickly overgrowing the style. Written for Pierrot ensemble and hesitant unison theme first stated at the percussion, it is a virtuosic score likewise outset. Like with Bo-, timbre is an “intrinsic in three movements, but with six unequally and structural” consideration, here “as cen - distributed variations (three in the first tral,” as Druckman elsewhere insisted, “as movement, one in the second, and two in sonata-allegro form was for Mozart.” the third). Unlike the Third Quartet, in which there was still an implied, germinal The Seven Deadly Sins variation theme, Come Round features no Druckman was a graduate of Juilliard, such entity, “but rather six equal incarna - where his studies with the legendary tions of the same musical materials,” proved especially for - observes Druckman, “coexisting like the mative. Something of Persichetti’s feeling parallel truths of the film Rashômon .” for refined yet lucid harmonic possibilities Instead of a single, privileged motivic “van - undoubtedly made its way into The Seven tage point,” a persistent harmonic scaf - Deadly Sins , a score written when Druckman folding underlies each of the variations, was in his late 20s, prior to his encounter from which are spun all manner of fresh (during the 1960s) with the European ideas: quasi-minimalist patterning in the avant-garde. Ironically, though, it was com - piano and vibraphone; a driving, plaintive posed in Paris, and decades later Druckman melodic theme first initiated by the alto appraised it as “sort of Ravel-like”; cer - flute; rapid-fire outbursts of the signature tainly its attention to pianistic resonance harmonies from Stravinsky’s Petrushka . marks it as in some ways “French.” A set Though Come Round opens tentatively, of seven variations, one corresponding to most of the new events are strikingly each of the titular misdeeds, the piece extroverted, and indeed, the work gives marks the debut of Druckman’s interleaved considerable rein to the impetuous, assertive three-movement form. Hence the first and side of Druckman’s creative personality last movements each depict three sins in (this was a composer who adorned one succession, while the central movement is of his scores with the tempo marking given over entirely to “Sloth.” About the “macho”). This is true, in a way, even of score, critic once quipped the doleful, dramatic ritornellos that begin the second and third movements: their when the score is heard in proximity to a note of pathos gives way smoothly to the piece like The Seven Deadly Sins , a return more vigorous music that follows. full circle, even, to basic notions of conso - nance, rhythmic impetus, and melodic flu - One of the senses in which the title can be ency. As Druckman described the situation understood, then, is in terms of Druckman’s in a program note written the year before ritornello-principle, which may have had roots Come Round , he felt positively “fate-driven” (so some have speculated) in his love for the in those final years, impelled into “a childlike music of the French and Italian baroques. state of delight in those simple harmonies There is certainly something of a flighty, and rhythms that made being a musician almost aristocratic attitude at work in Come the only path my life could take.” Round —an attitude some might qualify as “baroque”—and as Harbison said of the Matthew Mendez is a New Haven–based piece, in it Druckman’s idiom became “even critic and musicologist with a focus on more fanciful, and the sensuality took on a 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. He is a kind of philosophical dimension.” But given graduate of Harvard University and is cur - Druckman’s ever more overt embrace of rently a Ph.D. student at Yale. Mr. Mendez tonal fundamentals in his last decade, the title was the recipient of a 2016 ASCAP can perhaps also be taken as signaling a Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson reaffirmation of first principles—particularly Award for outstanding music journalism.

Meet the Artists New World Symphony, and the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra. In the U.S. and abroad, he has premiered and recorded works by many groundbreaking contemporary com -

O posers, in Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, Davies K R

E Symphony Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walt Disney N O K

Concert Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and R E

T at IRCAM in Paris, among others. Mr. Milarsky E

P Jeffrey Milarsky has a long history of premiering, recording, American conductor Jeffrey Milarsky is the and performing American composers and music director of AXIOM and a senior lec - throughout his career has collaborated turer in music at with John Adams, , John where he is the music director and con - Cage, , John Corigliano, George ductor of the Columbia University Orchestra. Crumb, , Jacob Druckman, He received his bachelor and master of Michael Gordon, , Steven Mackey, music degrees from Juilliard where he was Christopher Rouse, , Morton awarded the Prize for out - Subotnick, , and an entire standing leadership and achievement in the generation of young and developing com - arts. In recent seasons has worked with posers. He was recently awarded with the ensembles including the New York Phil - Ditson Conductor’s Award for his commit - harmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los ment to the performance of American music. Angeles Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, MET A much-in-demand timpanist and percus - Chamber Ensemble, Bergen Philhar monic, sionist, Mr. Milarsky has been the principal Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, timpanist for the Santa Fe Opera since 2005. In addition he has performed and U.S. and in Mexico as well as on two recorded with the New York Philharmonic, tours to China. The THOBA Corporation Philadelphia Orchestra, and Pittsburgh Scholarship, C/Kaplan Piano Scholarship Symphony. He has recorded extensively for Angel, Bridge, Teldec, Telarc, New AXIOM World, CRI, MusicMasters, EMI, Koch, and AXIOM is dedicated to performing the London records. masterworks of the 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. Since its debut in 2006, the group has established itself as a leading ensemble in ’s contemporary music scene with performances through - out Lincoln Center, in addition to frequent appearances at Columbia University’s Miller Derek Wang Theatre and Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. AXIOM is led by music director Derek Wang grew up near Boston and is a Jeffrey Milarsky and is grounded in Juilliard’s second-year undergraduate pianist at Juilliard curriculum. Students receive a credit in studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky. In his first chamber music for performing in the year at Juilliard, Mr. Wang performed as a ensemble, and during any four-year period, soloist in John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music AXIOM members will have the opportunity and as an ensemble pianist in music of Kaija to perform works by John Adams, Harrison Sariaaho for Juilliard’s AXIOM ensemble, per - Birtwistle, Magnus Lindberg, and Arnold formed Brahms in ChamberFest, premiered Schoenberg, among other composers. works by contemporary Mexican composers Guest conductors of AXIOM have included in the Focus! Festival, and accompanied Alan Gilbert, Susanna Mälkki, and David Beethoven and Schubert songs in recital on Robertson. AXIOM’s current season opens fortepiano. Most recently he performed a with tonight’s concert celebrating the solo transcription of “Danse Sacrale” from music of composer and former Juilliard fac - Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as part of a ulty member Jacob Druckman, followed by Juilliard In Focus event presenting the recre - a concert in December featuring the works ated choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. This of Luciano Berio, and concluding in February past summer he participated in the Wu Han 2018 with Hans Abrahamsen’s complete and David Finckel chamber music studio at Schnee . Highlights of the 2016-17 season the Aspen Music Festival and School. Mr. included programs honoring John Adams Wang has also enjoyed an ongoing multi - on his 70th birthday, Steve Reich on his media collaboration between animation and 80th birthday, and one devoted to the music, perform ing the Chopin études live music of Kaija Saariaho. In 2015-16 AXIOM as a synchro nized soundtrack to screen - performed works by George Benjamin, ings of the short film collection Magic Thomas Adès, Harrison Birtwistle, Gerard Piano and The Chopin Shorts . These per - Grisey, Oliver Knussen, Kaija Saariaho, formances have taken place across the Giacinto Scelsi, and John Zorn. AXIOM Jeffrey Milarsky , Music Director and Conductor Tim Mauthe , Manager

DRUCKMAN Bo-

Bass Clarinet Harp Percussion Vocals Shen Liu Lenka Petrovic David Yoon Jamie Jordan Sarah Brailey Wendy Gilles

DRUCKMAN String Quartet No. 3

Violin I Viollin II Viola Cello Lukas Stepp George Meyer Jasper Snow Aaron Wolff

DRUCKMAN The Seven Deadly Sins

Piano Derek Wang

DRUCKMAN Come Round

Flute/Alto Flute Violin Piano Olivia Staton Angela Wee Christopher Staknys

Clarient/Bass Clarinet Cello Percussion Noemi Sallai Anne Richardson Tyler Cunningham

Orchestra Administration Adam Meyer , Associate Dean and Director, Music Division Joe Soucy , Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies

Joanna K. Trebelhorn, Director Lisa Dempsey Kane, Principal Kate Northfield Lanich, of Orchestral and Ensemble Orchestra Librarian Orchestra Personnel Operations Michael McCoy, Orchestra Manager Matthew Wolford, Operations Librarian Deirdre DeStefano, Orchestra Manager Management Apprentice

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts Bruce Kovner, Chair Brian Zeger, Artistic Director J. Christopher Kojima, Vice Chair Kirstin Ek, Director of Curriculum and Schedules Katheryn C. Patterson, Vice Chair Monica Thakkar, Director of Performance Activities Pierre T. Bastid Michael Loeb Pre-College Division Julie Anne Choi Vincent A. Mai Yoheved Kaplinsky, Artistic Director Kent A. Clark Ellen Marcus Ekaterina Lawson, Director of Admissions and Academic Affairs Kenneth S. Davidson Michael E. Marks Anna Royzman, Director of Performance Activities Barbara G. Fleischman Nancy A. Marks Evening Division Keith R. Gollust Stephanie Palmer McClelland Danielle La Senna, Director Mary Graham Christina McInerney Joan W. Harris Lester S. Morse Jr. Lila Acheson Wallace Library Matt Jacobson Stephen A. Novick Jane Gottlieb, Vice President for Library and Edward E. Johnson Jr. Joseph W. Polisi Information Resources; Director of the C.V. Starr Karen M. Levy Susan W. Rose Doctoral Fellows Program Teresa E. Lindsay Deborah Simon Enrollment Management and Student Development Laura Linney Sarah Billinghurst Solomon Joan D. Warren, Vice President William E.“Wes” Stricker, MD Kathleen Tesar, Associate Dean for Enrollment Management Sabrina Tanbara, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs TRUSTEES EMERITI Cory Owen, Assistant Dean for International Advisement and Diversity Initiatives June Noble Larkin, Chair Emerita William Buse, Director of Counseling Services Mary Ellin Barrett Katherine Gertson, Registrar Sidney R. Knafel Tina Gonzalez, Director of Financial Aid Elizabeth McCormack Barrett Hipes, Director, Alan D. Marks Center for John J. Roberts Career Services and Entrepreneurship Teresa McKinney, Director of Community Engagement Todd Porter, Director of Residence Life JUILLIARD COUNCIL Howard Rosenberg MD, Medical Director Mitchell Nelson, Chair Beth Techow, Administrative Director of Health and Counseling Services Michelle Demus Auerbach Sophie Laffont Holly Tedder, Director of Disability Services Barbara Brandt Jean-Hugues Monier and Associate Registrar Brian J. Heidtke Terry Morgenthaler Gordon D. Henderson Pamela J. Newman Finance Peter L. Kend Howard S. Paley Christine Todd, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Younghee Kim-Wait John G. Popp Irina Shteyn, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis Paul E. Kwak, MD Grace E. Richardson Nicholas Mazzurco, Director of Student Accounts/Bursar Min Kyung Kwon Kristen Rodriguez Administration and Law Jeremy T. Smith Maurice F. Edelson, Vice President for Administration and General Counsel Joseph Mastrangelo, Vice President for Facilities Management EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND SENIOR ADMINISTRATION Myung Kang-Huneke, Deputy General Counsel Carl Young, Chief Information Officer Office of the President Steve Doty, Chief Operations Officer Joseph W. Polisi, President Dmitriy Aminov, Director of IT Engineering Jacqueline Schmidt, Chief of Staff Caryn Doktor, Director of Human Resources Office of the Provost and Dean Adam Gagan, Director of Security Ara Guzelimian, Provost and Dean Scott Holden, Director of Office Services José García-León, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Jeremy Pinquist, Director of Client Services, IT Robert Ross, Assistant Dean for Preparatory Education Helen Taynton, Director of Apprentice Program Kent McKay, Associate Vice President for Production Development and Public Affairs Dance Division Elizabeth Hurley, Vice President Taryn Kaschock Russell, Acting Artistic Director Alexandra Day, Associate Vice President for Marketing Lawrence Rhodes, Artistic Director Emeritus and Communications Katie Friis, Administrative Director Benedict Campbell, Website Director Amanita Heird, Director of Special Events Drama Division Susan Jackson, Editorial Director Richard Feldman, Acting Director Sam Larson, Design Director Katherine Hood, Managing Director Katie Murtha, Director of Major Gifts Music Division Lori Padua, Director of Planned Giving Adam Meyer, Associate Dean and Director Ed Piniazek, Director of Development Operations Bärli Nugent, Assistant Dean, Director of Chamber Music Nicholas Saunders, Director of Concert Operations Joseph Soucy, Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies Edward Sien, Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations Stephen Carver, Chief Piano Technician Adrienne Stortz, Director of Sales Robert Taibbi, Director of Recording Tina Martin, Director of Merchandising Joanna K. Trebelhorn, Director of Orchestral Rebecca Vaccarelli, Director of Alumni Relations and Ensemble Operations Juilliard Global Ventures Historical Performance Christopher Mossey, Senior Managing Director Robert Mealy, Director Courtney Blackwell Burton, Managing Director for Operations Benjamin D. Sosland, Administrative Director; Betsie Becker, Managing Director of Global K–12 Programs Assistant Dean for the Kovner Fellowships Gena Chavez, Managing Director, Tianjin Juilliard School Nicolas Moessner, Managing Director of Finance Jazz and Risk Management Wynton Marsalis, Director of Juilliard Jazz Aaron Flagg, Chair and Associate Director