Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble ROGER MASTROIANNI Saturday, November 5, 2016 Welcome to the Cleveland Performing Arts Museum of Art cma.org/performingarts The Cleveland Museum of Art’s performing arts series #CMAperformingarts brings together thoughtful, fascinating, and beautiful experiences, comprising a concert calendar notable for CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Emmanuel Arakélian its boundless multiplicity. This year we look forward to Wednesday, October 5, 6:00 Sunday, February 19, 2:00 visits from old friends and new, bringing us music from Fretwork Oberlin Contemporary Music around the globe and spanning many centuries. Here Wednesday, October 12, 7:30 Ensemble Sunday, February 26, 2:00 is the place where performance is intended to explore Vijay Iyer with International connections of cultures, the heart, the human spirit. Contemporary Ensemble CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Wednesday, October 19, 7:30 Wednesday, March 1, 6:00 In the Galleries CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program CIM Organ Studio Elegance and Intrigue: Wednesday, November 2, 6:00 Sunday, March 12, 2:00 French Society in 18th-Century Prints and Drawings Oberlin Contemporary Music Quince Through November 6, 2016 Ensemble Wednesday, March 22, 7:30 Saturday, November 5, 2:00 Frode Haltli & Emilia Amper Dan Graham/Rocks Jean-Baptiste Monnot Wednesday, March 29, 7:30 (at Transformer Station, W. 29th St.) Sunday, November 13, 2:00 Through December 4, 2016 CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Oberlin Contemporary Music Wednesday, April 5, 6:00 The Ecstasy of St. Kara: Kara Walker, New Work Ensemble Sunday, December 4, 2:00 Oberlin Contemporary Music Through December 31, 2016 Ensemble CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Sunday, April 9, 2:00 Cheating Death: Portrait Photography’s First Half Century Wednesday, December 7, 6:00 Through February 5, 2017 Zakir Hussain & Rahul Sharma Francesco D’Orazio Wednesday, April 12, 7:30 Myth and Mystique: Cleveland’s Gothic Table Fountain Friday, December 9, 7:30 Jeffrey Zeigler Through February 26, 2017 CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Wednesday, April 26, 7:30 Wednesday, January 4, 6:00 Albert Oehlen: Woods near Oehle CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program December 4–March 12, 2017 The Crossing: Wednesday, May 3, 6:00 David Lang’s Lifespan Opulent Fashion in the Church Friday–Sunday, January 6–8 Brandee Younger & Courtney Bryan Wednesday, May 10, 7:30 Through September 24, 2017 The “Qatsi” Trilogy Friday–Sunday, January 27–29 CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Please turn off all electronic devices before entering Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 the performance hall. Photography and audio/video recording in the performance hall are prohibited. Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble Saturday, November 5, 2016, 2:00 p.m. Gartner Auditorium, the Cleveland Museum of Art PROGRAM Lightenings (2016) Elizabeth Ogonek (b. 1989) Silvio Guitian, clarinet • John Kirchenbauer, violin Natasha Gwirceman, piano • Justin Gunter, percussion — Pause — Willow Run (2016/World Premiere) Stephen Hartke (b. 1952) Noah Getz, alto/baritone saxophone Tanavi Prabhu, English horn • Silvio Guitian, clarinet Wyeth Aleksei, flugelhorn • Ina McCormack, harp Stephen Feld, Robert Earle, bass Justin Gunter, Kelsey Bannon, Carson Fratus, percussion — Pause — …as others see us… (1990) James MacMillan (b. 1959) 1. Henry VIII (1491–1547) Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1536–37) 2. John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) Unknown artist (c. 1665–70) 3. John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bt (1706) 4. George Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824) and William Wordsworth (1770–1850) Thomas Phillips (c. 1835); Benjamin Robert Haydon (1842) 5. T S Eliot (1888–1965) Patrick Heron (1949) 6. Dorothy Hodgkin (1910–1994) Maggi Hambling (1985) Amanda Dame, flute/piccolo • Silvio Guitian, clarinet/bass clarinet Shelly Li, bassoon/contrabassoon • Wyeth Aleksei, trumpet Justin Gunter, percussion • John Kirchenbauer, violin Corey Worley, viola • Jeremy Kreutz, cello Robert Earle, bass Fabian Fuertes, personnel & operations manager Elaine Li, librarian 4 PROGRAM NOTES Lightenings (2016) by Elizabeth Ogonek (b. Anoka, MN, 1989) Lightenings was initially inspired by Seamus Heaney’s set of twelve poems of the same name. Part of a larger collection entitled “Squarings,” the poems that make up “Lightenings” are meditations on the relationship between ordinary, everyday life and transcendence. In 2003, a limited edition of “Squarings” was published alongside 48 six-inch, square, line drawings by American artist Sol LeWitt. Heaney described these drawings as having “confident pounce and delicate shimmer.” The formal simplicity but visual complexity of these images beautifully illuminates an understanding of each poem individually as well as its relationship to the set as a whole. Just as LeWitt commented upon Heaney’s poetry through his drawings, this piece is a musical response to both bodies of work. A set of nine variations, Lightenings is based on the ancient Christian hymn Phos Hilaron, which gives thanks for light and is meant to accompany the illumination of lamps at sundown. As Heaney says in the twelfth poem: “And lightening? One meaning of that Beyond the usual sense of alleviation, Illumination, and so on, is this: A phenomenal instant when the spirit flares With pure exhilaration before death - The good thief in us harking to the promise! … Thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” 5 Lightenings was commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and was premiered on July 28, 2016 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. —Elizabeth Ogonek Willow Run (2016) by Stephen Hartke (b. Orange, NJ, 1952) Willow Run is the name of both a small stream near Detroit, Michigan, and the site of a World War II bomber factory designed by the great industrial architect, Albert Kahn. On the eve of its demolition in late 2013, his granddaughter, the photographer Ernestine Ruben, visited the building not only to document it in hundreds of pictures, but also to take the raw material of these images and transform them into a narrative of birth, death, and rebirth. With the help of saxophonist Noah Getz, she then sought me out to compose a large chamber ensemble piece that would reflect in its own way on this sequence of images, both realistic and recomposed through layering. Ultimately this score will serve as the musical accompaniment to a film to be realized by both Ernestine and videographer Seth Bernstein. My piece seeks at its outset to evoke the vastness of the structure itself, which, in its time was the largest single space enclosed under a single roof. Then there are more topical references—the Morse Code rhythm for the words “Willow Run” appear, as well as Ernestine’s name and mine. In a later section, three arrays of unpitched percussion suggest the echoes of the factory’s assembly line as the saxophone progresses through the musical landscape. The ending evokes the resonances of this enormous space with bright flourishes from the winds and a pair of vibraphones over slowly oscillating mechanical figures in the basses. —Stephen Hartke 6 ...as others see us... (1990) by James MacMillan (b. Kilwinning, Scotland, 1959) ...as others see us..., by the pre-eminent Scottish composer James MacMillan, was first performed at London’s National Portrait Gallery on May 4, 1990. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra was conducted by the composer, who offered the following comments on his work: Robert Burns craved the gift “to see ourselves as others see us” and it can indeed be an illuminating, if even devastating experience to see or hear how one is perceived by others. This must especially be the case when one’s characteristics are captured on canvas, in print, or in music. In composing these ‘sound paintings’ of prominent figures whose portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery I was attempting an objective character analysis of each one, from my own particular perspective. In order to maintain this distance throughout, I use an old Scottish dance tune which is transformed from one piece to the next to capture the character and the historical context of each portrait. 1. Henry VIII (1491–1547) Over a driving riff the Scottish tune is blared out in parallel harmonic layering in a raw parody of a Tudor dance. The music is butch, macho, and has an almost bullying manner. Gradually other elements intrude to convey the brutality and egotistical madness of this misogynistic tyrant. For example, Henry’s famous composition Greensleeves which, over the next few centuries, was performed at public executions in England and in Europe—an apt use of a tune whose composer callously sent wives, friends, and countless subjects to their deaths. 7 2. John Wilmot (1647–1680) In this portrait the outrageous court poet bestows his laurels on a monkey who is busily destroying the poet’s verses. The opening slow, sustained, dignified string music represents ‘The Muse’; the darting, scurrying material on wind and percussion represents the cheek of the monkey. Gradually the two musics influence each other, and after passing through the rhythms of the French overture (popular in the court at this time), the Poet becomes Monkey and Monkey becomes Poet. 3. John Churchill (1650–1722) The central figure here is the conquering martial hero whose physical strength and power are conveyed on trumpet and percussion. Subservient to him is Hercules portrayed by clarinet and bassoon. Swirling floating figures above are represented by big repetitive material on flute, violin, and viola, and the disheveled figure of Discord being trampled into the ground is given appropriate music on cello and double bass. 4. George Byron (1788–1824) and William Wordsworth (1770–1850) The dashing, romantic figure of Byron (an Anglophile Scot) is represented by energetic material which at time gives some inkling of 19th-century romantic musical heroes—Wagner’s Lohengrin and Strauss’s Don Juan. Wordsworth is more brooding and reflective in character and if there is any allusion to 19th-century music then it is to the poignant slow movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.