Kronos Quartet
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I::)AIVI bill Brooklyn Academy of Music 1996 Next Wave Festival Jim Dine, The Heart of BAM, 1996, Woodcut, 26-1/4" x 19-3/8" Kronos Quartet BAM 1996 Next Wave Festival and 135th Anniversary Season are sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc. The Brooklyn Academy of Music Bruce C. Ratner Chairman of the Board Harvey Lichtenstein President & Executive Producer presents Kronos Qua rtet David Harrington-violin Hank Dutt-viola John Sherba-violin Joan Jeanrenaud-cello BAM Carey Playhouse Running time: Aural Histories Medieval to Modern American Mavericks approximately two November 13 at 7pm November 15 at 8pm November 16 at 8pm hours per program, including intermission Ken Benshoof Ben Johnston John Zorn St. Francis Climbs Mt. Amazing Grace Cat 0' Nine Tails* Diablo (on His Way to Harry Partch Mark Feldman Heaven) *:1: (Arr. Ben Johnston) Resident Alien* 0 Jack Body Two Studies on Ancient Tim Berne Arum Manis * Greek Scales:t Dry Ink, Silence* 0 Mo Wuping 1.0Iympos' Pentatonic Lois V Vierk Village Ritua/:l: 2.Archytas'Enharmonk River Beneath the Istvan Marta Arvo Part / Psalom:l: River* Doom. A Sigh* Perotin (Arr. Kronos) Jon Hassell Viderunt Omnes t:l: Intermission Pano da Costa Judith Shatin Terry Riley (Cloth from the Coast) * Elijah's Chariot * :I: Cadenza on the Night Intermission Intermission Plain * Osvaldo Golijov Hildegard of Bingen/ The Dreams and Gerard McBurney Prayers of Isaac the Karitas Habundat t:l: * Written for Kronos Blind with special Henry Purcell tArranged for Kronos guest David Krakauer, Four Part Fantasia #2 :I: New York Premiere clarinets (June 11, 1680) o World Premiere John Cage (Arr. Eric Salzman) Totem Ancestor t :I: Henryk M. Gorecki Already It Is Dusk* American companies participating in the Next Wave are sponsored by AT&T. o Metropolitan ute Foundation is the exclusive sponsor of BAMradio. Ken Benshoof (b. 1933) Body writes of Arum Manis: St. Francis Climbs Mt. Diablo (on His Way to "This is the Indonesian term for candy floss and Heaven) (1996) means literally 'fragrant, sweet.' The original recording which forms the basis of the tape is Ken Benshoof, a composer and pianist, has lived the sound of a two-stringed fiddle played by an in Seattle since 1960. A Fulbright scholar in 1965, Indonesian seller of candy floss. I recorded him a Guggenheim fellow in 1976 and a resident in 1977 in Bangkalan, on Madura, the island composer for several seasons for the Old Globe adjacent to the port of Surabaya. Carrying the Theatre and the Seattle Repertory Theater, already made candy floss in a bin hung from his Benshoof cu rrently teaches com position at the shoulder, he played his so-called 'rehab' to University of Washington. advertise his presence. The music was a medley, Benshoof's relationship with the Kronos Quartet sometimes recognizable tunes, sometimes mere extends back to the group's inception. In 1973, improvisation. Benshoof composed the first piece ever written "My piece, I hope, reflects something of the for Kronos, Traveling Music. Since then he has quality of candy floss-light and airy, not sub written several works for the Quartet including stantial food, perhaps, but pink and sweet and Flying Blackbirds (1983) and Song of Twenty leaving us with a pleasurable aftertaste." Shadows (1994). Arum Manis was written for the Kronos Quartet. St. Francis Climbs Mt. Diablo (on His Way to Heaven) was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by Mrs. Ralph I. Dorfman. Mo Wuping (1959-1993) Village Ritual (1987) Jack Body (b. 1944) Born in Hunan province in 1959, Mo Wuping Arum Manis (1991) spent six years at the Beijing Central Conservatoire, studying composition under Luo Zhongrong. Jack Body was born in Te Aroha in 1944. He Before joining the staff at the Central Conservatoire studied musical composition at the University as a teacher of composition, Mo Wuping was of Auckland with Ronald Tremain and Robin active as violinist, composer and orchestral leader Maconie, followed by further study in Europe of the Hunan opera. In 1988, his Sacrificial Rite with Mauricio Kagel in Cologne and Gottfried in Village (now known as Village Ritual) won Michael Koenig in Utrecht. During 1976-77, an award at the ISCM World Music Days in he was guest lecturer at the Akademi Musik Hong Kong. Indonesia, Yogyakarta, and in 1980, was appoint Mo Wuping fell ill two years after moving to ed to the staff of the Music Department at Victoria Paris and died in Beijing in June 1993. University of Wellington. Besides numerous works for conventional musical forces, Body has had a continuing interest in tape composition, mixed Istvan Marta (b. 1952) media works, music-theatre, etc., including new Doom. A Sigh (1989) formats for the presentation of contemporary music. Body's music has been influenced by the music Istvan Marta was born in Budapest in 1952. and cultures of Asia, particularly Indonesia, where He studied composition at the Bartok Secondary he has carried out several projects documenting School and is now a member of the jazz faculty traditional music. His music has won many there. He composes for ensembles, theater, film awards and has been widely performed and and television. broadcast both in New Zealand and overseas. He has been represented numerous times at the About Doom. A Sigh, Marta writes: Unesco Rostrum of Composers and at the Unesco "In the summer of 1973, I set out on a folk song Forum for Asian Music. collecting tour to Moldavia, Romania. It was a hitchhiking expedition absolutely unique in its way, through time and space. It took me to a tiny Doom. A Sigh was commissioned for Kronos by village of four hundred people all belonging to a the Beigler Trust and appears on the Quartet's Hungarian folk group known as the Csangos. Nonesuch recording Black Angels. The village was called Trunk. With my rudimentary equipment, I recorded some folk music and took some pictures. Jon Hassell (b. 1937) "The village has been spared by civilization, the Pano da Costa (Cloth from the Coast) (1985) mass media and infrastructure. The people still speak an archaic Hungarian and hardly ever move Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1937, trumpeter beyond the confi nes of thei r settlement. They have and composer Jon Hassell earned several univer remained faithful to their roots partly thanks to sity degrees in music before studying in Europe their neighbors and partly to the strength of their with electronic music pioneer Karlheinz century-old traditions from which they have been Stockhausen. In 1967 Hassell returned to the able to draw security. This people is nevertheless United States and began performing and recording doomed to extinction. For political reasons known with Terry Riley and La Monte Young. all too well to the outside world, they are not Drawn to classical Indian music, Hassell allowed to use their native tongue. Lack of studied with vocal artist Pandit Pran Nath and schools and other circumstances force the children other masters. As a result of his studies he created to speak a language foreign to them. Csango a new vocal style of trumpet playing which forms Hungarians number some 30-40,000. They are the basis for what the composer terms "Fourth experiencing a loosening of family bonds, their World" music, a unified primitive/futurist sound sense of identity is weakening, their very existence combining features of various musical traditions is coming under a giant question mark. (Indian, African, South American) with advanced "The dirge on which Doom. A Sigh is based is electronic techniques. The 1976 release of the last signal of a unique genre, a century-old Hassell's Vernal Equinox album marked the first tradition. In the first half, Mrs. Pieter Benedek, 58 public appearance of this new genre, and exerted years old, evokes her long dead parents, tatikam, a strong influence on the later wave of ethnic s mamikam, in a Sprechgesang crystallized over inspired music. Hassel has continued to perform, many generations. The second half is based on compose and record extensively, collaborating with a bloody ballad encompassing past and present artists such as Brian Eno and the Talking Heads. and sung by Mrs. Gergel Imre, 46 years old. It Pano da Costa refers to an African-based aes was one of the most terse songs she sang for me, thetic of pattern juxtaposition, resulting in the adorned with the finest ornaments. colorful "rhythmized" and "syncopated" textiles "The village welcomed and accepted me. I was from, in this case, a coastal region of Brazil. allowed to record in the courtyards, in the mis The work features Brazilian percussion instruments erable houses and even in the fields, their ancient called caxixi, which are small, bell-shaped stories, tales and songs all couched in a peculiar baskets filled with seeds. It is a long, colorful Hungarian preceding the language reform of the piece marked by darkly haunting bowed refrains early 19th century. I returned to Hungary at the and lively percussive passages. The dense textures end of August, having tramped about Bulgaria for conjure a sense of re-envisioned tribal ceremony. a few days. Half a year later, based on the pho tographs I sent my hosts at Trunk, the police Of Pano da Costa, Hassell writes: identified those who had sung for me and levied "My work on this quartet for Kronos represents heavy fines on them in punishment. an interesting challenge: writing music for other "... It is highly probable that the inhabitants of musicians to play after many years of having the village of Trunk were made to leave their modeled my musical style around the concept homes and were resettled elsewhere in the years of the inseparability of composer and performer, following 1973, purportedly because of the con as for example, in classical Indian music.