Performing Arts

Home , Augusta Read Thomas, Bernard Rands, Chen Yi (composer)

��

�� Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble �� Timothy Weiss, conductor �� Chen Yi, Zhou Long, composers-in-residence �� Richard�� Hawkins, clarinet �� George Sakakeeny, bassoon�� Saturday, September 27, 2014, 2:00 p.m. ��Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum�� of Art �� Tales from the Nine Bells (2014) �� Zhou Long (b. 1953) �� Richard Hawkins, clarinet �� Yuri Popowycz, violin • Rachel�� Halvorson, viola �� John Etsell, piano�� Scherzi (1974) Bernard Rands (b. 1934) �� I �� II �� III �� IV �� V �� Henry Allison, violin • Joshua�� Morris, cello �� Ryan Toher, clarinet • Shihui Yin, piano �� Bassoon Concertino (2013) Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) BIOGRAPHIES Paul Klee: ROPE DANCER: Homage to Hans Abrahamsen Richard Hawkins made his solo debut at the Kennedy Center Wassily Kandinsky: SKY BLUE: Homage to Brent Sørensen with Mstislav Rostropovich and the National Symphony Joan Miro: LADDERS CROSS THE BLUE SKY IN A WHEEL Orchestra in 1992. He has since given more than 50 perfor- OF FIRE: Homage to Poul Ruders mances of featured clarinet works with orchestra. Hawkins’ first teaching position, at the Interlochen Arts Academy, George Sakakeeny, bassoon launched a new career direction in 1993: a dedication to Amanda Dame, flute • Ryan Toher, clarinet educating the world’s finest young clarinetists. He has simul- Julia Suh, violin • Rachel Halvorson, viola taneously led an active performing career and pursued his Joshua Morris, cello • Caitlin Mehrtens, harp passion for instrument design. Shihui Yin, piano Hawkins performed for five seasons as principal clarinet of the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and served as artist faculty at the Hot Springs Music Festival each June from Sparkle (1992) Chen Yi (b. 1953) 1997-07. His work in the arenas of contemporary, chamber, and orchestral music have included performances with the Amanda Dame, flute/piccolo • Ryan Toher, E-flat clarinet Bogota Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Tucson Hunter Brown, Dan King, percussion Winter Music Festival, and Medellín Festicámara, as well as Hattie Ahn, violin • Joshua Morris, cello recitals and master classes throughout the United States and Casey Karr, bass • John Etsell, piano Europe. His adjudication of the Youth Orchestra of Colombia took him to Bogota, where he coached the orchestra on its first South American tours in 2012 and 2013. After several years at Interlochen, and a brief tenure at Fabian Fuertes, personnel & operations manager DePaul University, Hawkins joined the faculty of the Oberlin Michael Roest, librarian Conservatory of Music in 2001. His former students now hold leadership positions in orchestras and teaching institutions worldwide. Hawkins designed instruments for the G. Leblanc Corporation and developed his own line of clarinet mouth- Please silence all cell phones and refrain from the use of video cameras pieces that have become some of the most widely favored unless prior arrangements have been made with the conductor. products in the industry. He is now an artist and representa- The use of flash cameras is prohibited. Thank you. tive for Légère Reeds LTD. and Backun Musical Services. Hawkins proudly performs on the Backun MOBA clarinet made of cocobolo with an R Model Richard Hawkins mouth- piece and Légère Signature reed. A place toward other places, Hawkins’ 2013 CD release on the Oberlin Music label, features the works of Elliott Carter, William Albright, Benjamin Broening, and Aaron Helgeson. 4 5 Zhou Long is internationally recognized for creating a unique currently Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of body of music that brings together the aesthetic concepts Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. and musical elements of East and West. Deeply grounded in In 2012, Zhou composed two orchestral works: University the entire spectrum of his Chinese heritage, including folk, Festival Overture and Beijing Rhyme – A Symphonic Suite, philosophical, and spiritual ideals, he is a pioneer in transfer- commissioned by the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, premiered ring the idiomatic sounds and techniques of ancient Chinese and recorded on EMI in 2013; a solo piano work Pianobells, musical traditions to modern Western instruments and commissioned by Dr. Susan Chan and premiered at the ensembles. His creative vision has resulted in a new music Musica Nova concert in the UMKC Conservatory of Music that stretches Western instruments eastward and Chinese and Dance; and a chamber work, Cloud Earth for chamber instruments westward, achieving an exciting and fertile com- ensemble, commissioned by The New York New Music mon ground. Ensemble and premiered on its 35th anniversary celebration Zhou was born into an artistic family and began piano at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. In 2013, Zhou lessons at an early age. During the Cultural Revolution, he composed his epic evening-length symphonic work Nine was sent to a rural state farm, where the bleak landscape Odes on poems by Qu Yaun (ca. 340 BCE - 278 BCE) for four with roaring winds and ferocious wild fires made a profound solo vocalists and orchestra, commissioned by the Beijing and lasting impression. He resumed his musical training in Music Festival Arts Foundation and premiered in October 1973, studying composition, music theory, and conducting, as 2013 as a tribute to his 60th. well as Chinese traditional music. In 1977, he enrolled in the 2014 has seen the completion of a new chamber first composition class at the reopened Central Conservatory work, Tales from the Nine Bells, co-commissioned and pre- of Music in Beijing. Following graduation in 1983, he miered by the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society in New was appointed composer-in-residence with the National York and Wigmore Hall in London for their 2014 seasons, Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra of China. Zhou travelled and a new piano concerto, Postures, co-commissioned by to the United States in 1985 under a fellowship to attend the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and BBC Proms, which Columbia University, where he studied with Chou Wen- was premiered on July 4, 2014 in Singapore, and September Chung, Mario Davidovsky, and George Edwards, receiving a 2, 2014 at Royal Albert Hall, as part of the BBC Proms’ 2014 Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1993. After more than a de- season. cade as music director of Music from China in New York City, A United States citizen since 1999, Zhou is married to the he received ASCAP’s prestigious Adventurous Programming composer-violinist Chen Yi. Award in 1999. Zhou was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in Bassoonist George Sakakeeny has appeared as a soloist with Music for his first opera, Madame White Snake. In their cita- orchestras throughout North and South America, Europe, and tion the jurors described the work as “a deeply expressive the Far East, including engagements in Vienna at the historic opera that draws on a Chinese folk tale to blend the musical Musikverein, at Severance Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra, traditions of the East and the West.” He was awarded the in Paris with members of the French National Orchestra, and 2012-13 Elise Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society a nationally televised concert in Japan under the baton of of Lincoln Center; the largest prize devoted to chamber Seiji Ozawa. Three major works for bassoon and orchestra music composition and is presented every two years in have been commissioned for him: Libby Larsen’s full moon in recognition of significant contributions to the field. Zhou is the city (2013), Peter Schickele’s Bassoon Concerto (1998), 6 7 and Viennese composer Alexander Blechinger’s Faggottk term teaching residencies at the Central Conservatory of onzert (1997). In 1993 he performed the world premiere of Music in Beijing, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Seoul Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis with Boston Musica Viva. As National University, and the Conservatoire National Supérieur a soloist, he has recorded Blechinger’s Faggottkonzert for the Musique et Danse of Lyon, France. He is the author of the e- Harmonia Classica label with the Kiev Camerata. book “Making Reeds Start to Finish with George Sakakeeny.” In addition to his position at the Oberlin Conservatory, Sakakeeny holds the titles visiting professor for graduate As a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western studies at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela, traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Dr. and guest professor of the Central Conservatory of Music of Chen Yi is the recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Living Beijing, China. He is principal bassoonist of the Eastern Music Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Festival, and in the past held the principal bassoon positions 2001. She is the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished of the New Japan Philharmonic, the Handel & Haydn Society Professor at the Conservatory of Music and Dance in the of Boston, the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Musica University of Missouri-Kansas City, and has been elected to Viva, the Promusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005. CityMusic Cleveland. He has also served as principal bassoon- Born in China, Chen earned bachelor and master degrees ist of the Grand Teton Music Festival, the New Hampshire from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Doctor of Music Festival, the Peninsula Festival, and performed Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in the City of extensively with the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops New York. Her composition teachers included Wu Zu-qiang, Orchestras. Chou Wen-chung, and Mario Davidovsky. She has served Many of Professor Sakakeeny’s former students have as composer-in-residence for the Women’s Philharmonic, gone on to hold positions in symphony orchestras, chamber Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative Arts Center (1993-96) ensembles, and universities throughout North and South supported by Meet The Composer, and on the composition America and the Far East. He has three times been invited faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University to teach master classes at International Double Reed Society (1996-98). conferences and is regularly invited to serve as a jury Fellowships and commissioning awards were received member for international and national competitions. He also from Guggenheim Foundation (1996), American Academy serves in an ongoing capacity as wind coach and bassoon of Arts and Letters (1996), Fromm Foundation at Harvard teacher in the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra System, University (1994), Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the known as “El Sistema.” His contributions include teaching Library of Congress (1997), and National Endowment master classes to orchestra members, leading wind section- for the Arts (1994). Honors include first prizes from the als, and providing training to the bassoon teachers of El Chinese National Composition Competition (1985, 2012), Sistema through his position as guest professor of the Latin the Lili Boulanger Award (1993), NYU Sorel Medal Award American Bassoon Academy. (1996), CalArts/Alpert Award (1997), UT Eddie Medora King Sakakeeny has given numerous solo recitals and taught Composition Prize (1999), ASCAP Concert Music Award master classes at leading institutions such as the Paris (2001), Elise Stoeger Award (2002) from Chamber Music Conservatory, the Juilliard School, the Tchaikovsky National Society of Lincoln Center, the Friendship Ambassador Award Music Academy in Kiev, Rice University, and the Tokyo from Edgar Snow Fund (2002), and the UMKC Kauffman University of the Fine Arts. He has also performed longer- Award in Artistry/Scholarship and Faculty Service (2006, 8 9 2012). Honorary Doctorates are from Lawrence University Upon the Mountains of Plenty, Nine Bells ring with (2002), Baldwin-Wallace College (2008), University of Knowledge of the Frost. Portland (2009), and The New School University (2010).

She was appointed by the China Ministry of Education to Tales of those blasts of wind that pulse like a heartbeat the prestigious Cheungkong Scholar Visiting Professor through caverns in the limestone cliffs, setting off a mysteri- at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music in 2006 and ous sympathetic ringing from bells encrusted in frost, led Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tianjin Conservatory in to “Frost-Bell” becoming a word during the Tang dynasty, 2012. almost a millennium after the Mountains and Seas classic first Chen’s music is published by Theodore Presser Company, appeared. The Tang poet Li Bai (701-762) used that symbol performed world wide, and recorded on Bis, New Albion, CRI, for the union of Heaven and Earth in his piece Listening to Teldec (w/ Grammy Award for Colors of Love, 1999), New Jun, the Monk from Sichuan, Plucking the Transverse Lute: World (NPR Top 10 Classical Music Album Award for Sound of

the Five, 2009), Albany, Naxos, Bridge, and others on Delos, Down from the Omei Peaks, far in the West Angel, Nimbus, Cala, Avant, Atma, Hugo, Koch International He came, cradling his carved, green lute. Classics, Centaur, Eroica, Capstone, Quartz, and China Record As he wielded his hands for me, I thought Co. I could hear the pines of a million canyons, could wash My wanderer’s heart in that rushing sluice PROGRAM NOTES Whose lingering tremors flowed into the frosty bells. In fading daylight off jade-green crags, who knew How many layers of autumn clouds went dark? Tales from the Nine Bells (2014) by Zhou Long (b. Beijing, China, 1953) The Music takes two contrasting musical images, “Mighty Instrumentation: B-flat clarinet, violin, viola, piano. Bells” and “Frost Bells,” as the motive throughout the entire Tales from the Nine Bells was co-commissioned by The piece. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Wigmore Hall The striking of low strings inside the piano makes a and was funded by a generous grant from Linda and Stuart rumble of sound waves, accompanied by micro-vibrations Nelson in honor of Wu Han and David Finckel, with additional from the highest register of the string harmonics and flowing support from André Hoffmann, President of the Fondation clarinet that dart in and out of hearing; together they recall Hoffmann, a Swiss grant making foundation. First performed the voices of bells and temple flute borne on the wind from by the CMS musicians at Wigmore Hall in London on April 14, valleys and canyons. Fluttering and circling, the sounds 2014; U.S. premiere at Alice Tully Hall in New York on May 6, gradually disperse into the distance. The deep up-swellings 2014. of sound slowly rouse the pulse of all earth’s things and crea- tures, much like the interplay between Heaven and Earth. The legend of great bells that ring spontaneously without be- ing struck has origins in the ancient Classic of Mountains and —Zhou Long Seas, in which we read:

10 11 Scherzi (1974) poser: Hans Abrahamsen, Bent Sørensen, and Poul Ruders, by Bernard Rands (b. Sheffield, England, 1934) respectively. Instrumentation: clarinet, violin, cello, piano. The piece captures the whimsical, playful aspects of the Klee and Miró paintings by jagged melodic lines, wide Prior to his move to the United States in 1975, Bernard Rands leaps, and a vibrant, unpredictable interplay between the already had a distinguished European career behind him, solo instrument and the ensemble. In between, the slower with extensive study periods in Italy, where he was close to Kandinsky movement strikes a more contemplative note, with such leaders of the postwar avant-garde as Luciano Berio atmospheric harp and piano solos and a great deal of rubato and Bruno Maderna. He was no stranger to America, having (rhythmic flexibility). The entire work, in which all three held residencies and visiting appointments at Princeton and movements relate to the sky in one way or another, contains the University of Illinois. Yet Scherzi, composed a year before great timbral diversity and calls for great sensitivity on the Rands settled in the U.S. permanently, is still very much a part of all the players. “European” piece. The five short movements are made up of brief, mostly atonal gestures and long solo lines alternat- —Peter Laki ing with passages of heightened rhythmic activity, often separated by general rests. In the first four movements, the instruments take turns in assuming the role of leader, playing Sparkle (1992) the most prominent material around and against which the by Chen Yi (b. Guangzhou, China, 1953) others offer their various commentaries. In the atmospheric concluding movement, a shimmering texture emerges from Sparkle was commissioned by The New Music Consort with the blending of four dissimilar voices. The dynamics are soft funds provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, throughout, until the sound fades away completely. Claire Heldrich conducted the premiere on October 21, 1992 at the Borden Auditorium, Manhattan School of Music in New York City. The piece is an octet written for flute (doubling pic- Bassoon Concertino (2013) colo), clarinet (in E-flat), 2 percussionists (vibraphone, claves, by Augusta Read Thomas (b. Glen Cove, NY, 1964) bass drum, and marimba), piano, violin, cello, and double Instrumentation: solo bassoon, flute, clarinet, harp, piano, bass, recorded on CRi [CD 804] in 1999, and dedicated to violin, viola, cello. Professor Mario Davidovsky, who enthusiastically encouraged me to share my experience with audiences in America and One of Augusta Read Thomas’s most recent works, the abroad. Bassoon Concertino, was written for bassoonist Gunnar Eckhoff and the Danish Chamber Players, who gave the world In Sparkle, I want to express my impressions of sparks—ever- premiere on April 6, 2014. The three short movements of the lasting flashes of wit, so bright, nimble, and with passion. The piece were inspired by three famous 20th-century paintings: material of pitch, rhythm, and form are drawn from the tune Paul Klee’s Rope Dancer, Wassily Kandinsky’s Sky Blue, and and the structural method of traditional Chinese baban (Eight Joan Miró’s Ladders Cross the Blue Sky in a Wheel of Fire. Beats) rules of the grouping of notes. In honor of the country where the commission came from, Thomas dedicated each of the movements to a Danish com- —Chen Yi

12 13 UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

John Luther Adams–Veils and Vesper �� Fridays�� and Saturdays, through November�� 29, 12:00–6:00 p.m. St.�� John’s Episcopal Church, Ohio City �� Veils�� and Vesper, distinct but related electronic�� pieces written�� in 2005 by Pulitzer�� Prize winning composer John Luther �� Adams, are extraordinarily beautiful works meant to be heard �� successively or concurrently. When installed together, the �� listener is able to create her own “mix” by moving through the �� space. This allows her to bask in the harmonic colors of each �� individual piece, or to take in the more oceanic whole. These �� soundscapes are slow to unfold and of great duration—six �� hours�� in all—creating an immersive environment that the �� listener can enjoy at whatever length. In collaboration with �� the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, the recently restored St. John’s �� Church�� becomes a place of contemplation and meditation. Free, no tickets required. �� CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program �� Wednesday, October 1, 6:00 p.m. �� The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Gallery �� The�� next installment of our “First Wednesday” gallery concerts �� features�� young artists from the Cleveland Institute of Art and the�� Case Western Reserve University early music program. �� Free, no tickets required. �� U-Theatre �� Friday,�� October 10, 7:30 p.m. �� Gartner Auditorium �� Founded in 1988 by Liu Ruo-Yu, U-Theatre introduced novel �� facets of drumming, meditation, and martial arts to create �� a�� series of original works integrated with a wide range of �� elements�� drawn from music, literature, drama, dance, and �� ritual.�� The program here, Sword of Wisdom, is a collection �� of selected chapters of their international touring repertoire, �� which�� features sounds of wooden and metal percussion added �� to�� the sound of drumming. Incorporating Gurdjieff Movements �� (famously precise sacred dances), U-Theatre presents a �� higher level of drumming as an art—“a synthesis of theatre, �� percussion, martial arts, and meditation” –The Times, London. �� $69–$53; CMA members $62–$48