Thursday, March 9, 2017 • 8:00 P.M. ENSEMBLE 20+ Michael Lewanski, conductor Tim Munro, piccolo and coach DePaul Concert Hall 800 West Belden Avenue • Chicago Thursday, March 9, 2017 • 8:00 P.M. DePaul Concert Hall ENSEMBLE 20+ Michael Lewanski, conductor Tim Munro, piccolo and coach PROGRAM Kasia Szczech (b. 1995) Posłuchojcie (2017) (World Premiere) Ashley Fure (b. 1982) Soma (2012) Tim Munro, piccolo and coach Christopher Jones (b. 1969) Ten Thousand Not Straight Lines (2014; rev. 2017) (World Premiere) ENSEMBLE 20+ • MARCH 9, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES Kasia Szczech (b. 1995) Posłuchojcie (2017) Duration: 14 minutes Posłuchojcie, meaning “listen,” is made up of two sections woven together by a folk tune (“Posłuchojcie Kamaradzi”) from my homeland in Zakopane, Poland. The first section begins with diversity among the instruments of the ensemble, which soon enough come together to be one; this process mirrors the human process of growing up, compromising, becoming a globalized world. The second section is the introduction of technology, and the ways in which it affects the ensemble’s ability to keep its identity. This conflict is something our society faces today as we ask ourselves, “is technology good or bad?” - Kasia Szczech Ashley Fure (b. 1982) Soma (2012) Duration: 10 minutes Soma is the second in a series of works engaging a specific psychological referent: my grandmother, who has advanced Parkinson’s Disease. Instruments act out the disconnect her sickness causes between psychological intent and physical execution. Aberrations in placement, pressure, angle, force, and speed distort instrumental technique and interrupt the correlation between effort and audibility. With the syntax of movement scrambled, even the simplest of sounds turn fragile and chaotic. In Soma, instrumental bodies act as landscapes across which the limbs and fingers of performers must crawl. Soma was commissioned by the Alice and Harry Eiler Foundation on receipt of the Staubach Honorarium. It was premiered by Curious Chamber Players at the 2012 Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music, where it received a Stipendienpreis. - Ashley Fure ENSEMBLE 20+ • MARCH 9, 2017 PROGRAM NOTES Christopher Jones (b. 1969) Ten Thousand Not Straight Lines (2014; rev. 2017) Duration: 14 minutes Ten Thousand Not Straight Lines is inspired, in part, by the massive wall drawings of Sol LeWitt. I first encountered these drawings at a retrospective of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and was particularly struck by the way in which LeWitt used very simple materials and constraints to create complex, monumental works. The scale of many of the drawings I saw was massive, often covering much of a gallery wall, yet they were filled with incredibly fine detail. I was also fascinated by the fact that these works originated as a set of instructions to be carried out by a draftsman. These instructions for the drawings are quite specific, yet often have imprecise elements (e.g. ‘not straight line’) that necessitate interpretation by one who realizes the work. This relationship between artist and draftsman reminds me strongly of the relationship of composer and performer and the partnership they establish in realizing a score. Regardless of how prescribed the score may be, each individual performer imprints a unique set of skills and a personal sound on the realization of that score in performance. Ten Thousand Not Straight Lines is music made from simple ideas governed by an imprecise set of rules. Three ideas form the essential ingredients of the fabric of the music: staggered individual sounds that cascade through the ensemble; knotted polyphonic complexes of melodies; stark, slowly evolving sustained sonorities. During the first three sections of the piece, each idea is exposed individually, becoming progressively intertwined, during the final three sections. eventually culminating in a unified, monophonic melody. This work is dedicated, in friendship and gratitude, to Michael Lewanski and the musicians of Ensemble 20+. - Christopher Jones ENSEMBLE 20+ • MARCH 9, 2017 BIOGRAPHIES Conductor, educator, and writer Michael Lewanski is a champion of contemporary music and older repertoire alike. His work seeks to create deeper and more engaged connections between audiences, musicians, and the music that is part of their culture and history. He has been on the faculty of the DePaul University School of Music since 2007, where he conducts the Concert Orchestra, Ensemble 20+ (20th century and contemporary music), and works frequently with other ensembles. He is conductor of Ensemble Dal Niente, a Chicago-based new music group. Michael has guest-conducted Lyric Opera of Chicago, chamber ensembles from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Civic Youth Orchestra, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Chicago Chamber Musicians, the Fifth House Ensemble, and many others. He has led over 100 world premieres. He was the Conducting Assistant for the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2010 to 2014. At the 2012 Darmstadt Summer Courses, Ensemble Dal Niente won the prestigious Kranichstein Music Prize under his direction. Michael has an extensive discography as both a conductor and a producer. A native of Savannah, Georgia, he studied piano and violin; he made his conducting debut at age 13, leading his own composition. At 16, he was the youngest student ever accepted into the conducting class of the legendary Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Michael subsequently attended Yale University. His post-Yale education featured conducting study with Cliff Colnot and Lucas Vis. Michael’s schedule for the 2016-2017 concert season includes concerts with DePaul School of Music Ensembles, local and national concerts with Ensemble Dal Niente (the Ear Taxi Festival, a California tour, a return to June in Buffalo), guest conducting engagements throughout the US, recording projects, various festival appearances, and academic presentations and conferences. ENSEMBLE 20+ • MARCH 9, 2017 BIOGRAPHIES Kasia Szczech is a Chicago-based composer who writes combined acoustic and electronic music art pieces. She is currently finishing her bachelor’s degree in music composition at DePaul University, where she studies with Fredrick Gifford, Seung-Won Oh and Christopher Wendell Jones. Kasia’s works are a combination of folk tunes from her home land in Poland, game pieces, and acoustic/ electronic manipulations within the ensemble. Her primary focus is how our world interacts with technology, including social media; she summarizes this focus as “Humans vs. Technology.” Tim Munro is a Chicago-based, triple-Grammy-winning musician. His diverse work as a flutist, speaker, writer and teacher is united by a single goal: to draw audiences into an engrossing and whimsical musical world. Born in Brisbane, Australia, Tim was the flutist and co-artistic director of the chamber ensemble eighth blackbird from 2006 till 2015. As a member of eighth blackbird, he performed at major concert venues in 40 US states and abroad, worked as soloist with America’s finest orchestras, curated three music festivals, and premiered more than 100 new works. Tim won his third Grammy Award as a member of eighth blackbird in 2016, for the Cedille Records album “Filament”. Tim’s solo performances are “captivating”, “bravura”, “charismatic”, “brilliant” (The New York Times), “engrossing” (Chicago Tribune) and “brilliantly clear and beautifully balanced” (Sydney Morning Herald). He memorizes his solo repertoire, leaving him free to add a theatrical dimension to his shows. Tim made his New York solo debut in November 2016 at Miller Theater with “a display of instrumental dexterity that was staggering” (Seen and Heard International), and he is co-music director for Crowd Out Chicago, a major piece of Chicago’s Year of Public Art, involving more than 1000 performers. Christopher Jones is a composer of intricately designed music that explores issues of identity, memory and time in distinctive, unconventional ways. Jones has presented his music in performances and lectures nationally and internationally at venues including the XXVIII Festival de la Habana in Cuba, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in Germany, the Ictus International Composition Seminar in Brussels, Belgium, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, ENSEMBLE 20+ • MARCH 9, 2017 BIOGRAPHIES Merkin Hall in New York and the Milwaukee Art Museum. He has collaborated with a broad range of artists, such as the U. C. Berkeley Symphony, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Callithumpian Consort, Third Sound Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, sfSound, Earplay, the Fonema Consort, guitarist Magnus Andersson, violinists Janet Sung and Mark Menzies, pianist Ann Yi, flautist Lisa Cella, and poet Anna Maria Hong. Among his honors are commissions from the Koussevitzky Foundation and the American Composers Forum, and a Cohn Fellowship to attend the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, CA. Also an active pianist and conductor, Christopher has a strong affinity for experimental and avant-garde music. As a soloist and long-time member of the Bay Area ensemble, sfSound, he has given numerous premieres and worked with composers such as Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Julio Estrada, Helmut Lachenmann, and Stefano Scodanibbio. Currently residing in Chicago, Christopher joined the music faculty at DePaul University as Assistant Professor of Musicianship Studies and Composition in 2011. He previously