PROGRAM NOTES MUSICNOW: MYRA MELFORD AND JOHN ZORN Marc Mellits OCTET (2010) Duration: 14 minutes Instrumentation: String Octet Commissioned by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra Premiered by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra String Quartet & the Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra String Quartet on March 14 2010 at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center in Syracuse, New York Copyright/Publisher: Dacia Music The composer writes: “I composed my Octet during the winter of 2009-10. The majority of the music was written at the Banff Music Center, where I was invited to be an artist-in-residence in January 2010. The incredibly beautiful mountainous surroundings of the Banff Centre had a profound impact on me. My composing studio overlooked the Canadian Rockies, pristine and covered with snow and ice. The weather was brutal, with a level of cold I had never felt. This, juxtaposed with the astounding frozen beauty all around me, provided the inspiration for the music. My studio had a glorious enormous picture window that overlooked the Rockies. The music came quick and it came easy; before I knew it I had material for all four movements. The outer movements are aggressive and have the biting cold I felt, while the second and third movements reflect more of the warmth I felt inside, sharing my thoughts with a wide range of artists who were also in residence.” About the composer: Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, enjoying hundreds of performances throughout the world every year, making him one of the most performed composers in the United States. From Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, to prestigious music festivals in Europe and the US, Mellits’ music is a constant mainstay on programs throughout the world. His unique musical style is an eclectic combination of driving rhythms, soaring lyricism, and colorful orchestrations that all combine to communicate directly with the listener. Mellits’ music is often described as being visceral, making a deep connection with the audience. He started composing very early, and was writing piano music long before he started formal piano lessons at age 6. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood. Mellits often is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections. His music is eclectic, all encompassing, colorful, and always has a sense of forward motion. Mellits’ music has been played by major ensembles across the globe and he has been commissioned by groups such as the Kronos Quartet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Duo Assad, Bang On A Can All-Stars, Eliot Fisk, Canadian Brass, Nexus Percussion, Debussy Quartet, Real Quiet, New Music Detroit, Four-In-Correspondence (National Symphony Orchestra), Musique En Roue Libre (France), Fiarì Ensemble (Italy), Percussions Claviers de Lyon (France), Third Coast Percussion, Talujon, the Society for New Music, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and the Albany Symphony's Dog’s Of Desire. Additionally, Mellits’ music has been performed, toured, and/or recorded by members of the Detroit Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Minneapolis Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, eighth blackbird, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New Millennium Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, and the American Modern Ensemble, among many others. On film, Mellits has composed numerous scores, including the PBS mini-series Beyond The Light Switch, which won a 2012 Dupont-Columbia award, the most prestigious award in documentaries. Mellits also directs and plays keyboards in his own unique ensemble, the Mellits Consort. He was awarded the prestigious 2004 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award. On CD, there are over 50 recorded works of Mellits’ music that can be found on Black Box, Endeavour Classics, Cantaloupe, CRI/Emergency Music, Santa Fe New Music, Innova, and Dacia Music. Marc Mellits is on the music faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he teaches Composition. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters, and spends significant time in Romania. Esa-Pekka Salonen DICHOTOMIE (2000) Duration: 10 minutes (Extract: Movement 1) Instrumentation: Solo Piano Premiered by Gloria Cheng on December 4 2000 as part of the Green Umbrella Series at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California Copyright/Publisher: Chester Music Ltd The composer writes: “Dichotomie was originally intended to become a short encore-type of piece. I wanted to write a surprise new work for Gloria Cheng for a concert dedicated to my music in Los Angeles in January 2000. I soon realized, that the material I had invented had a tendency to grow into two very different kinds of music. It became obvious that this was going to be a longer piece in two movements, as the material seemed to have that sort of genetic code. I missed my deadline for the January concert, and kept working during the early months of the year 2000. I put the piece aside for the summer, and finally completed it in October of the same year. The first movement, Mécanisme, is indeed like a machine, but not a perfect one: more like one of the Tinguely sculptures (or mobiles, they really defy all attempts to categorize them), which are very active, extroverted and expressive, but produce nothing concrete. I imagined a machine that could feel some sort of joie de vivre, and in that process, i.e. becoming human, would loose its cold precision. Organisme, the second movement, behaves very differently. Again, the music is busy on the surface, but breathes a lot slower and deeper. The music is completely continuous; all different sections grow into each other organically. A metaphor I had in mind was indeed a tree, not a huge one, more like a slender willow that moves gracefully in the wind but returns always to its original shape and position.” About the composer: A lauded composer and conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen has a restless innovation that marks him as one of the most important artists in classical music. Salonen is currently the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Conductor Laureate for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009. The 2014/15 season finds him as the first-ever Creative Chair at the Tonhalle Zurich Orchestra. Salonen opened the 2014/15 season with a performance of Berlioz’s Requiem with the Philharmonia Orchestra, tours extensively in Europe and Japan with the Philharmonia, and leads the City of Light: Paris 1900-1950 series as the thematic focus of the season. Throughout their relationship, Salonen and the Philharmonia have curated landmark multi-disciplinary projects, such as the award- winning RE- RITE and Universe of Sound installations, which allow members of the public to conduct, play, and step inside the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen through audio and video projections. Salonen also drove the development of a much-hailed app for iPad, The Orchestra, which allows the user unprecedented access to the internal workings of eight symphonic works. This season, Salonen will also make guest appearances with the Bavarian and Finnish radio symphony orchestras, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Salonen composes works that move freely between contemporary idioms, combining intricacy and technical virtuosity with playful rhythmic and melodic innovations. Salonen has written several pieces for symphony orchestra, including Foreign Bodies (2001), Insomnia (2002), Wing on Wing (2004), and Nyx (2011), as well as two concertos: the first in 2007 for pianist Yefim Bronfman and the second in 2009 for violinist Leila Josefowicz. The latter was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and was featured in a 2014 international Apple ad campaign for iPad. In September 2014, the Tonhalle Zurich Orchestra premiered Karawane, Salonen's large-scale work for orchestra and chorus, to great acclaim. Esa-Pekka Salonen's extensive recording career includes a disc of his orchestral works performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which he also conducted, as well as one of his Piano Concerto and his works Helix and Dichotomie. An album of Henri Dutilleux’s Correspondances, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in the presence of the composer, was released in 2013 on Deutsche Grammophon on the composer’s 97th birthday. In 2012 Salonen recorded Saariaho’s Passion De Simone with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Dawn Upshaw. That year also saw the release of the first-ever recording of Shostakovich's previously undiscovered opera prologue, Orango, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the release of Out of Nowhere, featuring Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra performing Salonen's Violin Concerto and Nyx. He recently completed a 30-year project with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to record all four symphonies of his friend and mentor, Witold Lutosławski. John Zorn GOETIA (2002) Duration: 9 minutes (Extract: Movements 1, 3, 4, 5, 8) Instrumentation: Solo Violin Premiered by Jennifer Choi on March 2 2003 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, New York Copyright/Publisher: John Zorn/Musical Optics The composer writes: “From Paganini thru Stravinsky and beyond composers and audiences alike have felt a mysterious alliance between the violin and the devil. This unholy alliance is explored and expounded upon in this set of eight incantations/variations for solo violin. Goetia is a tradition of black magic that incorporates spells, incantations and ceremonies for the calling forth, conjuration and summoning of demonic spirits to visible appearance with the intent of compelling them to perform acts under the magician’s will. Highly ceremonial in nature, Goetic magick demands the strictest observance of a multitude of details, outlined in a series of mediaeval grimoires such as the Lemegeton of Solomon the King or the Steganographia of Trithemius.