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New York Philharmonic Presents Notes on the Program by Nadia Sirota, The Marie-Josée Kravis Creative Partner New York holds 8.6 million of the world’s 7.7 Today, in honor of the cultural mosaic that is billion people: just over a thousandth of the our city, we’ll hear six composers who have world’s population. We ride the same trains opted to make America, and in many cases and shop in the same bodegas. We can eat New York, their home-of-choice. the same dumplings, drink the same pints, schvitz in the same spas, and see the same Composer Chen Yi believes that “music is films. We can run in the same parks, ogle a universal language; improving understand- the same wildlife, and go to the same sym- ing between peoples of different cultural phony concerts. backgrounds and helping to bring peace in the world.” Chen is an American composer, Our one-thousandth of the world lives and born in Guangzhou, China. While her early works and plays on a tiny collection of is- childhood education on violin and piano was lands dedicated to art and commerce, and abruptly halted by the Cultural Revolution, more than anything else, to fellowship. We she became one of the first 200 students would not be who we are without each admitted in 1978 to the reopened Central other. And while it can feel like our very Conservatory of Music, where she studied fellowship is being questioned all the time composition. Chen received her doctorate these days, as New Yorkers we live every from Columbia University, where she worked day in bold defiance of that accusation. We with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. are a global city, we are good to our fellow Over the past three decades, her music has humans, and while we come from every been performed widely around the world, country, speak every language, prepare and she has won some of composition’s every cuisine, and play every music, we all most prestigious accolades, including the thought to come here to share it, to be part Charles Ives Living Award from the American of something. A community. Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. At the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert Chen Yi Born: April 4, 1953, in Guangzhou, China Resides: in Kansas City, Missouri Work composed: 2002, commissioned by the Hanson Institute for American Music at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester for the Ying Quar- tet to perform on the No Boundaries concert series World premiere: 2002, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC New York Philharmonic Presents For the past 20 years Chen has been a Dis- dramatic scene of the moving gestures tinguished Professor at the University of in Chinese sword dance. Missouri–Kansas City. Her work on today’s program takes its inspiration from Kansas Georg Friedrich Haas grew up in a narrow City’s local Chinese New Year celebration. valley surrounded by mountains in Vorarl- As with much of her music, this piece el- berg, Austria, and instead of finding the egantly fuses both traditional Chinese and austere landscape beautiful, he thought of Western classical idioms. The quartet is the terrain as menacing — a place where dedicated to Chou Wen-chung, Chen’s the sun rarely shone. Haas spent a large teacher and mentor, on the occasion of his portion of his childhood feeling like an 80th birthday. The composer writes: outsider; he was a Protestant in a Catho- lic society and, while his younger siblings In the first movement of my string quar- spoke the local Allemanic dialect of their tet, I use the viola to imitate the Chinese peers, Haas never learned it. Much of his fiddle erhu performed at the KC concert, music reflects a torqued, through-the- which could play the tunes like human looking-glass view of Western composition. beings talking in Chinese, to greet the He combines richly sensual and satisfying audience vividly, while other instruments musical structures with techniques inspired in the quartet play the support sound in by spectralism and beyond, plumbing the a celebrating mood. In the second move- depths of tuning and resonance to create ment, I use music to review the excellent sonorities that seem to manipulate the lis- performance of the hand-pulled noodle tener’s cells at an atomic level. His music is making. The delicate art form originated so effective because it speaks to us in such in Henan province in northern China, and a human way, however odd the language the masters have performed the show may seem at first. everywhere around the world, not only to introduce the method of making the Half a decade ago, Haas moved to New food, but also to share the culture with York City to teach at Columbia University, others. The third movement reflects the and around the same time forged a deep- tria ex uno Georg Friedrich Haas Born: August 16, 1953, in Graz, Austria Resides: in New York City Work composed: 2001 World premiere: March 6, 2002, in Gasteig München, Germany, by the Ensemble TrioLog New York Philharmonic Presents New York Stories: Threads of Our City This performance is part of New York Stories: Bruno Walter Gallery at David Geffen Hall, Threads of Our City, two weeks of concerts Immigrant New York: Celebrating the Work- and events by the New York Philharmonic and ers and Musicians of Our City, explores Music Director Jaap van Zweden examining immigrant musicians of the Philharmonic, New York’s roots as a city of immigrants. The both past and present, and immigrant fac- centerpiece was the World Premiere, on Jan- tory workers. It features materials and doc- uary 24, of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my mouth, co- uments from the Archives; the Forward; commissioned by the Philharmonic. The work the Museum of the City of New York; the reflects on the New York garment industry at the National Archives at New York City; and the turn of the 20th century and the 1911 Triangle Kheel Center at Cornell University. Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrants. As the concluding event, “Threads” is a new-music concert featuring Philharmonic Mu- Ancillary events have included a perfor- sicians performing chamber music by com- mance by Philharmonic Musicians at the posers who have been influenced by their Tenement Museum, and an invitation for time in America. audience members and fans to share their own stories of immigration, migration, and New York Stories: Threads of Our City is one cultural heritage on the Philharmonic’s Your of three pillars anchoring the Philharmon- Story, Our Story webpage, presented by ic’s 2018–19 season; the others are The Art the museum. A special exhibit mounted by of Andriessen and Music of Conscience. the New York Philharmonic Archives in the Learn more at nyphil.org/season-highlights. Threads of New York: inside a garment factory populated by immigrant workers, ca. 1900 (Photo courtesy the Kheel Center at Cornell University).