Stillness and Change

Acknowledgments The East Coast Contemporary Ensemble Cover art: “Four Seasons” by Roberta Aylward Stillness and Change Maria Wildhaber, Executive Director John Aylward John Aylward & Dominique Schafer, Photo of Matthias Pintscher by Andrea Medici Artistic Directors Photo of Jo Ellen Miller by Mark Bradley Miller Photo of John Aylward by Derek Jacoby Recording Engineer: Joel Gordon Photos of Paint Trail and Parker River National Assistant Recording Engineer: David Corcoran Wildlife Refuge by John Aylward Producers: John Aylward and Joel Gordon The following grants through Clark University All music is available directly helped in part to fund this album: from John Aylward Faculty Development Grant, Higgins School of Humanities, For William Gerard Aylward Sarah Buie, Director (December 12th 1936 – July 30th 2009) Faculty Research Grant, Thanks to Thomas and Monika, Office of Sponsored Programs and Research, and to Helen Mulligan Nancy Budwig, Dean of Research Thanks also to Martin Boykan, Visual and Performing Arts Department, David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, Matt Malsky, Chair Eric Chafe and George Tsontakis, and to Louise Glück johnaylward.com

www.albanyrecords.com TROY1283 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 East Coast Contemporary Ensemble albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008 © 2011 Albany Records made in the usa DDD warning: copyright subsists in all recordings issued under this label. The Composer John Aylward has been awarded a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship from Harvard University, a Fulbright Grant to Germany and First Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). He has also been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Tanglewood, the Aspen Music School, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Aylward’s work has been praised for its rhythmic vitality, rigorous formal qualities and lyricism. Aylward’s music has been performed within the U.S and abroad by numerous leading ensembles and soloists. Aylward’s writings on contemporary music can be read in Perspectives of New Music and Mitteilungen Der Paul Sacher Stiftung. As a pianist, Aylward regularly performs contemporary music. Recent concert dates include Harvard’s Paine Hall, The Collis Center at Dartmouth, The American Composers Forum in Washington, DC, the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, and Distler Hall at Tufts University. In 2005, John began a group for contemporary music, the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, dedicated to presenting the most adventuresome new music worldwide. One of Aylward’s first initiatives for the group was to establish an international music festival. The Etchings Festival, now in its third season, has attracted professional and student musicians from across the US and abroad and has already premiered numerous new works of contemporary music. The festival is a partnership with the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and is held at their artist space in Auvillar, France. The festival has attracted acclaim for its masterclasses and lessons, taught by luminary composers David Rakowski, Fabien Levy, Louis Karchin, Stefano Gervasoni and Lee Hyla. Aylward is Assistant Professor of Music at Clark University in Massachusetts. Aylward has also taught at Tufts University and at Brandeis University. John Aylward: the importance of place(s) gardens and beaches that populate Glück’s work are a far cry from Aylward’s Tucson. Yet the imagery the poet employs has been a touchstone for the composer in his present environs; it During 1950-’51, the composer Elliott Carter stayed in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona. finds a striking affinity in the composer’s recent music. Glück’s work is an inspiration for two It was here that he composed one of his watershed works: the First String Quartet. David Schiff of the pieces on this recording. In Songs From the Wild Iris, Aylward sensitively sets Glück’s has said of Carter’s sojourn that “by going to the desert, Carter left his routine patterns of living in parsimonious yet expressive lines, utilizing a motivic economy and declamatory vocal style that order to discover a new kind of time.” The composer emerged from the desert having solidified a underscores the rhythms of the text with supple subtlety. Stillness and Change is an instrumental number of the ideas that would feature prominently in his mature music; notably, an idiosyncratic meditation on the Glück poem “Island.” At turns explosively energetic and hauntingly repose- approach to the organization of pitch and his radical explorations of the rhythmic domain: of time. ful, it is a score that features rapidly shifting textures and tempi and characterful instrumental It seems fitting that John Aylward, an emerging scholar on Carter and a composer simi- roles. Punctilious woodwind trills and incisive writing for pitched percussion and piano are set larly interested in creating music that is anything but routine in its approach, grew up in this against cantabile string lines in a vibrant colloquy. same area. The vistas and rhythms of desert life have proved formative influences on Aylward’s To come full circle, back to Carter, we can consider the final work on this disc. Aylward creative work. For those outsiders who consider the desert to be a barren place, they need only acknowledges the influence of his in-depth research on a later Carter string quartet—the Fifth, listen to the vibrancy and breadth of Aylward’s ouevre to identify a soundscape that mimics the a piece written nearly 45 years after the First String Quartet—on his own recent compositional abundant variety of flora and fauna that populate the Sonora. activities. Like Carter’s Fifth Quartet, Reciprocal Accord relies on interrelated, aphoristic sections, One can particularly identify their presence in the duo Images of Departure. It is buoyed developing materials in a nonlinear fashion. It affords the listener the chance to accumulate a wide by coloristic harmony reminiscent of another compositional touchstone: Olivier Messiaen. But array of vantage points of similarly unfolding material, teasing out its eventual appearance in fully Aylward is not merely fashioning his work out of the tools of mid-century modernists. Images of formed guise and, along the way, reveling in self-referential details: much akin to a suspense-filled Departure is noteworthy for its incorporation of the plant and animal life of the Sonoran Desert detective story. Also like Carter, Aylward delights in metric shifts, creating an elaborate plan that in a musical replication of its movement. The arching melodic line of the central movement coordinates multiple tempi into an overarching temporal narrative. The overall impression is of soars, as if gliding in flight, while the outer movements share glimpses of rustling winds and a lithely compressed yet variegated design. the skittering of feet on the ground. It is these latter gestures that create a juxtaposition that has Of course, this music is much more than “Northeast meets Southwest.” But the importance become a signature of Aylward’s music: conflating a chromatic pitch palette with the ostinati of place to Aylward, and his creative response to the fragility and beauty of his surroundings, and motoric rhythms often identified with minimalism. wherever he may find himself, are keys to understanding the rich oasis of evocative sounds and While the Sonoran Desert is a vital part of Aylward’s creative journey, it’s equally important erudite inspirations that populate his compositional world. to note the recent eastward change in his environment, encompassing graduate school at Brandeis —Christian Carey University and teaching at Clark University in Massachusetts. With co-directors Maria Wildhaber Christian Carey is a composer, performer, and music theorist. He teaches at Westminster Choir College and Dominique Schafer, he runs the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble, a group that not only performs in the United States but also has recently undertaken residencies in Europe. in Princeton, New Jersey and is Senior Editor at the contemporary classical website Sequenza 21 Louise Glück’s poetry has created a lasting influence on Aylward. It often makes reference (www.sequenza21.com/carey). to the Long Island of her upbringing and to her current home in New England. The suburban Schiff, David.The Music of Elliott Carter. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998 (2nd ed.): 55. From The Composer The first movement is a study in economy, growing almost completely from the opening two-note motif. The second movement is bound not by a recurrent motif but rather by a long Stillness and Change (December, 2007 – January, 2008) ascending theme that appears throughout in many contexts. The final movement is a kind of Stillness and Change is an instrumental response to an excerpt from Louise Glück’s poem Island, concert etude also drawing on a single idea of perpetual motion. from The Seven Ages. Songs from the Wild Iris (April, 2007; June, 2008; December, January, 2009-10) Silence. And then For many years, I have been fascinated by Louise Glück’s work, The Wild Iris. Glück’s work flows like one word, a name. And then another word: a song cycle all its own. Helen Vendler writes that the The Wild Iris is written in the, “language again, again. And time of flowers,” and I hear an exploration of the natural elements and the Divine as well. salvaged, like a pulse between My own song cycle takes five selections that show a microcosm of the work’s fifty-four stillness and change. Late afternoon. The soon to be lost poems. Through the five settings, the soprano takes on the characters Glück evokes, oscillat- becoming memory; the mind closing around it. ing between the flowers, their creators and other natural elements. I envision the ensemble as The work opens with a rhythmic motto shared between the entire ensemble: a motto that embodying other contrasting characters in Glück’s dialogue. returns to shape the work’s larger phrases. After this initial motto, each instrument begins to For me, Glück’s work is a modern response to Whitman, Thoreau and the ideals of play its own surface rhythm and underlying pulse stream while a long-running melodic line American Transcendentalism. These early American authors recognized that intimacy with passes through the ensemble. The second movement separates the ensemble into three groups: a the natural world comes only from diligent stewardship. I relate deeply with these ideals, being slow chorale in the strings, quiet murmurings in the winds and delicate chimes in the high reg- born and raised amongst the vast landscapes of the Sonoran Desert. I don’t see Glück’s work isters of the piano and percussion. As the movement moves forward, the piano and percussion as being the voice of Creation as much as I understand it to be an embodiment of forces with duo gains a great deal of momentum, carrying a jagged rhythmic texture through an energetic whom we cannot dialogue. I find these mysterious voices perfectly suited to be cast in music. third movement. Instruments recombine into new groups and unison lines surface as the energy of the third movement increases. The work ends as the instruments again parse into groups and Reciprocal Accord (November, 2008 – January, 2009) settle on a final arrangement of one of the work’s central harmonies. Reciprocal Accord unfolds over six movements played attacca. The movements are metrically related by contrasting proportionate tempi. Within each movement, the violin and cello articulate pulse Images of Departure (August and September, 2009) streams related to, but slower than, the surface tempo: what I like to call embedded tempi. This Images of Departure was written in the summer of 2009 as my father’s twin brother, William, kind of construction was inspired by my research on Elliott Carter’s Fifth String Quartet. Although was passing away at my family’s home in Southern Arizona. In retrospect, the middle move- many of the movements are starkly contrasted, the compositional approach is similar to that of a ment of the work must be a response to the emotional atmosphere we all experienced during theme and variations. Much of the same harmonic patterning holds through the movements as this time. The title of the work comes from the summer days we spent preparing for William the duo moves through many textures and timbres. Ever present through the work is the idea of to pass away. Some of the harmonies in this movement have a transcendental quality to me, how the instruments blend and separate, showing themselves as both independent and bound together. evocative of some of Messiaen’s more contemplative piano works. Texts for Songs from the Wild Iris that is lasting, not you won’t hear it in the other world, these small chips of matter— not clearly again, The Doorway End of Summer not in birdcall or human cry, If you would open your eyes I wanted to stay as I was After all things occurred to me, you would see me, you would see not the clear sound, only still as the world is never still, the void occurred to me. the emptiness of heaven persistent echoing not in midsummer but the moment before There is a limit mirrored on earth, the fields in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye— the first flower forms, the moment to the pleasure I had in form— vacant again, lifeless, covered with snow— nothing is as yet past— the one continuous line I am not like you in this, then white light that binds us to each other. not midsummer, the intoxicant, I have no release in another body, no longer disguised as matter. but laste spring, the grass not yet Presque Isle high at the edge of the garden, the early tulips I have no need End of Winter In every life, there’s a moment or two. beginning to open— of shelter outside myself— Over the still world, a bird calls in every life, a room somewhere, by the sea or waking solitary among black boughs. In the mountains. like a child hovering in a doorway, watching My poor inspired the others, creation, you are You wanted to be born; I let you be born. On the table, a dish of apricots. Pits on a white the ones who go first, distractions, finally, When has my grief ever gotten ashtray. a tense cluster of limbs, alert to mere curtailment; you are in the way of your pleasure? Like all images, these were the conditions of the failures of others, the public falterings too little like me in the end Plunging ahead a pact: to please me. with a child’s fierce confidence of imminent into the dark and light at the same time on your cheek, tremor of sunlight, power and so adamant— Eeager for sensation my finger pressing your lips. preparing to defeat you want to be paid off The walls blue-white; paint from the low As though you were some new thing, wanting these weaknesses, to succumb for your disappearance, bureau flaking a little. to express yourselves to nothing, the time directly all paid in some part of the earth, That room must still exist, on the fourth floor, some souvenir, as you were once all brilliance, all vivacity prior to flowering, the epoch of mastery with a small balcony overlooking the ocean. rewarded for labor, never thinking A square white room, the top sheet pulled before the appearance of the gift, the scribe being paid this would cost you anything, back over the edge of the bed. before possession. in silver, the shepherd in barley never imagining the sound of my oice It hasn’t dissolved back into nothing, although it is not earth as anything but part of you— into reality. Through the open window, sea air, smelling Then I realized you couldn’t think The Performers of iodine. with any real boldness or passion; Matthias Pintscher sees his two main spheres of activity—composing you hadn’t had your own lives yet, Early morning: a man calling a small boy back and conducting—as entirely complementary. He has created significant your own tragedies. from the water. works for some of the world’s leading orchestras, and his intrinsic That small boy—he would be twenty now. So I gave you lives, I gave you tragedies, understanding of the score from the composer’s perspective informs his because apparently tools alone weren’t enough. ability to communicate on the podium. “My thinking as a conductor is Around your face, rushes of damp hair, informed by the process of my own writing,” says Matthias Pintscher, streaked with auburn. You will never know how deeply “and vice versa of course.” Still in his thirties, he may justly be called the Muslin flicker of silver. Heavy jar filled with it pleases me to see you sitting there most sought-after German composer of his generation, and his music is championed by some white peonies. like independent being, of today’s finest performing artists, orchestras and conductors. to see you dreaming by the open window, Retreating Light holding the pencils I gave you “An American artist at home in many vocabularies” (Chicago Sun- You were like very young children, Jo Ellen Miller until the summer morning disappears Times), young soprano is a versatile performer known always waiting for a story. into writing. for her “lovely, rounded tone” (New York Times) in her work as both And I’d been through it all too many times; a classical singer and an interpreter of contemporary works. She has I was tired of telling stories. Creation has brought you been led by James Levine as the soprano soloist with the Met Chamber So I gave you the pencil and paper. great excitement, as I knew it would, Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, as well as sung with the Chicago Symphony I gave you pens made of reeds as it does in the beginning. Orchestra in Elliott Carter’s A Mirror on Which to Dwell, conducted by I had gathered myself, afternoons in the And I am free to do as I please now, Pierre Boulez. She has sung extensive amounts of music by Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, dense meadows. to attend to other things, in confidence and Lukas Foss. A singing actress with a long resume of classical roles, Ms. Miller has sung I told you, write your own story. You have no need of me anymore. Zerlina, Micaela, Gretel, Mimi, and Juliette, among others. She has also been featured with the Boston Pops under the baton of Keith Lockhart, and performed such concert works as After all those years of listening “The Doorway,” “End of Summer,” “End of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Carnegie Hall), Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Handel’s Messiah, I thought you’d know Winter,” “Presque Isle,” and “Retreating Light” and Faure’s Requiem. She holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon and University of Michigan. what a story was. Copyright 1992, and “Island” Copyright 2001, by Louise Glück, used with permission of The All you could do was weep. Andrew Rehrig began his studies of the flute at the age of 12 and two years later gave his Wylie Agency LLC. All rights reserved. You wanted everything told to you concerto debut with the Ludwig Symphony Orchestra in Atlanta, Georgia. He went on to and nothing thought through yourselves. continue studies at Indiana University with Thomas Robertello, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree. While still an undergraduate, Mr. Rehrig was invited to become a member of the Columbus, Indiana Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held until graduation. During solo recording (“Casting Ecstatic”), on CRI; the complete Grieg Sonatas on Arabesque; an all that time he was also invited to play with several orchestras throughout Indiana and Kentucky, Steve Mackey record (“Interior Design”) on Bridge, and the complete Brahms Sonatas, also including the Owensboro Symphony and the Evansville Philharmonic. Having completed a for Bridge. Mr. Macomber is presently a member of the chamber music faculty of the Juilliard Master’s degree at Stony Brook University under the direction of Carol Wincenc, Mr. Rehrig School, where he earned B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees as a student of Joseph Fuchs. He is appears regularly with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New York Pops, and the Mark Morris also on the violin faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, and has taught at the Tanglewood, Dance Group Music Ensemble. As a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, Taos and Yellow Barn Music Festivals. Mr. Rehrig can be heard on their most recent double CD release for Sony Classics as well as with the Dirty Projectors on “Rise Above.” He has appeared with the Stony Brook Violist Mark Holloway is a chamber musician increasingly sought after within the United Contemporary Chamber Players and performs regularly with Ensemble FusionChamber in States and abroad. He has appeared at some of the music world’s most prestigious festivals such as Boulder, Colorado and with both the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble and NOW Marlboro, Ravinia, Caramoor, Banff, Taos, Music from Angel Fire, Mainly Mozart, and with the Ensemble in New York City and abroad. Boston Chamber Music Society. He plays regularly at Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland, Musique de Chambre à Giverny in France, and at the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove, Clarinetist Bill Kalinkos enjoys a varied freelance career as a member of Alarm Will Sound, England. He has been principal violist of the New York String Orchestra, the Tanglewood Signal, National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble, and the Deviant Septet. In addition, Bill Music Center Orchestra, and was a member and guest principal of the Chamber Orchestra of has played with American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Ensemble de Sade, Metropolis Philadelphia. Hailed as an “outstanding violist” by the American Record Guide and praised by Ensemble, Toby Twining Music, Ensemble Pamplemousse, and Anti-Social Music. Recognized Zürich’s Neue Zürcher Zeitung for his “warmth and intimacy,” he has recorded for CMS Live by the Washington Post as a “notable contemporary music specialist,” he has been fortunate and Naxos Records. A member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two, Mr. enough to work with and premiere pieces by some of today’s foremost composers including Holloway was a student of Michael Tree at The Curtis Institute of Music, and received his Helmut Lachenmann, Roger Reynolds, Steve Reich, John Adams, Wolfgang Rihm, and John bachelor of music summa cum laude from Boston University as a student of Michelle LaCourse. Zorn, among others. As an orchestral player, Bill has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, SpoletoFestival USA, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. He is princi- A dedicated performer of contemporary music, cellist Chris Finckel has been involved in New pal clarinet of CityMusic Cleveland, co-principal clarinet of the New Hampshire Music Festival York’s new music scene for more than 40 years. He has participated in the premiere perfor- Orchestra, and a member of IRIS Orchestra. mances of the works of more than 100 composers including Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, Donald Martino, Steve Reich and Charles Wuorinen Violinist Curtis Macomber is one of the most versatile soloists/chamber musicians before and has recorded extensively for the Nonesuch, New World, CRI, Bridge and Vanguard record the public today, equally at home in repertoire from Bach to Babbitt. As member of the New labels. Hailed as “an artist able to cast a spell” by the New Yorker, Mr. Finckel is the cellist of the World String Quartet from 1982-93, he performed in virtually all the important concert Manhattan String Quartet and the New York New Music Ensemble with whom he performs series in this country, as well as touring abroad. He is the violinist of Speculum Musicae and on concert series worldwide. He has appeared at the Santa Fe, Ravinia, Saratoga and Norfolk Da Capo, and a founding member of the Apollo Trio. His most recent recordings include: a chamber music festivals, and in some of the world’s most prestigious Avant Garde festivals including the Adelaide Festival (Australia) and the Salon d’Automne (Paris), and in the newer Pacific Rim festivals of Beijing, Seoul and Bangkok.

Pianist Stephen Gosling’s playing has been hailed as “electric, luminous and poised” (The New York Times), projected with “utter clarity and conviction” (The Washington Post) through “extraordinary virtuosity” (The Houston Chronicle). A native of Sheffield, England, Stephen studied with Oxana Yablonskaya at the Juilliard School, where he earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees. At Juilliard, he was awarded the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship. Energetically committed to the music of our time, Stephen Gosling is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso and the Sinfonietta Moderna of Columbia University. He appears frequently as guest artist with such groups as Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Continuum, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Speculum Musicae and Da Capo Chamber Players. He has recorded for the New World, Bridge, CRI, Innova, Albany and Centaur labels, among others.

Percussionist Samuel Z. Solomon teaches percussion at The Boston Conservatory, Boston University, and The BU Tanglewood Institute, and is the President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society. His book, “How to Write for Percussion,” has received critical acclaim from composers, performers, and conductors worldwide and is available in three languages. He has also authored three books on percussion playing and curated two collec- tions of percussion etudes and solos. Solomon is founding member of the Yesaroun’ Duo and the Line C3 percussion group, from 2005-2010 he was percussionist-in-residence at Harvard University, and since 2003 he has been principal timpanist of the Amici New York cham- ber orchestra. He can be heard as soloist and chamber musician on GM, Albany, Bedroom Community, and Tzadik labels, as well as performing the music of Björk on her soundtrack to Matthew Barney’s film “Drawing Restraint 9.” www.szsolomon.com J ohn Stillness and Change [11:08]

1 I Moonbeam Aylward oy1283 II Stars tr III Island Andrew Rehrig, flutes | Bill Kalinkos, clarinets | Curtis Macomber, violin Chris Finckel, cello | Stephen Gosling, piano | Samuel Solomon, percussion

Matthias Pintscher, conductor Stillness and Change Images of Departure 2 I Delicato, energico [4:03]

3 II Elegy [7:01] Stillness and Change 4 III Finale [2:32] Mark Holloway, viola | Stephen Gosling, piano John Aylward

East Coast Contemporary Ensemble Songs from the Wild Iris 5 I The Doorway [3:36] 6 II End of Summer [4:06] 7 III End of Winter [3:49] 8 IV Presque Isle [3:28] 9 V Retreating Light [7:03] Jo Ellen Miller, soprano | Curtis Macomber, violin | Chris Finckel, cello Bill Kalinkos, clarinet | Samuel Solomon, percussion Matthias Pintscher, conductor 10 Reciprocal Accord [11:47] Stillness and Change and Stillness Curtis Macomber, violin | Chris Finckel, cello Total Time = 58:53

www.albanyrecords.com TROY1283 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207

tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 tr

albany records u.k. oy1283 box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008

Aylward © 2011 Albany Records made in the usa DDD warning: copyright subsists in all recordings issued under this label. ohn J