On STAGE Series Carter and Beyond: Invention and Inspiration
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San Francisco Contemporary Music Players on STAGE Series Carter and Beyond: Invention and Inspiration CARTER CHODOS SCHROEDER OCT 20, 2018 Taube Atrium Theater San Francisco, CA This event is San Francisco Contemporary Music Players Adam Luftman, trumpet Chris Froh, percussion David Tanenbaum, guitar Hannah Addario-Berry, cello Hrabba Atladottir, violin Jeff Anderle, clarinet Karen Gottlieb, harp Kate Campbell, piano Kyle Bruckmann, oboe The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), a 24-member ensemble Loren Mach, percussion of highly skilled musicians, performs innovative contemporary classical music Meena Bhasin, viola based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Nanci Severance, viola Nick Woodbury, percussion SFCMP aims to nourish the creation and dissemination of new works through Peter Josheff, clarinet high-quality musical performances, commissions, education and community Peter Wahrhaftig, tuba outreach. SFCMP promotes the music of composers from across cultures Richard Worn, contrabass and stylistic traditions who are creating a vast and vital 21st-century musical language. SFCMP seeks to share these experiences with as many people as Roy Malan, violin possible, both in and outside of traditional concert settings. Sarah Rathke, oboe Stephen Harrison, cello SFCMP evolved out of Bring Your Own Pillow concerts started in 1971 by Susan Freier, violin Charles Boone. Three years later, it was incorporated by Jean-Louis LeRoux and Tod Brody, flute Marcella DeCray who became its directors. Across its history, SFCMP has been led William Winant, percussion by eight Artistic Directors and seven Executive Directors with continuous support and oversight by an active Board of Directors. 2 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 3 SFCMP Artistic Director Eric Dudley Born in Toronto and raised in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra recorded by the Hartford Symphony overflowing with exciting projects Connecticut, Eric Dudley leads a under Paavo Järvi and the Princeton Orchestra, Quey Percussion Duo, and that focus our listening on diverse multi-faceted career as a conductor, Symphony Orchestra under Rossen by Roomful of Teeth. Eric lives in Walnut and powerful musical voices, from Los composer, vocalist and pianist deeply Milanov for several seasons, and some Creek with his wife Melanie and their Angeles-based composer/performer engaged in the performance and of his recent guest engagements infant son Ethan. Ted Hearne in January, to American creation of contemporary music. include the Ojai Festival in California, expat Sidney Corbett and Bay Area jazz Since its founding in 2009, Eric has International Contemporary Ensemble Message from Eric Dudley virtuosa Myra Melford in the spring, been a member of the genre-defying (ICE) in New York and Finland, Adelaide along with a celebration of the maverick vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, touring Symphony Orchestra in Australia, and experimentalism of Julius Eastman, worldwide and recording a wide array the National Symphony Orchestra at a fascinating figure in the history of American music who’s justifiably of newly commissioned works with the the Kennedy Center. He served on the looming larger in recent years. We begin Grammy Award-winning ensemble. In faculty of The New School and Mannes these journeys with an homage to one the 2018-2019 season, he returns to College of Music in New York, where he of our country’s most defining and Australia as principal conductor for the directed the Mannes Prep Philharmonic enduring voices–that of Elliott Carter–in Bendigo Festival of Exploratory Music, and The New School Chorus. He juxtaposition with works by two young where he has also appeared on the currently teaches conducting at North American composers that respond Melbourne Festival, and leads Roomful the San Francisco Conservatory of and react on various and subtle levels of Teeth and Ensemble L’Instant Donné Music, having directed the orchestra to the sonic explorations that define in a production with Peter Sellars at program there for two seasons, and Carter’s legacy. the Paris Festival d’Automne. While he was recently appointed to a year- Dear friends of SFCMP, living in New York, he conducted long Artist-in-Residence position at In his preface to the score of Penthode, and performed with organizations as the Conservatory of Music at The As we embark upon our 2018-2019 Carter writes that the piece is principally diverse as Ekmeles and Tenet vocal University of the Pacific in Stockton. season, I’d like to share my warmest concerned with “experiences of ensembles, the Choir of Trinity Wall As a pianist and chamber musician, he greetings and most sincere enthusiasm connectedness and isolation.” The Street, Talea Ensemble, American has performed with members of Novus for the musical journeys ahead of us. musical translation of these ideas is Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Signal New York and the Cincinnati and The first full season that I have the apparent from the outset, with a lyrical and the New York Philharmonic. Princeton symphony orchestras, and pleasure and privilege of leading with and complex solo line that holds sway He was an assistant conductor for his own music has been premiered and the Contemporary Music Players is for the opening frame of the piece, 4 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 5 punctuated by interjections from the flown a comparison) that our forms of Sabrina Schroeder’s Bone Games/Shy each of Carter’s five quartets to examine rest of the ensemble organized in government and societal organization Garden might suggest a darker-hued these topics further in musical terms, small groupings of instrumental colors. ebb and flow between more pluralistic canvas by Rothko or a James Turrell providing a different spin on various Gradually, and by sonic sleight of or more hierarchical constructs. light exhibition at twilight, wherein the notions of individuality, sonically and hand, this through-line transforms in Composer Tobin Chodos makes a gradations of colors are perceived within otherwise. Additionally, we have the its passing from one player to another, compelling argument when he says that a narrower range and a simultaneously great joy of featuring two of our brilliant casting each instrument in the ensemble Carter’s “infinitely subtle filigree stands broader bandwidth. Unlike Carter’s Players in a pair of epigrammatic solo into relief at different moments, while in for an idealized version of democracy” music, there are barely any standardized works by Carter, rounding out the the energy of the rest of the texture –one in which each separate voice is pitches in the melodic and harmonic homage with an even more diverse swirls and interacts around it in a build- heard in turn, interacting with others sense, and instead, an investigation of offering. up of activity. Eventually, the particulate primarily through the individuality of its the sub-layers of sound–aided in some is consumed in the whole, and unified expression. cases by electronic refractions and I invite you to enjoy our exploration of gestures of rhythm and sound start to manipulations of the same–exposes these thoroughly individual works, and overtake the field as a new through-line It’s certainly possible to construe Carter’s another kind of drama in the physicality to join us for the rest of the journey emerges, articulated by large groupings music as an outgrowth of a culture of creation and in individualized throughout this exciting season of rather than by individuals. with individualistic aims, while from components from within the sonic realm. innovative and compelling music! a purely musical standpoint, another What Carter exploits here is perhaps focus of a work like Penthode is simply Tobin Chodos remarks further in the broadest concept in music, and the kaleidoscopic interplay of colors the foreword to his score that “our ~ Eric Dudley that which unites the activity of music– that results from its very design. By democracy is a big show,” and that making to anything else accomplished comparison to the work of visual artists his piece “attempts to reckon with the as a community–quite simply, are we like Jackson Pollock, the method of version we live with everyday,” wherein acting together, or not? The whole creation leaves one with the experience “voices are corralled, their choices are history of music might be seen as of viewing individual strands as they proscribed,” and “dissent is attenuated “SFCMP performances bring a an interchange between ideas about begin and end, weaving across the and abortive.” Having also written a youthfulness and freshness to a single line as the chief voice to a canvas in unpredictable paths to create partner piece to Carter’s Penthode with the San Francisco music scene.” multiplicity of lines sharing equal color fields that condense from a wider the exact same instrumental forces, independence, almost in the same perspective. If such a visual equivalency Chodos creates with Big Show an – SFCMP Subscriber way (and I don’t think this is too high- has meaning for the work of Carter, then extraction of solitary voices from within 6 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 7 SCHEDULE PRE-CONCERT EVENT Asher Tobin Chodos CELEBRATING KAREN GOTTLIEB SUBMIT YOUR SURVEY, GET A GIFT! Big Show (15’) World Premiere How Music is Made: Flute: Tod Brody Please join us for We genuinely want to hear from you. 4:00 – 5:15 pm Open dress rehearsal of Big Oboe: Sarah Rathke a post-concert Please stop by the red table in the Clarinet: Peter Josheff Show by Asher Tobin Chodos followed by farewell during lobby, drop off your survey and pick Bassoon: Shawn Jones composer talk hosted by Eric Dudley the 9pm reception up a SFCMP pen, sticky notes, or other Pre-concert discussion with Players Horn: Alicia Telford 6:45 pm to celebrate the nifty item with our logo on it. 7:30 pm Concert with intermission 9:00 pm Reception ~Intermission~ retirement of harpist Karen Want to sponsor a concert? CONCERT PROGRAM Elliott Carter Gottlieb.