CAL performAnCes presents

Saturday, February 22, 2014, 8pm Hertz Hall

eco ensemble David milnes, conductor

PROGRAM

Franck Bedrossi an (b. 1971) IT (2004; rev. 2007) flute, piccolo, alto flute Stacey Pelinka bass clarinet Bill Kalinkos alto saxophone David Wegehaupt violin Hrabba Atladottir cello Leighton Fong piano Ann Yi

Pierre Jodlowsk i (b. 1971) Limite Circulaire (2008) flute, alto flute, bass flute Tod Brody electronics Greg T. Kuhn and Jeff Lubow

INTERMISSION

PLAYBILL proGrAm

György Liget i (1923–2006) Chamber Concerto (1969–1970) Corrente Calmo, sostenuto Movimento preciso e meccanico Presto

flute, piccolo Stacey Pelinka oboe, oboe d’amore, cor anglais Kyle Bruckmann clarinet K Peter Josheff bass clarinet, clarinet L Bill Kalinkos horn Alicia Telford tenor trombone Brendan Lai-Tong harpsichord, Hammond organ Ann Yi piano, celesta Karen Rosenak violin K Jennifer Curtis violin L Dan Flanagan viola Ellen Ruth Rose cello Leighton Fong double bass Richard Worn

eCo ensemBLe

Executive Director Richard Andrews Scheduling and Production Coordinator Robert Yamasato Program Development Coordinators Matthew Schumaker and Sivan Eldar

Artistic Advisory Committee Edmund Campion David Milnes Matías Tarnopolsky Cindy Cox Franck Bedrossian

Cal Performances’ #!"$–#!"% season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

CAL PERFORMANCES proGrAm notes franck Bedrossian (b. ,31,) Pierre Jodlowski (b. ,31,) IT (-++/; rev. -++1) Limite Circulaire (-++2)

Throughout his career, Franck Bedrossian has Pierre Jodlowski centers his work as a com - embraced a sonic phenomenon categorized by poser, performer, and media artist at the cross - saturation, or an excess accumulation of mat - roads of multiple contemporary artistic fields: ter, energy, movement, and timbre. His com - dance, dramaturgy, visual arts, film, and elec - positional training at the Paris Conservatoire tronic music. He has written music for films, with Gérard Grisey and Marco Stroppa—and created installations, composed operas, and ra - later with Philippe Leroux, Brian Ferneyhough, diophonic pieces, and has enjoyed perform - Tristan Murail, and Philippe Manoury at ances and commissions from many prominent IRCAM—have helped him explore potential contemporary music ensembles in France and uses of electronics toward the creation of satu - abroad. Jodlowski’s works have a strong pres - rated sounds and to transition between them. ence in the contemporary sound-art scene and Bedrossian’s works have been performed in have been the recipient of such awards as the Europe and more recently in the United States Prix Claude Arrieu (2002) and the Prix Hervé by a number of prestigious new music ensem - Dugardin (2012) from SACEM. Jodlowski bles, including Ensemble l’It inéraire, Ensemble currently co-directs the electronic-music stu - 2e2m , Ictus, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, dio éOle in Blangnac, a suburb of Toulouse, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and the San France. He has held this position since 1998 . Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Many Limite Circulaire explores an imaginative prominent festivals have seen performances of array of sonic possibilities from a concert flute his works, and he has been the recipient of nu - and its bass and alto siblings. As part of a col - merous awards, such as the Hervé-Dugardin laboration with the flutist Cedric Jullion, prize at SACEM and the Prix Pierre Cardin from Limite Circularie began as a studio research the Institut de France. Bedrossian was a Rome project which produc ed 1,050 so unds from Prize Fellow at the Villa Medicis from 2006 to the three instruments in question. This data - 2008. In September 2008, he joined the music base was culled from a variety of extended department at UC Berkeley, where he has since techniques (e.g., key-slapping and multi - served as Assistant Professor of Composition. phonics) and a wide range of pitches and tim - Bedrossian’s IT forcefully engages audiences bres. These sound objects become the into a spectacular array of orchestral colors building blocks of Limite Circulaire and are formed from imaginative extended techniques piled up through a clear process of accumula - and virtuosic gestures. Certain recurring fig - tion. The electronics work only to mediate ures—frenetic saxophone and clarinet runs, repetition, Limite Circulaire ’s insistent mode dense syncopated piano chords, and cello of forward motion, blurring the perceptual solos—carry free-jazz associations, as their limits between detail and larger structure. combinations and mutations erupt with cine - Jodlowski’s piece takes its title and inspira - matic effect. IT ’s form is derived from tensions tion from M. C. Escher’s woodcuts Circle Limit between these elements and the ways in which (II, III, and IV, most notably) that use the geo - they are accumulated. In an interview at the metric features of the hyperbolic plane to sug - Music Biennale in Venice (also featuring com - gest a spherical infinity within the confines of poser Raphaël Cendo), Bedrossian expressed a two-dimensional circle. In the composer’s his interest in the dramatic potential of the ten - own words: “The music I have composed does sion between precision in a musical score and not try to strictly reproduce the principle of the uncertainty of sonic material itself. This Escher’s paintings, but it shares the same type dramatic tension is exuberantly portrayed of perception, here transposed from the spa - throughout this piece, as its riotous orchestral tial domain to a temporal one. Pileups bring colors burst into frenetic motion. IT was writ - us to perceive the relation to time in a non- ten for the musicians of the Ensemble 2e2m , to linear way because, in each section, some ele - which it is dedicated. ments are repeated over and over; it is by their

PLAYBILL proGrAm notes stubborn presence that others [elements] are The Chamber Concerto’s first movement perceived.” begins with a dazzling example of microp - olyphony, as simple motives move forward in György Lige ti (,3-.–-++0) close canonic proximity. While themselves Chamber Concerto (,303–,31+) full of movement, these motives working to - gether suggest stasis, as if one were running György Sándor Ligeti was one of the most in - in place. This texture is interrupted by a tutti fluential compositional forces in the second arrival on one sustained pitch in octaves, half of the 20th century. Born in Transylvania, opening up the movement to explore a broad he first studied composition at the chromatic line. In the second movement, mi - Klausenburg conservatory with Ferenc Farkas cropolyphony still pervades, but this time before continuing his studies at the Franz Liszt more slowly, allowing chromic lines, in the Academy in Budapest. In 1956, p olitical and oboe d’amore, for example, to emerge as artistic motivations brought him to Western melody. Movement three explores Ligeti’s fas - Europe, with a unique style centered on the idea cination with mechanical objects—clocks, in of gradually mutating textures formed through particular—with gestures that are as playful as tightly composed polyphonic figurations. His they are mathematical. As each member of the time at West German Radio’s electronic-music ensemble plays repetitive figures at different studio in Cologne established him as a fellow speeds, a sensation of multiple simultaneous pioneer of New Music with such composers as tempi comes to the fore. The resulting sonic Stockhausen, Kagel, and Boulez. clockwork recalls his Poème Symphonique Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto came at a pivotal (1962), scored for 100 metron omes. In the moment in his compositional career. On the final movement, Ligeti explores the concerto one hand, this piece can be thought of as a cul - aspects of this piece, as it prominently features mination of Ligeti’s work on “micropolyphony,” dialogue between soloists, instrument groups, a texture-based compositional process he once and the ensemble as a whole. Microtonal pas - described as “a tissue so dense, that the indi - sages are passed between the various timbres vidual parts become inaudible and only the re - of the ensemble as melodic fragments, notably sulting intermingling harmonies are effective in the horn and violin, that serve as harbin - as form.” Certain elements of the Chamber gers of Ligeti’s compositional future. With Concerto, namely melodic prominence at key characteristic wit, the Chamber Concerto moments, points to a lyrical-minded process ends not with a declamation, but rather with that the composer would fully embrace smirk, or perhaps a question mark. throughout the 1970s . On this change in com - positional attitude, Ligeti said: “I no longer lis - ten to rules on what is to be regarded as Notes by Alexander Stalarow, graduate modern and what as old fashioned.” student in musicology, UC Davis

CAL PERFORMANCES ABoUt the ArtIsts

he eCo ensemBLe is a group of experi - Werner Mueller, Herbert Blomstedt, Erich Tenced, highly skilled Bay Area musicians Leinsdorf, and Leonard Bernstein, he won the dedicated to performing new music from es - prestigious Exxon Assistant Conductor posi - tablished and emerging composers. Its mission tion with the San Francisco Symphony, where is to enrich and serve the Bay Area’s cultural he also served as Music Director of the highly life through the creation, performance, and acclaimed San Francisco Symphony Youth dissemination of new music by composers Orchestra, which he led on its first European from Berkeley and around the world. tour in 1986. What does “eco” stand for? Like other art Mr. Milnes has condu cted frequently in forms, new music doesn’t exist in a vacuum— Russia and the Baltics, serving as Music it is part of the fabric that makes up our cul - Director of the Riga Independent Opera tural landscape. The San Francisco Bay Area Company and as a principal guest conductor of generally (and Berkeley in particular) plays an the Latvian National Symphony. Recent en - essential role in the eco ensemble’s formation: gagements have included appearances at the our musicians, composers, media, and audi - MANCA Festival in Nice, France, with the ence are all part of the region’s vibrant cultural Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice; in Mexico, at scene. We are both influenced by—and exert the Festival Internacional El Callejón del Ruido influence on—the artistic ecology within with the Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra; and which we exist. The name “eco” acknowledges in Russia, with the Novosibirsk Symphony this ecology and locates our work as part of Orchestra. He has collaborated in perform - the Bay Area’s abundant cultural community. ances with Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Bill T. Jones, Paul Hillier, James Newton, David David milnes serves as conductor of the eco Starobin, and Chanticleer, and has appeared ensemble, Berkeley’s professional new music at the Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Aspen, and ensemble in residence, as well as Music Monadnock music festivals. A dedicated pro - Director of the UC Berkeley University ponent of new music, from 2002 to 2009 Symphony Orchestra since 1996. In his early Mr. Milnes was Music Director of the San years, he studied piano, organ, clarinet, cello, Francisco Contemporary Music Players, with and voice, and briefly entertained a career as a whom he commissioned and premièred many jazz pianist, appearing with Chuck Mangione, new works from around the world. He has Gene Krupa, Billy Taylor, and John Pizzarelli. made recordings of music by John Anthony After receiving advanced degrees in conduct - Lennon, James Newton, Edmund Campion, ing from SUNY Stony Brook and the Yale Jorge Liderman and Pablo Ortiz. School of Music, and studying with Otto-

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