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559663 bk Wolosoff US 17/8/10 10:35 Page 4 premières and first Mid-West performances of works by Osvaldo Golijov, Gunther Schuller, Danny Elfman, Bruce Wolosoff, and Korine Fujiwara, among others. Carpe Diem’s latest CD was selected for the 2009 Grammy Awards AMERICAN CLASSICS Entry List in no fewer than four categories: Best Classical Album, Best Chamber Music Performance, Best New Artist, and Best Engineered Album-Classical. Bruce Charles Wetherbee Charles Wetherbee, concertmaster of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music WOLOSOFF with Aaron Rosand. He has performed throughout the world as a soloist and chamber musician, including appearances in Japan, China, Taiwan, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. A founding member of Carpe Diem String Quartet, he has also performed at the Aspen Music Festival, the Evian Music Festival (France), the Olympic Music Festival, and the AIMS festival (Graz, Austria.) In 1990 he traveled to the Middle East to perform Songs without Words for the men and women of the Armed Services. John Ewing Carpe Diem String Quartet Violinist John Ewing is a graduate of the Indiana University School of Music where he studied with Ruggiero Ricci and James Oliver Buswell IV. He also attended the Meadowmount School of Music, studying with Sally Thomas, Paul Mackanowitzky, and Ivan Galamian. He was associate concertmaster of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and has participated in the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and Spoleto, Italy, and the Snake River Chamber Festival in Keystone, CO. He currently holds the position of principal second violinist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Korine Fujiwara Korine Fujiwara holds degrees from the Juilliard School and Northwestern University, where she studied with Joseph Fuchs and Myron Kartman. She is Instructor of Violin and Viola at Ohio Wesleyan University and a founding member of the Carpe Diem String Quartet. She is also a talented composer and arranger. She has been invited to numerous music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Focus! Festival, the Olympic Music Festival, the Snake River Chamber Players, the Summergarden Festival, and the Victoria International Festival. She currently serves as acting assistant principal second violin with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Diego Fainguersch Cellist Diego Fainguersch has appeared at some of the world’s top music festivals, including the Curitiba Music Academy (Brazil), Roman sur Isère (France) and Music Theater and Opera Festival of Lucca (Italy). He has studied at Carnegie Mellon University, the Lyon Conservatoire in France, the National Conservatory of Buenos Aires in Argentina, and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. 8.559663 4 559663 bk Wolosoff US 17/8/10 10:35 Page 2 Bruce Wolosoff (b. 1955) Bruce Wolosoff Songs without Words Bruce Wolosoff began his musical studies on piano at a young age, playing in When violinist Charles Wetherbee first approached me lines, revising and refining until eventually, after hours rock, jazz, and fusion bands throughout his teen years while simultaneously with this project I was a bit hesitant. I’d written for Chas of tweaking, it sounded right. Only after the music was pursuing his “serious” studies as a classical pianist. He studied classical piano for several times before, as soloist, chamber artist, and fully “composed” did I begin the process of notating it. sixteen years with German Diez and later worked with pianist Richard Goode. He concertmaster of the Columbus Symphony, and know This is a very different approach from what I’ve done in also studied jazz piano with Charlie Banacos and composition with Lawrence that he is a fantastic musician who can play just about the past, working on paper virtually from the beginning Widdoes. A turning point in his creative life was his apprenticeship with anything ever written for the violin. This time, he of the process. composer-pianist Jaki Byard. At the age of thirty he stopped performing in public wanted me to write rock and jazz based music for the Several of the songs are inspired by blues form: The in order to devote his energies to his work as a composer. He has received five newly formed Carpe Diem String Quartet, but still in my River is a gentle meditation on the blues, Blues for commissions to create new works for the Smithsonian, and has also written for the own voice as a composer. I couldn’t quite get my head Stravinsky a modal jazz composition in which Columbus Symphony, the Minnesota Ballet, Charles Wetherbee, Rudy Vrbsky, around what that meant. successive choruses overlap by four bars, Dancing on Michala Petri, and the Lark Quartet, among others. Wolosoff’s chamber opera I’d played in rock bands as a kid while pursuing my my Grave a rowdy Texas blues, for string quartet! Madimi was performed by the Center for Contemporary Opera at Symphony Space studies in classical piano. Back then, we kept it all Most of the other songs follow a verse and chorus in NYC. He is starting work on a new opera based on the children’s book, The separate. Gradually, over the past decade or so, the format. A personal favorite is After Hours, a jazz ballad Great Good Thing, by Roderick Townley. In addition to his work as a composer, music which I loved so much when I was younger began played so beautifully on this recording by violist Korine Bruce Wolosoff is an innovative music teacher who spends three weeks each year creeping ever more steadily into my compositions. What Fujiwara. in residence at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, where he runs a Creative started out as tinges of jazz and blues in essentially A couple odd ones: Reverence, which reminds me of Orchestra of young students who compose, conduct, and perform their own music. modern classical pieces was beginning to dominate the late Beethoven, grew out of my jam session on Wolosoff’s Songs without Words are now being choreographed by Ann Reinking. work. In pieces like the ballet The Passions or the trio Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen (the title refers to Blues for the New Millennium, entire sections were movements of bowing and respect sometimes done at the based on blues and boogie-woogie. In these cases end of dance class). Creepalicious, which began as an Carpe Diem String Quartet though, the music would morph back and forth between experiment with a nine-note tone row, is my contribution modern classical and other styles, or attempt to walk the to the distinguished canon of Hallowe’en music. From left to right: Charles Wetherbee, John Ewing, Korine Fujiwara, Diego Fainguersch In residence at Ohio Wesleyan University, the line at the place where they meet. All titles were added after the music was completely Carpe Diem String Quartet has captured the But what Chas was asking for this time was written. The quartet preferred titles to Italianate tempo imagination of audiences and the respect of different: he actually wanted rock pieces, jazz pieces, terms like Allegro and Andante because they thought an critics, earning critical acclaim with innovative etc., but “in my own musical language”. My instincts audience might find them helpful as another way into programs, electrifying performances, and a told me that I would need to work differently on this the music. passion for audience engagement. The group project than on anything I’d written before, which As Carpe Diem started playing these pieces, I was performs the classical string quartet repertoire, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I asked the quartet for a surprised by the degree of enthusiasm people were but their musical passion has also led them down list of songs they loved. There were some I’d never displaying. This music is so much lighter and happier the paths of gypsy, tango, folk, pop, rock and heard before (Rock Lobster by the B52s!) I listened to than my previous work. Did that imply that it’s not as jazz inspired music. Using innovative thirty seconds of each song on iTunes, cranked up my serious? I worried what my composer colleagues would programming, thematic concerts, and popular synthesizer, and started jamming along with them. The think. I wondered: is music with a happy aesthetic any music for younger generations, cameras, and computer recorded my synth improvisations, but not the less valid than dark, depressing, gnarly, and complicated video to assist in the visual presentation, as well original songs, my improvisations’ points of departure. “serious” music? Imagine my new-found joy at the as speaking from the stage better to engage the Some mornings I’d wake up, jam out some rock idea, possibility of writing music that my friends might want audience, Carpe Diem is bringing new audiences and sometimes get a rough draft of a piece in one to listen to for pleasure. into the concert hall and revitalizing the chamber session. This was the fun part! Then the laborious part, music recital. Their inventive school and outreach programs even make use of video game songs and TV and movie editing the music in my computer, adding sections and Bruce Wolosoff theme music, such as The Simpsons. Carpe Diem champions the music of living composers, and has given 8.559663 23 8.559663 559663 bk Wolosoff US 17/8/10 10:35 Page 2 Bruce Wolosoff (b. 1955) Bruce Wolosoff Songs without Words Bruce Wolosoff began his musical studies on piano at a young age, playing in When violinist Charles Wetherbee first approached me lines, revising and refining until eventually, after hours rock, jazz, and fusion bands throughout his teen years while simultaneously with this project I was a bit hesitant. I’d written for Chas of tweaking, it sounded right.