Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

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�� Oberlin Contemporary Music �� Ensemble �� Timothy Weiss, conductor �� Jonathan Moyer, organ �� Yuri Popowycz, violin �� Saturday, April 11, 2015, 2:00 p.m. �� Gartner Auditorium,�� the Cleveland Museum of Art �� Feuilles à travers les cloches (1998) Tristan Murail �� (b. 1947) �� Erica Zheng, flute • Julia Suh, violin �� Jake Klinkenborg, cello • Chelsea�� DeSouza, piano �� Volumina (1961/62) ��György Ligeti �� (1923–2006) �� Jonathan Moyer��, organ �� Concerto for violin and orchestra (1992) Ligeti �� Praeludium �� Aria, Hoquetus, Choral �� Intermezzo �� Passacaglia �� Appassionato �� Yuri Popowycz,�� violin Through �� Erica Zheng, Tasi Hiner, flute • Leo Ziporyn, oboe ��Jarrett Hoffman, Shelagh�� Haney, clarinet �� Benjamin Roidl-Ward, bassoon �� Antonia Chandler, Madison Warren, horn �� Luke Spence, trumpet • Matthew�� Marchand, trombone �� Daniel King, Hunter Brown, Michael�� Mazzullo, percussion �� Rachel White, violin scordatura • Marlea�� Simpson, viola scordatura ��Kah Yan�� Lee, Julia Suh, Tatiana Sutherland,�� John Kirchenbauer, violin �� Eleanor Freed, Rachel�� Mooers, viola ��Jake Klinkenborg, Alex�� Baker, cello �� Casey Karr, bass Three Pieces for chamber orchestra (2004) Philip Cashian wants to return after many voyages and adventures. But from (Cleveland premiere) (b. 1963) an acoustic point of view, the bells must have the upper hand: Scenes from Burgos through their resonance, one perceives the murmur of the leaves The Silver Surface of the Night ruffled by the wind. The wind rises, threatens with a storm. Time The Traveller Without a Compass is suspended—will a tempest break out?” Tristan Murail, who taught composition at Columbia Erica Zheng, Tasi Hiner, flute • Leo Ziporyn, oboe University from 1997 to 2011, is known as one of the founders Jarrett Hoffman, Shelagh Haney, clarinet of spectral music—a technique based on the computer- Benjamin Roidl-Ward, bassoon assisted analysis of timbres. The present work was the first Antonia Chandler, Madison Warren, horn piece in a cycle of chamber music works, still in progress, with Luke Spence, trumpet the collective title Portulan. This word, which stands for a Jeanette Chen, harp • Jie Song, piano navigational map used by sea captains, was also the title of a Daniel King, Michael Mazzullo, percussion book of poems by Murail’s father Gérard Murail (1925–2010), a Rachel White, Tatiana Sutherland, violin I noted poet and painter. Kah Yan Lee, John Kirchenbauer, violin II —Peter Laki Rachel Mooers, Marlea Simpson, viola Alex Baker, Jake Klinkenborg, cello Volumina (1961/62) Casey Karr, bass by György Ligeti (Târnava-Sânmărtin [now Târnăveni], Romania, 1923–Vienna, 2006) Fabian Fuertes, personnel & operations manager Michael Roest, librarian György Ligeti composed Volumina in 1961–62 for a commission by Hans Otte of Radio Bremen. The work explores the “voluminous resources of the organ, its unlimited sustaining Today’s performance is being broadcast live power, vast range, and timbral contrasts, as well as the sense on WRUW-FM 91.1 of space evoked by the piece’s sound masses” (Kimberly Marshal, “György Ligeti (1923–2006)” in Twentieth Century Organ Music, 271). These sound structures are indicated in the score by the use of graphic notation, indicating clusters and PROGRAM NOTES effects played by the palm of the hand, wrist, side of the arm, fingertips, and feet. Changes of timbre and registration are accomplished via assistant registrants. “Experiencing the work Feuilles à travers les cloches (“Leaves Through the Bells,” 1998) is like observing a painting, looking here at a calm patch of by Tristan Murail (b. Le Havre, France, 1947) blue sky and there at a turbulent representation of churning water. Just as such disparate features may coexist in an artwork The composer explains: “Of course, this is the reversal of without interruption, so the contrasting textures of Volumina Debussy’s title, Cloches à travers les feuilles [“Bells Through the are unbroken, sometimes dissolving almost imperceptibly into Leaves,” from the second set of Images for piano]. One may each other, and at other times clashing in rapid juxtaposition” imagine a rural scene, some foliage, a bell tower in the distance, (Marshal, 274). France at peace, a canvas by Watteau—a place where one —Jonathan Moyer AD ’12

4 5 Concerto for violin and orchestra (1992) movements, and the concerto was premiered in that form by by Ligeti Gawriloff and the Cologne Radio Symphony under Gary Bertini’s direction. Following that performance, Ligeti revised the work The music of György Ligeti came to worldwide attention substantially: he discarded the original first movement and during the 1960s, when the Hungarian composer was a leading replaced it with three new movements played without breaks figure in the avant-garde movement along with Pierre Boulez, (movements 1–3). This final version was premiered on October 8, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luigi Nono. Ligeti, who was born in 1992, in Vienna, with Gawriloff and the Ensemble Modern under Transylvania and subsequently studied and taught in Hungary, Peter Eötvös’s direction. fled the country during the 1956 revolution and established Central to the concept of the Violin Concerto is the himself in the West. Through his early work in electronic music, incorporation of the higher tones of the harmonic series, he discovered previously unsuspected possibilities for creating which are “out of tune” by the standards of the well-tempered new sounds and combining them in novel ways. (Spectral scale but are here accepted as a regular part of the harmony. composers such as Tristan Murail consider him a major source of The unique sound of the work derives from the sophisticated influence on their aesthetic.) blending of well-tempered and natural sonorities. Two members By the early 1980s, Ligeti had entered what was immediately of the orchestra, a violinist and a violist, tune their instruments to recognized as a new style period, incorporating certain elements such “out-of-tune” pitches. The ocarinas used by the woodwinds that had been absent from his earlier works. His Horn Trio (1982) players and the slide whistles blown by the percussionists— makes reference to Beethoven and Brahms; he embarked on an instruments that lack the intonational precision of the standard in-depth study of the complex polyrhythms of African music, members of the orchestra—reinforce this “uncleanliness” of the and continued his experiments with tuning and temperament pitch material. outside the well-tempered system. He also began to reconnect This new approach to tuning also gives an interesting new with his Hungarian roots. During his youth, the folk-song-based context to the Hungarian folksong quoted in the last movement. style of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály was held up as a model The original collector of this folksong indicated that the third to all composers in Communist Hungary; this style was imitated and the seventh degrees are sung lower than a Western-trained so slavishly that after the 1960s, it was widely considered to be musician would expect. Although the phenomenon itself has an artistic dead end. Therefore, it is highly significant that Ligeti been well known to folk-music scholars who even gave it a name quotes a Hungarian folksong in the last movement of his 1992 (“Transdanubian” third and seventh), it had never before been Violin Concerto, and that the second of the five movements also addressed by composers. Thus, Ligeti’s modernist interest in has a melody with an unmistakable Hungarian inflection—one, non-tempered pitches was itself rooted in his early studies of moreover, with a forty-year history in Ligeti’s compositional life. folk music. The melody first turns up in a sonatina for piano duet written in The melodic material of the first movement emerges from 1950–51; it was subsequently reworked for piano solo in Musica a shimmering background of harmonics (those of the soloist ricercata (1951–53), arranged for wind quintet in one of the Six and the two “mistuned” orchestra members clash constantly). Bagatelles (1953); it also appears in the second movement of Ligeti took into consideration the fact that the natural harmonics the Horn Trio. Yet Ligeti’s allusions to tradition never sound do not always come out perfectly on the instruments, yet he retrogressive in the least, but rather present startling new facets emphasized that the musicians should never try to replace them of the (seemingly) familiar. by safer artificial harmonics, for this very uncertainty gives the The Violin Concerto was written for German violinist impression of “fragility and danger.” Saschko Gawriloff. The original version of the work was in three The second movement begins with the aforementioned melody, played by the unaccompanied solo violin, eventually

6 7 joined by a (normally tuned) viola, then by a duo of flute and Three Pieces for chamber orchestra (2004) alto flute, a pair of horns playing natural overtones, and finally by Philip Cashian (b. Manchester, England, 1963) by the shrill sound of the ocarinas. The initial “Aria” turns into a “hocket” (a medieval term designating a very quick, note-by- Philip Cashian, head of composition at the Royal Academy of note, alternation between the voices), and finally into a “chorale” Music, was in residence at Oberlin in 2013; subsequently, CME for brass instruments. The epilog (in which we hear the solo performed his ensemble piece Creeping Frogs, Flying Bats and violin all by itself, playing double-stops and then, the violin with Swimming Fish (1997) in 2014. Cashian’s 2004 Three Pieces for the alto flute) closes with a perfect C Major sonority. Chamber Orchestra, which received their U.S. premiere last night In the third-movement Intermezzo, the solo violin plays a in Oberlin, were described in The Musical Times as “refreshingly soaring melody in a high register against the rapid descending colorful and inventive, reminding us anew that Cashian is a scales of the orchestral strings, played in a super-dense canon. composer of abundant imagination and elegance.” The rhythmic divisions, here and elsewhere in the concerto, The first thing one notices upon hearing Three Pieces is the are based on asymmetrical patterns (for example. 3+2+2+2/8) high energy of the music, unfolding in unpredictable rhythmic known as “Bulgarian rhythm” that were particularly dear to patterns, often in mixed meters. The first piece is titled “Scenes Bartók. (Incidentally, the dedicatee of the concerto, Saschko from Burgos”—an allusion to the 1979 novel Joseph by British Gawriloff, is of Bulgarian ancestry). novelist Julian Rathbone (1935–2008), which takes place during The fourth movement is a Passacaglia (a set of variations the Spanish Civil War. The movement opens with an excited over a ground bass). The “ground bass” (not necessarily in a trumpet solo, strongly insisting on a single pitch, later combined low register) is a very slowly rising chromatic scale, against with more melodic legato themes on the oboe and the bassoon. which the solo violin plays mostly long-sustained notes in an After various soloistic passages (two alto flutes and mallet extremely high register. The ethereal atmosphere is disrupted by percussion; marimba and piano; two flutes; two clarinets), the full some strongly accented material; finally, an appassionato melody ensemble gradually comes together for the powerful conclusion. appears and reaches a fantastic eight-fold fortissimo (ffffffff!) The title of the second piece, “The Silver Surface of the before it is cut off with dramatic abruptness. Night,” evokes a poem by Sylvia Plath (1932–1963). The “silvery” “As if all these movements were not strange and complicated sound of two vibraphones and a solo cello using a special enough,” writes Paul Griffiths in his liner notes to the CD flautando bowing (very light, near the fingerboard). Harp, recording, “the finale multiplies them all on top of each other.” celesta, and strings playing harmonics, further contribute to a The shimmering harmonies, the slow-moving, soaring melodies, mysterious atmosphere. and the rhythmic complexities combine to raise the level of The last movement, “The Traveller without a Compass,” takes excitement. After the brief episode of the Hungarian folksong, its title from a painting by Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985). According the music reaches another dramatic, multiple-forte climax before to the artist, the work represents “landscapes of the brain” that the violin launches into the cadenza. (This cadenza was created “aim to restore the immaterial world that inhabits the mind of by Gawriloff from the material of the concerto’s discarded man: tumultuous jumbles of images, burgeoning images and original first movement.) The end of the cadenza is perhaps fading images; the debris of memories of what we see, mingled the most dramatic moment in the entire work. At one moment, with acts that are purely cerebral and internal—or possibly when the violin plays extremely fast and with “mad virtuosity,” it visceral.” This description also applies to Cashian’s music, with its is brutally silenced by a high-pitched woodblock. The concerto “tumultuous” polyrhythmic activity and great timbral diversity. ends almost immediately, stopping dead in its tracks. The movement culminates in a wild dance that, following a tremendous crescendo, abruptly fades out into silence. —Notes by Peter Laki

8 9 BIOGRAPHIES Moyer holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ under the tutelage of Donald Sutherland from the Peabody Jonathan William Moyer AD ’12 maintains a dynamic career as Conservatory of Music (Baltimore), where he completed both a church musician, concert organist, and pedagogue. Critics have Graduate Performance Diploma in organ and a Master of Music described his playing as “ever-expressive, stylish, and riveting” degree in piano as a student of Ann Schein. While at Peabody (The Baltimore Sun). He is music director and organist of the he studied harpsichord with Webb Wiggins and served as Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, Ohio, and is an assistant graduate assistant choral conductor to Edward Polochick. He professor of organ at Oberlin College. He has performed holds an Artist Diploma in organ from the Oberlin Conservatory throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, including such of Music as a student of James David Christie and Olivier Latry. venues as Wellesley College, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine He received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano from Bob Jones (NYC), Washington National Cathedral, Princeton University University where he studied with Laurence Morton. He has Chapel, College of the Holy Cross (Worcester), Old West Church attended organ festivals throughout Europe and has coached (Boston), St. Thomas Episcopal Church (NYC), Gloucester and with such organists as Susan Landale, Marie-Claire Alain, Guy Norwich Cathedrals (UK), the Musashino Civic Cultural Hall Bovet, Michael Radulescu, and Gillian Weir. Moyer resides in (Tokyo), and the Dvorak Spring Festival in Prague and Vienna. He Shaker Heights, Ohio, along with his wife, organist, Dr. Kaori has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Hongo, and sons, Christopher Sho and Samuel Kazu. Symphony Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire (Cleveland), Quire Cleveland, Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Handel Choir of Baltimore, and Yuri Popowycz ’15 is a contemporary violinist, illustrator, and the Cantate Chamber Singers of Washington, D.C. producer. He is currently completing his senior year at Oberlin, At the Church of the Covenant, Dr. Moyer oversees a dynamic studying with Milan Vitek. Popowycz has attended music music program consisting of a mixed professional and amateur festivals throughout the world including the Lucerne Festival choir, children’s, youth and handbell choirs, one of Cleveland’s Academy, Mortizburg Academy, and the Pacific Music Festival largest pipe organs (E.M. Skinner/Aeolian Skinner/Holtkamp), the where he served as concertmaster for the 2014 Japan tour. As Newberry baroque organ (Richards Fowkes), and a 47-bell Dutch an advocate for contemporary classical music, he has performed carillon. with Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble alongside eighth In 2008, Moyer performed the complete organ works blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He of Olivier Messiaen in four recitals at the Cathedral of Mary is a member of Semble N, his Pierrot sextet Whitefish, and the Our Queen in Baltimore, MD, celebrating the centenary of improvisational art collective We Are Too. Recent engagements the composer’s birth and the renovation of the cathedral’s include performances at the Kennedy Center, Third Practice organ. The Baltimore Sun, said of his second recital, “Moyer Electroacoustic Festival, and the DiMenna Center. revealed the composer’s musical genius as vividly as his spiritual Popowycz also works closely with composers on creating richness, taking full advantage of the cathedral’s Schantz organ. new pieces for solo violin, as well as works incorporating …Passages of rapt reflection were shaped with a keen sense of electronics. This blend of acoustic and digital techniques, as well import.” as the pursuit of a new performance aesthetic, is further explored In 2008, he received the second prize in the Sixth in his work as whyouarei through processed improvisations and International Musashino Organ Competition in Tokyo, Japan, and integrated visual environments. With artist Kuh Lida, he is part of in 2005 he was a finalist in the St. Albans International Organ the experimental beat duo Yuri&Mylo, which is currently signed Competition. He has served on the executive committee of the to Osaka label Perfect Touch. Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

10 11 Deemed by the New York Times as “a hotbed of contemporary- Conductor Timothy Weiss has gained critical acclaim for his classical players” and a “rural experimental haven,” the Oberlin performances and brave, adventurous programming throughout Conservatory of Music cultivates innovation in its students, the United States and abroad. and an interest in the continuation of music as an art form. Since 2005, he has served as music director for the Newark In its six annual full-concert cycles, Oberlin’s Contemporary Granville Symphony Orchestra near Columbus, Ohio. He Music Ensemble (CME), under the direction of Timothy Weiss, remains active as a guest conductor and has appeared recently performs music of all contemporary styles and genres: from with the Melbourne Symphony in Australia, the BBC Scottish minimalism to serialism, to electronic, cross genre, mixed media, Symphony in Glasgow, Scotland, and the Britten Sinfonia in and beyond. London. CME has worked with many prominent composers, including Weiss is committed to exploring the probing connections George Crumb, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Helmut Lachenmann, within and between pieces in his performances and searching David Lang, Joan Tower, Frederic Rzewski, and a long list of for similarities of voice between different composers from others, and has premiered many of their works. CME also seemingly different genres, periods, and backgrounds. regularly premieres works by prominent Oberlin faculty, student, Accordingly, his programs often present rare and revealing and alumni composers. juxtapositions, offering a broad range of works from the Oberlin conservatory attracts some of the most well minimalists to the maximalists, from the old to the new, and regarded contemporary music icons to perform as soloists with from the mainstream to the unheard of. His repertoire in CME, including Jennifer Koh ’97, Claire Chase ’00, David Bowlin contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, ’00, Tony Arnold ’90, Marilyn Nonken, Stephen Drury, Steven very recent compositions, and an impressive number of Schick, and Ursula Oppens. Distinguished students regularly premieres and commissions. Recently, he was the recipient receive opportunities to perform as soloists with the ensemble of the Adventurous Programming Award from the American as well, a luxury that is seldom afforded at other institutions. Symphony Orchestra League. Oberlin has long been an undergraduate Mecca for In his 23 years as music director of the Oberlin nationally acclaimed composers, chamber musicians, and Contemporary Music Ensemble, he has brought the group to ensembles. It has produced scores of powerhouse new music a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance that rivals the performers and ensembles that began their careers as members finest new music groups. After a concert with the ensemble of CME, including the three-time Grammy award-winning sextet in Carnegie Hall, Anthony Aibel wrote in a review, “under eighth blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble the direction of Timothy Weiss [the ensemble] presented (ICE), among others. unbelievably polished, superb performances—impeccable In addition to its concerts at Oberlin, CME regularly tours the performances—of extremely challenging recent music…Their states. In recent years, the group has performed at the Winter level of preparation eclipses the highest standard…Each work on Garden, Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, DiMenna Center, the program had something vital to say, something profound, Harvard University, Benaroya Hall, Palace of Fine Arts, and and [Weiss] was able to communicate the music’s message Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, as well as in numerous partner with vitality and insight, despite its extreme difficulty and concerts with the Cleveland Museum of Art. CME also has been somewhat foreign language. Weiss conducted with economy featured on a number of commercial recordings, including John of gesture—never over conducting, never distracting from the Luther Adams’s In the White Silence (New World Records), Lewis music…the performance…cohered like one instrument with Nielson’s Écritures: St. Francis Preaches to the Birds (Centaur perfection thanks to the expert preparation by Timothy Weiss.” Records), and on the Oberlin Music record label. As a committed educator, he is professor of conducting and chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles at the Oberlin

12 13 Conservatory of Music, where he helped create and mentored the ensembles eighth blackbird and ICE. Weiss holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Northwestern �� University,�� and the University of Michigan. �� UPCOMING�� PERFORMANCES �� Calder�� Quartet �� Tuesday, April 14, 7:30 p.m. �� Transformer Station �� Winners�� of the 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Calder �� Quartet is known for the discovery, commissioning, and �� recording�� of some of today’s best emerging composers. The �� group’s distinctive approach is exemplified by musical curiosity, �� whether�� it’s Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, or sold-out rock shows �� with bands like The National or the Airborne Toxic Event. Known �� here for their groundbreaking collaboration with Iva Bittová and �� their�� guest appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra as part �� of�� the “California Masterworks” series, the quartet continues �� its�� residency of regular appearances in the intimacy of the �� Transformer�� Station. Program: Andrew Norman, Sabina; Thomas �� Adès, Arcadiana for String Quartet, Op. 12; and Maurice Ravel, �� String Quartet in F Major. $20; CMA members $18. �� cma.org/calder�� CIM/CWRU�� Joint Music Program �� Wednesday,�� May 6, 6:00 p.m. �� Museum galleries �� The final installment of our fourth season of “First Wednesday” �� concerts. Free, no tickets required. �� cma.org/cim��

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