San Francisco Contemporary Music Players at the CROSSROADS Series

Celebrating Pauline OLIVEROS and Steven SCHICK

MAR 23 - 24, 2018 Z Space San Francisco, CA UPCOMING EVENT

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players in the COMMUNITY Series Season Celebration: Sound & Wine

APR 21, 2018 • 2:30pm - 4pm • Schroeders • San Francisco, CA Join us for an afternoon of live music, great food, good company, and some of our region’s finest wine (and beer). We hope you’ll join us to San Francisco Contemporary Music Players relive your favorite works from the season or hear them for the first time. This year’s program is hosted and performed by some of the leading The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (SFCMP), a 24-member ensemble contemporary classical music specialists in the Bay Area: SFCMP musicians of highly skilled musicians, performs innovative contemporary classical music Kate Campbell, Hrabba Atladottir, Hannah Addario-Berry, and Sara Rathke. based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Host, Kate Campbell SFCMP aims to nourish the creation and dissemination of new works through high-quality musical performances, commissions, education and community Cornelius CARDEW, outreach. SFCMP promotes the music of composers from across cultures The Great Learning, Paragraph 7 and stylistic traditions who are creating a vast and vital 21st-century musical language. SFCMP seeks to share these experiences with as many people as Danny CL AY, possible, both in and outside of traditional concert settings. Playbook

Our weekend festival Celebrating Pauline Oliveros and Steven Schick is part of LJ WHITE, SFCMP’s at the Crossroads Series, which celebrates the work of legacy composers fly into the light alongside cutting-edge composers from across generations: By meeting at the crossroads of generations we reveal how the latest works are grounded in timeless questions. TICKETS SFCMP.ORG

2 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 3 The SFCMP Players SFCMP Artistic Director Steven Schick

Tod Brody, flute Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick was born in Iowa Kyle Bruckmann, oboe and raised in a farming family. For Sarah Rathke, oboe forty years he has championed Jeff Anderle, clarinet contemporary music by commissioning Peter Josheff, clarinet or premiering more than one hundred- Adam Luftman, trumpet fifty new works. He was the founding Peter Wahrhaftig, tuba percussionist of the Bang on a Can All- Stars (1992-2002) and served as Artistic Chris Froh, percussion Director of the Centre International Loren Mach, percussion de Percussion de Genève (2000-2005). William Winant, percussion Schick is founder and Artistic Director Nick Woodbury, percussion of the percussion group, “red fish blue Kate Campbell, piano fish.” Currently he is Music Director of Karen Gottlieb, harp the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and Artistic Director of the San Francisco David Tanenbaum, guitar Contemporary Music Players through Hrabba Altadottir, violin the 2017-18 season, which is his last conducting including appearances Graeme Jennings, violin with SFCMP. with the BBC Scottish Symphony Susan Freier, violin Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Nova Chamber Ensemble Roy Malan, violin In 2012 he became the first Artist- and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble. Meena Bhasin, viola in-Residence with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Schick is Among his acclaimed publications Nanci Severance, viola founder and Artistic Director of “Roots are a book, “The Percussionist’s Art: Hannah Addario-Berry, cello and Rhizomes,” a summer course on Same Bed, Different Dreams,” and Stephen Harrison, cello contemporary percussion music held numerous recordings. Steven Schick is Richard Worn, contrabass at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He Distinguished Professor of Music at the photo by Stephen B. Hahn maintains a lively schedule of guest University of California, San Diego.

4 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 5 Message from Artistic Director, Steven Schick Karen in their rendering of Lou That’s already a lot to be grateful for, Harrison. You felt that Lou was but I’m just getting started. Brother David Steindl-Rast, a intelligence and personal commitment standing on stage with a benevolent Benedictine monk, who has written have kept us going strong. For Mason, hand on their shoulders. The memory There were some retirements during beautifully about the role of spirituality Jon, Adam, and now Amadeus who that most stays with me of Susan, my tenure. SFCMP stalwarts Dan, Hall, in modern life, has an apt simile for along with John slashed through a refined musician of the highest Larry, and Rufus. They set the gold gratitude. He says it’s like one of even the thorniest logistical thickets. level, was watching her at Crissy field, standard for excellence on stage and those classical fountains where water For board members and donors too striding through the wet grass and for Mencschheit everywhere they went. spills into a succession of marble numerous to mention, but who have into the mist to lead a ragtag band basins. Gratitude fills a basin until it included the ever elegant Susan and of middle-schoolers. Graeme, in spite No one rises high without standing on overflows and we hear the sparkling George, who continues to support us of his well-deserved reputation as a firm base—bass in this case. Peter sound of thanksgiving as it splashes even after his passing. one of the best violinists to be found laid the groundwork for a searing from one basin to the next. But he is But my deepest gratitude goes to anywhere, made his most indelible performance of Déserts at the Fort no naïf, Brother David, and cautions my colleagues, the musicians of impression on me without playing a Mason Center, and Richard brought us against our contemporary predilection the San Francisco Contemporary note, as he marched around the stage, to tears with his eloquent playing in toward incomplete gratitude. Very Music Players. Let’s start with the turning pages, and tightening his bow Quatre Chants. often, before gratitude fills a basin, percussionists. Chris, Loren, and in Mark Applebaum’s Rabbit Hole. we enlarge it by searching for more or Nick define excellence in percussion Adam brought us dizzying trumpet To Hrabba, poetess of the violin, who bigger or better. The basin never really playing. Standing side-by-side with playing. can play anything you put in front fills, and though we often have a vague them in teve Reich’s Drumming was of her and to Kyle, who gives us his sense of gratitude (think of finding the nothing short of thrilling. And if you From Tod and David, two of my breath while taking ours away; to a perfect parking spot or evading jury want to get a glimpse of true heroes favorite musicians anywhere, who trio of the best clarinetists you’ll find duty), we too rarely give voice to the of the percussion revolution, look no offered so many extraordinary solo anywhere—Bill, Jeff, and Peter—who effervescent sounds of thanksgiving. further than Dan and Willie. Making and ensemble moments, the abiding could make both Fletcher Henderson But not tonight. Tonight the water is music with the veterans of SFCMP was impression will always be their subtle and Pierre Boulez proud; and to gushing and rushing. extraordinary—simultaneously rooted and sophisticated rendering of their Sarah whose elegant performance of Tonight, I am grateful… in our traditions and looking forward. Takemitsu duo. Nanci wowed us Octandre on my first concert changed for seven extraordinary years with the Warm thanks to Roy the anchor of us repeatedly with viola playing that was my view of the piece. Music for 18 San Francisco Contemporary Music all for his highly moving performances both technically perfect and highly Musicians introduced us to Kate, and Players. For Dick and Don; Carrie, Rozie from Lang to Ligeti. And there was the emotional. then she was there for practically and now Lisa, whose administrative breathtaking moment with Stephen

6 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 7 every concert, throwing herself at time associates who have seen the Thank You Steven Schick for 7 Years of Dedication to SFCMP! the vicissitudes of Ferneyhough, the institution through good and bad canons of Abrahamsen, and in the case times; what I feel when I think of the of Luciano Chessa’s piece, at the piano intensity of our music-making and the itself. laughter we shared in rehearsal; what I feel remembering the little triumphs of Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all. every concert, often as the sole balm for real tragedies elsewhere in life; But thanks, even as profoundly and what I feel when I think of the young personally as I feel it, may not be composers we have given voice to and enough. It seems too oriented towards the established works we have remade the past, and though it is in the nature as new; what I feel when I look at our of these “at the Crossroads” concerts to intrepid audience coming early or our seek to knit together past and present, intrepid percussionists staying late I find myself looking increasingly to the to pack up; what I feel when I see the future. The future will surely be bright families of the players in attendance for the San Francisco Contemporary and when I think of the way Brenda, Music Players. With the arrival of Eric in addition to her full life in land at the artistic helm and new ensemble conservation, has embraced SFCMP as members Hannah and Meena, there is fully as I have; when I take it all in, the light and music and community ahead music, the people, the resonance of the of us all. past and the promise of the future: What I feel is love. At this bittersweet moment of departure, I hear the sound of water ~Steven Schick overflowing in gratitude. But what I am trying to capture here is what I feel. And what I feel when I think of my colleagues, of the newest members who will be our future and of long-

8 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 9 SFCMP IN CONCERT: 4-CONCERT WEEKEND SCHEDULE SFCMP IN CONCERT: 4-CONCERT WEEKEND SCHEDULE Program for Friday, March 23, 2018 Program for Saturday, March 24, 2018 PRE-CONCERT EVENT Luciano BERIO PRE-CONCERT SPECIAL EVENT CONCERT #4 How Music is Made: Folk Songs (1964) 23’ 5:30 – 6:30 pm 9:00 – 10:30 pm 5:30 pm Open dress rehearsal of Cold Silvie Jensen, mezzo-soprano; Tod Brody, Steven Schick Celebration, Reception, mountains, one belt, heartbreak green flute, clarinet; Loren Mach, percussion and Toast Morton FELDMAN by Carolyn Chen 1; Nick Woodbury, percussion 2; Karen Be sure to join us for a pre-concert Crippled Symmetry (1987) 90’ Gottlieb, harp; Meena Bhasin, viola; Stephen 6:00 – 6:30 pm Composer talk: celebration in honor of maestro Steven Tod Brody, flute; Steven Schick, Percussion; Harrison, cello Kate Campbell, piano/celesta Carolyn Chen in conversation with Lyrics available at: Schick who is in his last year as Artistic Appetizers and Steven Schick sfcmp.org/lucianoberio-folksongs-lyrics Director of SFCMP. alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks Additional technical equipment and CONCERT #1 assistance provided by UC Berkeley’s Center CONCERT #2 provided 7:00 – 8:15 pm for New Music and Audio Technologies 9:00 – 10:30 pm (CNMAT). CONCERT #3 Galina USTVOLSKAYA Pauline OLIVEROS 7:00 – 8:30 pm Grand Duet (1957) 22’ The Witness (1980) 60’ Stephen Harrison, cello; Kate Campbell, Artistic Director and percussionist piano The winners of SF SEARCH 2018 Steven Schick, who celebrates his final season with SFCMP, will perform Xavier BETETA (Under-30 Bay Area composers) in a special Saturday evening solo- “Thank you so much for the La Catedrale Abandonata (2015) 11’ adventurous program. So Loren Mach, percussion; Kate Campbell, 3 New Works inspired by Pauline percussion concert made for this awesome!” – SFCMP Member piano; Susan Freier, violin; Clio Tilton, viola; Oliveros occasion. Stephen Harrison, cello; Richard Worn, _ . . / . _ _ / . / . _ . . double bass Danny CLAY, Playbook (2017) 6’ Celeste ORAM, / . _ . . John IVERS, Bellow, Cycle (2017) 6’ World Premiere (2018) 15’ Carolyn CHEN Nathan CHAMBERLAIN, Cold mountains, one belt, heartbreak Kurt SCHWITTERS & green Dawn Chorus (2017) 6’ (2018) 12’ *SFCMP Commission Kyle Bruckmann, oboe; Peter Josheff, Shahrokh YADEGARI, Tod Brody, bass flute; Karen Gottlieb, harp; clarinet; Loren Mach, percussion; Hrabba Ur Sonata (2017) 40’ Loren Mach, percussion; Roy Malan, violin; Atladottir, violin; Richard Worn, double bass Stephen Harrison, cello Iannis XENAKIS, Psappha (1975) 10’ 10 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 11 Program Notes by Robert Wood Strasbourg, Germany stands another divine. The material starts to ascend to cathedral, begun over a thousand signify reaching the celestial regions CONCERT #1 Her Grand Duet is particularly years ago, that has been abandoned in [constituting] a final dissolution into Friday, March 23 at 7pm relentless, oozing with industrial anti- its own way—now as much a temple ‘the sky’ of the initial ‘call.’” Music here charm. Written in 1959 for Mstislav of tourism as of worship. With those enacts a kind of ritual kinship with Grand Duet for cello and piano, Rostropovich, it was apparently two images in mind, Guatemalan- spirit, performing its own immateriality Galina Ustvolskaya never performed by the cellist, nor born composer Xavier Beteta set out as it rises to reconsecrate the rafters. was such a thing ever discussed, to write his La Catedral Abandona, Call it brutish, or brutalist, or possibly reflecting the danger that a devoted to the mystery, and perhaps Cold mountains, one belt, heartbreak brooding. Any of them work to performance might have posed in the re-enchantment, of those mysterious green, Carolyn Chen describe the music of a composer censorious Soviet Union. Yet many spaces. once referred to by a Dutch critic as might have preferred the political For the Los Angeles-based composer “the woman with the hammer.” Born danger to that of the piece itself; in At the beginning, a C-sharp repeats Carolyn Chen, sound is always both the year of the Russian Civil War, the opening, written in quadruple incessantly, passed around the cause and effect, connected to bodies in 1919, Galina Ustvolskaya wrote forte and with no barlines or time various instruments in different as they move through space and ever music that often sounds as though it signature, there is nothing to contain guises, like an incantation intent on affecting them in turn. It has origins would rather be something else—a or mediate the sound. The chains raising the dead. Half-diminished and and destinations. It exists socially. It is rivet gun, perhaps, or even just the have come off. It is as though music, augmented harmonies emerge, built perhaps for that reason that she has merest matter. In its inexorability, jealous of the solidity and inertia of on the C-sharp, whose ambiguous worked so frequently with video. In her works can resemble the darker actual objects, had been freed to try qualities seem to suspend the one work, we see nothing but faces as sides of Shostakovich, who taught the and shake itself loose from the page music in the air as spiritual mystery they react in seeming slow motion to a composer for a time and considered in order to do real work in the world. incarnate. Layers of sound elide and Bruckner adagio. In another, a textured her one of his best students. But Or at least try. overlap, evoking the reverberation soundtrack results as a blindfolded it was just as likely the other way off of cathedral walls. After a virtuosic Chen guides herself through a around. “It is not you who are La Catedral Abandona, Xavier Beteta middle section featuring piano and demolition zone with just a shard of influenced by me; rather it is I who marimba, we return once more to the glass. am influenced by you,” he claimed. In the middle of the river Grijalva in repeated C-sharps, yet now in a more Utsvolskaya, after all, was the one with Chiapas, Mexico stands an abandoned transfigured form. Beteta writes: “This In her work Cold mountains, one belt, the hammer. sixteenth-century cathedral, half more subtle and fragile atmosphere heartbreak green, commissioned by submerged in water. In the middle of tries to approximate the idea of the SFCMP and scored for bass flute, violin,

12 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 13 cello, harp, and percussion, sound is order to create what the poet Robert stacked into augmented harmonies, consequences, even if it was incapable connected to what is, in some ways, Creeley called a “series of objects in flitting between major and minor, of “lower[ing] the cost of bread,” as a more traditional source for music— a field, a series of tensions.” In the crunching into clusters—producing a he once said. Embracing folk music an imagistic scene—yet one whose words of the translator Wai Lim Yip, music as beholden to the “what” as to in a modern idiom would at least put images come to be juxtaposed in a these juxtapositions releases images the “how.” its fabled immediacy in dialogue with peculiar way. Based on a poem by Tang into their “immediate thereness,” the sound of a fragmented, pluralistic Dynasty poet Li Bai (701–762), the work preventing writing from “disfigur[ing] Folk Songs, Luciano Berio present, ideally throwing a productive seeks to capture the poem’s dramatic things in their immanent presences.” light on both. imagery along with the paratactical “I have a Utopian dream, though I way those images are deployed. In the music, Chen makes good on know it cannot be realized.” Some But some qualifications are in order. her intention to free images from might find it odd that the modernist The music of the first two songs (“Black Trees shading trees, mist-smoke weaves. syntactical rules by presenting the Luciano Berio, composer of the thorny is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” Cold mountains, a belt, of heart- poem’s images out of order. The noun Sequenzas, was referring here to folk and “I Wonder as I Wander”) isn’t breaking green. rules here, not the verb, and we begin music—or more specifically, to the of folk origin at all but was instead Dusk enters a high tower; with a section entitled simply “Mist idea of marrying it with his own idiom composed in the nineteenth century In it someone grieves. All alone upon the jade terrace; Smoke.” Over a bed of shimmering to create a meaningful continuity by John Jacob Niles. Nos. 6 and 7 were Homing birds return in haste. cymbals and half harmonics in the between the two. Yet Berio maintained written by Berio himself, based on his Where is the way to return? strings, the bass flute repeats a hushed an interest in folk music throughout 4 Canzoni popolari. And the text of the Long rest, short rest, bower after bower. rising third, which both establishes the much of his life, whether in spirit, as final song (“Azerbaijan Love Song”) was — “Tune: ‘Beautiful Barbarians’” motivic seed of the piece while evoking in the 1976 work Coro, or as the thing transcribed phonetically from an old by Li Bai, translated by Wai Lim Yip the titular imagery. It is a fitting interval itself, as in his Folk Songs, composed in 78 by Berberian, who didn’t speak a for an experiment in presence, content 1964 for his then-wife Cathy Berberian. word of the Azeri language. All of these Of interest is the way Chinese in a kind of inertial consonance, with Perhaps it was because of the need curiosities add to the sense that what poetry—not unlike modernist poetry little need to resolve anything or go to—as the spirit of Samuel Beckett put Berio meant to convey here, if only or cinematic montage— juxtaposes anywhere. The remaining sections— it in Berio’s Sinfonia—“keep going” in unconsciously, was that the immediacy images with little connective tissue ”Weaves,” Trees Shading Trees,” “Cold,” the wake of the seemingly exhausted of folk music could only be accessed in between, creating what Chen calls and so on—flow into each other musical possibilities of the twentieth obliquely, through its dispersals and “an undifferentiated, timeless mode of without interruption while indulging century. But the music’s allure was rewritings in the present. being.” The idea is to deemphasize the in similar forms of hypnotic repetition. surely also political. Music was, for linear connections between things in Listen for more thirds throughout— Berio, a social act with its own kind of

14 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 15 In “Black Is The Color…,” a certain crippling sweetness as anything Mozart the level of attentiveness involved Oliveros’s cistern epiphany but still relaxed naturalness in the melody ever wrote. and its subterranean inspiration, beholden to its principles. An entirely belies the somewhat tortuous way deep listening elided with many improvised work that, according to the it is notated, as though the notation CONCERT #2 of the other ideas that had guided “score,” “may be performed by a soloist itself were commenting on the labored Friday, March 23 at 9pm Oliveros’s unconventional aesthetic as a duet with an imaginary partner” mediation involved in apprehending since the 1960s, particularly those or as an ensemble with any number the past. The viola fiddles in a separate, The Witness, Pauline Oliveros taken from Buddhist, feminist, of performers, The Witness enacts seemingly oblivious layer, adding to and Lakota philosophy. It meant a process of socialization in which the sense of disjunction. In the old One day in the late eighties, Pauline abandoning oneself entirely to the isolated actors discover community. French song “Rossignolet du bois,” Oliveros and her accordion descended sonic object, and, in the context of clarinet and harp offer a simple a fourteen-foot ladder leading down improvisation, responding to it in In the first part, a kind of selfishness accompaniment based on the opening into a cistern beneath Fort Worden, equal measure. It also meant listening reigns; performers are to focus descending fifth of the melody, but WA. The space was cavernous, capable to the grain of sound—its flux and entirely on themselves, regardless of then sabotage its modal disposition— of holding two million gallons of timbre and texture—as much as to what others are doing. All sounds, perhaps itself a folk signifier—by water, but it was empty that day, which formal, developmental, or notational gestures, and actions are to be dropping in mischievous major meant that it could hold something pretenses, which she saw as overvalued discrete, separated by silence, and sevenths. Then there is the Sardinian else instead: sound. Made entirely of in the Western tradition. But perhaps different from one another. In the song “Mottettu de Tristura,” about a concrete, the space produced a reverb most importantly, deep listening meant second part, there is a discovery of woman bemoaning her sorrows, in that lasted forty-five seconds, making a way of being in the world, and one the other, as it were. Performers are which Berio makes us strikingly aware it nearly impossible to distinguish that had more than its share of ethical to focus on reacting to their partners of how aloof folk songs can often be between direct and reflected tones. implications. Where there was deep and anticipating their actions. In the from their emotional content. As if “We had to respect the sound that was listening, there would be connection. last section, performers are instructed to buck the trend, ominous smears coming back from the cistern walls,” Where there was connection, there to put their “attention all over.” She of sound in the bass unsettlingly she remembered. would be community. It was, for writes: reinforce the darkness at the heart Oliveros, nothing less than her “life of the woman’s lament. Yet not all is Respect the sound. It was a formative practice.” Give equal attention to your own subterfuge here. In the Armenian song moment for Oliveros, inspiring what and a partner’s performance, as if “Loosin Yelav…,” about the rising moon, is perhaps her most widely known The social implications of this mode only one person were making all of listen for the clarinet line. Though it conceptual contribution to music: of hearing are on display in a work the sounds, movements, or actions. ironically sinks, it does so with as much deep listening. Referring to both like The Witness (1980), written before Expand your field of attention,

16 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 17 as far as possible, to include any rooted in finding alternative modes the spatial arts alone that led him for percussion, composed to create environmental sound, movement of communication and expression to reconsider temporality in music. an aural representation of this way of or dramatic action as part of this beyond the notated page—a play- As part of his efforts to formalize thinking about time. The name derives unity. based approach to sound that is often composition and to tease apart the from the poet Sappho, a rhythmic difficult to achieve with a notated logical processes of the creative act, innovator in Greek poetry, which used The takeaway is not unlike Oliveros’s score. This “score” is not so much he had come up with two concepts— the kind of additive, non-subdivided experience in the cistern, in which a finished piece as it is a possible outside-time and inside-time—that rhythmic notions explored in the her own sounds came back to her approach (not unlike Oliveros’ The allowed him to separate the temporal piece. Written for sixteen percussion as though from another. Actions Witness) that can be adapted directly wheat from the chaff. A melody was instruments—Xenakis doesn’t specify don’t exist in a vacuum: they have with the performers. In Bellow, Cycle an inside-time structure, since it relied which—divided among two timbral consequences. They come back to us. by John Ivers, players build sonic on sequential ordering to preserve groups (skin/wood and metal), it The only way to realize this, of course, “pressure” and breath as a unit. As the its identity. But the scale the melody features no pitched or sustained is to listen deeply. breath structure begins to disintegrate, was based on was an outside-time sonorities in order to focus the more and more improvisational agency structure, since its notes could exist listener’s attention on the additive 3 New Works Inspired by is introduced, allowing the players apart from any specific sequence. effect of the attacks. In essence, Pauline Oliveros “voices” to become one with the Crucially, so too could their durations, this allows for that aforementioned structure of the Bellow, Cycle.” which, when abstracted from the separation between events and Since Pauline Oliveros’s passing in events filling them, could also be durations: time here can only be 2016, her influence has seemed to analyzed in any order. It was, for experienced as the duration between only grow. In the following works— CONCERT #3 Xenakis, a way of thinking that had attacks, not as the duration of the selected as part of SF Search 2018, a Saturday, March 24 at 7pm fallen out of fashion. “This degradation attacks themselves. competition for Bay-area composers of the outside-time structures of music under 30—three composers explore Psappha, Iannis Xenakis since late medieval times is perhaps Much of this can be readily seen in the different facets of her enduring legacy. the most characteristic fact about the non-traditional score, which subjects From SFCMP: Dawn Chorus by Nathan “What remains of music once one evolution of Western European music,” the performer to an unrelenting stream Chamberlain reflects Oliveros’ sense removes time?” Iannis Xenakis once he wrote. And he wanted to change of dots arrayed on a grid to represent of improvisation, dismantlement of asked. Quite a bit, he ultimately that. individual percussive events. There are ensemble hierarchy, and awareness decided. It’s an unsurprising conclusion no barlines, since they would imply that is involved in listening to coming from a former architect. But Enter Psappha (1975), Xenakis’s unwanted metrical subdivisions, nor others. Danny Clay’s Playbook is it wasn’t Xenakis’s experience with fearsomely difficult, first solo work are there many dynamic markings or

18 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 19 other indications for the performer. the label of degenerate artist from sonata form, complete with exposition, and 24 Radios, they become something It is left to timbre to indicate large the Nazis (though admittedly, not the development, and recapitulation, akin to a disembodied chorus of sectional changes, which, along with most difficult thing to do). In 1918, while the inner two movements have visionaries, speaking of ecstatic being the actual rhythmic content, are according to a possibly apocryphal an ABA structure: listen for the return while offering cryptic messages of derived from a complex cocktail of story, he asked to join the Dadaists but of the opening material at the end. liberation for those willing to listen. algebraic number crunching—things was rejected. Too conventional, they It also features a coda, in which the like sieve theory, residual classes, ruled. Too drawn to beautiful things. German alphabet is recited backwards. Or tune in, as it were. The only person congruence modulo, and other Wasn’t against enough. But the veracity The result is explosive, percussive, and we meet on stage is Man With Drum, concepts beyond the scope of these of that story aside, it points to a hypnotic. And as the title suggests, whose instrument is as much an ear—a notes. But you needn’t listen for those tension between aesthetic earnestness it is perhaps as much a paean to the tympanum or membrane he uses to things anyway. Try instead to hear each and absurdity that characterized primitive origins of language as it is to receive radio prophecies and help attack not in relation to a downbeat, Schwitter’s work for much of his life. “I Dadaist mischief making. speak them (via Morse code) in turn. say, or a larger metrical hierarchy, but feel sorry for nonsense,” he confessed His first interlocutor is La Futura, who as part of an ever-expanding present in 1920, “because up to now it has so _ . . / . _ _ / . / . _ . . / . _ . . for Solo speaks through Loy’s “Aphorisms on in which the structures of perception seldom been artistically molded.” Percussion and 24 Radios, Or A Morse Futurism” by way of twenty-three radios rewrite themselves anew in every Play in Two Acts, Celeste Oram suspended from the ceiling (known moment. His Ur Sonata, from 1932, is perhaps as the Creational Overture, a God-like a case in point. A spoken-word work It’s an unlikely trio: Hadewijch of notion that also comes from Loy), all Ur Sonata, Kurt Schwitters & based on a line from a poem by the Antwerp, the thirteenth-century mystic tuned to the same frequency. Crackling Shahrokh Yadegari, electronics artist Raoul Hausmann—”Fumms bö who proffered rapturous visions of beneath are the words of Hadewijch, wö tää zää Uu, pögiff, kwii Ee”—the sacred and secular love; Mina Loy rhapsodizing about divine love from Born in Hannover in 1887, the artist piece doesn’t exactly revel in lucidity (1882–1966), the futurist-become- another radio (known as Lucence) off Kurt Schwitters is perhaps best known or typical modes of transcendence. But feminist, who sought liberation to the side. Then there is The Questian, for the collages he created as part of that Schwitters cast those nonsensical through expanded consciousness; and who engages with Man With Drum via his movement, Merz, which attempted phonemes in the most classical of all the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie queries taken from throughout Graham’s to redeem the nonsensical by forms is a clue that there was more Graham (b. 1950), whose fragmented poetry, some of which he answers while repurposing trash. Yet Schwitters was than a little dignity to be found in the verse unflinchingly dissects the agency knitting. just as often drawn to the nonsensical abusurd. The work is in four parts: of the self. Yet in composer Celeste itself, sabotaging literary salons with Ester Teil, Largo, Presto, and Scherzo. Oram’s enigmatic stage play _ . . / . _ Oram herself offers as many questions absurdist poetry and earning himself The Erster Teil and Presto are cast in _ / . / . _ . . / . _ . . for Solo Percussion as answers here. But if listening is itself

20 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 21 a kind of question—an opening of attempted to let go and allow sound and vibraphone, is hardly six hours, but one needs to view it up close, such that the self in anticipation of receiving speak for itself, free of compositional still long in proportion to its paired- much of the rest of the rug becomes something, of letting something in— systems. He was interested, as he said, in down material. The name was inspired a blurry periphery. Crippled Symmetry then her work is perhaps as much the wild beast, not the tamed animal. “I by the imperfect patterns Feldman had can be listened to in much the same about that as anything. That and the don’t push sound around,” he once told admired in handmade rugs from the way: keep your ear on what’s in front of wisdom of nine centuries of female Stockhausen. Near- and Middle East: two designs you, so to speak. Let the rest go. voices that have, for too long, gone that seemed symmetrical from afar unheard. One of the ways he accomplished this were often actually slightly varied when ~ Robert Jackson Wood was by thinking small. If the listener viewed up close. The idea had, in a way, CONCERT #4 was to focus on sound more than on long existed in music in the form of the Robert Jackson Wood is a freelance Saturday, March 24 at 9pm what was done with it, then memory— often imbalanced question-and-answer writer living in Brooklyn. He holds a the thing that gave music a sense of phrase structures that could be found Ph.D in musicology from the CUNY Crippled Symmetry, Morton Feldman that doing, of where it had been and throughout Western music. Yet Feldman Graduate Center. where it was going—would need to had picked a metaphor from the visual “What I’m after is somewhat like be disabled. Minutely varied repeated arts for a reason: he wanted stasis, not Mondrian not wanting to paint patterns became one of his answers, the movement of one thing to another, ‘bouquets, but a single flower at a obsessively composed one at a time like not questions anticipating an answer. time.” It is classic Morton Feldman: a Mondrian’s flowers, which would efface Imagine the sound of a Rothko and “SFCMP performances bring a nod to the visual arts instead of music, one another in memory and suspend you’re most of the way there. youthfulness and freshness to coupled with a diminutive metaphor, the listener in the perpetual present. It the San Francisco music scene.” all in service of seemingly humble was an aesthetic of second-to-second In the score, flute, piano, and vibraphone – SFCMP Subscriber artistic intentions. We must see this negation, deployed in works that, he felt, start things off, but each is notated in statement, like so many others of also needed to be long—six hours long, a different meter (4/8, 5/16, and 3/7, his, in the context of a kind of end- in the case of his second string quartet. respectively), meaning that, in a matter of-history resignation Feldman often Only then would the mind have time of seconds, the parts visually fall out exuded in the wake of serialism’s to stop trying to synthesize and simply of sync with one another. The score is overbearing experiments in the 1950s. listen. quickly rendered useless, in other words. As a reaction against the suffocating But there were worse things for Feldman control he saw in those works, Feldman Crippled Symmetry (1981), composed than losing sight of the whole. To notice had committed himself to a music that for flutes, piano, celesta, glockenspiel, “crippled symmetry” in a Turkish rug,

22 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 23 Composer Biographies Luciano Berio (1925 - 2003) Galina Ustvolskaya (1919 - 2006) was an Italian studied from 1937 Pauline Oliveros (1932 - 2016) Morton Feldman (1926 -1987) musician, whose to 1939 at the was a senior figure was a unique and success as theorist, Music College in contemporary influential American conductor, in her native American music. composer. His composer, and St. Petersburg Her career spanned experimentation teacher placed him and at the fifty years of with non- among the leading Rimski-Korsakov boundary dissolving traditional notation, representatives Conservatory there music making. In the improvisation, and of the musical avant-garde. His style until 1947. She received an aspirantship 1950s she was part timbre led to a is notable for combining lyric and there and ultimately led a composition of a circle of iconoclastic composers, characteristic style that emphasized expressive musical qualities with class at the Music College connected artists, poets gathered together in San isolated and usually quiet points or the most advanced techniques of to the Conservatory. Her composition Francisco. Awarded the John Cage moments of sound. His work with electronic and aleatory music. teacher, Dmitri Shostakovich, was award for 2012 from the Foundation John Cage and his association with enthusiastic about her. He repeatedly of Contemporary Arts, Oliveros was the avant-garde of American painters, In all his work Berio’s logical and clear supported her against the resistance a Distinguished Research Professor including Pollock, Rauschenberg, constructions are considered highly of his colleagues in the Composers’ of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic and Rothko helped him to discard imaginative and poetic, drawing Union. Alongside Sofia Gubaidulina, Institute, Troy, NY, and Darius Milhaud traditional music aesthetics for a less elements of style from such composers Ustvolskaya is considered Russia’s Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. ordered and more intuitive, “moment as Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern. most significant woman composer. Oliveros had been as interested in form” approach to structure. Feldman In addition to composing, Berio also Her catalogue of works is highly finding new sounds as in finding created his characteristic sound: taught at a number of institutions, concentrated, her musical message new uses for old ones --her primary rhythms that seem to be free and including the Juilliard School and lapidary and without compromise. instrument was the accordion, an floating; pitch shadings that seem Harvard University. In 2000 he became unexpected visitor perhaps to musical softly unfocused; a generally quiet president and artistic director of the cutting edge, but one which she and slowly evolving music; recurring Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, approached in much the same way that asymmetric patterns. His later works, posts he held until his death. a Zen musician might approach the after 1977, also begin to explore Japanese shakuhachi. extremes of duration.

24 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 25 Composer Biographies Shahrokh Yadegari Carolyn Chen is a composer, has made music Iannis Xenakis (1922 - 2001) Kurt Schwitters (1887 - 1948) sound designer, for supermarkets, was a composer, was a German artist and producer, that demolition districts, music theorist, who was born in has collaborated and the dark. Her architect, and Hanover, Germany. with such artists work reconfigures the engineer. He is as Peter Sellars, everyday to retune considered an Schwitters worked Robert Woodruff, habits of our ears, important post- in several genres Ann Hamilton, through sound, text, World War II and media, Christine Brewer, Gabor Tompa, Maya light, image, and movement. For over composer whose including Dadaism, a decade her studies of the guqin, the Beiser, Steven Schick, Lucie Tiberghien, works helped revolutionize 20th century Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, Chinese 7-string zither traditionally Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam, Hossein classical music. Xenakis pioneered the sound, painting, sculpture, graphic played for private meditation in nature, Omoumi, and Siamak Shajarian. He use of mathematical models in music design, typography, and what came to has informed her thinking on listening has performed and his productions, such as applications of set theory, be known as installation art. He is most in social spaces. Recent projects include compositions, and designs have been stochastic processes and game theory famous for his collages, called Merz a marble chase and commissions for presented internationally in such and was also an important influence Pictures. Klangforum Wien and the LA Phil New venues as the Carnegie Hall, Royce on the development of electronic Music Group. Hall, Festival of Arts and Ideas, OFF- and computer music. Among his D’Avignon Festival, International most important works are Metastaseis Described by The New York Times Theatre Festival in Cluj Romania, (1953–54) for orchestra, which as “the evening’s most consistently Ravinia Festival, Vienna Festival, introduced independent parts for every alluring … a quiet but lush meditation,” Holland Festival, Tirgan Festival, musician of the orchestra; percussion Chen’s work has been supported by Forum Barcelona, Japan America works such as Psappha (1975) and the Fulbright Program, Paul and Daisy Theatre, The Pulitzer Foundation for Soros Fellowships for New Americans, Pléïades (1979); compositions that the Arts, the International Computer Stanford University Sudler Prize, ASCAP, introduced spatialization by dispersing Music Conference, the Institut fur Neue and University of California Institute for musicians among the audience, such Musik und Musikerziehung, Judah L. Research in the Arts, commissions from as Terretektorh (1966); and the massive Magnes Museum in Berkeley, MATA Festival, and Emory Planetarium, multimedia performances Xenakis called and residencies at Djerassi, Hambidge, Das Undbild, 1919, and Contemporary Museum of Art, polytopes. and Kimmel Harding Nelson. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart San Diego.

26 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 27 Composer Biographies Danny Clay structured improvisation, and multiple Danny Clay is a temporal spaces. Ivers’ work has Xavier Beteta Celeste Oram composer and been featured at the soundSCAPE, was born in Celeste Oram is teaching artist highSCORE, Walden CMR, Cluster, and Guatemala City a composer from currently based Atlantic music festivals. He has written and studied piano Aotearoa New in San Francisco. for ensembles such as Quartetto at the National Zealand, currently His work is deeply Indaco, Amaranth Quartet, Brooklyn Conservatory of based in Southern rooted in curiosity, College’s ConTempo Ensemble, for Guatemala with California. No, she is collaboration, and the the Leftcoast Chamber Ensemble’s Consuelo Medinilla. not far from home; sheer joy of making things. His projects Intersection workshop, and the San At age 18, he was awarded the first- the Great Pacific Oceanic Highway does often incorporate musical games, Fransisco Contemporary Music Players. prize at the Augusto Ardenois National more to connect us than divide us. open forms, found objects, archival johniversmusic.com Piano Competition and third-prize at media, toy instruments, classrooms of the Rafael Alvarez Ovalle Composition Celeste’s works investigate new media elementary schoolers, graphic notation, Nathan Competition in Guatemala. He and strategies for musical performance digital errata, cross-disciplinary continued his piano studies in the and notation: video, audio, and Chamberlain research, and the everything-in- United States with Argentinean pianist text scores prompt performers into Nathan Chamberlain between. dclaymusic.com Sylvia Kersenbaum and with Russian scenarios where they confront sound, is a Bay Area native pianist Sergei Polusmiak. He also history, and digital realities. These that fell in love attended master-classes with pianists works have been performed and John Ivers with music at an Massimiliano Damerini and Daniel recorded by ensembles including John Ivers is a Bay early age and has Rivera in Italy. Xavier has performed in the Callithumpian Consort (Boston), Area composer, not looked back different venues in the United States, wasteLAnd (Los Angeles), the Sydney clarinetist, since! Growing up in a household that Europe and Latin America and has Piano Trio, the Karlheinz Company sound artist, and was constantly filled with the likes of been a soloist with the Guatemalan (Auckland), the Intrepid Music Project improviser known Miles Davis, the Beatles, and Bach, National Symphony Orchestra and the (Auckland), and presented at festivals for his dynamic Nathan grew a fascination with music Orchestra Augusto Ardenois. including SICPP at the New England compositions and of all types. At the age of 12, Nathan xavierbeteta.com Conservatory, soundSCAPE festival aural explorations. Traversing both started to play a hand-me-down guitar (Maccagno, Italy), and the Melbourne acoustic and electronic mediums, from hisolder brother while using Fringe Festival. celesteoram.com his work explores intimate musical method books to teach himself the textures, symmetrical constructions, fundamentals of guitar technique.

28 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 29 This Weekend’s SFCMP Players Oboist Kyle Bruckmann’s work as a styles ranging from thorny modernism, composer and performer spans from to “sleek and spirited” minimalism, to Meena Bhasin is a captivating violist the Icelandic pop artist Björk, and the Western classical tradition into indie classical. and entrepreneur whose identity has a Germany tour with violinist Nigel the frontiers of free jazz, electronic never fit neatly into a box. Born in Kennedy. Joshua Kosman, music critic music and post-punk. With more than In addition to her work with SFCMP, New York to an Iranian Jewish mother of San Francisco Chronicle, praised her 60 recordings and a striking array of Kate is the co-founder and pianist and a Punjabi Sikh father, her early life performance of Vivaldi’s Spring, and performance affiliations to his credit of the interdisciplinary duo KATES, was filled with an insatiable passion called her violin playing “delicate but (Splinter Reeds, Quinteto Latino, the which intertwines new solo piano for cross-cultural dialogue and an fervent.” Stockton Symphony, sfSound, Eco music with new dance. The duo has itch for interdisciplinary learning. She Ensemble, Ensemble Parallèle, and been featured at NYSoundCircuit, started honing her musical skills at Tod Brody is principal flutist with others) he has been acclaimed as “a Dance Conversations Festival at the age of four. Through experiences SFCMP, as well as local new music modern day renaissance musician,” the Flea Theater in New York, and as an adolescent performing and groups Earplay, Eco Ensemble, and the and “a seasoned improviser with Omaha Under the Radar. As the collaborating in places like Japan, Israel, Empyrean Ensemble, with an extensive impressive extended technique and pianist in the contemporary ensemble China, and at the United Nations, she career that has included performances peculiar artistic flair.” Before relocating REDSHIFT, this year she will continue realized what a powerful connecting of numerous world premieres and to the Bay Area in 2003, Kyle was a a guest artist residency at Cal State force music could be in the world. This many recordings. He is also principal fixture in Chicago’s experimental music University East Bay, premiering works realization has affected every artistic flutist of the San Francisco Chamber underground, collaborating regularly by faculty and student composers. choice she has made since. Orchestra, the Sacramento Opera, and with electroacoustic duo EKG, the katecampbellpiano.com the California Musical Theater, and ”noise-rock monstrosity” Lozenge, Violinist Hrabba Atladottir studied makes frequent appearances with the and the Creative Music quintet Wrack Karen Gottlieb has performed with in Berlin, Germany with professor San Francisco Opera and San Francisco (recipient of a 2012 Chamber Music the San Francisco Symphony as second Axel Gerhardt and professor Tomasz Ballet orchestras, and in other chamber America New Jazz Works grant). harpist for more than 25 years. She Tomaszewski. After finishing her and orchestral settings throughout kylebruckmann.com performed extensively with them on studies, Hrabba worked as a freelancing the region. Active as an instructor, Tod their USA, European and Asian tours as violinist in Berlin for five years, regularly teaches at the UC Davis. In addition Hailed as a “brilliant pianist” (Financial well as on their many grammy award playing with the Berlin Philharmonic to performing and teaching, Tod is Times), Kate Campbell performs winning recordings and DVDs. For 20 Orchestra, Deutsche Oper, and an active arts administrator, currently frequently as a soloist and chamber years she served as principal harpist Deutsche Symphonieorchester. Hrabba serving as Executive Director of the musician specializing in 20th and 21st with the California Symphony and also also participated in a world tour with Marin Symphony. century music. She is at home with as a member of the SF Symphony-

30 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 31 ‘AIM’ ensembles including 4 Sounds, on the Delos, CRI, New Albion, and ensemble, principal timpanist of San career of performance domestically Strings & Things, THAT! Group and Newport Classics labels. Harrison has Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and co- as well as in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Silver & Gold, Plus. been on the faculty of the Pacific Music founder of Rootstock Percussion. Mach Australia, and Africa to his credit. He is Festival and is currently an artist/faculty often performs with the San Francisco also widely recorded on the Genesis, Ms. Gottlieb is the harpist for the member of the Rocky Ridge Music Symphony and other local orchestras, Orion, and other labels. SFCMP, Opera Parallele and appears Center. but he prefers more intimate projects regularly with other new music groups with groups like Empyrean, Left Coast Roy currently serves on the faculty such as Earplay, Empyrean and Left Peter Josheff, clarinetist and Chamber Ensemble, Opera Parallel, of the University of California, Santa Coast Ensembles. She has recorded composer, is a founding member of Earplay, and sfSound. Cruz, and plays locally with a string multiple major film, TV and video Sonic Harvest and of Earplay. He is quartet, piano trio, and music festival game soundtracks with the Skywalker also a member of the San Francisco In recent summers he has performed engagements. Recording Symphony orchestra and Contemporary Music Players, the at the Ojai Music Festival, the Cabrillo subbed with both San Francisco Opera Empyrean Ensemble and the Eco Festival of Contemporary Music, and In addition to his work with the & Ballet orchestras. kgharp.com. Ensemble. He performs frequently Music in the Mountains. Mach was San Francisco Contemporary Music with Opera Parallele, the San Francisco awarded a 2011 Investing in Artists Players, percussionist Nick Woodbury A very active cellist in the Bay Area Chamber Orchestra, and Melody of grant from the Center for Cultural performs with and co-directs Mantra and beyond, Stephen Harrison is a China, and has worked with many Innovation. He appeared in two full- Percussion – a group dedicated to founding member (with his wife, Susan other groups including West Edge length concerts at the 2014 Venice large-scale projects that redefine the Freier) of the Ives Quartet (formerly Opera, the Ives Collective, the Paul Biennale with eco ensemble, including traditional classical music concert known as Stanford String Quartet) and Dresher Ensemble, Composers Inc., a special performance of Nagoya format. Woodbury has appeared a member of the faculty at Stanford and SF Sound. Marimbas for Golden Lion lifetime alongside the Bang on a Can All- University. Formerly principal cellist achievement honoree, Steve Reich. Stars, with the Ensemble Modern of the Chamber Symphony of San Loren Mach (percussionist) is Akademie, and Eco Ensemble. His work Francisco, the Opera Company of passionate about 21st-Century Roy Malan serves as solo violinist with contemporary music includes Boston, and the New England Chamber music. A graduate of the Oberlin and with the California Symphony and premiering new works by George Orchestra, Harrison has performed on Cincinnati Conservatories, he has Opera Parallèle and was the longtime Crumb, John Luther Adams, Michael National Public Radio, the BBC, and premiered countless solo, chamber, concertmaster and solo violinist for Gordon, and many others. Woodbury on both German State Radio and the and orchestral works. He teaches at the San Francisco Ballet. The founding has appeared at the Brooklyn Academy Netherlands State Radio. Stephen has the University of California, Berkeley director of the Telluride Chamber of Music, Apple Store at Lincoln toured internationally and recorded and is principal percussionist of eco Music Festival, he has an extensive Center, Kresge Auditorium at MIT,

32 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 33 New Music New College, Symphony California State University, Northridge Guest Soloist - Silvie Jensen Space in Manhattan, Carlsbad New and the New England Conservatory. Music Festival, Bowling Green New He currently teaches and provides In recent seasons, Ms. Francisco Symphony in Bach’s Magnificat Music Festival, Percussive Arts Society orchestral coaching at UC Berkeley. Jensen has appeared in 2018, and will also make her debuts at Lyric Opera of with the San Francisco Contemporary International Convention, X Avant Chicago and San Music Players singing Berio, and with the Festival in Toronto, Vancouver New Francisco Opera in Mendocino Music Festival, in Cimarosa’s Music, and the Festival Internacional de Guest Musician Die Meistersinger von Il Matrimonio Segreto. She appeared in Inverno de Campos do Jordão in Brazil. Nürnberg, with the San 2016 with Symphony Parnassus at Herbst nickwoodbury.com Please join us in applauding the Francisco Symphony, Theater, singing Mahler’s Lieder eines following guest musician on with American Fahrenden Gesellen and Symphony No. Double bassist Richard Worn has the performance of Xavier Beteta’s, Chamber Opera in Chicago as Carmen; 4. She has sung St Matthew Passion with La Catedrale Abandonata with Island City Opera as Kashcheyevna in Ivan Fischer conducting the Orchestra of performed extensively with the San : Kashchey the Immortal, and as Maddalena St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, in Sir Jonathan Francisco Opera and Symphony. in Rigoletto; with One World Symphony as Miller’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM, as Currently, he serves as Assistant Clio Tilton, viola Olga in Eugene Onegin, and has premiered well as singing the Israelitish Man in Judas Principal Bass of the Marin Symphony new operas with Riverside Opera, Maccabeus with Clarion Music Society; and Principal Bass of the Sanse Stonington Opera House, at the Ostrava Handel’s Messiah with Trinity Wall Street Chamber Orchestra as well as with Days Festival the in Czech Republic, and at and Monmouth Orchestra; in the B Minor the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber the Carolina Chamber Music Festival. She Mass with the Springfield Symphony and Players, ECO Ensemble, Other Minds has created and performed new works at with Voices of Ascension, with Musica Sacra sfSound, Empyrean Ensemble, Earplay, London’s Barbican Centre with Ornette at Alice Tully Hall, with Sacred Music in a Coleman, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara with Sacred Space; and with Broadway Bach and Composer’s Inc. Richard is also Meredith Monk, and Carnegie Hall with Ensemble singing Mahler’s Symphony No. former Principal Bass of the New Philip Glass. 4 and Joseph Canteloube’s Songs of the Century Chamber Orchestra. With his Auvergne. silviejensen.com Worn Chamber Ensemble, founded Ms. Jensen is a highly sought-after oratorio in 1996, has performed works for soloist; she recently won 2nd place in the both solo bass and ensemble by 2014 Oratorio Society of New York Solo such composers as Andreissen, Competition, and made her solo debut at Cage, Harrison, Henze, Reveultas, Carnegie Hall in 2014, singing Handel’s Scelsi, Varese, and Xenakis. Richard Messiah with Kent Tritle and Musica Sacra. She will sing as Alto Soloist with the San holds degrees in double bass from

34 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 35 Friends of SFCMP Stephen Harrison and Susan Freier Russ Irwin Steve Horowitz Stephen Grenholm San Francisco Contemporary Music Players gratefully acknowledges the following Terry McKelvey and Heli Roiha Thomas Koster supporters who have made one or more donations between December 2016 Zachariah and Susan Spellman to the present, resulting in gift totals within the following categories. These Sponsor ($200-$499) generous gifts help the ensemble to reach new heights in presenting outstanding, Charles Boone and Josefa Vaughan Patron ($59-$99) adventurous concerts at affordable prices; educating young musicians, David and Christiane Parker Heidi Benson commissioning new works, and breaking down the barriers to understanding new David Parker Paul and Celia Concus How Music is Made music through our program. Deborah Cobb and Richard Scully, in Robert Kirzinger We apologize for any errors or omissions; for corrections please contact [email protected]. honor of Steven Schick Jill Hunter Matichak Friend ($1-$49) Artistic Director’s Circle ($10,000 + ) Founders’ Circle ($1,000-$2,499) JoAnn and Jack Bertges, in honor of Caroline Pincus and Esther Landau Anonymous Andrea and Lubert Stryer Margot Golding, board member Dexter and Jean Dawes Erik Neuenschwander and Anne and Robert Baldwin Kate Campbell Joel Levine Sonya Chang Claire and Kendall Allphin Kit Sharma and Wei Tsai John W. Hillyer Jane Schaefer Roos LeRoux Holly Hartley and Oscar Anderson Olly and Elouise Wilson Pamela Z. Susan and Harry Hartzell James C. Hormel Paul R. Griffin Richard and Patricia Taylor Lee Karl Pribram and Sweta Arora Suzanne Pfeffer Will Leben Players’ Circle ($5,000-$9,999) Lawrence Daressa Thomas and Nancy Fiene Dianne Ellsworth Lorraine Honig Major In-kind Supporters Donald Blais Mark Applebaum and Joan Friedman Supporter ($100-$199) Cooper White Cooper Eunice Childs, in memory of Dr. Alfred Michael Gilbertson Boris and Dorothy Ragent Google Foundation W. Childs Timothy L. Bridge Cheryl Steets Microsoft Jerome and Linda Elkind Diana Goldstein Print Runner Karen Gottlieb Guest Artists’ Circle ($500-$999) Donald and Ethel Worn UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music Margaret Dorfman Adam Frey Dr. John and Nancy Gilbert and Audio Technologies Margot Golding and Michael Powers Michael McGinley Edward Oberholtzer and Karen Wolf Susan York James Simmons Producers’ Circle ($2,500-$4,999) Michael Tilson Thomas and Robert Shumaker and Janet Garvin Melanie Johnson, Ph.D. Joshua Robison Robert Warnock

36 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 37 In addition to the many generous Legacy Circle individual contributors, ticket-buyers and season subscribers, our season THE HAROLD WOLLACK LEGACY CIRCLE concerts and events were made possible in part by recent grants A former subscriber, Harold Wollack, left the first bequest to help underwrite the from the following foundations and Thank you, ensemble’s concerts and programs. More recently, the ensemble has received a agencies: Robert (Bob) Shumaker generous bequest from the estate of C. Michael Richards and George Bosworth. for 31 seasons of American Music Project incredible audio recording Your bequest to the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players Legacy Circle will Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation and engineering services! ensure the future of our music for lifetimes ahead. We thank the following indi- Clarence E. Heller Foundation viduals, who have arranged bequests to help support the ensemble’s future work: James Irvine Foundation National Endowment for the Arts Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation A.Robin Orden Jacqueline S. Hoefer * San Francisco Grants for the Arts Adam Frey Jane Roos and Jean-Louis LeRoux * The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. Eunice Childs in memory of Dr. Margot Golding The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia Alfred W. Childs * Paul Griffin University Anne Baldwin Priscilla Brown The Amphion Foundation Roy C. (Bud) Johns Renate Kay * The Bernard Osher Foundation C. Michael Richards * Ruth Caron Jacobs * The Ross McKee Foundation Dr. Claire Harrison Susan and Harry Hartzell William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Dianne J. Ellsworth Terry McKelvey Wells Fargo Foundation Donald Blais Victor and Esta Wolfram * Zellerbach Family Foundation George Bosworth * Harold Wollack * Holly Hartley *deceased

To leave your own legacy gift to the ensemble, please contact Lisa Oman, Executive Director (415) 278-9566 or [email protected]

38 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 39 Leadership and Staff Upcoming Events from our Arts Partner Board of Directors Honorary Committee Past Executive Directors Donald Blais Donald Runnicles Rozella Kennedy (2012-2015) President Helgi Tomasson Carrie Blanding (2010-2012) John Adams Christopher Honett (2009-2010) Kit Sharma Vice President Pamela Rosenberg Adam Frey (1991-2009) Patricia Lee Susan Munn (1988-1991) Melanie Johnson, Ph.D. Ruth Felt Marcella DeCray (1974-1988) Treasurer Dianne Ellsworth Advisory Council Current Team Secretary Anne Baldwin Steven Schick Caroline Crawford Artistic Director Kate Campbell Didier de Fontaine Ken Ueno Lisa Oman Gene Nakajima Executive Director Margot Golding Karen Gottlieb Michael Gilbertson Olly Wilson Amadeus Regucera Richard Festinger Paul R. Griffin Artistic Production Director Stephen Harrison Richard D. Lee John Jaworski Steve Horowitz Roy C. (Bud) Johns Production Assistant Susan Hartzell Board Presidents Susan York Sheryl Lynn Thomas Richard Diebold Lee Terry McKelvey Marketing Director (2009-2013) Timothy Bridge Kelly Quinlan Susan Hartzell (2005-2009) Tod Brody Marketing and Anne Baldwin (2002-2005) T. William Melis Box Office Manager Roy C. (Bud) Johns (2000-2001) William Wohlmacher T. William Melis (1996-2000) Business Partners Paul R. Griffin (1986-1996) Past Artistic Directors Charles Houston, Video Jane Roos (1978-1986) David Milnes (2002-2009) Gary Preiser, Inc., Accounting Jean-Louis LeRoux (2001-2002) Robert Schumaker, Founding Directors Donald Palma (1998-2000) Audio Engineer Charles Boone Stephen L. Mosko (1988-1997) Robert Wood, Writer Jean-Louis LeRoux Jean-Louis LeRoux (1974-1988) Marcella DeCray Charles Boone (1971-1973) Volunteers Terry McKelvey,

Investment Officer

40 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 41 Tonight’s piano provided by

Steinway & Sons, San Francisco

Hung Liu Dirge, 2010

Archival pigment prints, 18×18, in silkscreened folio

Limited Edition series of 45 prints $1,400 plus tax

SF Contemporary Music Payers is dedicated to performing innovative new music of exceptional interest and to nourishing the creation and dissemination of new work through commissioning, recording and outreach.

Proceeds from this sale benefit the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.

Contact us to purchase 415-633-8802

42 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players SFCMP.org • 43 SFCMP Performances Helping you discover large-ensemble contemporary classical works of the most influential and innovative composers of on STAGE the 20th and 21st centuries. Sat., Oct 21, 2017 Series Works by Hans Abrahamsen, Nicole Mitchell, and Philippe Leroux.

Bringing you contemporary classical SFCMP Performances works that have pushed the boundaries of the concert format through LABORATORY experimentation and exploration. in the Fri., Jan 19, 2018 Works by Don Byron, Series Ryan Brown, Vivian Fung, Frederic Rzewski, John Zorn, and special guest Meredith Monk.

Celebrating the work of legacy composers SFCMP Performances alongside cutting-edge composers from across generations CROSSROADS Mar. 23 & 24, 2018 at the In Celebration of Pauline Oliveros & Steven Schick Series A 4-concert weekend! 4 concerts, composer talks and a special solo- percussion concert by Steven Schick Tickets: SFCMP.org 44 • San Francisco Contemporary Music Players