Concert 35/1

Welcome Tonight Earplay is delighted to present the first concert of our 35th season in historic Herbst Theatre. Expect surprises and introspections! The program presents three Earplay-commissioned works (including two hot- off-the-presses world premieres), the winner of the 2019 Earplay Donald Aird Composers Competition, and a work by this season's luminous focus composer Kaija Saariaho. Tonight’s concert begins with two world premieres, a sparkling clarinet, violin, and viola trio by Addie Camsuzou and a hushed viola/harp duet by Bruce Bennett, followed by a reprise of Laurie San Martin's vibrant string trio commissioned and premiered by Earplay in 2017. After intermission, you will hear the Aird prize winner, Gilad Cohen's slowly unfolding duet Late Shadow, followed by an energetic quintet by Kaija Saariaho. Please join us for a pre-concert conversation with composers Bennett, Camsuzou, Cohen, and San Martin, and please linger after the concert to chat with composers, Earplayers, and Earplay board members over refreshments in the performer’s lounge. Please join us again on March 30th and May 4th at Taube Atrium Theater (4th floor of the War Memorial Building), and please bring your friends! We look forward to seeing you then for more music you won’t hear anywhere else. Thanks for your support! — Earplay Board of Directors Board of Directors Staff Terrie Baune, musician representative Lori Zook, executive director Bruce Bennett Terrie Baune, scheduler Mary Chun, conductor Renona Brown, accountant Andrew Conklin David Ogilvy, sound recordist Richard Festinger Ellen Ruth Rose, artistic coordinator May Luke, chair Stephen Ness, secretary/treasurer Advisory Board Ellen Ruth Rose Chen Yi Richard Felciano William Kraft Kent Nagano Cover photo: Stephen Ness Wayne Peterson 2 Monday, February 10, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. Herbst Theatre Earplay Season 35: Light and Matter Concert 1: Sky Dances Earplayers Terrie Baune, violin Tod Brody, flutes Mary Chun, conductor Peter Josheff, clarinets Thalia Moore, cello Ellen Ruth Rose, viola Guest Artists Meredith Clark, harp Jim Kassis, percussion Daniela Mineva, piano Pre-concert conversation at 6:45 PM: Bruce Christian Bennett, composer and moderator with composers Addie Camsuzou, Gilad Cohen, and Laurie San Martin Please power down your cellphone before the performance. No photography, videography, or sound recording is permitted. Programs are subject to change without notice. Earplay’s season is made possible through generous funding from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Yoshiko Kakudo Fund, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and generous donors like you. 3 Program Addie Camsuzou Twilit (2020) World premiere; Earplay commission Peter Josheff Terrie Baune Ellen Ruth Rose Bruce Christian the art of disappearing (2020) Bennett World premiere; Earplay commission Ellen Ruth Rose Meredith Clark Laurie San Martin Fray (2016-2020) Earplay commission Terrie Baune Ellen Ruth Rose Thalia Moore INTERMISSION Gilad Cohen Late Shadow (2017) 2019 Earplay Donald Aird Composers Competition winner Terrie Baune Daniela Mineva Kaija Saariaho Terrestre (2002) Tod Brody Terrie Baune Thalia Moore Meredith Clark Jim Kassis Mary Chun 4 Program Notes Twilit (2020) by Addie Camsuzou for clarinet, violin, and viola World premiere; Earplay commission Twilit was inspired by an early morning walk through a softly-lit field. The sunlight shone through the mist in such a way that patches of newly-green grass and delicate spiderwebs appeared to glow in the distance. This piece is dedicated to the talented musicians of Earplay, and is written in honor of my father, who loved beautiful walks more than anyone I know. — A. C. ¨ Addie Camsuzou is a composer and violinist from the central coast of California. She graduated magna cum laude from Sacramento State University with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Theory/Composition; while there, she studied music composition with Stephen Blumberg and violin with Ian Swensen and Anna Presler. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition at University of California, Davis. Her music has been featured at events such as the Pacific Rim Music Festival and the Festival of New American Music. Additionally, she was a winner of the Festival of New American Music Student Composers Competition and a finalist in the 2018 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Her website is addiecamsuzou.com. ¨ the art of disappearing (2020) by Bruce Christian Bennett for viola and harp World premiere; Earplay commission Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do with your time. — Naomi Shihab Nye 5 Have you ever sought anonymity in the crowded streets of the city? Tried to blend in with the wallpaper at a party? Thought about going out, but couldn't bear the thought of being seen? There is an art to remaining in the shadows, to fading from view, to disappearing completely. This piece was composed for and is dedicated to Ellen Ruth Rose (viola) and Meredith Clark (harp). It is a very quiet piece. Throughout the piece, each instrument tries to hide behind the other. They take turns fading in and out of the texture. Occasionally, they blend into one another. The starting note takes on different shades and textures, before dissipating into trills and losing its focus. A little more than half way through the piece, a short, simple, sentimental passage is exposed, like a tender memory. The simple counterpoint of this passage actually underpins much of the piece as a whole, even though one is unlikely to hear it. While it does its best to hide itself throughout, in this moment it is starkly exposed. One might consider this an authentic moment that has done its utmost to elude exposure — not unlike how we shield our own authentic, most vulnerable selves from public perception in preliminary social engagements. The piece trails off with a series of slow harp arpeggios and with the viola sustaining long single notes. It fades and eventually evaporates, leaving the first note of the piece lingering as a harmonic played by the viola. — B. C. B. ¨ Bruce Christian Bennett (b. 1968) is a native of Seattle, currently residing in San Francisco. He is an active performer of improvised music. His works as a composer have been played throughout the United States and abroad by the Arditti String Quartet, the Avenue Winds, the Berkeley Symphony, CityWinds, the Del Sol String Quartet, Earplay, Ensemble InterContemporain, the Kairos Quartet, the New Orleans New Music Ensemble, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Paragon Brass Quintet, and Sirius, and by performers including Brian Connelly, Tom Dambly, Helen Gillet, Matt Ingalls, Jerry Kuderna, Alexandra Kocheva, Hugh Livingston, Gary Scavone, and Michael Zbyszynski. His electroacoustic music has been presented at curated events including the Electric Rainbow Coalition Festival at Dartmouth, Natural Disasters exhibit in New Orleans, the Pulse Field exhibition in Atlanta, the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, Sonic Circuits II, Cultural Labyrinth in San Francisco, EX-STATIC and Sonic Residues in Melbourne, Australia, and at ICMA, SEAMUS, and SCI conferences. 6 ¨ Fray (2016-2020) by Laurie San Martin for violin, viola, and cello Earplay commission In spring 2016, while listening to Terrie, Ellen and Thalia read through undergraduate compositions, I felt a pang of nostalgia. I had worked closely with these three musicians while co-directing the Empyrean Ensemble from 2001-2009. So when Ellen approached me a few weeks later about writing a piece for Earplay, I was delighted for the opportunity. I even had old sketches that I had created in years past for a playful piece that would juxtapose three distinct personalities. These past few months turned out to be a challenging time for getting any kind of work done, including writing music. I stole some time away from my internet browser, however, and gradually pieced together this project. It turned into something much darker and more amorphous than what I had intended. Fray is in three brief movements. Without giving too much away, I would say that that this piece is about exploring disparate moments, sounds, and ideas, and investigating what direction these fragmentary shreds of music might take. Many of the loose ends from the first two movements come together in the last movement. However, not everything is resolved. There is a sense of the stitching being left loose at the end of the piece. — L. S. M. ¨ Laurie San Martin writes music that creates a compelling narrative by exploring the intersection between texture and line. Critics have described her music as exuberant, colorful, forthright, high octane, tumultuous, intricate, intense and rumbly. She writes concert music for chamber ensembles and orchestra but has also written for theater, dance and video. Her music has been performed across the United States, Europe and Asia. Most recently she has enjoyed writing for virtuoso soloists including violinists Hrafnhildur Atladottir and Gabriela Díaz, percussionists Chris Froh and Mayumi Hama, Haleh Abghari (soprano), Yi Ji-Young (Korean gayageum) and David Russell (cello). Laurie has worked with numerous ensembles including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Berlin PianoPercussion, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, eighth blackbird, SF Chamber Orchestra, the Lydian Quartet, Magnetic South Ensemble, Washington Square Contemporary Chamber 7 Players, and others. Recipient of the 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, she has also received awards from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, League of Composers-ISCM, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards. As a composition fellow, she has attended the MacDowell Colony, the Montalvo Artist Residency, Yaddo, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Norfolk Contemporary Chamber Music Festival, and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College. Laurie holds a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in Theory and Composition. She has taught at Clark University and is currently Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis.

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