Kronos Quartet 1
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM Saturday, December 7, 2013, 8pm George Crumb (b. 1929) Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the Zellerbach Hall Dark Land (1970) i. departure Kronos Quartet 1. Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes 40th birthday celebration 3. Lost Bells 4. Devil-music 5. Danse Macabre David Harrington, violin ii. absence John Sherba, violin 6. Pavana Lachrymæ Hank Dutt, viola 7. Threnody II: Black Angels! Sunny Yang, cello 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura 9. Lost Bells (Echo) Jack Carpenter, lighting supervisor iii. return Scott Fraser and Brian Mohr, audio engineers 10. God-music Calvin Ll. Jones, technical associate 11. Ancient Voices 12. Ancient Voices (Echo) 13. Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects PROGRAM For Black Angels: Laurence Neff, lighting and stage designer Brian Mohr, sound designer Terry Riley (b. 1935) Another Secret eQuation (2009)* Calvin Ll. Jones, technical director Bay Area première Plus appearances by Daniel Handler and other special guests. with special guests Pacific Boychoir Academy, Kevin Fox, director, conductor Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco, Susan McMane, director The program is subject to change. arr. † * Written for Kronos Philip Glass (b. 1937) Orion: China (2004) ( Michael Riesman) † Arranged for Kronos Bay Area première with special guest Wu Man, pipa Bryce Dessner (b. 1976) Aheym (Homeward) (2009)* This performance is made possible, in part, by the Bernard Osher Foundation with special guest Bryce Dessner, guitar and Patron Sponsors Dr. Philip D. and Shirley D. Schild. Cal Performances’ 2013–2014 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. INTERMISSION 74 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 75 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Terry Riley (b. 1935) feelings arising from inspiration. For rolls along. Imagining night and film. His scores have received Academy Award Another Secret eQuation (2009) those who dare to put pen to paper to day as it hums a song. nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a engage with the divine geometries inher- Bora…bora bora. Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Terry Riley first came to prominence in 1964 ent in the sound fabric, there seems to be Zla dee doo dha…doo dha Show). Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8, when he subverted the world of tightly orga- an underlying network that, in the flash day…zlee doo dha along with Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera nized atonal composition then in fashion. With of a moment’s recognition, connects the Doo day zlee doo dha day based on the book by J. M. Coetzee, premièred the groundbreaking In C—a work built upon un-connectable. doo day zlee doo dha day in 2005. steady pulse throughout; short, simple repeated My good friend Hans Siegmann, doo day zlee doo dha In the past few years several new works were melodic motives; and static harmonies—Riley who left this world suddenly on June 2, Bora…bora bora. unveiled, including Book of Longing (Luminato achieved an elegant and non-nostalgic return to 2009, was a prominent physicist and A shaba dooba shaba day Festival) and an opera about the end of the tonality. In demonstrating the hypnotic allure of project director at the Stanford Linear Shlot dot dilly ot dot dot ot Civil War entitled Appomattox (San Francisco complex musical patterns made of basic means, Accelerator Center and, like his famous dilly ot dot dilly ot dot dot Opera). His Symphony No. 9 was completed he produced the seminal work of the so-called colleague Albert Einstein, also an ac- Waih daih waih daih waih in 2011 and was premièred by the Bruckner “minimalist” school. complished violinist. Although in fail- daih waih daih whai daih Orchestra in Linz, Austria on January 1, 2012, Riley’s facility for complex pattern-making ing health, Hans and his wife, pianist dilly dah. and his Symphony No. 10 received its European is the product of his virtuosity as a keyboard im- Katrina Krimsky, came to Carnegie Hall Can it be any other way? The première in France in 2013. The Teatro Real in proviser. He quit formal composition following from San Francisco on April 24, 2009, Universe makes it up as it rolls along. Madrid and English National Opera commis- In C in order to concentrate on improvisation, for the presentation of In C that was or- Unraveling night and day as it hums a sioned Glass’s opera The Perfect American, about and in the late 1960s and early ’70s he became ganized by the Kronos Quartet. Katrina song. The Universe makes it up. Ha! the death of Walt Disney, which premièred in known for weaving dazzlingly intricate skeins of played the “pulse” at that concert, and Terry Riley’s Another Secret eQuation was January 2013, while the Landestheater Linz pre- music from improvisations on organ and syn- the Young People’s Chorus of New York commissioned for the Kronos Quartet and mièred his opera Spuren de Verirrten on April 12, thesizer. At this time, Riley also devoted himself City played a major part as well. At that the Young People’s Chorus of New York City 2013. Upcoming projects include a song cycle for to studying North Indian vocal techniques un- time was born the idea to join Kronos by The James Irvine Foundation, The Kronos Angélique Kidjo and the Brussels Philharmonic, der the legendary Pandit Pran Nath, and a new and the Young People’s Chorus in a new Performing Arts Association, The Aaron as well as an opera based on Franz Kafka’s The element entered his music: long-limbed melody. première for Zankel Hall. I started the Copland Fund for Music, Inc., and the New Trial for Music Theatre Wales. From his work in Indian music, moreover, he piece shortly after Hans’s death. It is York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Inspired by the challenge to create a work for became interested in the subtle distinctions of dedicated to his memory. a world audience on the occasion of the Athens tuning that would be hard to achieve with a tra- I wrote the text keeping in mind Cultural Olympiad in summer 2004, Glass ditional classical ensemble. that young people would be singing, and Philip Glass (b. 1937) conceived an evening-length work that contem- Riley began notating music again in 1979, that the ideas expressed would gently Orion: China (2004) plates the Earth’s relationship to the constella- when both he and the Kronos Quartet were on address the actions of their elders and Arranged by Michael Riesman tions as interpreted by the world’s many cultures. the faculty at Mills College in Oakland. By col- the overwhelmingly messy world the Conceived in ten movements, the original ver- laborating with Kronos, he discovered that his kids were being handed. The third sec- Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a sion of Orion featured the Philip Glass Ensemble various musical passions could be integrated, tion offers up some nonsense syllables as graduate of the University of Chicago and the in collaboration with seven of the world’s most not as pastiche, but as different sides of similar a possible antidote to the gobbledygook Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent esteemed composer-performers who performed musical impulses that still maintained some- that poses as wisdom from some of our two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia live with the Philip Glass Ensemble. Each guest thing of the oral performing traditions of India esteemed leaders. Boulanger and, while there, earned money by performer was chosen for their unique mastery and jazz. Riley’s first quartets were inspired by Another Secret eQuation is in three transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into of a global musical tradition and worked in close his keyboard improvisations, but his knowledge sections with no breaks: Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number collaboration with Glass to incorporate their in- of string quartets became more sophisticated 1. We are lost and cannot of innovative projects, creating a large collection dividual perspective into the composition. Wu through his work with Kronos, combining rig- find our way. A turn to the left, of new music for the Philip Glass Ensemble, and Man was one of the seven collaborators; her sec- orous compositional ideas with a more perfor- a turn to the right.... Who made for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This tion, Orion: China, was subsequently arranged mance-oriented approach. it dark? … Who turned out the period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts, and for pipa and string quartet. About Another Secret eQuation, Riley writes: light? the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach, for About the original version of Orion, Philip There are no secrets and no equa- 2. They never listen to us.... which he collaborated with Robert Wilson. Glass writes: tions recognizable in this music, but No, never! Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his Orion was commissioned by the only a suspicion that there is something 3. Can it be any other way? repertoire to include music for opera, dance, 2004 Cultural Olympiad and premièred sacred in the unraveling of thought and The Universe makes it up as it theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and in Athens in June 2004 preceding the 76 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 77 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Olympic Games. For this special event, from both the Northern and Southern Dessner is the creator and artistic director Aheym is dedicated to my grand- I assembled a group of renowned com- hemispheres. It seems that almost ev- of the Music Now Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio, mother, Sarah Dessner. poser-performers to collaborate with ery civilization has created myths and and the co-founder and owner of the Brassland Bryce Dessner’s Aheym was written for the me on an evening-length work that, in taken inspiration from Orion.