CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM

Saturday, February 23, 2013, 8pm John MacCallum (b. 1976) The Delicate Texture of Time (2013) Hertz Hall World Premiere

flute, piccolo, alto flute Jill Heinke clarinet, bass clarinet Bill Kalinkos Eco Ensemble alto saxophone, soprano saxophone David Wegehaupt David Milnes, conductor percussion 1 Joel Davel percussion 2 Loren Mach violin Jennifer Curtis viola Ellen Ruth Rose cello Leighton Fong PROGRAM

Michael Jarrell (b. 1958) Staub (Assonance IIIb) (2009) Cindy Cox (b. 1961) Pianos (2013) World Premiere alto flute Stacey Pelinka bass clarinet Bill Kalinkos solo piano/sampler Gloria Cheng horn Alicia Telford flute, piccolo, bass flute Tod Brody trumpet Brad Hogarth oboe, English horn Kyle Bruckmann percussion Loren Mach clarinet 1 Bill Kalinkos cello Leighton Fong clarinet 2, bass clarinet Peter Josheff double bass Richard Worn bassoon David Granger electronics John MacCallum horn Alicia Telford percussion Loren Mach harp Naomi Hoffmeyer violin 1 Dan Flanagan violin 2 Jennifer Curtis George Lewis (b. 1952) Ikons (2010) viola Ellen Ruth Rose cello Leighton Fong flute Stacey Pelinka double bass Richard Worn clarinet Peter Josheff bassoon David Granger trombone Marc Bolin percussion Loren Mach violin Jennifer Curtis cello Leighton Fong The audio engineer for this evening’s concert is Brendan Aanes. The sound system contrabass Richard Worn is provided by Meyer Sound Laboratories, Incorporated.

INTERMISSION Cal Performances’ 2012–2013 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

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Michael Jarrell (b. 1958) as Professor of Composition at the University George Lewis (b. 1952) positions at UC San Diego, Mills College, the Staub (Assonance IIIb) (2009) of Geneva. Ikons (2010) School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Staub (Assonance IIIb) (2009) was originally Simon Fraser University’s Contemporary Arts Michael Jarrell has held a number of prominent part of a multimedia production at the Voix A prolific and highly respected jazz musician, Summer Institute. He has served as music cu- positions and residencies throughout Europe. Nouvelles festival in Royaumont, France en- George Lewis has also gained tremendous respect rator for the Kitchen in New York, and has His music, often informed by innovations in titled Chute(s), with video art by Paolo Pachini. in music scholarship and composition. In the collaborated in the “Interarts Inquiry” and acoustic technology, has achieved great re- The Eco Ensemble had the pleasure of perform- words of Steve Smith of The New York Times: “Integrative Studies Roundtable” at the Center spect and success in Europe and in the United ing another work from this music/film installa- “Virtually every consideration of George Lewis, for Black Music Research in Chicago. States. Born in 1958 in Geneva, Jarrell studied tion, Martin Matalon’s Tunneling (2009), at their an imposing performer and scholar now serving Ikons’ unceasing energy drives this piece for- composition at the Geneva Conservatory with concert in March 2012. Presenting these works as a professor and the vice chairman of the music ward through clearly marked sections by way of Eric Gaudibert and at various workshops in the as concert pieces draws particular attention to department at Columbia University, will invoke a variety of transitions ranging from sudden jux- United States, including Tanglewood in 1979. their exciting harmonic world created through the term trombonist-composer. If you’ve en- taposition to subtle additive processes. Certain He completed his training with Klaus Huber at a rich exploration of timbre, or tone color. This countered Mr. Lewis’s playing, stressing instru- characteristic musical elements from Ikons re- the Freiburg Staatliche Hochschule für Musik emphasis on timbre is heavily indebted to acous- mental prowess seems natural; if you haven’t, dip turn in different contexts rendering them fresh, in Brisgau. tic research that has had a profound influence on into an album like Anthony Braxton’s Quartet including the colorful use of quarter-tones in the Since the early 1980s, Jarrell has been the contemporary music in France in particular, but (Dortmund) 1976, and you will hear instantly opening passage and the playfully imaginative recipient of numerous prizes, including the Prix that has asserted itself around the world. why Mr. Lewis is revered among avant-garde glissandi in the strings. In the composer’s words: Acanthes, the Beethovenpreis from the City of As is the case with much of Jarrell’s work, jazz aficionados.” “Ikons exists in two forms. Theidée fixe that Bonn, the Marescotti Prize, the Gaudeamus the compositional impulse behind Staub stems Since 1971, Lewis has been a member of the marks the rhythmic and harmonic material for and Henriette Renié prizes, and the Siemens- from a desire to engage with a theoretical con- Association for the Advancement of Creative the written composition Ikons was drawn from Förderungspreis. Between 1986 and 1988, Jarrell cept, in this case, that of decay. As Jarrell’s back- Musicians (AACM). It was there that he studied spectra generated by simple frequency modula- was a composer in residence at the Cité des Arts ground includes training in the visual arts, we composition with Muhal Richard Abrams and tion and stretching; so many of us owe a debt in Paris. During this time, he took part in the may think of decay in this piece as being inti- trombone with Dean Hey. Reflecting upon his in- to the pioneering work of Jean-Claude Risset computer music course at IRCAM, Paris’s state- mately related to space. The opening of Staub volvement with AACM has resulted in his widely and John Chowning. In the large-scale collab- funded center for electro-acoustic music re- depicts the disintegration of musical material. acclaimed book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: orative installation by me and Canadian artist search, production, and performance. After his An energetic gesture shared by all the mem- The AACM and American Experimental Music Eric Metcalfe, sonic material designed as simi- Parisian sojourn, Jarrell spent a year composing bers of the ensemble allows them to maintain (University of Chicago Press, 2008), recipient of larly “ikonic” was abstracted from samples of at the Villa Médici in Rome, and then joined the their individual identity through an emphasis the 2009 American Book Award. As a composer, performed sections of the score. Speakers and Istituto Svizzero di Roma for 1989–1990. of their difference in tone color. This bright ges- improviser, performer, and scholar, Lewis con- sensors embedded within seven large pyramidic Jarrell was composer in residence with the ture subsides, giving way to transformations in tinues to explore electronic and computer music, “ikons” created by Metcalfe allowed the sound Lyon Orchestra in the early 1990s before becom- texture and timbre that explore the duality be- electronic multimedia installations, text-sound samples to respond to visitor movement, creat- ing a professor of composition at the University tween the disintegration and decay of an object, works, and improvisatory and notated forms. ing an interactive environment from the agency in Vienna in 1993. He also held a residency at with the integration of diverse elements into the His compositions and installations have and indeterminacy embedded at various levels in the Lucerne festival in 1996, and then was her- same material. been presented by the American Composers the human/computer encounter. Metcalfe once alded by the Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, Throughout the duration of the composition, Orchestra, Dinosaur Annex, Wet Ink, the remarked to me that his models for Ikons were which dedicated the festival to him in 2000. bursts of instrumental activity break through Turning Point Ensemble, Ensemble Erik Satie, First Nations visual iconography and the shapes Jarrell has received numerous commissions, Staub’s decaying texture. The relationship to the Works and Process, the S.E.M. Ensemble, the of British Columbia forests­­—two primordially including one from the Salzburg Festival for a surrounding musical fabric is intensely organic NOW Orchestra, Deutschlandradio Kultur related sources of affect that undoubtedly influ- piano concerto entitled Abschied in 2001, the in nature. On one hand these bursts can be un- Berlin, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, enced the sound of both the written work and same year that he was named a Chevalier des derstood as the musical substance’s last attempts among others. Lewis has received commissions the virtual orchestra at a subliminal level. Both Arts et des Lettres by the French government. to regain active consciousness. Again Jarrell’s from a large number of institutions, includ- parts were first presented in January 2010 as part On the occasion of Pierre Boulez’s 85th birthday duality between disintegration and integration ing the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad.” in 2010, Jarrell composed La Chambre aux échos comes into play. Rather than the death of matter OPUS (Paris), IRCAM, Musée des Sciences Ikons opens with a chorale featuring two for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted or its disintegration into dust, we may consider et des Industries La Villette, Harvestworks, oscillating chords whose quarter-tone inflec- by Susanna Mälkki. In 2012, his cello concerto the transformation of this musical material into Studio Museum in Harlem, the Glasgow tions create a unique and instantly arresting Emergences (Nachlese VI), composed for Jean- a new form, one that incorporates the traces or Improvisers Orchestra. timbre. The idea of oscillation comes back Guihen Queyras, was premiered in Salt Lake remnants of its past identity into its new context. Before joining the music faculty at Columbia later in the piece during an extended passage City and Lyon. Since 2004, Jarrell has served University in 2004, Lewis has held teaching of insistent rhythmic stability that starts in the

6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES flute. Here, quick pivoting between discrete address the composer’s interest in controlling texture, its volatile predilection to change. A all contribute to the wide-ranging respect her pitches without quarter-tone coloring creates multiple, independent tempos. MacCallum’s glimpse of what this temporal texture could works have earned, and to the excitement with a stark contrast to the texture of the opening technological innovations are used both as com- sound like opens this piece. While all the players which they are performed by contemporary mu- material. During this section of relative musi- positional tools and as crucial elements to the have simple rhythmic patterns in the opening sic ensembles. As the San Francisco Chronicle’s cal homogeneity, changes in articulation and performance of his works. bars, they are all governed by their own tempos, Joshua Kosman puts it: “Her music is always in register from the order of instruments added After obtaining a B.M. in composition resulting in a complex texture whose concen- buoyant, puckish, rhythmically alive, and crisp- to the texture are clearly emphasized. Lewis’s and theory from University of the Pacific, trated energy holds great potential for moving ly engaging.” penchant for improvisation shines through as MacCallum went on to receive his master’s de- in a myriad of possible directions. One of these A Texas native, Cox was born in Houston the violin embellishes the oscillating 16th-note gree from McGill University in Montreal before directions occurs two-thirds of the way through and pursued her undergraduate degree in piano gesture, as quarter-tone inflections are gradually coming to UC Berkeley for his Ph.D. in mu- this piece, as a number of complex interlocking performance at Texas Christian University, folded back in the musical texture. Earlier in the sic composition. During his time at Berkeley, rhythms come together to create a “virtual tem- where she was a Nordan Fine Arts Scholar. In piece, a particularly frenetic passage featuring MacCallum was given a French-American po” in which no one member of the ensemble 1992, Cox received her doctorate from Indiana the woodwinds supported by material relating Cultural Exchange Fellowship in 2007, allow- is playing. University, where she studied composition to the opening in the string section also evokes ing him to work at the Centre International In order to achieve the multiple approaches with Harvey Sollberger, Donald Erb, Eugene improvisatory virtuosity. de Récherche Musicale and to study composi- to tempo, The Delicate Texture of Time requires O’Brien, John Eaton, and piano with Mozart Towards the close of the piece, the various tion and electronic music with Michel Pascal at MacCallum to use click tracks in a variety of and Schubert specialist Lili Kraus. Remaining musical ikons that have been presented to us the Conservatoire de Nice and the Université ways. The clarinet, saxophone, and two percus- active in both composition and performance, are put into dialogue with each other, creating de Nice Sophia Anitpolis. Bay Area audi- sionists each use their own click tracks indepen- Cox has performed extensively with contem- an engaging polyphonic texture. In this process ences have had the pleasure of hearing some of dent of each other that accelerate and decelerate porary music ensembles and has premiered nu- they are relieved to be related to one another, a MacCallum’s compositions at recent perfor- continuously over the course of the piece. Like merous works for solo piano. Cox is a professor notion that might have been hinted at earlier, mances of Aberration (2010) by Rootstock the others, the conductor also utilizes a click at UC Berkeley, where she holds the Jerry and but that was obstructed by the nature of certain Percussion at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley track that varies unceasingly to lead the flute Evelyn Chambers Chair in music. important stark transitions. and El Àrbol de la noche triste (2010) at the and the strings through the composition. Cox has received awards and commis- Mondavi Center by Ellen Ruth Rose of UC This piece also calls for ascordatura , or alter- sions from the American Academy of Arts and Davis’s Empyrean Ensemble. native tuning for the strings. The cello is tuned Letters, the Fromm Foundation, the National John MacCallum (b. 1976) The Delicate Texture of Time (2013) owes to the 5th, 7th, 11th, and 16th partials of the Endowment for the Arts, the American The Delicate Texture of Time (2013) its title to the following passage from Vladimir A one octave below the lowest A of the piano Composers Forum, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor: “[W]hat I am con- (13.75 Hz) while the viola is tuned one octave and the Gemeinschaft der Kunstlerinnen und John MacCallum’s works are known for their cerned with is the delicate texture of Time, void higher. The violin’s lower three strings are tuned Kunstfreunde International Competition for engaging use of complex processes that control of all embroidered events. … Physiologically the to the same partials as the viola, and its E string Women Composers. She has been a Fellow and manipulate multiple tempos. His interest in sense of Time is a sense of continuous becoming, is tuned normally. Other partials of the low A at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen developing unique approaches to tempo creates and if ‘becoming’ has a voice, the latter might are folded into the texture of this piece by way of Music Festival, the MacDowell Colony, and frenetic cross rhythms that affect his listeners’ be, not unnaturally, a steady vibration....” string harmonics. the Civitella Ranieri and William Walton foun- temporal experience at the local level of intri- Nabokov’s passage gives us two ways to The Delicate Texture of Time makes use of dations in Italy. Over the last five years, Cox’s cately pulsed gestures, as well as throughout his conceptualize time that are both useful avenues new software developed by the composer at works have been enjoyed by many across the pieces as a whole. Often stemming from care- through which to think about MacCallum’s CNMAT. This software builds on previous work United States as well as abroad in performances fully constrained algorithms that are given the piece. As a physiological sense, time can be by Matthew Wright and has been used exten- at venues including Carnegie Hall in New York chance to evolve differently (although in pre- thought of as a process, one of “continuous be- sively in works by Edmund Campion, including City, the National Gallery in Washington, dictable ways), MacCallum’s compositions also coming.” As the eight ensemble players perform ADKOM, Auditory Fiction, and The Last Internal D.C., the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, invite audiences to ponder the concept of deter- The Delicate Texture of Time, their individual Combustion Engine. the Biblioteca National in Buenos Aires, the minacy in contemporary music. discrete tempos shift at different rates. At cer- Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain Based in Oakland, California, since 2004, tain moments during the piece, all eight players in Nice, France, the Teatro Levino de Alcantara MacCallum held a position as a Musical arrive at the same tempo, suggesting the pos- Cindy Cox (b. 1961) in Braslia, and the Stratford Circus in Theater Applications Programmer at the Center for New sibility of a singular synchronicity. This arrival Pianos (2013) Square, London, among others. Recent no- Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). His however is fleeting, as the players’ tempos gradu- table commissions include the San Francisco composition Aberration (2010) for percussion ally drift apart. Cindy Cox’s imaginative palate of tone colors, Chamber Orchestra (Cañon), the California trio is the culmination of his work there, which When abstracted from its forward-moving innovative integration of live electronics, and Symphony (En espiral), Amsterdam bass clari- involved the development of software tools that process, time can also be thought of as a delicate playful approach to form grounded in tradition netist Laura Carmichael (The Shape of the Shell),

8 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 9 PROGRAM NOTES ABOUT THE ARTISTS and the Alexander String Quartet (Patagón). A with the accompanying ensemble’s varied tim- TheEco Ensemble, under the direction of David A dedicated proponent of new music, from previous collaboration with CNMAT, The Shape bres and sonic possibilities. Milnes, is a new group of leading Bay Area mu- 2002 to 2009 Mr. Milnes was Music Director of of the Shell, involves extensive live electronics “This supporting ensemble consists of flute sicians dedicated to exploring and sharing the the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and theatrical/improvisation direction. (doubling bass flute and piccolo), oboe (dou- work of adventurous composers. Its mission is with whom he commissioned and premiered Pianos (2013), a concerto solo piano/sampler bling English horn), clarinet (doubling bass to bring exciting, contemporary music to both many new works from around the world. He keyboard, twelve musicians, and live electron- clarinet), bassoon (doubling contrabassoon), experienced audiences and new listeners. has made recordings of music by John Anthony ics, enjoys its world premiere here tonight. Here horn, percussion, harp, two violins, viola, cello, Lennon, James Newton, Edmund Campion, Cox’s extensive personal history with the instru- and double bass. I would like to thank Daniel David Milnes Jorge Liderman and Pablo Ortiz. ment and her interest in interactive electronics Cullen, Myra Melford, and Edmund Campion serves as Music are joined together in order to push the bound- for their work creating the session recordings in Director of the Acclaimed, Grammy- aries of extended techniques through the use of Hertz Hall, and Ilya Rostovtsev for his technical Eco Ensemble, winning pianist Gloria technology. In the composer’s own words: assistance creating the sampler software.” Berkeley’s profes- Cheng is widely hailed “My new work, Pianos, is a concerto for solo sional new music as a compelling and el- piano/sampler keyboard and large chamber en- ensemble in resi- oquent performer of semble with extensive live electronics. Performed Notes by Alexander Stalarow, dence, as well as new works. She is often by renowned pianist—and former Regent’s graduate student in musicology, Music Director cited for tapping the Lecturer—Gloria Cheng, the piece is a col- UC Davis of the UC Berkeley University Symphony emotional core of con- laboration with CNMAT, and makes use of an Orchestra since 1996. In his early years, he stud- temporary music, and extensive archive of sampled piano recordings. ied piano, organ, clarinet, cello and voice, and her recitals and record- “Several years ago, this database at CNMAT briefly entertained a career as a jazz pianist, ap- ings are noted for ex-

was created from session recordings of one of the pearing with Chuck Mangione, Gene Krupa, Lefterisphoto.com ploring significant in- Music Department’s concert grand pianos in Billy Taylor and John Pizzarelli. After receiving terconnections between composers. Hertz Hall. Over a period of weeks, four tones advanced degrees in conducting from SUNY Ms. Cheng has commissioned, premiered, (C, E-flat, F-sharp, and A) in every octave were Stony Brook and the Yale School of Music, and and been the dedicatee of works by dozens of carefully recorded using multiple microphones studying with Otto-Werner Müller, Herbert the most eminent composers of our era. She ap- and with numerous different playing modes: for Blomstedt, Erich Leinsdorf and Leonard pears on more than 20 recordings, and has pro- example, playing with mallets inside the piano, Bernstein, he won the prestigious Exxon duced four solo discs that showcase the range of plucking the piano strings (pizzicato), and play- Assistant Conductor position with the San her taste in contemporary music. Her most re- ing with various prepared piano devices, such as Francisco Symphony, where he also served as cent Telarc recording, Piano Music of Esa-Pekka caulk, magnets, tape, and even a Super Ball. Music Director of the highly acclaimed San Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Witold Lutosławski, “Over the last year, I have taken portions Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, which he garnered international accolades culminating in of these recordings, cut them into short audio led on its first European tour in 1986. her 2009 Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist segments (usually about one to five inches in Mr. Milnes has conducted frequently in Performance. A forthcoming disc of solo and length) and mapped them onto a sampler key- Russia and the Baltics, serving as Music Director chamber works by Olivier Messiaen and Kaija board, so that the unusual sounds and timbres of the Riga Independent Opera Company and Saariaho, in collaboration with the award-win- could be played with easy facility by a pianist. as a principal guest conductor of the Latvian ning Calder Quartet, will appear in March 2013 Playing with mallets or plucking inside a piano National Symphony. Recent engagements have on the Harmonia Mundi label. is usually a tricky and limited maneuver in a live included appearances at the MANCA Festival in Festival highlights include recitals at Ojai, performance situation; this approach allows a Nice, France, with the Philharmonic Orchestra Bad Gleichenberg (Austria), the Chicago level of ease and virtuosity not technically pos- of Nice; in Mexico, at the International Festival Humanities Festival, the William Kapell Festival, sible otherwise. My inspiration for Pianos is to “El Callejón del Ruido” with the Guanajauto and Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary combine traditional “on the keys” playing (using Symphony Orchestra; and in Russia, with the Music. She has been featured on leading con- one of our very fine nine foot grand pianos in Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestra. He has col- cert series that include Carnegie Hall’s Making Hertz Hall), with the sampler keyboard’s “inside laborated in performances with Frederica von Music, Cal Performances, the St. Paul Chamber the piano” sounds, thus creating an extended Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Bill T. Jones, Paul Hillier, Orchestra’s Engine408 series, Stanford Lively sort of super-piano that is capable of a greatly James Newton, David Starobin and Chanticleer, Arts, and at (le) Poisson Rouge. extended range of timbres and colors. The en- and has appeared at the Santa Fe, Tanglewood, In Los Angeles Ms. Cheng has appeared hanced palette of piano sounds thus interacts Aspen and Monadnock music festivals. on countless Los Angeles Philharmonic Green

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Umbrella concerts in repertoire that ranged from John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano to Elliott Carter’s Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord. She presents an annual recital on the Piano Spheres series founded by Leonard Stein, and collaborates with a number of cham- ber ensembles, most notably with the Calder Quartet and on the Jacaranda Music series. At the request of film composers, including Don Davis, James Horner, Maurice Jarre, and John Williams, Ms. Cheng has been featured in numerous movie soundtracks that range from the Matrix trilogy to The Adventures of Tin Tin. She is on the faculty at UCLA, and is cur- rently completing a 2012 Regents Lectureship at UC Berkeley. Ms. Cheng holds a B.A. in eco- nomics from Stanford University, and graduate degrees in music from UCLA and the University of Southern California. In addition to solfège and piano studies in Paris and Barcelona, Ms. Cheng’s primary teachers were Isabelle Sant’Ambrogio, Aube Tzerko, and John Perry.

The UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) houses a dy- namic group of educational, performance and research programs focused on the creative interaction between music and technology. CNMAT’s research program is highly inter- disciplinary, linking all of UC Berkeley’s disci- plines dedicated to the study or creative use of sound. CNMAT’s educational program inte- grates a Music and Technology component into the Department of Music’s graduate program in music composition and also supports the under- graduate curriculum in music and technology for music majors and nonmusic majors. Learn more at www.cnmat.berkeley.edu.

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