/996 084-01-2S_ kyv THE BROOKLYN PHILHARMONIC LUKAS FOSS, Music Director January-May 1986, 13th Season r/ MEET THE MODERNS: Program I: DISCOVERIES , Friday, January 24, 1986 at COOPER UNION, 8:00 pm Saturday, January 25, 1986 at BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC, 8:00 pm LUKAS FOSS, conductor Michael Barrett, piano David Jaffe, mandolin Benjamin Hudson, violin Rosalind Rees, soprano April Lindavald, alto Drew Martin, tenor Walter Richardson, bass The Long Island Symphonic Choral Association Gregg Smith , director DAVID FELDER Passageways II (N.Y. premiere) HSUEH-YUNG SHEN Humoresque for 15 Players (World premiere) Kenneth Bowen, harpsichord DANIEL ASIA Rivalries (World premiere) Conducted by the Composer DAVID A. JAFFE Would You Just as Soon Sing as Make That Noise? (N.Y. premiere) David A. Jaffe, mandolin Benjamin Hudson, violin Andrew Schloss, percussion intermission ROBERT BEASER Psalm 119 (World premiere) Rosalind Rees, soprano; April Lindavald, alto Drew Martin, tenor; Walter Richardson, bass The Long Island Symphonic Choral Association, Gregg Smith, director Gregg Smith, conductor STEVEN MERCURIO For my Friends (World premiere) Conducted by the Composer MARC BLITZSTEIN Piano Concerto (World orchestral premiere) Michael Barrett, piano; Lukas Foss, conductor The Baldwin is the official piano of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. New This concert is made possible in part with public funds from the City of New York Department of (Urinal Affair, the York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts and with special acknowledgement to the Office of the Borough President of Brooklyn, Howard Golden, President, and Meet The Composer. The Meet The Moderns programs are pre- sented in association with the Cooper Union, The Brooklyn Philharmonic "Meet The Moderns" IE4(ON Roberta M. Swann, Coordinator, The Great series is specially assisted by a grant from EXXON. Hall. ABOUT THE ARTISTS LUKAS FOSS (b. 1922)-Composer, conductor, pi- made some 50 recordings of works by twentieth centu- anist, teacher-has been a moving force in the world of ry American composers. In addition to conducting, music for over 30 years. At the age of 18, Foss was wide- Gregg Smith is active as a composer. His works include: ly known as a musical Wunderkind and was already a Festival ofCarols. Bible Songsfor Young Voices, Unicorn, graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he Beware the Soldier and little "operette" based on studied conducting with Fritz Reiner. Shortly there- Aesop's Fables. They may be heard on Vox Production after he was taken under the wing of Serge records. Koussevitsky, with whom he worked at the Berkshire THE Music Center at Tanglewood. Foss also studied at the LONG ISLAND SYMPHONIC CHORAL Yale School of Music under Paul Hindemith. ASSOCIATION (LISCA) was founded in 1968 by Gregg Smith. This In the area of composition there are some 85 works unique community chorus has gained a for in the Foss catalogue. His earliest compositions date reputation its wide-ranging repertoire, which includes the Monteverdi Vespers, Stravinsky's back to his 15th year. At 19 he composed an oratorio Les the Bach B Minor Mass, based on Carl Sandbag's The Prairie which brought Notes. The Prairie by Lukas him immediate recognition. "He cannot fail to Foss (one of LISCA's several recordings), and raise the jazz standard of music of his generation" wrote Virgil masses by Gregg Smith and the great Finnish com- poser Thomson in the Herald Tribune. At 23 he was the Heikki Sannanto. LISCA gave world premieres of the St. Peter's Church youngest composer ever to be awarded a Guggenheim two masses at at Citicorp and Fellowship. sang them again in Finland, during the 1978 Helsinki Festival. Stylistically Foss's earliest compositions are marked In addition to its Long Island concert series, LISCA regularly New by romantic lyricism, which moved towards a strong performs in York City and ap- peared in neo-classicism. This changed and evolved in turn to Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. the use of aleatoric techniques, described by The Satur- MICHAEL BARRETT is the conductor and music day Review as "Foss's 'neo-classicises' avant garde." His director of the Cathedral Symphony Orchestra at the experiments in ensemble improvisation were the first Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. of their kind. This year, Mr. Barrett has also led the American Sym- His compositions are among the most original and phony and St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie stimulating composed in America," wrote Aaron Cop- Hall. As a pianist, he has appeared as soloist and cham- land. In a recent article in the Village Voice, Tom John- ber musician throughout the U.S., the Pacific islands, son wrote, "Little by he is little knitting together a body and in Europe. Mr. Barrett's interest in the music of of work which may actually speak for contemporary Marc Blitzstein began with a production of "The Cradle culture as a whole more eloquently than any other." Will Rock" in San Francisco which was followed by a As a conductor Mr. Foss is currently Music Director successful New York-Ravinia-London production of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, a position he has held with John Houseman and The Acting Company. This since 1971. In 1982 he became Music Director of the production may be seen on PBS television on Jan. 26 at Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He was Music Advi- 3:00 p.m., and has recently been released on That's En- sor and Conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony in Isra- tertainment Records. The Piano Concerto came to Mr. el for four years and has guest conducted leading or- Barrett's attention while researching the Blitzstein Pa- chestras both here and abroad. As Music Director for pers in Madison, Wisconsin. Michael Barrett's teachers the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1963-1970, he made include Leonard Bernstein, for whom Mr. Barrett is the city a focus of national attention and a mecca for often engaged as conducting assistant. composers and performers. Lukas Foss began his public career as a concert pian- BENJAMIN HUDSON is the concertmaster of the ist and has appeared with the New York Philharmonic Brooklyn Philharmonic, as well as with Clarion Cham- and other leading orchestras as a soloist. He is best ber Orchestra and New York Pops. He has appeared as known for his performances and recordings of Bach soloist with 92nd St. Y Chamber Orchestra, the Finn- Concertos in D & F minor, Bernstein's The ish Radio Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic, the ety, and Hindemith's The Four Temperaments, which American Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Phil- he premiered. harmonic and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. A teacher as well as performer, Lukas Foss was pro- He has given recitals in England, Finland, Germany, It- fessor of composition at UCLA. succeeding Arnold aly, Portugal, Spain, and throughout the United Schoenberg, where he established a chamber ensemble States. to teach the art of improvisation. Mr. Hudson is widely recognized for his expertise in contemporary music. He is violinist with Speculum GREGG SMITH. Born in Chicago, composer- Musicae and the Group for Contemporary Music, and conductor Gregg Smith moved to Los Angeles at age was a prize-winner in the Kennedy-Rockefeller Ameri- fifteen. There he studied privately for five years under can Music Competition. He is also first violinist with Leonard Stein, a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg, and the Columbia Quartet and a member of the Bach was a doctoral candidate in composition at UCLA. In Chamber Soloists. 1955, while associated with the Los Angeles Japanese Most recently, he was a guest artist with Musica Methodist Church, he organized the renowned Gregg Antigua Cologne, Germany's leading original Baroque Smith Singers, which in 1957 premiered Schoenberg's instrument ensemble. He toured Germany and Hol- Choral Pieces and subsequently collaborated with Igor land with the group and made two recordings for Stravinsky in recording over a dozen of the latter's Deutsche Gramophon. He has also recorded for Co- works. Since then the Gregg Smith Singers have toured lumbia, Nonesuch, Musical Heritage, and CRI Re- and recorded extensively. As specialists in modern cords. Mr. Hudson is on the faculty of Columbia music, they have given over 200 world premieres and University. , PROGRAM NOTES DAVID FELDER studied composition with DAVID A. JAFFE (b. 1955) has written over fifty Donald Erb, Roger Reynolds, Joji Yuasa and David pieces, including orchestral, solo, chamber, vocal Cope, culminating in a Ph.D. from the University of and computer music. He began studying violin at an California at San Diego in 1983. He has received nu- early age and plays a variety of stringed instruments. merous awards, grants and commissions. An avid He received a BA from Bennington College and a collaborator, he has worked with choreographers DMA in music composition from Stanford Universi- Charlie Vernon, Mary Jane Eisenberg and Elizabeth ty. Recent works include Bristlecone Concerto II for Bergmann, and is currently artistic director of a mandolin, violin, chamber orchestra and computer- major collaborative work commissioned by the La generated tape, which premiered in London, and Tel- Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, with funding egram to the President for string quartet and from the NEA Inter-Arts Program. As a composer, computer-generated tape. Jaffe is currently a Re- Felder aims at the integration of virtuosic perform- search Associate at the Center for Computer Re- ance with technological extension and elaboration search in Music and Acoustics, Stanford. through live and/or pre-recorded electronics. Mr. Would you just as soon sing as make that noise?was Felder is a member of the composition faculty of the premiered by the Mostly Modern Chamber Orches- State University of New York at Buffalo.