School of Music

DePauw Chamber Singers DePauw University Chorus DePauw University Orchestra

Gregory Ristow, director of choirs Orcenith Smith, director of orchestra

Pamela Coburn, soprano

129th Concert Season Sunday, May 4, 2014 - 3 p.m. Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts Kresge Auditorium PROGRAM

From Nocturnes Claude Debussy I. Nuages (1862–1918) II. Fêtes Orcenith Smith, conductor

Gloria for Soprano, Mixed Chorus Francis Poulenc and Orchestra (1899–1963) I. Gloria II. Laudamus te III. Domine Deus IV. Domine Fili unigenite V. Domini Deus, Agnus Dei VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris Pamela Coburn, soprano Gregory Ristow, conductor

Out of respect for the performers, audience and recording technician, all photography and audio/video recording are prohibited during the performance. Please disengage all electronic equipment before the beginning of the concert.

Thank you.

PROGRAM NOTES by Orcenith Smith and Gregory Ristow

French composer Claude Debussy developed his artistic content by gradually discovering how his musical voice could align with symbolist poets and impressionist painters. These ideas, when combined, were artistic reactions against realism and included small “brush stroke” depictions of objects in varying light and shadows. Additionally influenced by the unusual musical scales of a Javanese Gamelan Orchestra that played at the Paris Exhibition in 1889, Debussy’s music became a unique aesthetic, suggesting musical fragments that, when pieced together, created muted descriptions of shadowy visual locations or events. Inspired in 1899 by paintings entitled “Nocturnes” by the American-born James McNeill Whistler, Debussy chose to describe in his musical language the ever moving, ever-changing “Nuages” (Clouds). “Fêtes” (Festivals) describes a view of an iridescent atmosphere charged with rolling energies and flashes of light. That scene is interrupted by a temporary parade of unknown elements that illuminate another world before the original energies overtake and return the music to the opening elements and gradually disappear. The Gloria is Francis Poulenc’s most popular and frequently performed choral work. It was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1961. Written at the beginning of the Fifth Republic in France, at a time of relative international peace and prosperity, its extroverted ebullience captures the joyous optimism of the time: Nuclear power offered unlimited clean energy. Highways and skyscrapers rose throughout America and Europe. Intercontinental air travel became affordable thanks to the introduction of commercial jets. And the era of space exploration was just beginning.

The music alternates between playful quirkiness and profound solemnity, a juxtaposition of the cabaret and traditional Catholic church styles that so strongly influenced Poulenc. Unlike most of his Les Six colleagues (six post-impressionist composers working in Paris in the 1920s), Poulenc was not formally trained as a musician and had not attended the Paris Conservatory. Instead, he incorporated disparate elements from the music he loved to form his own unique sound: extended harmonies (seventh and ninth chords) from café music, perpetual motion figuration from the baroque era and Romantic chant harmonizations from French church organists.

He delighted in these odd marriages, saying, “From childhood onward I’ve associated café tunes with the Couperin suites in a common love, without distinguishing between them.” And, he bragged in interviews about his lack of a fixed compositional approach. He sometimes referred to himself as the “Poulenc-Janus,” and this two-sided personality comes through in his Gloria. But this should not be interpreted as flippancy on Poulenc’s part or any lack of seriousness in treatment of the Gloria text. Rather, this duality enhances the parallel themes of thanks and awe that we find in the prayer, as well as in the zeitgeist of the early 1960s.

Poulenc was pleased with his Gloria, one of the last major works he completed before his death in 1963. He wrote, “TheGloria is without doubt the best thing I have done. ... The ending, among other things, is astonishing.” Since its first performances, audiences around the world have agreed.

Pamela Coburn, lyric soprano, studied voice at DePauw University, the Eastman School of Music, and the American Opera Center of the Juilliard School, and studied German Lieder with . Her international career in opera, oratorio, and recital has taken her to the world’s most renowned opera houses and concert halls, and has led her back to her alma mater as the James B. Stewart Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music.

After her striking success as Rosalinde in Strauss’s at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich with conducting, Professor Coburn appeared at the , Carnegie Hall and in New York, in Munich, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Paris, Toulouse, London and Tokyo’s New National Theatre as well as the Salzburg and Richard-Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Among the most prominent conductors Ms. Coburn has worked with are: Carlos Kleiber, Sir Colin Davis, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel, Christoph von Eschenbach, Riccardo Muti, , Sir Georg Solti, Guiseppe Sinopoli, Helmuth Rilling, Erich Leinsdorf, James Conlon, Bernhard Haitink Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Ken Nagano and Isaac Karabichevsky.

Her exceptionally wide opera repertory ranges from the works of Monteverdi to Penderecki. Especially worth mentioning are the roles of the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in , Cleopatra in Händel’s Giulio Cesare and Nitocris in Belshazzar, Alice in Verdi’s Falstaff, the Countess in Strauss’ Capriccio and the Marschallin in , Arabella, Ellen Orford in Britten’s , Freia in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, as well as Queen Rosamunde in Penderecki’s Ubu Rex and the widow in the Merry Widow.

Her concert repertory includes nearly all the works of the respective musical literature starting from Bach (Passions, Cantatas) to Beethoven (e.g. Missa Solemnis, Ninth Symphony), Schumann (e.g. Paradise and Peri), Mahler Symphonies, Britten (War Requiem) to Szymanowski (Stabat Mater) and contemporary works (e.g., Udo Zimmermann). Coburn has made numerous recordings, among them Gounod’s Faust with Sir Colin Davis, Beethoven’s Fidelio with Bernard Haitink and Leonore with Marc Soustrot, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Bruckner’s Te Deum with Helmuth Rilling, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Lorin Maazel, Strauss’s Gypsy Baron with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lehar’s The Merry Widow with Helmuth Froschauer, Verdi’s Requiem with Enoch zu Guttenberg, and a DVD of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus on Deutsche Grammophone with the late Carlos Kleiber.

She has held a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at DePauw University since 2005.

TEXT AND TRANSLATION I. Gloria I. Gloria Glória in excélsis Deo Glory to God in the highest et in terra pax homínibus and on earth peace bonae voluntátis. to people of good will.

II. Laudamus te II. Laudamus te Laudámus te, We praise you, benedícimus te, we bless you, adorámus te, we adore you, glorificámus te, we glorify you, grátias ágimus tibi we give thanks to you propter magnam glóriam tuam. for your great glory.

III. Domine Deus III. Domine Deus Dómine Deus, Rex cæléstis, Lord God, heavely King, Deus Pater omnípotens. O God, almighty Father. IV. Domine Fili unigenite IV. Domine Fili unigenite Dómine Fili Unigénite, Jesu Christe, Lord, Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ Dómine Deus unigenite, Jesu Christe. Lord, Only Begotten God, Jesus Christ.

V. Dominus Deus, Agnus Dei V. Dominus Deus, Agnus Dei Dómine Deus, Agnus Dei, Lord God, Lamb of God, Fílius Patris, Son of the Father, qui tollis peccáta mundi, you take away the sins of the world, miserére nobis; have mercy on us; qui tollis peccáta mundi, you take away the sins of the world, súscipe deprecatiónem nostram. receive our prayer.

VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris VI. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris Qui sedes ad déxteram Patris, You sit at the right hand of the Father, miserére nobis. have mercy on us. Quóniam tu solus Sanctus, For you alone the Holy One, tu solus Dóminus, you alone are Lord, tu solus Altíssimus, you alone are the Most High, Jesu Christe, Jesus Christ, Cum Sancto Spíritu: With the holy spirit: in glória Dei Patris. Amen. in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

DePauw Chamber Singers Gregory Ristow, director Amanda Hopson, piano

SOPRANO ALTO Emily Barnash Brooke Addison Ann Chase Miriam Alter Annelise Delcambre Maureen Bailey Anna Gatdula Patrick Brems Julie Massicotte Elleka Okerstrom Julie Strauser Sarah Pistorius

TENOR BASS Dallas Gray Dakota Dalton Joseph Leppek Nick Hinz Lance Orta* Blake Lampton Alec Reznich Yazid Pierce-Gray Lucas Wassmer Taylor Truster * Tenor soloist for Gloria DePauw University Chorus Gregory Ristow, director Owen Hartnett, piano

SOPRANO ALTO Valeria Aguilar Rachel Amalfitano Christine Betterman Shannon Barry Isabella Capasso Sara Blanton Melanie Case Lauren Chen Sydney Cason Dana Hart Stephany Cook Crystal Lau Kristin Daines Rachel Lowery Kimberly DeBusschere Yihan Mei Hannah Gauthier Daniela Moeller Brittny Goon Laura Neel Zoe Grabow Emily Shy Katherine Lesswing Amanda Straw Jessica Pagan Therese Tazioli Madeline Piscetta Xinyi Wang Maggie Roth Laura Witte Stephanie Sharlow Han Zhang Emma Walker

TENOR BASS Blake Beckemeyer Drew Casey Benjamin Davis Eric Heaton Stephen Shannon Adam Luhman Derrick Truby Danny Marsh Dylan Prentice Shiyu Su DePauw University Orchestra Orcenith Smith, music director

VIOLIN BASS TRUMPET Rachel Clark *Connor Allen (P) Nick Atsalis Zoe Cunningham Jacob Peterman Brendan Donnelly Akil Davis Aaron Rabishaw Maggie Eppelheimer +Paige Drake (D) *Burke Stanton (D) *Allison Emata (D) TROMBONE *Valentina Guillen (P) FLUTE/PICCOLO Leif Anderson Kerri Hemmelgarn Nina Dugan Will Johnson Sarah Jylkka Josh Levine Michael Potter Jenny Miller Eleanor Price Christian Thomas +Susan Miller (P) Marie Schloneger OBOE/ TUBA Lindsey Sullivan ENGLISH HORN Will Nicholas Matt Acton VIOLA Tyler Benware TIMPANI/ Xeno Carpenter-New Kate King PERCUSSION Elizabeth Gering Ben Blackketter Kalen Granger CLARINET/ Andrew Bosomworth *Tyler Huff (P) BASS CLARINET Carly Tebelman Lisa Salazar Daniel Hickey Reisuke Takeo Marian Hillebrand HARP *Anna Urso (D) Sijia Luo Alex Miller Alicia Petrone VIOLONCELLO BASSOON Kazuki Hanado Gwen Eberts PIANO/KEYBOARD Max Jacobsen Andrew Wilkey Lizzie Wen *Samuel Kelly (P) Peter Kim HORN *Peter Lockman (D) David Acton (OC) STAGE MANAGER Heidi Meuth (ST) Maureen Bailey Samuel Kelly Federico Papi (OC) Drew Casey Catt Anderson-Quiñones Kristen Fairchild Graeme Richmond Mariah Hersom Robert Wieland Alison Sherrick

+Concertmaster * String Principal D = Debussy P = Poulenc

(OC) Off-campus second semester (ST) Student Teaching FIFTH HOUSE ENSEMBLE with Bobbie Lancaster, Tad Robinson, Many Other Community Artists & Musicians, The DePauw University Orchestra & Choirs

plant a seed, watch it grow . . .

“Harvest: A Celebration of the People, Places & Stories of Putnam County” @ MOTHER’S DAY — SUNDAY, MAY 11 3 PM

Green Center | Kresge Auditorium | 765-658-4827 General Admission $10–15 | Students, Seniors & Children Free www.depauw.edu/music/tickets