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New England Conservatory AMERICAN CLASSICS Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 720 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty. The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum AMERICAN MUSIC is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, FOR PERCUSSION • 1 pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes – thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for and jazz. Tower • Sandler • Higdon • Rodríguez • Schuller

Frank Epstein New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble Frank Epstein is a graduate of the University of Southern California, the New England Frank Epstein Conservatory, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Having joined the Boston Symphony in 1968, he is now in his 43rd season as percussionist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of the New England Conservatory, where he also founded (in 1968) and directs the NEC Percussion Ensemble and is Chairman, Brass and Percussion Department. As Founder of Collage New Music, and Music Director from its inception

Photo: Andrew Hurlbut in 1972 through 1991, he has overseen the commissioning and performance of over 200 new works written especially for the ensemble as well as the production of seventeen recordings. Frank Epstein has been involved with the Avedis Zildjian Company as a consultant on new product development (including the introduction of the Classic Orchestral Cymbal Selection), and as a clinician, conducting workshops and seminars throughout the country and in Europe. His new book Cymbalisms, a complete guide for the orchestral cymbal player, is now available from Hal Leonard Music Publishers or from his website: www.frankepstein.com

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An educator of extraordinary influence, he has been of (what I have called collectively) three keyboards, AMERICAN MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION • 1 on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and including a harp. I don’t get along too easily as a Yale University; he was, for many years, head of composer without pitches, that is, without harmony and 1 1 contemporary music activities (succeeding Aaron melody. The work is in four movements, played without Joan Tower (b. 1938): DNA for percussion quintet 9:56 Copland) as well as a director of the Tanglewood Music interruption, in a rather traditional classical format: I. Perc. 1: Hi-hat, 3 Suspended Cymbals, Medium Triangle, High Wood Block, Center, and served as President of the New England Slow accelerating to fast; II. Slow; III. Fast, a Scherzo; Medium Maraca, 2 Timbales, Tenor Drum, Bass Drum, Crotale Conservatory. IV. Introduction (cadenza-like) – Allegro (Perpetuum Perc. 2: Small Suspended Cymbal, Chinese Cymbal, Medium Tambourine, Schuller’s advocacy of other composers through Mobile). High Wood Block, Snare Drum, Tenor Drum, 2 Timbales, Crotale performance, publishing, recording, teaching and Perhaps the most interesting challenge in writing Perc. 3: Small Suspended Cymbal, Small Tambourine, Sleigh Bells, Large Maraca, administration has been as unflagging in its energy and this work was what one might call “logistics,” which one scope as his pursuit of his own musical expression. never encounters in orchestra or chamber music. In 5 Temple Blocks, Ratchet, Two Congas, Crotale writing for a large percussion group, with each player Perc. 4: Small Medium Suspended Cymbals, Chinese Cymbal, Large Tambourine, Courtesy of G. Schirmer, Inc. performing on anywhere from a dozen instruments to High Wood Block, Castanets, Snare Drum, Tenor drum almost thirty, the composer has to keep constant track of Perc. 5: Hi-hat, 3 Suspended Cymbals, Small Triangle, Tamtam, Castanets, Among the almost 180 compositions I have written there what instruments each of the nine players has been 3 Small Maraca (on cushion), Bass Drum, Crotale isn’t a single work for percussion ensemble, small or assigned, plus making sure that he or she can get to the large. No one had ever asked me to write such a piece. next instrument (whatever it might be) in time – 2 Felicia Sandler (b. 1961): Pulling Radishes 2 7:22 When Frank Epstein asked me to write him such a work, traveling time – and to have enough time to tune I jumped at the chance, especially when he told me it instruments that require tuning or, conversely, to damp Chimes, Snare Drum, Bongo, Vibraphone, Timbale, Cymbals, 2 Marimbas, would be for his large percussion ensemble at the New instruments which require that. Writing this piece was Bass Marimba, Almglocken, Glockenspiel, Triangle and Celesta England Conservatory with the possibility for a like enjoying a tremendous gourmet feast. Or to put it première at Tanglewood. The idea of writing for a lot of another way, I felt like a little four-year-old splashing 3 Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Splendid Wood 3 11:33 percussion with their almost limitless sound and textural wildly around in a big bathtub with dozens of plastic or possibilities really turned me on. And I can truly say, rubber toys. (We all remember that, don’t we?) My 3 Marimbas and 6 Marimba Players although I like to think I have occasionally (or even imagination was constantly fired with the excitement of often) been inspired in some of my earlier works over taking all those hundred-instruments sounds, like a 4 Robert Xavier Rodríguez (b. 1946): El día de los muertos 4 12:53 the years, I don’t think I was ever so inspired and chef’s ingredients, and mixing, collecting, combining – Perc. 1: 4 Timpani, Mark Tree, Bell Tree, Glass Wind Chimes challenged as in the case of the Grand Concerto. I wrote and/or featuring – in a seemingly limitless, inexhaustible the piece in what amounted to about six full days (with variety. Perc. 2: Vibraphone (2 bass bows), Crotales numerous interruptions). It seemed as if such a work had Gunther Schuller’s Grand Concerto for Percussion Perc. 3: Vibraphone (2 bass bows), Glockenspiel, Suspended Cymbal, Wind Gong, Maraca been in me for some time; I decided right away to write and Keyboards is part of a large-scale commissioning Perc. 4: Vibraphone, Suspended Cymbal, Large Rain Stick for nine percussionists with large setups, i.e. lots of project for Frank Epstein and the New England Perc. 5: Marimba (2 bass bows) different instruments to hit and bang on, or to coax Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, supported by a Perc. 6: Marimba (5 oct.), Tambourine (mounted) beautiful sounds from (percussionists in the last sixty major grant from Bradford and Dorothea Endicott. Perc. 7: 5 Nipple Gongs, Sizzle Cymbal, Triangle, Large Shaker, years have learned to play every percussion instrument Small Shaker, Quijada (vibraslap), Small Tamtam (tub of water) in God’s creation, from obvious things like timpani and Gunther Schuller Perc. 8: Chimes, 4 Almglocken, Large Tamtam, Large Guiro snare drum, and dozens of other types of drums, and cymbals and gongs to mallet instruments like 1 Mitchell, Stephen Ed., The Englightened Heart, p. 99. 5 vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, xylophone.) I also Translated by Rovert Hass. Published by Harper & Row Gunther Schuller (b. 1925): Grand Concerto for Percussion and Keyboards 25:29 knew right away that, since so many percussion Publishers, 1989 5 I. Slow accelerating to fast 4:09 instruments are what we call “non-pitched” instruments, 6 II. Slow 5:51 I would have some pitched instruments, thus the choice Notes edited by Ellen Pfeifer

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Schirmer. He holds the Endowed Chair of University skeletons). These pitched sounds are accompanied by 7 III. Fast, a Scherzo 6:40 Professor of Music at the University of at Dallas, triangles, bell tree, wind chimes and a variety of non- 8 IV. Introduction (cadenza-like) – Allegro (Perpetuum Mobile) 8:48 where he is Director of the Musica Nova Ensemble. pitched cymbals, shakers and unpitched gongs, with El día de los muertos is a ten-minute work for eight atmospheric use of maraca, rain stick and vibraslap, Perc. 1: Small Bass Drum, 3 Tomtoms, 4 Congas, 2 Nipple Gongs, percussionists which I began at the Bowdoin Music substituting for the uniquely Mexican instrument, the Small Tamtam, Field Drum, Xylophone, Glockenspiel Festival (Brunswick, Maine) in June, 2006 and quijada, literally the jawbone of an ass. The work’s Perc. 2: 3 Cow Bells, Sizzle Cymbal, Mark Tree, Bell Tree, completed in Dallas the following August. It was Mexican roots are reflected in the use of several popular 2 Log Drums, Triangle, 2 Glass Chimes, Marimba commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for Mexican folk-songs, most prominently A la puerta del Perc. 3: Bass Drum, 2 Tomtoms, Field Drum, 2 Snare Drums, 2 Log Drums, Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory cielo (At the Gate of Heaven) and La realidad (Reality). 4 Temple Blocks, 2 Guiros, Flexatone, 2 Bongos, Large Triangle, Chimes, Vibraphone Percussion Ensemble, and it was premièred by that Other melodies are El Colunpico, Los pronunciados, Perc. 4: Small Tamtam, 4 Suspended Cymbals, Small Guiro, ensemble on 3rd December, 2006. As the title indicates, Jacinto Trevino and Laredo. All of the Mexican El día de los muertos is a programmatic work, based on melodies are combined in a quodlibet at the center of the 2 Nipple Gongs, 2 Claves, Snare Drum (jazz), Triangle the Mexican folk holiday The Day of the Dead. The work, where the living and the spirits of the dead are Perc. 5: 3 Gongs, 3 Suspended Cymbals, 2 Shakers, Ratchet, Mexican version of All Souls’ Day has a distinctively united. Two other, highly contrastive, musical elements 2 Tomtoms, Snare Drum (jazz), Tambourine, Lions Roar playful and nostalgic identity which sets it apart from are a two-chord dirge-like chaconne to depict the Aztecs Perc. 6: 4 Suspended Cymbals, Medium Tamtam, Sizzle Cymbal, 4 Temple Blocks, the ghostly images of the American and European land of the dead and, as a European liturgical reference, 2 Wood Blocks, 2 Tomtoms, 2 Log Drums, Pandeiro, Medium Triangle, Slapstick, Halloween, as exemplified in Mussorgsky’s Night on the Gregorian chant Offertorium for All Saints’ Day: 2 Shakers, Shell Chimes, 2 Cow Bells, Wind Machine, Water Gong, 6 Roto Toms Bald Mountain and Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. Exultabunt sancti in gloria (The Saints shall rejoice in Perc. 7: Large Tamtam, 4 Suspended Cymbals, 2 Sleigh Bells, Following Aztec legends, the Mexican tradition glory). Medium Triangle, Thundersheet, Castanets, 2 Chinese Gongs represents the dead as sleeping in a cool, quiet place Perc. 8: 2 Snare Drums, Hi-hat, Tambourine (Pandeiro), called Mictlan. To begin the holiday, the living send Robert Rodríguez their children (symbolically, those who are farthest away High Suspended Cymbal, Crotales, 12 Roto Toms, Timpani from death) to the cemetery to invite the spirits of the Gunther Schuller (b. 1925): Grand Concerto Keyboards: Celesta, Harp and Piano dead to come out for a day to cavort with the living. In for Percussion and Keyboards (2005) my scenario for the work, church bells ring to help the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble children awaken the spirits. The living prepare The composer, conductor, performer, educator, Nathan Berken, Percussion 1 • Greg Cohen, Percussion 1 • Ryan DiLisi, Percussion 1 ceremonial dishes and create home altars with historian, author and record producer Gunther Schuller Robert Dillon, Percussion 1 • Jeff Means, Percussion 1 • Victoria Aschheim, Percussion 2 memorabilia of their departed loved ones. The skeletons is, famously, a man of many musical pursuits. He began Aziz Bernard Luce, Percussion 2, 4 / Marimba 3 • Robert Merrill, Percussion 2 then rise from their graves, and the spirits of the dead are his professional life as a horn player in both the jazz and Takehiko Mochizuki, Percussion 2 • Kevin Kosnick, Percussion 2, 4 / Marimba 3 reunited with the living. There is a joyous fiesta, with classical worlds, working as readily with Miles Davis 2 3 2 2 singing, story telling, feasting and dancing. At the end of and Gil Evans as with Toscanini. He was principal horn Michael Roberts, Percussion , Marimba • Andre Sonner, Percussion • Nick Tolle, Percussion the day, bells ring again and the revels end. The living, of the Cincinnati Symphony from age sixteen and later Andrew Watkins, Percussion 2 • Keith Carrick, Marimba 3 • Rieko Koyama, Marimba 3 / Percussion 4, 5 again led by the children, say goodbye to the dead, and of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra until 1959. Kazuki Oya, Marimba 3 / Percussion 4, 5 • Joe LaPalomento, Percussion 4 the spirits return to their graves, where they resume their In the 1950s he began a conducting career focusing Matt McKay, Percussion 4 • George Nixon, Percussion 4, 5 • Dan Wozniak, Percussion 4 rest in Mictlan for another year. largely on contemporary music, and thereafter Joseph Becker, Percussion 5 • Keith Carrick, Percussion 5 • Dan Gould, Percussion 5 The percussion writing for El día de los muertos is conducted most of the major orchestras of the world in a Layci Guon, Percussion 5 • John Kulevich, Percussion 5 • Mark Levy, Percussion 5 unusual in that it employs no drums other than timpani. wide range of works, including his own. He was central David McDonald, Percussion 5 • Fred Morgan, Percussion 5 Instead, there is a rich assortment of pitched percussion in precipitating a new stylistic marriage between Yvonne Lee, Celeste 5 • Alastair Edmonstone, Piano 5 • Marlinda Garcia, Harp 5 (crotales, glockenspiel, two vibraphones, chimes and progressive factions of jazz and classical, coining the several tuned gongs), with prominent use of two term “Third Stream” and collaborating in the Frank Epstein 1, 2, 4, Gunther Schuller 5, Conductors marimbas (the marimba being the national instrument of development of the style with John Lewis, the Modem Mexico, as well as an apt musical representation of Jazz Quartet, and others. Frank Epstein, Director

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American Music for Percussion • 1 compositional style is at once full of energetic pulse the Tokyo String Quartet. Dr. Higdon holds the Rock Tower • Sandler • Higdon • Rodríguez • Schuller (studies in West Africa having made an indelible Chair in Composition at The Curtis Institute of Music in impression), and deeply introspective. Her compositions Philadelphia. Her music is published exclusively by Joan Tower (b. 1938): DNA (2003) DNA is written for percussion quintet as a way of are published by E.C. Schirmer, Mark Foster, and Lawdon Press. capitalizing on the notion of DNA, and its role as the Dancing Flea Music Company. After receiving her Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most building block of all biological life. Deoxyribonucleic Ph.D. in composition and theory from the University of Cheryl Lawson important American composers living today. During a acid, as we know it chemically, is an elegant form, made Michigan in 2001, Sandler moved to Boston where she career spanning more than fifty years, she has made up of double helixes and double strands in an endless lives with her husband and son. She serves on the faculty Splendid Wood is a joyous celebration of the sound of lasting contributions to musical life in the United States spiraling ribbon. Using this feature as a starting point, of the New England Conservatory of Music. wood, one of nature’s most basic materials, a part of all as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her the piece is built around pairs of instruments which are “The man pulling radishes pointed the way with a sorts of things in our world, but used most thrillingly and music has a number of defining qualities: driving featured prominently throughout: hi-hats, castanets, radish”1. This short, one-sentence poem is attributed to gloriously in instruments. Wood is the material that rhythms and colorful orchestrations influenced by the timbales, and snares appear in duos, and, like the base Issa, a Japanese poet from the early nineteenth century. I gives the marimba its unique sound, with a “round” sort sounds and sensations of a childhood spent in South pairs of DNA, conspire to make a whole work. The fifth have often taken solace in it, sensing that in fact it is in of attack and a tone that blossoms out. This work reflects America; approachability for listeners and players alike, percussionist is primarily a soloist, an outsider to the the mundane aspects of our lives that we access and the evolving patterns inside a piece of wood, always resulting from her engagement with the performers of pairs – playing on temple blocks, tambourine, and encounter life’s meaning. Likewise, in doing whatever it shifting, and yet every part is related and contributes to her music (often written with specific musicians in mind) congas – until he joins the other players in trio, quartet, is that we do, we help point the way for others. “The one the magnificence of the whole. This is a celebration of and her own performances as a pianist and conductor. and quintet passages. drumming pointed the way with a drum stick.” the splendor of the marimba. Commissioned by In 1990 she became the first woman to win the Though I am not prone to “hidden recipes” in my Bradford and Dorothea Endicott, for Frank Epstein and prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders, a piece Joan Tower music – the kinds of organizing methods of which only a the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. she wrote for the St. Louis Symphony where she was composer is aware, and that listeners don’t readily Composer-in-Residence from 1985-88. Other residencies Felicia Sandler (b. 1961): Pulling Radishes (2007) perceive – I found that 45 (the number of letters that Jennifer Higdon with orchestras include a 10-year residency with the make up the short poem) and divisions / multiples Orchestra of St. Luke’s (1997-2007) and the Pittsburgh Felicia Sandler has been described as a composer of thereof became a governing force in this piece. This is so Robert Rodríguez (b. 1946): Symphony (2010-2011). She was the first composer chosen music that is highly original, beautiful, and daring. Her in terms of the number of measures, beats, cycles, and so El día de los muertos (2006) for a Ford Made in America consortium commission for compositions have been enthusiastically received in forth. The device helps create, simply, the container for sixty-five orchestras. and the Nashville concert venues across the United States and both Eastern the various types of energies present today in this Music by Robert Xavier Rodríguez has received over Symphony recorded the work, Made in America, in 2008 and Western Europe. She has been recognized with particular radish-puller. 2000 operatic and orchestral performances in recent (along with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra). The awards and commissions from the San Francisco Choral seasons by such organizations as the New York City album (8.559328) collected three GRAMMY® awards: Society, the Dale Warland Singers, the American Felicia Sandler Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dallas Opera, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Composers Orchestra, the Big East Conference Band Houston Grand Opera, Vienna Schauspielhaus, Israel Album, and Best Orchestral Performance. Directors Association, the Theodore Presser Music Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Philharmonic, Mexico City Philharmonic, Cleveland Bradford and Dorothea Endicott commissioned Foundation, and Meet the Composer, among others. Splendid Wood (2006) Orchestra and the Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, DNA for Frank Epstein and the NEC Percussion Sandler’s instrumental works have been performed by Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis, National, Boston and Ensemble. Its first performance took place on April 13, the American Composer’s orchestra, Plymouth Born in Brooklyn, NY, 1962, Jennifer Higdon is one of Chicago Symphonies. He has received a Guggenheim 2003 in Jordan Hall, at the New England Conservatory. Symphony, U.S. Navy Band, and at a number of America’s most performed living composers. In 2010, Fellowship, the Goddard Lieberson Award from the Frank Epstein and the Ensemble subsequently regional, national, and international meetings of she won both a GRAMMY® for Best Contemporary American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix Lili performed DNA at the Tanglewood Festival in July CBDNA, IAWM, and SCI. Her choral works have been Composition and the Pulitzer Prize in Music. She is the Boulanger and the Prix de Composition Prince Pierre de 2003, and at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City featured on programs by such fine ensembles as the Dale recipient of many other awards, including a Pew Monaco. Rodríguez has served as Composer-in- on May 1, 2007. Her music is published by G. Schirmer Warland Singers, the San Francisco Choral Society, Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and two awards Residence with the Symphony and the and Associated Music Publishers. Volti, the Peninsula Women’s Chorus, Musica Sacra in from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Her list Dallas Symphony. Thirteen CDs featuring his music Cambridge, and at various regional and national of commissioners range from the to have been recorded (1999 GRAMMY® nomination), Ed Matthew meetings of the ACDA, CMEA, and OAKE. Sandler’s the Philadelphia Orchestra and from Eighth Blackbird to and his more than 100 works are published by G.

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