FOR RELEASE: January 23, 2013
SUPPLEMENT
CHRISTOPHER ROUSE, The Marie-Josée Kravis COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE
WORLD PREMIERE of SYMPHONY NO. 4 at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL
New York Premiere of REQUIEM To Open Spring For Music Festival at Carnegie Hall
New York Premiere of OBOE CONCERTO with Principal Oboe Liang Wang
RAPTURE at Home and on ASIA / WINTER 2014 Tour
Rouse To Advise on CONTACT!, the New-Music Series, Including New Partnership with 92nd Street Y ______
“What I’ve always loved most about the Philharmonic is that they play as though it’s a matter of life or death. The energy, excitement, commitment, and intensity are so exciting and wonderful for a composer. Some of the very best performances I’ve ever had have been by the Philharmonic.” — Christopher Rouse ______
American composer Christopher Rouse will return in the 2013–14 season to continue his two- year tenure as the Philharmonic’s Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence. The second person to hold the Composer-in-Residence title since Alan Gilbert’s inaugural season, following Magnus Lindberg, Mr. Rouse’s compositions and musical insights will be highlighted on subscription programs; in the Philharmonic’s appearance at the Spring For Music festival; in the NY PHIL BIENNIAL; on CONTACT! events; and in the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour.
Mr. Rouse said: “Part of the experience of music should be an exposure to the pulsation of life as we know it, rather than as people in the 18th or 19th century might have known it. It is wonderful that Alan is so supportive of contemporary music and so involved in performing and programming it.”
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Alan Gilbert said: “I’ve always said and long felt that Chris Rouse is one of the really important composers working today. As we enter our second year with him as Composer- in-Residence, it’s fun for me to see how the relationship gets stronger.”
Music Director Alan Gilbert will lead four of Mr. Rouse’s orchestral works during the 2013–14 season: the Oboe Concerto, featuring Philharmonic Principal Oboe Liang Wang, on November 14–16 and 19, 2013; Requiem on May 5, 2014, to open the Spring For Music festival at Carnegie Hall; the World Premiere of the New York Philharmonic–commissioned Symphony No. 4 on June 5–7, 2014, one of the highlights of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL; and Rapture on January 2–3 and 7, 2014. The Orchestra will also perform Rapture at Long Island’s Tilles Center for the Performing Arts on January 4, 2014, and on the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour.
Mr. Rouse will continue his advisory role for CONTACT!, the new-music series. In addition to continuing its presence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 2013–14 CONTACT! expands its reach through a new partnership with the 92nd Street Y. A co-curated series of new music performed by chamber ensembles will be presented at 92nd Street Y’s intimate, informal space in Tribeca. CONTACT! at 92YTribeca will include performances by The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman, a program focused on works by composer- conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, and a performance featuring contemporary works for solo instruments. Further details will be announced at a later date.
WORLD PREMIERE of SYMPHONY NO. 4 at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL
In the spring of 2014, the New York Philharmonic presents the first-ever NY PHIL BIENNIAL, a 10-day, immersive exhibition showcasing the best of today’s new music through orchestral events, guest ensembles, and CONTACT! concerts with small ensembles in venues outside of the Lincoln Center campus.
As part of the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, the Philharmonic will perform the World Premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Symphony No. 4, a New York Philharmonic Commission, June 5–7, 2014, conducted by Alan Gilbert. Mr. Rouse currently envisions his Symphony No. 4 to be a two- movement, 20-minute orchestral work with a slow first movement similar to his blissful Rapture, which the Philharmonic will perform on January 2–3 and 7, 2014, as well as at Long Island University’s Tilles Center for the Performing Arts on January 4, 2014, and on the ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour.
Mr. Rouse’s previous symphony, the Third, was commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. It was lauded by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after its 2011 premiere: “Combining the classical clarity of Paul Hindemith, at some points echoing the gentle minimalism of John Adams, as well as the primal energy of, yes, Prokofiev and Beethoven … this could easily become a programming staple of orchestras worldwide.”
Alan Gilbert said: “I’m really excited and curious to see what happens with the Fourth Symphony. I’ve done two of Chris’s symphonies in the past, and they are really profound, powerful works.”
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New York Premiere of REQUIEM To Open Spring For Music Festival at Carnegie Hall
On May 5, 2014, the Philharmonic will present the New York Premiere of Composer-in- Residence Christopher Rouse’s Requiem in a concert that opens the Spring For Music festival at Carnegie Hall, for which American orchestras are invited to present one-night-only performances of unusual programming. Alan Gilbert will conduct the work, featuring baritone Jacques Imbrailo, the Westminster Symphonic Choir directed by Joe Miller, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus directed by Dianne Berkun. Commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, this large-scale, 90- minute piece was composed in 2002 in honor of the 2003 bicentennial of Hector Berlioz’s birth and was premiered in 2007 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
On using Berlioz as inspiration for the Requiem, Mr. Rouse states: “I just feel so attuned to him, to his music. It speaks to me almost as though I had composed it myself. I love the combination of the wild revolutionary with the much more traditional classicist — he’s not just the ‘crazy man.’ Depending on the piece you’re listening to, he also has this very refined understated style. I love his harmony, his rhythm, his orchestration — and his melodic sense is unlike anyone else’s.”
Mr. Rouse’s Requiem utilizes traditional Latin liturgical texts as well as poetry by Seamus Heaney, Siegfried Sassoon, Michelangelo, Ben Jonson, and John Milton. The work restricts the chorus to Latin liturgical text, while the bass-baritone soloist portrays the Everyman figure, who makes the experience of death more personal.
In his program notes, Mr. Rouse writes: “The work begins with the soloist singing alone the lines of Seamus Heaney’s Mid-Term Break, in which a boy leaves school to attend the funeral of his younger brother, struck by a car. Before the Tuba mirum come lines from Siegfried Sassoon’s Suicide in the Trenches, in which the poet describes the self-destruction of a shell- shocked comrade. The Rex tremendae is succeeded by excerpts from Michelangelo’s ode on the death of his father, and the Sanctus is preceded by Ben Jonson’s On My First Son, a heartbreaking contemplation of the death of his child. Before the Agnus Dei comes John Milton’s Sonnet 23, in which he dreams that his dead wife has returned to him. Finally, Michelangelo’s On Immortality (set, like the earlier Michelangelo poem, in the original Italian), sung near the very end of the score, speaks of the Everyman figure’s own death.”
Of the Requiem, Mr. Rouse said: “It is the best thing that I can lay claim to. It’s the work by which I would want to stand or fall, so I’m delighted that it’s going to be done again next year.”
Alan Gilbert said: “Everything Chris writes is intensely personal. One can feel the anguish, pain, and struggle in his music. I can see why Chris says Requiem is his best work. It’s an honest outpouring of who he is.”
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New York Premiere of OBOE CONCERTO with Principal Oboe Liang Wang
On November 14–16 and 19, 2013, Alan Gilbert will conduct the New York Premiere of Mr. Rouse’s Oboe Concerto, featuring Philharmonic Principal Oboe Liang Wang. Commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra, completed in 2004, and premiered in 2009, it was written in what Mr. Rouse calls his “genial” style. Rather than writing a programmatic work, Mr. Rouse set out to explore the oboe’s capabilities, composing a score that asks the soloist to tackle highly virtuosic passages, while highlighting the oboe’s lyrical side as well.
Mr. Rouse said: “It’s a real workout for the oboist. It’s not that I set out to write against the instrument, but I decided to ask for some things that oboists aren’t called upon to do as often as some other players. It is one of my more genial works. There aren’t too many clouds in the sky. It’s meant to have a kind of amorous, romantic quality.”
The program will also include Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Don Juan. The Philharmonic had previously scheduled the concerto in December 2010, but the program was adjusted due to a blizzard.
RAPTURE at Home and on ASIA / WINTER 2014 Tour
On January 2–3 and 7, 2014, Alan Gilbert will lead the Orchestra in a performance of Christopher Rouse’s Rapture. The program will also include Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman’s reprise of former Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. The Philharmonic has performed Rapture once before, in October–November 2008, conducted by David Robertson. The Philharmonic will also perform this program on its ASIA / WINTER 2014 tour in February 2014.
Commissioned in 2000 by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Rapture is dedicated to that orchestra’s music director at the time, Mariss Jansons. When Mr. Rouse was originally pondering the work’s concept, he thought he would explore the journey from despair to bliss. But upon learning the piece needed to be shorter than he thought, he realized he couldn’t fully tackle the subject in the time allotted.
Mr. Rouse said: “I decided just to stick with ecstasy, but to keep the original plan in the sense that the movement of the music would be gradually from incredible calm, tranquility, serenity, and a sense of enormous peace to extreme, wild, orgiastic ecstasy. So it is meant to be a joyous, very life-affirming work.”
In his notes on Rapture, Mr. Rouse writes: “I used the word ‘rapture’ to convey a sense of spiritual bliss, religious or otherwise. With the exception of my Christmas work, Karolju, this is the most unabashedly tonal music I have composed. I wished to depict a progression to an ever more blinding ecstasy, but the entire work inhabits a world devoid of darkness — hence the almost complete lack of sustained dissonance. Rapture also is an exercise in gradually increasing tempi; it begins quite slowly but, throughout its eleven-minute duration proceeds to speed up incrementally until the breakneck tempo of the final moments is reached. Although much of my music is associated with grief and despair, Rapture is one of a series of more recent scores —
5 such as Compline (1996), Kabir Padavali (1997), and Concert de Gaudí (1998) — to look ‘towards the light.’”
Rouse To Advise on CONTACT!, the New-Music Series, Including New Partnership with 92nd Street Y
Entering its fifth season in 2013–14, CONTACT! — on which Christopher Rouse will advise — is the Philharmonic’s new-music series dedicated to the music of emerging and iconic contemporary composers. CONTACT! takes Philharmonic musicians to venues around the city with presenting partners that share the goals of an adventurous concert experience. In addition to continuing its presence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 2013–14 CONTACT! expands its reach through a new partnership with the 92nd Street Y. A co-curated series of new music performed by chamber ensembles will be presented at 92nd Street Y’s intimate, informal space in Tribeca. CONTACT! at 92YTribeca will include performances by The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman, a program focused on works by composer- conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, and a program of solo works. Dates and programs for all CONTACT! concerts will be announced at a later time.
Alan Gilbert said: “CONTACT!’s mobility is an essential feature, and we’re trying out new places and formats because we think that the New York Philharmonic should reach out and put its tentacles into the city in a way that both brings people in and lets us go out and share what we do. Essentially, it’s about making contact with a fresh, excited, exciting audience, with new music that is absolutely important to play. We’re forming a new partnership with our friends at 92nd Street Y, co-curating and producing concerts at their downtown venue, 92YTribeca. This is an absolutely cool place, really intimate, and perfect to feel a real musical contact with the musicians.”
Since its inception, CONTACT! has introduced and presented 20th- and 21st-century repertoire for ensembles of varying sizes.
Mr. Rouse said: “CONTACT! has been involved in commissioning and giving premieres of works by emerging composers, so it’s a wonderful opportunity for young composers. I think that’s an important part of the mission.”
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CONTACT! PREMIERES
December 2009 Arlene Sierra’s Game of Attrition*+ Lei Liang’s Verge*+ Marc-André Dalbavie’s Melodia*+ Arthur Kampela’s MACUNAÍMA*+
April 2010 Sean Shepherd’s These Particular Circumstances*+ Nico Muhly’s Detailed Instructions*+ Matthias Pintscher’s songs from Solomon’s garden*++
November 2010 Magnus Lindberg’s Souvenir (in memoriam Gérard Grisey)*+
December 2010 Julian Anderson’s Comedy of Change° James Matheson’s True South*+ Jay Alan Yim’s neverthesamerivertwice*+
December 2011 Alexandre Lunsqui’s Fibers, Yarn, and Wire*+
June 2012 Elliott Carter’s Two Controversies and a Conversation*++ Michael Jarrell’s NACHLESE Vb: Liederzyklus°++
December 2012 Andy Akiho’s Oscillate*+ Andrew Norman’s Try† Jude Vaclavik’s SHOCK WAVES*+
April 2013 Unsuk Chin’s Gougalon° Poul Ruders’s Oboe Concerto° Anders Hillborg’s Vaporized Tivoli† Yann Robin’s Backdraft°++
*World Premiere
°U.S. Premiere
†New York Premiere
+New York Philharmonic Commission
++Co-Commission
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CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S WORKS AT THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC
June 1984 The Infernal Machine Leonard Slatkin, conductor
December 1992 Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra* Leonard Slatkin, conductor, Joseph Alessi, trombone
May 1999 Seeing, for Piano and Orchestra* Leonard Slatkin, conductor, Emanuel Ax, piano
May 1999 The Infernal Machine Leonard Slatkin, conductor
May 2000 Ogoun Badagris Leonard Slatkin, conductor
May 2001 Compline (chamber work)
May 2001 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra† David Zinman, conductor, Cho-Liang Lin, violin
February 2002 Ogoun Badagris David Alan Miller, conductor
March 2003 Seeing, for Piano and Orchestra David Zinman, conductor, Emanuel Ax, piano
December 2006 Symphony No. 2 Bramwell Tovey, conductor
October 2008 Rapture David Robertson, conductor
February 2010 Odna Zhizn* Alan Gilbert, conductor
February 2013 Phantasmata Alan Gilbert, conductor
April 2013 Prospero’s Rooms* Alan Gilbert, conductor
June 2013 Seeing, for Piano and Orchestra Alan Gilbert, conductor, Emanuel Ax, piano
*World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commission
†New York Premiere
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CHRISTOPHER ROUSE
Christopher Rouse is one of America’s most prominent composers of orchestral music. Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Trombone Concerto (commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic), he has created a body of work perhaps unequaled in its emotional intensity. The New York Times has described his oeuvre as “some of the most anguished, most memorable music around,” and Stephen Wigler of The Baltimore Sun stated: “When the music history of the late 20th century is written, I suspect the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large.”
Born in Baltimore in 1949, Christopher Rouse developed an early interest in both classical and popular music. He graduated from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University, numbering among his principal teachers George Crumb and Karel Husa. He taught composition at the Eastman School of Music for two decades and currently teaches composition at The Juilliard School.
Mr. Rouse’s music has been performed by almost every major orchestra in the United States and by numerous ensembles abroad, including the Berlin Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, and the Austrian Radio Orchestra. Recent highlights include the world premieres of the Requiem (2007, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale), Concerto for Orchestra (2008, by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music), Oboe Concerto (2009, by the Minnesota Orchestra), and Odna Zhizn (2010, by the New York Philharmonic). His Symphony No. 3 was premiered by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in May 2011. Mr. Rouse wrote Seeing, for Piano and Orchestra for Emanuel Ax on commission from the Philharmonic, which gave its premiere in May 1999. Christopher Rouse’s works are published by Boosey & Hawkes.
PREVIOUS NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC COMPOSERS-IN-RESIDENCE
There have been six Philharmonic Composers-in-Residence: David Amram (1966–67); Lester Trimble (1967–68); Fredric Myrow (1968–69); Jacob Druckman (1982–86); David Del Tredici (1988–90); and Magnus Lindberg, The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence (2009–12). A similar role was held by Tania León, who was the Philharmonic’s Charles H.A. Revson Composer Fellow (1993–96) and New Music Advisor (1996–97).
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CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S 2013–14 SEASON
ALAN GILBERT CONDUCTS: NEW YORK PREMIERE OF OBOE CONCERTO BY THE MARIE-JOSÉE KRAVIS COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE CHRISTOPHER ROUSE
Avery Fisher Hall
Thursday, November 14, 2013, 7:30 p.m. Friday, November 15, 2013, 2:00 p.m. Saturday, November 16, 2013, 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 7:30 p.m.
Alan Gilbert, conductor Liang Wang, oboe
R. STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra Glenn Dicterow, violin Christopher ROUSE Oboe Concerto (New York Premiere) R. STRAUSS Don Juan Glenn Dicterow, violin
ALAN GILBERT CONDUCTS: COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S RAPTURE; ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE YEFIM BRONFMAN IN MAGNUS LINDBERG
Avery Fisher Hall
Thursday, January 2, 2014, 7:30 p.m. Friday, January 3, 2014, 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 7, 2014, 7:30 p.m.
Alan Gilbert, conductor Yefim Bronfman, piano
Christopher ROUSE Rapture Magnus LINDBERG Piano Concerto No. 2 TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5
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ALAN GILBERT CONDUCTS: COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S RAPTURE; ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE YEFIM BRONFMAN IN BEETHOVEN
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts C.W. Post Campus Long Island University Brookville, New York Saturday, January 4, 2014, 8:00 p.m.
Alan Gilbert, conductor Yefim Bronfman, piano
Christopher ROUSE Rapture BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5
ASIA / WINTER 2014
Tour to include concerts in Tokyo and Seoul, Piano Concerto No. 2 by former Composer-in- Residence Magnus Lindberg performed by Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman, Rapture by current Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse, and a Young People’s Concert in Tokyo with Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra narrated in Japanese by Alan Gilbert. Additional details to be announced.
ALAN GILBERT CONDUCTS: COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE CHRISTOPHER ROUSE’S REQUIEM AT SPRING FOR MUSIC
Carnegie Hall
Monday, May 5, 2014, 8:00 p.m.
Alan Gilbert, conductor Jacques Imbrailo, baritone Westminster Symphonic Choir Joe Miller, director Brooklyn Youth Chorus Dianne Berkun, director
Christopher ROUSE Requiem (New York Premiere)
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NY PHIL BIENNIAL: ALAN GILBERT CONDUCTS WORLD PREMIERE BY CHRISTOPHER ROUSE
Avery Fisher Hall
Thursday, June 5, 2014, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 6, 2014, 8:00 p.m. Saturday, June 7, 2014, 8:00 p.m.
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Christopher ROUSE Symphony No. 4 (World Premiere– New York Philharmonic Commission)
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Contact: Katherine E. Johnson (212) 875-5718; [email protected]
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