Program Notes Naperville Chamber Players April 26, 2009
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Program Notes Naperville Chamber players April 26, 2009 American Folk Song Suite by Dewey Owens is a medley of eight folksongs: Arkansas Traveler, I’m Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger, Sweet Betsy from Pike, John Henry, Mr. Froggy Went A’Courting, O My Darling Clementine, Turkey in the Straw, and Pop Goes the Weasel. Several of these songs are known by alternative names (for example Arkansas Traveler is also known as “I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee”), and with alternative lyrics. The melodies are all familiar, and reach into our collective American psyche touching on childhood memories; these are the songs we learned in second grade, that the ice cream truck in our neighborhood played, that we teach our children to sing. Dewey Owens was a harpist, teacher and prolific composer and arranger of harp music. Violinist and composer Mark O'Connor is widely recognized as one of the most gifted contemporary composers in the United States and surely one of the brightest talents of his generation. A product of America's rich aural folk tradition as well as being a Classical and Flamenco music student in his formative years, Mr. O'Connor's creative journey began at the feet of the folk fiddler and innovator who created the modern era of American fiddling in the 1940's, Benny Thomasson, and a French jazz violinist who was considered one of the greatest improvisers in the history of the violin, Stephane Grappelli. Along the way, between these marvelous musical extremes, Mark O'Connor absorbed knowledge and influence from the multitude of musical styles and genres he studied. Now, at age 47, he has melded and shaped these influences into a new American Classical music, and is perpetuating his vision of an American School of string playing. The Los Angeles Times warmly noted he has "crossed over so many boundaries, that his style is purely personal." His first recording for the Sony Classical record label, Appalachia Waltz, was a collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer. The works Mr. O'Connor composed for the disc, including its title track, gained worldwide recognition for him as a leading proponent of a new American musical idiom. The tremendously successful follow-up release, Appalachian Journey, received a Grammy Award in February 2001. O’Connor originally composed Appalachia Waltz for solo violin in 1993 before it was a prize winning trio. World renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma has taken the composition as a virtuosic, personal encore and created this special unaccompanied cello version. I think you will agree that, with the uniquely American folk fiddling influences in this music, it is one of the most beautiful tributes to our common heritage. Astor Piazzolla was keenly aware of the changing style of the Argentine national dance over his lifetime. Histoire du Tango depicts the evolution of the Tango through the twentieth century; today you will hear the first two movements of this four movement work. Tango evolved from an earlier popular dance called the milonga, which is itself evolved from the Cuban rhythm known as habañera. Tango was initially regarded as a low dance. Much like North American jazz, it originated in bordellos, and the first movement is entitled "Bordel 1900." The relatively genteel milonga is depicted here as having been jolted into a new form by a heavy injection of eroticism. The second movement is called "Café 1930." By now, tango was the favorite dance of all classes in Argentina and was known as a daring dance around the world. Piazzolla is now writing directly from his memories of the type of tango played in cafés in Buenos Aires. This is a respectful depiction of the full-blown traditional tango. Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos has been described as “the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music.” He studied music through a diversity of sources: café music in Rio de Janeiro, folk music throughout Brazil, an impressionable exposure to Debussy, Ravel and Bach, followed by a lengthy stay in Paris in the 1920's, where he encountered the likes of Poulenc, Milhaud and Stavinsky. He returned to his native Brazil where he introduced the European repertoire and wrote volumes of strikingly original music in myriad and novel forms. Villa-Lobos became a national treasure, an international celebrity and the most highly esteemed Brazilian composer to date. Written in 1950, Assobio a Játo (The Jet Whistle) for flute and cello is a perfect example of Villa-Lobos' exotic style. His choice of flute and cello offers maximum contrast between high and low, metal and wood, wind and wire, breath and bow. Throughout the piece, the flute and cello are equal partners as they symmetrically exchange lead and accompaniment, or play together with such sinuous, divergent counterpoint that they seem nearly independent, coincidentally musical. The music is chromatic and cool, swirling over a vaulting range of pitch and, across three movements, a range of nuanced moods. Within the economy of a duet, Villa-Lobos paints an astonishingly vivid canvas. The title comes from a name Villa-Lobos gave to a particular novel technique the flautist must employ in the fast glissandi of the third movement sounding to him like a jet plane. Born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York to Italian immigrants, Christopher Caliendo was invited to Los Angeles to finish his graduate work at UCLA by Henry Mancini after winning his Scholarship for Film Composition. Mancini introduced Christopher to television composer Jerrold Immel where began a five year collaboration composing and orchestrating for CBS's Dallas, Knott's Landing, Paradise and Guns of Paradise" Caliendo received an Emmy nomination for Paradise's "Ghost Dance". In 1992 Caliendo received a Vatican commission as the first American composer in Vatican compose a vocal/orchestral work for the prestigious "Encounters of Sacred Music Festival" televised and broadcast live in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, Italy. He received a second commission in 1995 for The Mystic Saints. Upon returning to Los Angeles Caliendo began composing and concertizing "Chamber Jazz", a unique new sound mixing American jazz with European chamber music. The group's first album was recorded in 1995. That same year Caliendo launched Efficaci records and Caliendo Music Publishing to fill a niche in the flute publishing world by selling and recording his original American Tango and Gypsy music for flute and guitar. .