Advance Program Notes An Evening with , Friday, September 9, 2016, 7:30 PM

These Advance Program Notes are provided online for our patrons who like to read about performances ahead of time. Printed programs will be provided to patrons at the performances. Programs are subject to change.

An Evening with Edgar Meyer, double bass

Suite no. 1, BWV 1007 J.S. Bach

Prelude Allemande Courante Sarabande Menuet I Menuet II Gigue

Work in Progress for unaccompanied double bass Edgar Meyer I II III

Commissioned by Linda and Stuart Nelson, the Savannah Music Festival, and San Francisco Performances and funded by a generous grant from Linda and Stuart Nelson.

INTERMISSION

Selections will be announced from the stage.

Meyer appears by arrangement with IMG Artists Carnegie Hall Tower, 152 West 57th Street, 5th Floor, New York, New York, 10019 Phone: 212-994-3500 | Fax: 212-994-3550 Program Notes I have wanted for a while to compose a piece for unaccompanied bass that is different than other pieces that I have written before. I wanted to attempt a larger form and language that is slightly more complex than I have used in shorter pieces or that I could improvise.

Although I have not finished this piece, there is enough written to be able to present a working version. This current version has opening and closing movements that are complete for the moment. In between them there will be one or two movements, yet to be written, that may or may not include the second movement that I will use tonight, and the outer movements may end up modified somewhat in reaction to whatever happens with the middle movements or just to correct existing flaws.

In the meantime, I am excited to present a Work in Progress. —Edgar Meyer

Biography EDGAR MEYER

In demand as both a performer and a composer, Edgar Meyer has formed a role in the music world unlike any other. Hailed by The New Yorker as “...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument,” Meyer’s unparalleled technique and musicianship in combination with his gift for composition have brought him to the fore, where he is appreciated by a vast, varied audience. His uniqueness in the field was recognized by a MacArthur Award in 2002.

As a solo classical bassist, Meyer can be heard on a album with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, featuring Bottesini’s Gran Duo with Joshua Bell, Meyer’s own for Bass and with Yo-Yo Ma, Bottesini’s Bass Concerto no. 2, and Meyer’s own Concerto in D for Bass. He has also recorded an album featuring three of Bach’s Unaccompanied Suites for Cello. In 2006 he released a self- titled solo recording, on which he wrote and recorded all of the music, incorporating , guitar, mandolin, dobro, banjo, gamba, and double bass. In 2007, recognizing his wide-ranging recording achievements, Sony/ BMG released a compilation of The Best of Edgar Meyer. In 2011 Meyer joined cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and fiddler Stuart Duncan for the Sony Masterworks recording , which was awarded the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. Meyer was honored with his fifth Grammy Award in 2015 for Best Contemporary Instrumental album for his bass and mandolin collaboration with Chris Thile.

As a composer, Meyer has carved out a remarkable and unique niche in the musical world. One of his most recent compositions is the Double Concerto for Double Bass and , which received its world premiere in July 2012 with Joshua Bell at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Meyer and Bell have also performed the work at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival, and with the Nashville and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. In the 2011-2012 season, Meyer was composer in residence with the Alabama Symphony, where he premiered his third concerto for double bass and orchestra. Biography, continued Meyer has collaborated with and to write a triple concerto for double bass, banjo, and tabla, which was commissioned for the opening of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville. The triple concerto was recorded with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and featured on the 2009 recording, The Melody of Rhythm, a collection of trio pieces all co-composed by Meyer, Fleck and Hussain. Meyer has performed his second with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and his first double bass concerto with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra. Other compositions of Meyer’s include a violin/piano work, which has been performed by Joshua Bell at New York’s Lincoln Center; a quintet for bass and string quartet premiered with the Emerson String Quartet and recorded on Deutsche Grammophon; a Double Concerto for Bass and Cello premiered with Yo-Yo Ma and The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa; and a written for Hilary Hahn which was premiered and recorded by Hahn with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, led by Hugh Wolff.

Collaborations are a central part of Meyer’s work. His longtime collaboration with fellow MacArthur Award recipient Thile most recently brought the two genre-bending artists on a nationwide tour in 2014, supporting their Grammy-winning Nonesuch Records disc, which was a follow up to their very successful 2008 CD/DVD on Nonesuch. Meyer’s previous performing and recording collaborations include a duo with Fleck; a quartet with Bell, , and Mike Marshall; a trio with Fleck and Marshall; and a trio with Ma and Mark O’Connor. The latter collaborated for the 1996 release, which soared to the top of the charts and remained there for 16 weeks. Appalachia Waltz toured extensively in the U.S., and the trio was featured both on the David Letterman Show and the televised 1997 Inaugural Gala. Joining together again in 2000, the trio toured Europe, Asia, and the U.S. extensively and recorded a follow up recording to Appalachia Waltz, , which was honored with a Grammy Award. In the 2006-2007 season, Meyer premiered a piece for double bass and piano performed with Emanuel Ax. Meyer also performs with pianist Amy Dorfman, his longtime collaborator for solo recitals, featuring both classical repertoire and his own compositions; Marshall in duo concerts; and the trio with Fleck and Hussain, which has toured the U.S., Europe, and Asia together.

Meyer began studying bass at the age of five under the instruction of his father and continued further to study with Stuart Sankey. In 1994 he received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and in 2000 became the only bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. Currently, he is visiting professor of double bass at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

For more on Edgar Meyer and to view his updated calendar of events, visit www.edgarmeyer.com. In the Galleries

Artist Spotlight: Susan Jamison Drawing from a rich trove of sources ranging from Renaissance portraiture to naturalist illustration, Jamison’s egg tempera paintings incorporate personal narratives, myths, folk tales, and dreams to portray a vision of the archetypal woman as magical, innocently sensual, and strong, yet potentially vulnerable. In her paintings threads connect but also bind, needles threaten, and darkened veins envelop her maidens’ heads as if mapping their bodies and souls. Jamison’s paintings seem like parables that probe what it means to be female in both interior and exterior worlds. Jamison lives and works in Roanoke, Virginia.

Susan Jamison: Enchantment will remain on view in the Ruth C. Horton Gallery through October 8.

FALL EXHIBITIONS Susan Jamison, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Amy Cutler, and Lynn Hershman Leeson September 1-December 10, 2016 All galleries

Also on view: DIANA COOPER: HIGHWIRE, 2016 On view through spring 2018 Grand Lobby

GALLERY HOURS Tuesday-Friday, 10 AM-5:30 PM Saturday, 10 AM-4 PM Class and group visits always welcome, tours available

Susan Jamison Needle Me, 2012 Egg tempera on panel 36 x 36 inches Collection of Rick and Suzanna Fields, Richmond, Virginia Image courtesy of the artist