Thursday Evening, April 18, 2019, at 7:30

The presents AXIOM Jeffrey Milarsky, Conductor

IANNIS XENAKIS (1922–2001) Okho (1989) BENJAMIN CORNAVACA, LEO SIMON, JOSEPH BRICKER, Djembe

CAROLINE SHAW (b. 1982) Entr’acte AMELIA DIETRICH, EMMA FRUCHT, EMILY LIU, CLARE BRADFORD,

Intermission

STEVE REICH (b. 1936) Tehillim (1981) MELLISSA HUGHES, Lyric Soprano NINA FAIA MUTLU, Lyric Soprano KIRSTEN SOLLEK, Alto ELIZABETH BATES, High Soprano

Performance time: Approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes, including an intermission

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium.

Information regarding gifts to the school may be obtained from the Juilliard School Development Office, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, ext. 278 (juilliard.edu/giving).

Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. Percussion music held an important posi- Notes on the Program tion in Xenakis’ oeuvre, possibly because, by Matthew Mendez as Steven Schick suggests, the same tension between the “logical and myth- Okho ological, mechanical and intuitive” that IANNIS XENAKIS drove his style has long been inherent to Born May 29, 1922, in Bra˘ ila, Romania the percussion medium, and to compos- Died February 4, 2001, in Paris, France ers’ attempts to come to grips with it. Written in 1989 near the end of Xenakis’ One of the few genuinely sui generis fig- career, Okho typifies these dynamics writ small. Its basic conceit emerged during a ures in the pantheon of 20th-century com- visit to the studio of the commissioning position, Iannis Xenakis always took a path ensemble, Trio Le Cercle, where Xenakis apart in music—inescapably so, perhaps, was attracted by a djembe, a distinctive given the fateful events that marked his goblet-shaped hand drum of West Afri- early life. Just a teenager when Mussolini’s can extraction; he was so inspired by it troops invaded Greece, where he had spent that he decided to fashion the piece as much of his life, Xenakis quickly joined the a study of the instrument’s unique capa- anti-fascist resistance, with wide-ranging bilities. Each of Okho’s three percussion- personal consequences: not only was he ists would therefore perform on his own nearly killed in guerilla combat, but follow- djembe, with the sonority thus produced ing the end of hostilities, in 1947, he found merging at times into a kind of composite, himself a wanted man by the nation’s new “hyper”-djembe. Though the score, as was long Xenakis’ wont, was constructed right-wing authorities, who had marked using a number of mathematical organiza- him for death for his wartime involvement tional schemes, these are but the arma- with the Communist-led partisan struggle. tures atop which he distributes the full Forced into exile, he fled to France, where panoply of sounds the instrument can he would spend the rest of his life. With all make, including novel effects like knuckle the intensity and commitment of one who rolls. The one non-djembe sound, pro- has looked death straight in the eye, he duced by a grosse peau profonde (“a large, now devoted himself to an extraordinary, deep drumhead”), makes its initial appear- double professional trajectory: Trained in ance around the piece’s halfway point—like engineering, and deeply conversant with a voice of fate irrevocably conjured up by higher mathematics, Xenakis established the thrum of Okho’s djembes. an active career as an architect, which in turn influenced his composing. Indeed, Entr’acte with its characteristic swarming instru- CAROLINE SHAW mental “masses,” Xenakis’ brutally stark, Born in 1982 in Greenville, North Carolina almost monolithic musical idiom has often been portrayed as a kind of translation into The surprise recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer sound of some of the volumetric, sculp- Prize, awarded while she was still enrolled tural principles that animated his architec- as a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, tural practice. At the same time, a visceral, Juilliard Creative Associate Caroline Shaw almost “plastic” rhythmic sensibility very has become one of the most sought-after often manifested itself in Xenakis’ music, composers of her young generation, in de- and it has been taken as a nod to the ritual mand by venturesome orchestras and the character of the ancient Greek dramatic rapper-producer Kanye West alike, the latter art he so cherished. of whom has been a regular collaborator in recent years. Maintaining an active parallel slide would come to accrue connotations career as a singer and violinist, Shaw has of inwardness and intimacy of expression, never been shy about the impact of those and of idyllic “otherness.” Hence Shaw’s activities on her composing, and it is her description of what she finds so poignant history with the string repertoire she grew in the Op. 77, No. 2 trio—the way it “sud- up deeply immersed in—favorite works by denly takes you to the other side of Alice’s the likes of Mozart and Brahms—that has looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, so often been, as it were, the “subject” of technicolor transition.” her own music. She characterizes it as a kind of The title works as a play on words: “Entr’acte” is a near-homophone of “in- classical music fan fiction, revisiting this teract,” and in this sense, it can be under- older music that a lot of us really love, I stood as nodding at the values of collective think, very sincerely. It’s not in a kitschy interaction so often associated with string or ironic way, like “I’m going to decon- quartet playing, and which have made this a struct this little thing, because isn’t that source of attraction for performers and au- silly and old so let’s undermine these diences alike ever since Haydn. Yet Shaw’s systems … ” These are things that I piece clearly invokes the familiar meaning grew up with and really love. of the word “entr’acte,” as well—as a mu- sical parenthesis between the acts of a dra- Shaw’s metaphor, fan fiction (original narra- matic or balletic presentation. As such, the tives written by enthusiasts of fantasy and title seems also to draw the listener’s atten- science fiction franchises, produced in the tion to that which is not intended to be the spirit of vicarious further engagement with main attraction, but which ends up as the their characters), is entirely representative: principal object of focus, anyway: the “trio” It has the same balance of whimsy and se- nominally offered to cast the “minuet” in riousness of purpose that is also her mu- relief. Hence Entr’acte is structured as a sic’s distinctive trademark. series of episodic flights of fancy—from coy, plucked choreographies to games of In her student days, Shaw was an avid imitative hopscotching—sandwiched player of string quartets, and the medium between a poignant theme constructed us- is often her compositional vehicle. Her ing quasi-classical syntax. Yet on its return, second essay for the line-up, Entr’acte, is that poignant “minuet” theme (which had quintessential Shaw in its impetus, taking audibly “dissolved,” as if scrubbed away, a very precise detail in a familiar piece—or during its first appearance) proves unable more exactly, her own personalized expe- to keep the quizzical sounds from the other rience with that detail—as the occasion to side of the looking glass contained: After weave an unexpected web of resonances the violins fade away, the cellist is left and charged cross-references. In this case, alone to offer a questioning, non sequitur the inspiration was the minuet—in par- pizzicato coda, as if, remarks Shaw, “recall- ticular, its contrasting trio—from Joseph ing fragments of an old tune or story.” Haydn’s last completed string quartet, his Op. 77, No. 2 in F major. The trio takes place Shaw’s knack for imbuing familiar sounds in the distant key of the flat submediant, with all the freshness of a new encounter a maneuver more commonly associated was recently recognized by the producers with Haydn’s successors, Beethoven and of the television program Mozart in the Schubert: In their hands, this particular tonal Jungle, when Entr’acte—along with Shaw herself, in a cameo role—was featured on- that my own extremely ancient tradition was screen in a 2018 episode. one that I had lost touch with.” Determined to rectify this, Reich took a course in biblical Tehillim Hebrew, which quickly led him to the study of cantillation—the codified procedures used Born October 3, 1936, in to chant scripture during the Hebrew liturgy. Soon enough, subtle traces of the construc- “How small a thought it takes to fill a whole tive thinking characteristic of cantillation were life!” It would be hard to sum up the career finding their way into Reich’s music, while a of American master composer Steve Reich more overt marker of his rapprochement (’61, composition) more succinctly than with his Jewish roots would come in 1981’s with these words, taken from an apho- Tehillim (Hebrew for “,” or literally, rism by his favorite philosopher, Ludwig “praises”), which proved a turning point in Wittgenstein, and set to music by him, in a his career. mood of autobiographical self-reflection, in his 1995 piece . After all, for more Though Reich actually abandoned his en- than half a century, Reich has been pursu- gagement with the structural principles of ing the ramifications of just such “small cantillation in it, Tehillim was a watershed thoughts”—for example, with his early for a variety of reasons: For one, it was discovery of desynchronized tape loops, his first text setting since his apprentice- which led to his technique of instrumen- ship years; likewise, it contained the first tal “phasing” and, eventually, a wholly true slow movement he had written since personalized yet flexible application of that time; and perhaps most crucially of all, familiar canonic procedures. In all this he it introduced an approach to rhythm that was motivated by a desire “to reconnect was the antithesis of the principles that with the musical basics—tonal center and had undergirded all of his previous work. rhythmic pulse,” and it was for this reason Having begun what would become Tehillim that he immersed himself, notably, in the with the express intention of setting study of traditional Ghanaian Hebrew, Reich decided to work with ex- and Balinese gamelan during the 1960s tracts from the psalms, since unlike other and early 1970s. Yet no matter how much key books of Judaic scripture, almost all of Reich went on to deepen and enrich his the cantillation traditions pertaining to them idiom in the decades that followed, he has do not survive. (This meant he would be free consistently remained true to that original to compose unhampered by the weight of vision, of the mind that it is not always nec- tradition—which was precisely the same essary to travel far to uncover new terrain. concern he had had during the early stages of his engagement with the musical practic- In the mid-1970s it started to dawn on Reich, es of Ghana and Bali.) Yet during the course who had grown up a largely nonobservant of composing, Reich experienced some- Jew, that one of the things that had appealed thing unexpected: He found himself parsing to him in Ghanaian and Balinese repertoires his texts’ syllables in constantly alternating was their character as living, oral repositories groupings of twos and threes. These were for the shared musical habits of the mem- then strung together into longer, asymmet- bers of those cultures. In a sense, as he rical lines, cued, in one-to-one fashion, to later recalled, they had even begun to com- the spoken intonations implied naturally by pensate for the musical traditions associated the words. That he immediately gravitated with his ethnic background, with which he towards these kinds of “additive” rhythms had no connection: “I began to miss the fact was, Reich suggests, an echo of his deep love for the music of Stravinsky and Bartók, “commonly used throughout the Middle who used similar constructive principles (in East in the biblical period.” However, these their case, they were of Eastern European observations are best taken with a grain folkloric derivation). “The result,” as Reich of salt, for Tehillim is not at all an archae- would put it, was thus “a piece based on ological dig, but rather a work of joyous melody in the basic sense of that word”—a imaginative synthesis—a real “symphony true breakthrough both in comparison to of psalms” in the Stravinsky vein, and yet Reich’s previous work, and indeed, many one that could only have been written in of the broader compositional trends of the late 20th century, by a composer at- the time. tentive to musical vernaculars from across the globe. Offering an optimistic vision Not that Tehillim abandoned the first prin- much-needed after the political and spiritual ciples of iterative rhythmic propulsion that disenchantments of the 1970s, Tehillim have always been at the heart of Reich’s proves that what was once unfairly dispar idiom. In each of the score’s four move- aged as Reich’s “minimalism” is much ments (only the second and third of which more productively framed, as the con- are separated by a pause), a constant ductor Michael Tilson Thomas recently pulse “grid”—sometimes implied, but just indicated, in terms of Rabbi Nachman as frequently heard in explicit fashion— of Breslov’s affecting saying: “So all things drives the music inexorably, and often turn over and revolve and are changed … irresistibly, forward. This grid, which is and in the transformation and return of keyed directly to the rhythms of the vocal things redemption is enclosed.” melodies, is variously articulated using tuned jingle-less , handclaps, Matthew Mendez is a New Haven–based maracas, mallet percussion, and in the critic and musicologist with a focus on finale’s exultant coda, crotales (small tuned 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. He is cymbals). Some of these instruments, or a graduate of Harvard University and is a ones like them (the crotales and tambourines), Ph.D. student at Yale. He was the recipi- are referenced in the famous , ent of a 2016 ASCAP Foundation Deems which is set in the fourth movement; likewise, Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for outstand- Reich notes, rattles and handclaps were ing music journalism. Texts and Translations

Tehillim Psalms 19:2-5 Ha-sha-my-im meh-sa-peh-rím ka-vóhd Káil, The heavens declare the glory of G-d, U-mah-ah-sáy ya-díve mah-gíd ha-ra-kí-ah. the sky tells of His handiwork. Yóm-le-yóm ya-bée-ah óh-mer, Day to day pours forth speech, Va-ly-la le-ly-la ya-chah-véy dá-aht. night to night reveals knowledge. Ain-óh-mer va-áin deh-va-rím, Without speech and without words, Beh-lí nish-máh ko-láhm. Nevertheless their voice is heard. Beh-kawl-ha-áh-retz ya-tzáh ka-váhm, Their sound goes out through all the earth, U-vik-tzáy tay-váil me-lay-hém. and their words to the ends of the world.

34:13-15 Mi-ha-ísh hey-chah-fáytz chah-yím, Who is the man that desires life, Oh-háyv yah-mím li-róte tov? and loves days to see good? Neh-tzór le-shon-cháh may-ráh, Guard your tongue from evil, Uus-fah-táy-chah mi-dah-báyr mir-máh. and your lips from speaking deceit. Súr may-ráh va-ah-say-tóv, Turn from evil, and do good, Ba-káysh sha-lóm va-rad-fáy-hu. Seek peace and pursue it.

18:26-27 lm-chah-síd, tit-chah-sáhd, With the merciful You are merciful, lm-ga-vár ta-mím, ti-ta-máhm. with the upright You are upright. lm-na-vár, tit-bah-rár, With the pure You are pure, Va-im-ee-káysh, tit-pah-tál. and with the perverse You are subtle.

150:4-6 Hal-le-lú-hu ba-tóf u-ma-chól, Praise Him with drum and dance, Hal-le-lú-hu ba-mi-ním va-u-gáv. praise Him with strings and winds. Hal-le-lú-hu ba-tzil-tz-láy sha-máh, Praise Him with sounding cymbals, Hal-le-lú-hu ba-tzil-tz-láy ta-ru-áh. praise Him with clanging cymbals. Kol han-sha-má ta-ha-láil Yah, Let all that breathes praise the Eternal Ha-le-yu-yáh. Hallelujah. PETER KONERKO Meet theArtists to the performance of American music. A to theperformance ofAmericanmusic.A Conductor’s Award forhiscommitment posers. In2013hewasawarded theDitson generation ofyounganddeveloping com- Subotnick, CharlesWuorinen,and anentire Rouse, , Morton Christopher Gordon, DavidLang,Steven Mackey, Davidovsky, JacobDruckman,Michael John Corigliano, George Crumb, Mario Babbitt,John Cage,ElliottCarter,Milton career has collaboratedwith John Adams, American composersandthroughouthis of premiering,recording,andperforming among others.Milarskyhasalonghistory ton’s SymphonyHall, andatIRCAMinParis, Tully Hall,Walt DisneyConcertHall,Bos- Zankel Hall,DaviesSymphonyAlice contemporary composersinCarnegieHall, corded worksbymanygroundbreaking U.S. andabroadhehaspremieredre- and Tanglewood FestivalOrchestra.Inthe of LincolnCenter, NewWorld Symphony, gen Philharmonic,ChamberMusicSociety Orchestra, METChamberEnsemble,Ber waukee Symphony, AmericanComposers Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mil- the , San Francisco sons hasworkedwithensemblesincluding and achievementinthearts.Inrecentsea- Mennin Prizeforoutstandingleadership Juilliard wherehewasawardedthePeter bachelor and master of music degrees from bia UniversityOrchestra.Hereceivedhis music directorandconductoroftheColum- music atColumbiaUniversitywhereheis sic director of AXIOMandseniorlecturer in American conductor Jeffrey Milarskyis mu- Jeffrey Milarsky -

and themusicof KaijaSaariaho. birthday, SteveReichonhis80thbirthday, grams honoredJohnAdams on his70th complete of LucianoBerio,andHansAbrahamsen’s faculty memberJacobDruckman, the works the musicofcomposerandformer Juilliard 18 seasoncomprisedprogramsfeaturing production ofhisopera on theoccasionofMetropolitanOpera’s Corigliano’s 80th birthday and Nico Muhly by aperformancecelebratingbothJohn festival, Andriessen followed of Art The as part ofYorkNew the Philharmonic’s current seasonopenedwithaconcert Mälkki, and David Robertson. AXIOM’s AXIOM haveincludedAlanGilbert,Susanna other composers. Guest conductors of andArnoldSchoenberg, among Lindberg, John Adams, HarrisonBirtwistle,Magnus have theopportunitytoperformworksby any four-year period,AXIOMmemberswill for performingintheensemble,andduring Students receiveacreditinchambermusic and isgroundedinJuilliard’s curriculum. is led by music director Jeffrey Milarsky Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. AXIOM ’s MillerTheatreandLe ter, inadditiontofrequentappearancesat with performancesthroughoutLincolnCen- New York City’s contemporary musicscene established itselfasaleadingensemblein toire. Sinceitsdebutin2006,thegrouphas terworks ofthe20th-and21st-centuryreper AXIOM isdedicatedtoperformingthemas- AXIOM Koch, andLondonrecords. Telarc, NewWorld, CRI,MusicMasters,EMI, corded extensivelyforAngel,Bridge,Teldec, chestra, andPittsburghSymphony. Hehasre- the NewYork Philharmonic,PhiladelphiaOr dition hehasperformedandrecordedwith for theSantaFeOperasince2005.Inad- ist, Milarskyhasbeentheprincipaltimpanist much-in-demand timpanistandpercussion- Schnee. In2016–17AXIOMpro - Marnie. The2017– - -

AXIOM

Jeffrey Milarsky, Music Director and Conductor Tim Mauthe, Manager

REICH Tehillim MELLISSA HUGHES, Lyric Soprano NINA FAIA MUTLU, Lyric Soprano KIRSTEN SOLLEK, Alto ELIZABETH BATES, High Soprano

Piccolo Bassoon Percussion 6 Viola Mei Stone Steven Palacio Jacob Borden Joseph Peterson Jay Laureta Percussion 1 Electric Organ 1 Rae Gallimore Giorgio Consolati Omar El-Abidin Derek Wang Cello Percussion 2 Electric Organ 2 Jessica Hong Pablo O’Connell Mizuki Morimoto Ilia Laskin Drake Driscoll Osheen Manukyan English Horn Percussion 3 Violin 1 Alexandra von der Tyler Cunningham Katherine Lim Embse Agnes Tse Janice Gho Percussion 4 Ariel Lee 1 Stella Perlic Keeheon Nam Violin 2 Percussion 5 Isabella Geis Clarinet 2 Simon Herron Angela Kim Sunho Song Grace Rosier

ORCHESTRA ADMINISTRATION Adam Meyer, Director, Music Division, and Deputy Dean of the College Joe Soucy, Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies

Joanna K. Trebelhorn, Director Lisa Dempsey Kane, Principal Adarsh Kumar, Orchestra of Orchestral and Ensemble Orchestra Librarian Personnel Manager Operations Michael McCoy, Orchestra Geoffrey Devereux, Orchestra Matthew Wolford, Operations Librarian Management Apprentice Manager Daniel Pate, Percussion Coordinator