Boston Court Pasadena | Piano Spheres Emerging Artists Online October 4, 2020 Andrew Anderson, Pianist Vicki Ray, Mentor (open rehearsal with selections from the program below)

American Berserk 2001 John Adams (b. 1947)

I Have a Lot to Learn 2019 Andrew McIntosh (b. 1985)

Piano Sonata no. 2: “Being and Non-Being Create Each Other” 1991 Horatiu Radulescu (1942-2008) fardanceCLOSE 2012 Chaya Czernowin (b. 1957)

Red Mesa 1993 Annea Lockwood (b. 1939)

Songs, clouds* Matt Sargent (b. 1984)

Concord Sonata 1920 Charles Ives (1874-1954) 2nd movement: “Hawthorne”

(*Piano Spheres commission and world premiere)

Program notes on next page About the Artist

Andrew Anderson is a musician deeply invested in the performance of classical and contemporary music, in both solo and collaborative settings. He has worked with many established composers, including Donnacha Dennehy, Eve Beglarian, Lukas Ligeti, Courtney Bryan, and most recently with Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Hearne in preparation for the LA Phil premiere of his oratorio PLACE. As a performer, he has had the great opportunity to perform at such venues as the Walt Disney Hall, REDCAT, and the Carlsbad Music Festival. As a collaborator, he has worked as vocal coach and performer for several opera productions, including the Southern California premiere of the Ned Rorem’s Our Town. Andrew attended the University of California, Irvine (BMus, 2017), and at the California Institute of the Arts (MFA, 2019), where he was recipient of the Fletcher Jones Foundation and Dumont Scholarships. His primary teachers have been Nina Scolnik and Vicki Ray. In addition to performing piano, Andrew teaches privately and is an aspirating piano technician.

You can read more about Andrew online at andrewandersonpiano.com.

About the Mentor

Described as “phenomenal and fearless,” Grammy nominated pianist Vicki Ray is a leading interpreter of contemporary piano music. Known for thoughtful and innovative programming which seeks to redefine the piano recital in the 21st century, Vicki’s concerts often include electronics, video, recitation and improvisation. As noted by Alan Rich, “Vicki plans programs with a knack for marvelous freeform artistry…what she draws from her piano always relates in wondrous ways to the senses.” As a founding member of Piano Spheres, an acclaimed series dedicated to exploring the less familiar realms of the solo piano repertoire, her playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for “displaying that kind of musical thoroughness and technical panache that puts a composer’s thoughts directly before the listener.”

Continued on next page About the Mentor, Cont’d

As a pianist who excels in a wide range of styles Vicki Ray’s numerous recordings cover everything from the premiere release of the Reich You Are Variations to the semi-improvised structures of Wadada Leo Smith, from the elegant serialism of Mel Powell to the austere beauty of Morton Feldman’s Crippled Symmetries. Recent releases include David Rosenboom’s Twilight Language on Tzadik Records and Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet with the Eclipse Quartet on Bridge Records. Her 2013 recording of Cage’s The Ten Thousand Things on the Microfest label was nominated for a Grammy.

Ms. Ray’s work as a collaborative artist has been extremely diverse and colorful. She was the keyboardist in the California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet. Her chamber music contributions to the vibrant musical life in greater Los Angeles include frequent performances on the Dilijan, Jacaranda and Green Umbrella Series. She performs regularly on the venerable Monday Evening Concert series and was featured in Grisey’s Vortex Temporum on the 2006 celebration of the re-birth of the series. Vicki has been heard in major solo roles with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the German ensemble Compania, and the Blue Rider Ensemble of Toronto, with whom she made the first Canadian recording of Pierrot Lunaire.

She is currently head of the piano department at the California Institute of the Arts, where she has been on the faculty since 1991. In 2010 she was awarded the first Hal Blaine Chair in Music Performance. For the past eight years she has served on the faculty at the Bang on a Can summer festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Vicki Ray is a Steinway Artist

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Program notes continued on next page Program Notes

American Berserk (2001) John Adams (b. 1947)

“American Berserk was written for Garrick Ohlsson and clearly takes advantage of his astonishing technical abilities and sonic power. It is a piece that has many resonances with earlier American piano music, specifically that of Ives and Nancarrow. It is spiky, rhythmically unpredictable, at times jazzy, and flavored with ragtime and bop. Although only six minutes long, it demands exceptional pianistic abilities in the areas of rhythmic control and rapid chordal movement. The title is suggested by a phrase in Philip Roth's American Pastoral. But unlike the Roth novel, which is largely elegiac and meditative, American Berserk is extroverted, punchy, and fundamentally good-natured.”1

I have a lot to learn (2019) Andrew McIntosh (b. 1985)

Written for pianist Richard Valitutto, “I have a lot to learn” incorporates the use of the 11th harmonic, found by placing a finger a few centimeters before the dampers. The resulting pitch, a quartertone lower than a G#, helps create a thread of a melodic line with the G#s of the chords.

Being and Non-Being Create Each Other (1991) Horatio Radulescu (1942 - 2008)

1. Immanence 2. Byzantine Bells 3. Joy

There is a 24 year gap between Radulescu’s first and second piano sonatas; by the time he returns to the instrument, his compositional style has matured and his philosophical leanings become more integral to his work.

Continued on next page Program Notes, cont’d

The 2nd - 6th sonatas, dubbed the “Lao-Tzu” Sonatas, take their titles from taoism philosophy; from the Tao-Te Ching (the Stephen Mitchell translation of which Radulescu was familiar with):

Being and non-Being create each other. Dif icult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.

fardanceCLOSE (2012) Chaya Czernowin (b. 1957)

"What kind of dance is this? Is it a dance that comes from a distance? Its remnants are so interwoven that they can no longer be distinguished? One that was blown by a gust of wind while you stood there alone and listening to a distant company at night? Or is it one that is so close that the strong beat keeps the ears firmly on a distorted, repeating detail? You can't dance with your legs - but both want to be imaginative dance and mislead ideas of closeness and distance.”2

Red Mesa (1993) Annea Lockwood (b. 1939)

Red Mesa is Annea Lockwood's response to the magnificence and geometric purity of the Painted Desert area of the American Southwest and was written after a solo journey she made in the Four Corners country in 1988. The extended techniques of the piece – the strumming of strings, tapping the piano struts with a mallet, and particularly the perpetual Bb harmonic – help contribute to the sparse, star-like quality of the scene.

Continued on next page Program Notes, cont’d

Songs, Clouds (2020, Piano Spheres Commission) Matt Sargent (b. 1984)

“Songs, clouds is a piece for solo piano and electronics. The score builds uniquely (following dif erent winding paths) during each performance. Notes are introduced to the pianist on animated staves, slowly fading into view and then away again into the white screen. The first half of the piece is a process of gradual emergence: broken outlines and upper partials of songs (colonial hymn tunes) floating within silence. In the second half of the piece, the electronics open fully, mixing with the piano's sustain, and creating clouds of ringing harmonies for the listener to dwell within.”3

Concord Sonata: 2nd Mvt – Hawthorne (1920) Charles Ives (1874 - 1954)

The second movement of the Concord Sonata, a piece which was constantly being revised throughout the first half of the 20th century, is the most sprawling of the four movements. Stemming from the more fantastical side of Hawthorne’s writings, Ives takes what he has deemed the “Human Faith Melody” - an amalgamation of Beethoven and several hymns - and distorts it through the various detours of the piece. It is the most energetic of the movements, conceived by Ives as being played by a dozen pianos; It is also the most comedic, appearing to answer the serious “Emerson” of the 1st movement with a series of jokes.

The Concord Sonata was one of the first pieces I felt that I chose for myself; a piece that I have grown with, and marks the beginning of my journey as a professional musician. It is a piece that always feels like a work in progress, and it felt only fitting to place it as the closer to this program. Thank you for listening.

The piano for this performance has been provided courtesy of Steinway & Sons.