Please turn off all electronic Photography and audio/video recording devices before entering the in the performance hall are prohibited. performance hall. Henry Threadgill JOHN ROGERS/PULITZER DEPARTMENT OF These performances are made possible in part by: PERFORMING ARTS, MUSIC, The P. J. McMyler Musical Endowment Fund AND FILM The Ernest L. and Louise M. Gartner Fund The Cleveland Museum of Art The Anton and Rose Zverina Music Fund 11150 East Boulevard The Frank and Margaret Hyncik Memorial Fund Cleveland, Ohio 44106–1797 The Adolph Benedict and Ila Roberts Schneider Fund The Arthur, Asenath, and Walter H. Blodgett Memorial Fund [email protected] The Dorothy Humel Hovorka Endowment Fund cma.org/performingarts The Albertha T. Jennings Musical Arts Fund #CMAperformingarts Programs are subject to change. Series sponsors: Friday, January 11, 2019 TICKETS 1–888–CMA–0033 cma.org/performingarts Welcome to the PerformingHenry Threadgill Arts 2018–19 Cleveland Museum of Art cma.org/performingartsZooid and Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble In the season ahead, the museum’s performing arts series #CMAperformingarts continues its exciting schedule with a range of artists from Timothy Weiss, conductor traditions far and wide, old and new. This year, a major Chamber Music in the Galleries Henry Threadgill Wednesday, October 3, 6:00 Friday, January 11, 7:30 commissioning program brings six internationally respected composers to Cleveland from around the globe to create VoxFriday, Luminis January 11, 2019, 7:30 p.m. Chamber Music in the Galleries new works inspired by the museum’s collection. Co- Wednesday,Gartner Auditorium, October 24, 7:30 the Cleveland MuseumWednesday, of FebruaryArt 6, 6:00 sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion Chamber Music in the Galleries CIM Organ Studio program, the series of world premieres extends into 2020. Wednesday, November 7, 6:00 Sunday, March 3, 2:00 Oberlin Contemporary Chamber Music in the Galleries In the Galleries Music Ensemble Wednesday, March 6, 6:00 Sunday, November 11, 2:00 William Morris: Designing an Earthly Paradise PROGRAM Aya Nishina Chamber Music in the Galleries Friday, March 8, 7:30 Through January 13 Wednesday, December 5, 6:00 Pathways (2018) World Premiere Carolin HenryWidmann Luther Threadgill In Her Image: Photographs by Rania Matar Paul Goussot Friday, March 29, 7:30 (b. 1944) Through January 13 at Transformer Station Sunday, December 9, 2:00 Emmanuel Culcasi Clarence H. White and His World: Sunday, March 31, 2:00 The Art and Craft of Photography, 1895–1925 Chamber Music in the Galleries Wednesday, April 3, 6:00 Through January 21 Zooid Renaissance Splendor: Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone/flute/bassAvi Avital flute with Omer Avital Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries Elliot Humberto Kavee, drums Through January 21 Chamber Music in the Galleries Liberty Ellman, guitar Wednesday, May 1, 6:00 Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern Christopher Hoffman, cello Cenk Ergün Through March 3 Jose Davila, trombone/tuba Wednesday, May 8, 7:00 Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print Through March 24 Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble Charles Burchfield: The Ohio Landscapes, 1915–1920 Timothy Weiss, director and conductor Through May 5 Remy Libbrecht, English horn Lauren Anker, horn Please turn off all electronic devices before entering Camille Vogley-Howes, violin the performance hall. Devin Cowan, viola Matthew Frerck, double bass Photography and audio/video recording in the Tyler Smith, percussion performance hall are prohibited. DIRECTOR’S NOTE that many of the major artists who define the field like Eighth Blackbird, Claire Chase, International Happy New Year! Our performing arts series reaches Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Du Yun and others all another milestone tonight with the world premiere came through Oberlin. It would be difficult to imagine of “Pathways” by composer Henry Threadgill. The a work like this emerging from anywhere else. In the Cleveland Museum of Art is home to the longest running words of another great composer, Duke Ellington, the curated concert series among any major museum in result is a music that is “beyond category.” the US, dating back to 1917. And while the museum has presented countless major composers in its hundred- Special thanks to the Cleveland Foundation, who, for year history—Béla Bartók, John Cage, Amy Beach, John the first time, have turned the focus of the Creative Adams, Maurice Ravel, Olivier Messiaen, to name just Fusion grant to a cohort of composers. Six composers a few, have all graced this stage—this year for the first from around the world will develop new works under time the Cleveland Museum of Art commissions new the auspices of the museum, building on a unique music from artists of international renown. legacy unlike that of any other museum in the US. This would not have been possible without the Cleveland Tonight’s concert is the first of a series of works that Foundation’s visionary leadership. will be premiered over the coming seasons, and it started with a simple question: What is possible Thank you for coming. when composers are invited into the museum to find Thomas M. Welsh inspiration here? Whether from a particular object in Director of Performing Arts, Music and Film the collection, or an installation, or the architecture, the people, the city—with this series of commissions the museum leads the way towards new approaches into the life of a museum and its place in the community. Written for eleven musicians, “Pathways” joins Mr. Threadgill’s remarkable improvising group Zooid with chamber musicians of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble making a truly unique and flexible small orchestra. While discussing ideas for collaborative partners with Mr. Threadgill, it quickly became clear that CME under the direction of Tim Weiss is the ideal match—these young musicians are virtuosic and fearless. Indeed, considering the landscape of contemporary classical music today, it’s no coincidence 4 5 COMPOSER’S NOTE Pathways Pathways I = 84 q This piece—Pathways—started out with my talking with II = 76 Tom Welsh about Cleveland and what inspiration it q = 69 might hold in terms of supplying a backdrop or source q for a work of art. Well, the museum for one has a history = 96 q for presenting music and art that is a long path in itself. I a. Free tempo — = 112 q I told Tom I was always concerned about the 4th bar tempo revitalization of Lake Erie as one salient point. The lake I b. = 112 q is a gift to humans who reside here. II = 72 q The Oberlin music world has a long history that is also II a. = 104 q another pathway to Cleveland, and in this time Oberlin II b. Free tempo (7, 7, 7, 7) has partnered with the museum to make it possible for II c. = 60 the musical aggregations that come together. q II d. = 92 I have no literary words in preview of the music. The q III = 108 music as always speaks its own language. q III a. = 76 I would take this concert premiere performance as q an opportunity to honor a great American who has III 1. = 108 q donated some part of his life in music to Oberlin. I III 2. = 66 dedicate tonight’s performance to someone who has q III b. = 110 been a beacon for me from the time I got music in me. q To Sonny Rollins. III c. Free tempo III b. 1. = 110 I would also like to acknowledge another composer. q Robert Ward (1917–2013) and I are the only two III d. = 104 q artists who held the position of US Army Arranger IV = 80 and Composer at Fort Riley, Kansas, and also won the q IV a. = 108 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Robert Ward was born and q IV b. = 108 raised in Cleveland. q Henry Threadgill January 2019 6 7 ABOUT THE ARTISTS He returned home for Chicago and reenlisted with what was now the AACM, but in 1970 left for the perennial lure of jazz’s Henry Threadgill Big Apple, New York City. For the next 40 years, while Henry challenged bedrock ideas about jazz, he settled into New York Only three jazz artists have won a City, where he lives with his wife. Around the East Village, he’s a Pulitzer Prize. In spring 2016, Henry familiar face on the streets and in the cafes; old friends like Philip Threadgill joined Ornette Coleman and Glass and Allen Ginsburg and total strangers alike engage him in Wynton Marsalis as Pulitzer laureates, animated conversation. But he regularly decamped for months at when he was honored for In For A a time to Goa to recharge his creativity in a faraway, very different Penny, In For A Pound (Pi, 2015), the latest album by Zooid, his world. That openness to ideas and experiences has always been unconventional quintet (reeds, acoustic guitar, cello, tuba, drums). vital to who Threadgill is and how his music works. As Charlie “Unconventional” describes not just Henry Threadgill’s music, but Parker put it, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” his life. It was in the East Village—long a seedy, tumultuous haven Born in Chicago in 1944, Henry grew up on the South Side, where for outsiders of all types—that Henry Threadgill launched the parade bands and the blues filled the air. He played percussion, unconventional concepts that led to his Pulitzer-winning art. AIR then clarinet in the Englewood High School band, but switched to (Artists In Residence), his 1970s trio, reimagined ragtime without sax at 16. Idolizing Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, the piano—a lot like dropping the electric guitar from rock.