Eco Ensemble David Milnes, Conductor
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Saturday, February 29, 2020, 8pm Hertz Hall Eco Ensemble David Milnes, conductor Myra Melford Homogenous Infiltration (2019) Myra Melford, solo piano Tod Brody, flute Kyle Bruckmann, oboe and English horn Bill Kalinkos, clarinet Brendan Lai Tong, trombone Loren Mach, percussion Hrabba Atladottir, violin Ellen Ruth Rose, viola Felix Fan, cello Richard Worn, double bass David Milnes, conductor Jeremy Wagner, technical direction Cindy Cox Lift-up-over sounding (2015) Peter Josheff, bass clarinet Loren Mach, percussion Jenny Chai, piano Leighton Fong, cello David Milnes, conductor Cal Performances’ 2019–20 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. 19 Keeril Maken After Forgetting (2009) Matt Ingalls, clarinet Loren Mach, percussion Jenny Chai, piano Dan Flanagan, violin Leighton Fong, cello David Milnes, conductor INTERMISSION Edmund Campion Late Bloomer (2019, West Coast Premiere) Marilyn Nonken, Manuel Laufer, piano Jeremy Wagner, technical direction and instrument building Ken Ueno Zetsu (2014) Hrabba Atladottir, solo violin Matt Ingalls, Bill Kalinkos, clarinet and hookah saxophone Loren Mach, Haruka Fujii, percussion Leighton Fong, Felix Fan, cello Richard Worn, Andrew Butler, double bass David Milnes, conductor Jeremy Wagner, technical direction Special thanks to the University of California, Berkeley Department of Music and the Center for New Music & Audio Technologies Eco Ensemble David Milnes, artistic director Richard Andrews, executive director Amadeus Regucera, production director Jennifer Huang, production associate 20 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Myra Melford Th e musical material alternates between large Homogenous Infi ltration expressive soliloquies played by the bass clar- Homogenous Infi ltration, for improvising pia- inet, and a cyclical set of repetitions played by nist, chamber ensemble, and fi xed media, aims the entire quartet. Th e piece is dedicated to John to make audible and reimagine many of the Campion, and the premiere performance was beautiful, and oft en very soft , sounds and col- made by the Earplay Ensemble. ors I like to draw out of the inside of the piano: —Cindy Cox rolling magnetic balls and vibrating towers of rare-earth magnets on the strings, rocking a Keeril Makan humbucker pick-up on the strings, rubbing and Aft er Forgetting stroking and bowing the strings with various Th e title, Aft er Forgetting, might refer to the men- implements (a copper bar, fi shing line, wooden tal confusion of feeling like you’ve just forgotten brushes). Th ese sounds are recorded, processed, something, the “it’s on the tip of my tongue” phe- orchestrated, re-orchestrated, and fi nally assem- nomenon. I go through a litany of techniques bled into a structure of sonic “environments” trying to grasp what I think I’ve forgotten— for the ensemble and myself to explore through recite the alphabet and hope that the correct fi rst improvisation. letter of the forgotten word or idea triggers the I want to express my deep gratitude to the memory; go over every previous thought and community here at UC Berkeley and in the Bay event in order, hoping this will lead me to the Area who have supported me in this process, forgotten memory; try not to remember and particularly Amadeus Regucera, Selim Gonçu, hope that it will pop into my head without my Jason Cress, David Milnes, my colleagues in the trying; rearrange my memories, hoping that an composition program, the wonderful perform- unusual juxtaposition will spark my memory; ers, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music or simply wrack my brain, trying through sheer Players, who originally commissioned the work. force of will to pull the memory from the depths Th is revised performance is lovingly dedicated to of my brain. Sometimes, though, I wonder if I the memory of David Wessel and his generous haven’t forgotten it at all, but the thing I’m trying enthusiasm, inspiration, and encouragement. to remember is so insignifi cant that it can’t be the —Myra Melford thing I’ve been trying to remember. Th ere may be diff erent levels of forgetting. Cindy Cox Sometimes you want to forget something so that Lift -up-over sounding you can move on in life. But it’s too important to My work for bass clarinet, cello, percussion, and forget at the deepest level; it just needs to be re- piano, Lift -up-over sounding, is based on two moved from the top level of your brain. Th e title lines from a poem by John Campion: “World a might also be referring to this. tuning fork/lift -up-over sounding.” Th e poem Aft er Forgetting is a Meet the Composer/ describes a living, canopied world of resonant Commissioning Music USA commission. It space in Papua New Guinea, and according to was written while in residence at the American Steven Feld, “Lift -up-over sounding” is a literal Academy in Rome. translation of the words “dulugu ganalan” in the —Keeril Makan Bosavi language. Th e piece is a reworking and re- casting of a composition from 2001 called World Edmund Campion A Tuning Fork, which was originally for ampli- Late Bloomer fi ed soprano saxophone, double bass, percus- Th e modern acoustic piano is optimally de- sion, piano, and fi xed media. I chose sonorities signed to be played by a single human performer. loosely based on the overtone series of the dou- Moreover, works composed for this instrument ble bass’ open strings (E, A, D, and G), and used are oft en intended to highlight the bravura of the the piano’s sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal) to soloist. I oft en wonder how the history of piano capture the lowest octave ringing throughout. literature and its instrument design might have 21 PROGRAM NOTES evolved if humans were born with four hands poser), some serendipitous. Th ese systems, or and 20 fi ngers instead of two hands and 10 fi n- situations, or amalgams, begin with sound itself: gers? Th at said, a soloist with four hands and 20 Ueno pushes instruments beyond traditional fi ngers is not the same as a duo with two hands performance methods to achieve sonic realities and 10 fi ngers each. Th e piano four-hand piece of visceral and evocative power. As a performer Late Bloomer was inspired by this idea—the two himself—a one-time rock guitarist and now a pianists are treated as one individual. Th e more I vocalist using extended throat-singing tech- thought about the untapped possibilities of mul- niques—he anchors the musical gestures of his tiple-hand piano music, the more I wanted to music in an awareness of the intense physical compose for this arrangement. I became excited and emotional demands of performance. Ueno’s by what two humans can accomplish together in extraordinarily broad cultural interests, which the production of a single sound-world. With this include architecture, fi lm, and other visual arts, imaginary scenario of the hybrid four-handed, literature, sociology, philosophy, and cuisine (the 20-fi ngered pianist, I was able to reimagine the latter suggesting a concern for “applied” art), en- idea of virtuosity and to attempt a music where rich the already lively musical details of his work. the entire keyboard is used in a way that makes all He continually seeks out, and is sought himself registers readily available and at all times. by, performers and collaborators who share his In Late Bloomer, I thought of each key on sense of challenge and exploration. the piano as a distinct “bell” set to ring at a spe- Zetsu, Ueno’s chamber concerto for violin cifi c time, in and out of phase with other “bells.” and small ensemble, was composed for his Oft en in the piece, anywhere from three to 12 longtime colleague Gabriela Diaz and the San canonic lines are collapsed into a single, contin- Francisco Contemporary Music Players (with uous line distributed between four hands. Th e which the composer has worked closely in re- music was composed with computer-assisted cent years), and continues his interest in what he techniques using the CNMAT-OM library calls “person-specifi c” works. Th ese draw on the conceived by Edmund Campion and written performance characteristics of particular per- by Matthew Schumaker, using IRCAM’s Open formers, resulting in music rooted inextricably Music program. Researcher Jean Bresson, who in personal relationships. As a vocalist, for exam- has maintained and been the primary devel- ple, he is his own most extreme case. His vocal oper of Open Music, contributed key graphic concerto On a Suffi cient Condition for Existence objects and provided council for the creation of of Most Specifi c Hypothesis not only features the the CNMAT-OM library. In addition, CNMAT composer as soloist: the entire harmonic world Researcher and composer Jeremy Wagner de- of the orchestra is derived from the timbral signed and built a bank of magnetic resonators qualities of the vocal part. His cello concerto that cause the strings of the piano to ring without Hapax Legomenon emerged organically from touching the strings themselves. Th ese magnetic the possibilities of the two-bow cello technique resonators are installed and used in this evening’s of Frances-Marie Uitti. To date, the most ambi- performance. Th e piece is dedicated to David tious and contextually broad of these works is Wessel (1942–2014), a friend who never ceased Ueno’s 2014 opera Gallo, composed for Boston’s to explore new ways of thinking about all things. Guerrilla Opera, in which his own libretto con- —Edmund Campion nects the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Roman ar- chaeology, 21st-century consumer culture, and Ken Ueno the devastating 2011 Fukushima earthquake and Zetsu tsunami. Th e bewilderingly diverse range of its (For Rob Amory and Steven Schick) music, tailored to the company and touching on Ken Ueno’s music sets up systems of multiva- Baroque pastiche, sultry torch-song, virtuosic lent resonance, combining sympathetic sources modernism, and the clash of equal-tempered of expressive energy to catalyze new artistic and Bohlen-Pierce scales, miraculously coalesces possibilities, some predictable (by the com- into a coherently poignant whole.