THE WITHKNIGHTS WU MAN Pipa The Knights Chamber Orchestra FEBRUARY 12, 2013 LOEB PLAYHOUSE 7:30 PM LEAD SUPPORT FROM: IN PARTNERSHIP FRIENDS WITH: SUPPORT FROM: NANSHAN AMERICA ADVANCED ALUMINUM TECHNOLOGIES, LLC. PROGRAM Concerto in E-flat (Dumbarton Oaks) Igor Stravinsky Tempo Giusto (1882 - 1971) Allegretto Con moto Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra Lou Harrison Allegro (1917 - 2003) Bits and Pieces: Troika Bits and Pieces: Three Sharing Bits and PIeces: Wind and Plum Bits and Pieces: Neopolitan Threnody for Richard Locke Estampie Intermission Prelude a l’après-midi d’un faune Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) “Vocalise,” Op. 34, No. 14* Arr. Atkinson Le boeuf sur le toit, Op. 58 Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) Arr. The Knights Blue and Green Wu Man (arranged for Pipa and Orchestra) (b. 1963) With respect to the musicians and your fellow patrons, we request your participation in the tradition of withholding applause between movements of a selection. www.theknightsnyc.com Exclusive Management: OPUS 3 ARTISTS 470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North New York, NY 10016 www.opus3artists.com THE KNIGHTS Eric Jacobsen and Colin Jacobsen, Co-Artistic Directors Eric Jacobsen, Conductor VIOLIN Colin Jacobsen, Concertmaster Tomoko Katsura Ariana Kim Yon Joo Lee Yaira Matyakubova Guillaume Pirard VIOLA Christina Courtin Margaret Dyer Miranda Sielaff CELLO Alex Greenbaum Eric Jacobsen Julia MacLaine DOUBLE BASS Zach Cohen FLUTE Alex Sopp OBOE Adam Hollander PROGRAM NOTES By James Roe “Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound” –Emily Dickinson Two themes unite tonight’s Knights program, the incredible creative energy that arises from cross-cultural musical exploration and the subtle notion of musical color. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) Concerto in E-flat “Dumbarton Oaks” (1937-1938) Igor Stravinsky’s irresistible Concerto in E-flat “Dumbarton Oaks” decidedly straddles the old and new worlds. Commissioned in America, it was the composer’s last work entirely written in Europe. In 1937, Mildred Barnes Bliss, a leading figure in American arts and culture, approached Stravinsky about writing a work modeled on Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The premiere would celebrate her thirtieth wedding anniversary and take place at “Dumbarton Oaks,” the magnificent Federal-style estate just outside Washington, DC that she and her husband, Robert Woods Bliss, owned. In response, Stravinsky immersed himself in Bach’s music, regularly playing it on the piano. “Whether or not the first theme of my first movement is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Brandenburg set, I do not know,” he recalled. “What I can say is that Bach would most certainly have been delighted to loan it to me; to borrow in this way was exactly the sort of thing he liked to do.” Lou Harrison (1917-2003) Concerto for Pipa and Strings (1997) The pipa is a Chinese lute with a rich, 2000-year history. Its onomatopoetic name describes the instrument’s characteristic sounds. American composer Lou Harrison was introduced to the indigenous musical instruments of Asia while a student at San Francisco State University in the 1930s. Enthralled, he spent the rest of his career integrating Asian musical colors into the European tradition. His Concerto for Pipa and Strings from 1997 is a mature masterpiece, remarkable for the naturalness and joy with which the instruments sing together in a new musical language. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Prélude à l’áprès-midi d’un faune (1891-1894) Arrangement by Michael P. Atkinson Languid, sensual, and seemingly improvisatory, Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune reveals a new world of musical color. The piece opens with an unaccompanied flute melody. The first note is a sustained c-sharp, which is produced with all the flautist’s fingers raised, no keys depressed. Debussy exploits this note’s characteristic gauzy diffuseness to blend the beginning of the piece with the preceding silence. He described the work as “a very free rendering of Stéphane Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. It is a succession of scenes in which the desires and dreams of the faune pass through in the heat of the afternoon.” Music’s invisible colors would never be seen the same way again. Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) Le boeuf sur le toit, op. 58 (1919) Unfit for military service in World War I, Darius Milhaud accepted a post as propaganda attaché in Rio de Janeiro in 1916. The music he heard there became a lifelong inspiration for the young French composer. Upon returning to Paris in 1919, Milhaud wrote Le boeuf sur le toit, which showcased the tangos, maxixes, sambas, and Portuguese fado he learned in Brazil. Intended to accompany a Charlie Chaplin film, the piece quickly captured the imagination of the Parisian avant garde. Jean Cocteau created a pantomime-ballet for the music that premiered in February 1920. In December 1921, an iconic Paris cabaret reopened under the name, Le boeuf sur le toit. Its habitués included Cocteau, Milhaud, Pablo Picasso, Sergei Diaghilev, Maurice Chevalier and the young Igor Stravinsky. Milhaud’s score perfectly embodies the effervescent Bohemian milieu that thrived in Paris between the wars. Wu Man (b. 1963) Blue and Green for Pipa and Orchestra Wu Man chose her two favorite colors as the inspiration for this work. “Blue” represents the peaceful and meditative mind, which Wu Man represents with a traditional Chinese folk tune beautifully sung by pipa and strings. “Green” is based on a melody her son sang as a child. “When I first heard him sing it, he was four years old,” she explained, “I asked him where he heard the tune.” “I don’t know, Mommy,” he answered, “I make it up ... really.” The pipa sets up perpetual motion figurations while the orchestra imitates the vigorous sounds of Chinese wind instruments. Musical colors join hands across cultures. ABOUT THE KNIGHTS Praised for their “polished The Knights 2012-2013 season performances and imaginative began with a return to the Ravinia programming” (New York Times) Festival, where the orchestra was The Knights are a “supremely joined by three classical music talented” (Gramophone) orchestra superstars–cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist of friends from a broad spectrum Itzhak Perlman and soprano Dawn of the New York music world Upshaw–in three concerts that who cultivate collaborative music concluded the prestigious festival. making and creatively engage Other season highlights for The audiences in the shared joy of Knights include the release of an all- musical performance. Led by an Beethoven disc for Sony Classical, open-minded spirit of camaraderie their third project with the label and exploration, they expand the and a U.S. tour with pipa virtuoso orchestral concert experience with Wu Man in February, making stops programs that encompass their in Madison, Austin, Houston, and roots in the Classical tradition and Southern California. In May, The their passion for musical discovery. Knights travel to Berlin to team up For their inspired programming, again with American composer Lisa innovative formats and “crusading Bielawa for “Tempelhof Broadcast,” musical mission,” The Knights have leading hundreds of musicians in been hailed as “the future of classical a large-scale spatial/acoustic work music in America” (Los Angeles to be performed on the tarmac of Times). the former Tempelhof Airport (now Tempelhofer Park), site of the Berlin The Knights perform in a wide Airlift in 1948. range of concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, 92nd Last season’s highlights included Street Y, Baryshnikov Arts Center, high-profile appearances at Ravinia, Brooklyn Lyceum, Central Park, Le Central Park and the 92nd Street Y, Poisson Rouge, The Stone, Tonic, the a tour of Germany in March, and Whitney Museum and Mass MoCA. their first U.S. tour in April 2012. Also in demand on the international Additionally, The Knights launched stage, they have appeared at the the Ensemble-in-Residence program Dresden Musikfestspiele, Cologne at New York Public Radio’s WQXR, Philharmonie, Dusseldorf Tonhalle, giving two concerts at New York’s and the National Gallery in Dublin, Greene Space and producing the and have toured Germany with “Found Sound Project,” inviting cellist Jan Vogler. Their expanding listeners across the country to submit presence on the music festival scene original audio samples for use in has included performances at the their performance of John Adams’s Ravinia Festival, the Stillwater Christian Zeal and Activity. We Are Music Festival in Minnesota, and The Knights, a documentary film Caramoor’s Fall Festival. produced by WNET/Thirteen, made its broadcast debut in September Dawn Upshaw, violinists Itzhak 2011 and was rebroadcast nationwide Perlman and Gil Shaham, flutist throughout the year. In April 2012, Paula Robison, singer-songwriter the ensemble released A Second in (and Knights violinist) Christina Silence on Ancalagon, a “smartly Courtin, Iranian ney (Persian programmed” (NPR) album that bamboo flute) virtuoso Siamak joins music by Philip Glass, Erik Satie Jahangiri, pianist Steven Beck, and Morton Feldman with Schubert’s fiddler Mark O’Connor, and Syrian “Unfinished” Symphony. clarinetist/composer Kinan Azmeh. Previous Sony Classical albums Dedicated to the music of our time, include a live recording from New The Knights have served as the York’s cutting edge concert venue resident orchestra of the MATA Le Poisson Rouge, which showcases Festival for young composers, cellist Jan Vogler in the Shostakovich premiering new works by Cello Concerto No. 1 alongside Christopher Tignor and Prix-de- arrangements of Shostakovich Rome winner Yotam Haber. The waltzes and Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine ensemble has worked closely Gun;” and New Worlds, featuring with composer Osvaldo Golijov, works by Copland, Dvorak, Ives, performing his Passion According Gabriela Lena Frank, and Osvaldo to St. Mark in the Canary Islands in Golijov. In 2010, Orange Mountain May 2009 and several of his works Music released Lisa Bielawa’s Chance with soprano Dawn Upshaw.