Illinois Wesleyan University School ofMusic PRESENTS
OF
David Vayo, Director
Featured guests:
Mexico's premiere new-music ensemble
Friday, October 2, 7:30 PM Westbrook Auditorium, Presser Hall
Improvisation Concert with members of ONIX and guests
Saturday, October 3, 7:30 PM Westbrook Auditorium, Presser Hall
Concert by ONIX Music from Latin America and the US
is Wesle an UNIVERSITY
Symposium of Contemporary Music 2009-10 OCTOBER 7:30
2, 2009
PM
Improvisation Concert
ONIX Alejandro Escuer, flutes Fernando Dominguez, clarinets Abel Romero, violin Edgardo Espinoza, cello Edith Ruiz, piano with William Koehler, contrabass Paul Nolen, saxophones David Vayo, piano This program is presented as part of the IWU New Music Series
OCTOBER 7:30
3, 2009
PM
Concert by ONIX Alejandro CARDONA (Costa Rica, 1959) Zachic IV (Bird of a hundred voices) (2007) 1. Xopancuicatl (Cantos del tiempo de verdor) 2. Yaocuiucatl (Cantos guerreros) 3. Icnocuicatl (Cantos de reflexi6n) 4. Xochicuicatl (Cantos floridos)
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
• Silvestre REVUELTAS (MexicoI899-1940) Toccata (1931) Arr. Francisco Cortes ** Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
•
*
Armando LUNA (1964) Fantasias para flauta y piano (1998) US premiere
• Astor PIAZZOLLA (Argentina 1921-1992) EI Tango del Diablo * Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano VVorld Premiere
-Intermission-
Hebert VAZQUEZ (Mexico 1963) EI Laberinto de Maxwell * Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano US premiere
David VAYO (USA 1957) Enlightenment (2009)
*
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
• Gabriela ORTIZ (Mexico 1964) EI Aguila Bicefala (2004)
*
Flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
* Pieces written for and dedicated to ONIX Ensamble ** Arrangement commissioned by ONIX Ensamble *** ONIX version Program subject to change Following Saturday's program, the audience is invited to a reception in the Presser Hall reception room, courtesy of Delta Omicron. This program is presented as part of the IWU New Music Series
A Note from the Symposium Director For the first forty years, ours was primarily a Symposium of Contemporary American Music. From the outset there was much to celebrate about new music in the United States, as such esteemed guests as Aaron Copland, Lou Harrison and George Crumb made obvious- but beyond our borders lay an equally rich musical world. Though a few foreign-born guest composers came to campus in those early years (Ernst Krenek, Herbert Briin, Halim EI-Dabh), they were all living in the US at the time. The Symposium truly went international in 1993, when the Armenian/Russian composer Alexander Aslamazov flew in from St. Petersburg. Since then we have featured guests from Estonia, the Netherlands (twice), Canada, Mexico, and an American composer resident in Singapore. Our musical focus returns now to Mexico, six years after we welcomed that country's most prominent composer, Mario Lavista, as a Symposium guest. ONIX is the jewel in the crown of Mexico City's thriving new-music performance scene, which is among the most Significant in the hemisphere. Their Saturday program showcases several of Mexico's most brilliant younger composers, some of them former students of Lavista, as well as compositions by composers from other Latin American countries and one norteamericano, yours truly, who feels in very good company indeed. We also continue this year with a more recent feature of the Symposium, an evening of free improvisation- a jam session in which nothing but the various combinations of players is set in advance. Everything you hear during Friday'S concert will be born in the moment, and the performers hope that much of what you hear will surprise and delight you- and us! Improvisation was probably the very first sort of mUSic-making, and is a vital part of virtually every musical style, counting Ravi Shankar, Bach, Louis Armstrong, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Grateful Dead, Toumani Diabate, Mozart and John Coltrane among its most dis- tinguished practitioners. I am pleased that improvisation has found a place in Illinois Wesleyan's curriculum as well; this spring I will be teaching a class called Improvisation Workshop for the second time. The course is much like an improv comedy or acting workshop, using games and exercises to open up young performers' spontaneous musical creativity. Students find that this freeing of their musical essence not only opens up the exhilarating world of improvisation to them, but also leads to more vital, adventurous performances of written pieces - performances such as you will hear in ONIX's Saturday concert. - David Vayo
ONIX ENSAMBLE is a well known and acclaimed group of Mexican musicians dedicated to promote the best interpretations of Latin American contemporary music today. All members have an international career and experience as soloists and virtuoso musicians, a fact that has had an impact on their many reviews. Mexican musician and new music advocate Alejandro Escuer founded ONIX in 1994 under the honored principles of cultural diversity, high quality musical craftsmanship and artistic originality. Therefore ONIX offers and delivers a unique panorama of exclusive dedicated works, which are often influenced by literature, theatre, the visual arts and new technologies. Furthermore, ONIX has worked on building bridges and new forms of expression by stimulating the creation of special pieces that combine classical music with other musics and aesthetic tradit\ons. The idea is to promote original interpretations of works by composers interested in expanding and developing contemporary music idioms. The description of an ONIX musical experience is often related to innovation, multiculturalism, eclecticism and Latin post-modernism. The main strategy of the ensemble consists of national and international collaborations which translate into recordings, world premieres, commissions, residencies, tours and the launching of projects such as the Intercultural ONIX International Music Composition Competition. ONIX has premiered more than 60 works dedicated to the ensemble and has toured extenSively in Mexico, the United States, South America and Asia. The group has earned prizes and acknowledgements from Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico en Escena National Performing Arts Award 2004-2006 and 2007-2009, Fomento a Proyectos y Coinversiones Culturales Award, Top Ten Grammy Latino nomination, and a Rockefeller Foundation Mexico-US Award, among other distinctions. Other institutions that have granted support to ONIX are Fundacion Cultural Bancomer; Coordinacion Nacional de Musica y Opera, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Escuela Nacional de Musica; Chamber Music International; Festival Internacional Cervantino; Centro Nacional de las Artes; Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva Manuel Enriquez; Fest1val de Mexico en el Centro Historico; Americas Society in New York; and the Gaudeamus Foundation in Amsterdam, among many others. ONIX is also a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing and redirecting the role of music in society through community and educational projects of high standards and human values. Members of the audience may participate and support: info@onixensamble.com. All members are professors at Escuela Nacional de Musica of the Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico. ONIX has recorded for Grupo Actus, Quidecim Recordings and Urtext Digital Classics. For further information please visit www.onixensamble.com and www.alejandroescuer.com.
Press Reviews
... A sure sense of demonic force and passion .. .especially seductive. Extremely focused and tight... technically accomplished and entertaining... ONIX is exceptional, hypnotic... an ensemble with amazing strength and musical expressiveness. CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW The musical scene in Mexico is solid and more healthy than ever. The evidence of this can be found in the most recent compact disk of the ONIX ensemble (Grammy Nomination 2004) AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE
Riqueza interpretativa, version atletica, rica en cingulos, aristas y superficies sonoras ... Tecnicamente sorprendente... Numerosos momentos de resplandecientes resonancias... Juan Arturo Brennan, LA JORNADA Un programa equilibrado y de gran virtuosismo... ruguroso en su presentacion.. jrescura interpretativa y vigor expresivo Jose Wolffer, REFORMA. Flautist Alejandro Escuer (1963) www.alejandroescuer.comis a Mexican musician who has developed his own artistic foundations on music interpretation and composition, which have had an impact on his concerts and recordings with acclaimed reviews by TIME Magazines Art Director, The New Music Connoisseur, Classical Music Review, American Record Guide and personalities such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Robert Dick, among many others. He is at ease improvising and performing as a soloist with symphony orchestra or in solo recitals with piano, guitar, electronics, percussion, multimedia or ensemble. Alejandro Escuer has been a driving force for the consolidation of new music in Mexico. He founded ONIX in 1994 and has been the artistic director and producer of more than one hundred concerts with more than sixty premieres from Mexico, Japan, The U.S., Canada, Portugal, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Korea, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Australia, Denmark, Austria, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Costa Rica, among many others. Alejandro Escuer has received numerous prizes and awards, including a Rockefeller Foundation Award (1995), The National Interpreters Competition INBA (first prize) 1986, 1987; The National Scholarship Award for the Arts (Universidad Naciona Autonoma de Mexicoi) 1989, 1991, 1995; Lfderes de Mexico Honorary Award 1998, and many recognitions and fellowships from Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. He is also an active scholar (full time tenure faculty at the Escuela Nacional de Musica of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico), and as such he has been giving master classes and concert-lectures across the American continent. Currently he is a visiting Fulbright professor at Indiana University and he has been invited by Columbia UniverSity, New York UniverSity, CalArts, and many other relevant institutions. Alejandro Escuer holds degrees from Conservatorio Nacional de
Musica (B.A.) and Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (B.A.). He obtained his soloist degree from the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam in 1991 (M.A.!Uitvoerend Musicus), and earned a doctorate in 1995 from New York University (Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy in Music Performance). Alejandro has had incredible teachers such as S. Gazelloni, K. Verheul, R. Dick, M. Arizpe, M. Salinas. Above all, he is a mutlidisciplinary artist, incorporating painting, photography and design methods to his approach to music. As a soloist he has recorded Jade Nocturno, Aqua, Aire Desnudo and Folklore lmaginario (http://www.quindecim.com.mx/).
Fernando Dominguez (1970) studied clarinet at the Conservatory of Vienna with Roger Salander and bass clarinet with Harry Sparnaay at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. In Mexico he has studied with Francisco Garduno, Luis Humberto, Ramos and Abel Perez Piton in the music schools of the Ollin Yoliztli and the Escuela Nacional de Musica (UNAM). He has played as a soloist with the following orchestras: Sinfonica Vida y Movimiento, la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, Sinfonica de lPN, la Camara de Bellas Artes and Sinfonica Carlos Chavez. He currently teaches at the Escuela Nacional de Musica (UNAM) and plays with the pianist Tonatiuh de la Sierra as a duo performing in varied concert halls in Mexico City. He also performs with Ensamble 3, with the flutist Salvador Torre and the pianist Mauricio Nader with whom he has presented concerts in venues such as The New Music Forum, The Contemporary Music Festival in Havana, Cuba, Encounters with Mexico in Bogota, Colombia, and in many other cities in Mexico. In 2000, Ensamble 3 won ftrst place in the VII Chamber Music Contest of the National University. Fernando Dominguez is also a member of ONIX Ensamble, with whom he has performed in the International Cervantino Festival, The Festival of the Historical Center of Mexico and the Forum of New Music. .In 2003 he was invited to become a member of Trio Neos. Fernando Dominguez has participated in the International Musik Ferienkuerse in Darmstadt, Germany in 2002 and has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Abel Romero (1973) is a Mexican violinist who has consolidated himself as one of the most active players of his generation. He performs as a solo chamber musician on a regular basis and due to his high quality performances and interpretations, he has appeared in many concert halls and venues in Mexico and around the world. Abel is the violinist of ONIX Ensamble and a member of the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional, one of the most important orchestras in Mexico. He is involved with pedagogic projects oriented to improve music education at an early age. Therefore he often travels abroad to attend Suzuki method teacher training courses and other similar seminars and workshops. He is also an active young professor and as such he is a violin faculty member of Centro Escolar Cedros. Abel Romero obtained his Bachelor's degree in Music Performance from the University of Maryland, where he was offered a merit -based scholarship. He was a second prize winner of the IV National Violin Competition at the Escuela
Nacional de Musica which belongs to the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. His violin teachers were Daniel Heifetz, Natalia Gvodetzkaya, Archil Katzarava, Aaron Bitnln and Cruz Rojas. He has performed for world-renowned artists such as Pinchas Zuckerman, John Dalley, Zoria Zijmurzaieva and Jorge Risi, who have coached him over the years. Abel Romero plays on a violin made in 2007 by Terry Borman.
Edgardo Espinosa (1963) was born in Mexico City where he undertook musical studies at the National School of Music, graduating with honors in 1990. Thanks to a scholarship from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, he continued his studies in London, England, with Richard Markson. While in Europe, he obtained several diplomas such as LLCM, FLCM and a Graduate Studies Certificate from the London College of Music. Later on, he obtained a Master of Music Degree in musical performance from the Thames Valley University. He has attended several summer courses in the United Kingdom, Italy and Mexico, where he has received master classes from Maud Martin Tortelier, Wolfgang Laufer, Alan Smith and Ivan Monighetti, amongst others. Upon completing his studies, Edgardo Espinosa moved back to Mexico, where he currently holds a full-time tenure professor position at the Universidad Aut6noma de Mexico. There he devotes himself both to teaching and to performing chamber music, with special emphasis in contemporary music. He is a member of important contemporary music ensembles such as ONIX Ensamble and Cello Alterno and performs regularly in the most important music halls across his country. Additionally, he has recently participated in concerts in the United States, England, Spain and China. Pianist Edith Ruiz (1973) has played in Mexico's main concert halls, as well as in the United States, Canada, Poland, Cuba, Colombia, and Ireland. She has performed in international music festivals such as: Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara), Music Festival (Aspen), Clarinetfest 2006 (Atlanta), Clarinetfest 2007 (Vancouver), Festival Internacional Cervantino, Foro de Musica Nueva Manuel Enriquez, and Festival Internacional Eduardo Mata (Mexico) among many others. As a collaborative pianist she continually performs with Mexico City's main orchestras, music schools and choirs, as well as competitions, festivals, auditions, recordings, radio and TV programs. She is currently the principal pianist at the Orquesta Sinjonica de Mineria, and a full time tenure professor at the Escuela Nacional de Musica/UNAM. Edith Ruiz is the pianist of the ONIX Ensamble and she has recently founded ARTE CUBICO, her own school of music and arts. She has recorded two CDS with clarinetist Javier Vinas co for Musica de Camera Latinoamericana label. The first one includes Colombian music and the second one consists of works by Astor Piazzolla and Heitor Villa -Lobos. She received the Gabino Barreda and Gustavo Baz Prada medals (UNAM), the Gwendolyn Koldovsky 2000 prize (Cleveland Institute of Music) and she is the second prize winner of the Darius Milhaud 2000 Competition (CIM). As a soloist she has performed with the Orquesta Sinjonica de Puebla, Banda del Estado de Oaxaca,
Camerata Cronos, and Orquesta Juvenil de la Escuela Nacional de Musica among others. She took her first piano lessons at the DOREMI Music Academy and finished her Bachelors Degree at the Escuela Nacional de MusicalUNAM in Mexico and a Masters Degree in Collaborative Piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
William Koehler is Professor of Music at Illinois State University where he teaches applied double bass, string techniques, string pedagogy, graduate courses in music education including psychology of music, and improvisation. Bill's second CD entitled Vandana Journey2gether with tabla virtuoso Manpreet Bedi, features a number of original compositions in Indian and World music styles, and extended improvisations. The CD has received great reviews in Double Bassist (London) and Bass World, the official publication of the International Society of Bassists. In addition, Bill has completed a book entitled A Guide to the Development Process of Improvisation and Composition, which is available through Schorer Publications, in Graebenzell, Germany. Bill's first CD entitled Glimpse features original compositions in jazz, and world fusion idoms, as well as Romantic and Contemporary classical pieces for unaccompanied solo bass. A native of New York City, Dr. Koehler has performed in England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Russia and Belo-Russia, Puerto Rico, and throughout the U.S. He has performed in numerous orchestras in New York City, the southeast and the Midwest, and has performed with notable jazz and improvising musicians such as Sam Brown, Joe Tekula, Harold Seletsky, Ronu Majumdar, Umalpurim Siverman, Patrick Marks, John Clark, Joe Morello, John Campbell, Carl Fontana, Dave Burrell, Jimmy Guiffre, Richard Davis, David Barker, Harvey Phillips, Turk Van Lake, and Nashville country music producer Byron Gallimore. Koehler has also been an active performer in the electronic music medium on MIDI Electronic Double Bass, having performed annually at the College Music Society Technology Symposiums. Dr. Koehler is a frequent clinician (ISB, Richard Davis Festival, etc.); and, is a writer on bass pedagogy, and a reviewer of new music for string bass and string orchestra for the American String Teacher. Dr. Koehler has a number of transcriptions and original compositions for solo double bass which are available through Schorer Publications. One of his early research interests in string education involves the application of biofeedback to study physiology and to aid the reduction of excess muscle tension in string playing. He has illustrated double bass techniques and made editorial contributions in the two editions of Robert Klotrnan's string education textbook entitled Teaching Strings. Koehler earned his doctorate at Indiana University. His most memorable double bass teachers include: Murray Grodner, David Izenson, Philip Albright, Ernest Szugyi, and Neal Mason. Koehler's Double Bass recordings and book can be purchased through Schorer Publications - tel 011-49-174-9877994 or schorer.publications@t-online.de, through the Illinois State University School of Music (309-438-7631), or directly
from Bill Koehler at wkkoehl@ilstu.edu. Visit Bill's personal website at www.billkoehler.com
Paul Nolen (saxophones) has appeared as soloist, chamber musician, and jazz artist throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Moving fluidly between genres, Paul he has appeared with diverse groups including the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, Rasa Saxophone Quartet, the Sonic Exploration SOciety, and the ISU Faculty Jazz Quartet. He has appeared at the 2003 World Saxophone Congress, and given performances at multiple North American Saxophone Alliance conferences. During the 2009-2010 season, he will record David Maslanka's Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble for Albany Records, and begin a solo recording project of works for soprano saxophone. Known for his vibrant and passionate teaching, Paul is also in demand throughout the U.S. and abroad as an educator. During summers of 2009 and 2008, Paul has appeared as artist and faculty at Aberystwyth International Musicfest in Wales, UK. In 2008, he served as saxophone artist during the Music For All National Honor's Band Festival in Indianapolis, and has presented recent classes at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, the University of New Mexico, and Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Illinois State University in Normal, IL. As soprano saxophonist with the Rasa Saxophone Quartet, he won first prize in the 2003 MTNA National Chamber Music Competition and was a semi-finalist in the 2004 Concert Artist Guild International Competition in New York City. As a soloist he was awarded first prize in the 2003 Lansing Matinee Musicale Woodwind competition. He received both the DMA and MM degrees in performance from the College of Music at Michigan State University, and the BM from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. His teachers and mentors have included Joseph Lulloff, Tim Timmons, Gary Foster, Hal Melia, Jackie Lamar, and Ron Blake
David Vayo (b. 1957) is Professor and head of the composition department at Illinois Wesleyan UniverSity, where he teaches composition, improvisation and contemporary music and coordinates the Symposium of Contemporary Music and the New Music Cafe concert series. Vayo has also taught at Connecticut College and the National University of Costa Rica. He holds an A.Mus.D. in Composition from The University of Michigan, where his principal teachers were Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom; his M. Mus. and B. Mus. degrees are from Indiana University, where he studied with Frederick Fox and Juan Orrego-Salas. Vayo has received awards and commissions from the John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, ASCAP, the Koussevitzky Music Foundations, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Music Center, the National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors, and the Illinois Council for the Arts, and has been granted numerous artists' colony residencies. Over three hundred performances and broadcasts of his compositions have taken place, including recent performances in Mexico, Thailand, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and France and at Northwestern University, Ohio State University and the universities of Wisconsin and Iowa. Festivals which have programmed his work include the International Trombone Festival, the International Double Reed Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and three World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music. His compositions are published by A. M. Percussion Publications, Bhben/Italia Guitar Society Series, and the International Trombone Association Press. Vayo is also active as a pianist performing contemporary music and free improvisations.
PROGRAM NOTES Composed for ONIX, Zachic 4 is structured in four parts with a slow-fastslow-fast de¡sign. The movements are: Xopancuicatl (spring songs or "songs for green times"), YaucuicatZ (warriors songs), IcnocuicatZ (songs for pondering or meditating), andXochicuicatZ (jlorid songs). The cuicatl (songs) of the Aztecs were divided into these four categories. The material for this work is partly (and freely) based on bird songs. The first movement, Xopancuicatl, is a kind of fantasy in which the main materials of the work are presented, as are the timbres of the ensemble, which are slowly introduced. Xopancuicatl, emerges from this movement without a pause, as if the free materials were suddenly articulated through rhythm and time. This movement is a dance which recreates the Mexican "pitero" (flute) music and the sea-shell trumpets. The texture, however, has a certain polyphonic denSity, with different layers of materials. The form is created through contrasting juxtapositions. Icnocuicatl is a series of free chaconne-like variations on a lullaby from the Istmo de Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca called "Gregorio': In Xochicuicatl, the final movement, the bird songs take on an incisive rhythmic quality. The original material is recapitulated and, near the end, as a preparation for the closing section, there is a canonic passage, at different velocities, which is labeled "Nancarrow among the birds", a small homage to this Mexican composer born in the United States. The word Zachic is the Mayan name for the bird which in Nahuatl is called zenzontl, and in Spanish cenzontle or sinsonte (in English it is the mocking bird). The Zachic was considered the "bird of a hundred voices': Some Guatemalan
researchers claim that many Mayan-Quiche melodies are based on the songs of this particular bird. For the composer, the Zachic is a symbol of the incredible capacity of our people to transform their musical and sonic reality: nature becomes culture and culture becomes part of nature. This symbol of an initially imitative and then intertwined relationship between nature and culture is treated mUSically in different ways throughout the work. A.c.
Toccata by Silvestre Revueltas (arr. Francisco Cortes) Silvestre Revueltas' music - most of it written during the last decade of his short life - bursts with energy, instrumental color, and mocking humor. Revueltas began violin studies at age eight; the years 1913-16 found him in Mexico City studying composition and violin. From there Revueltas headed north to Texas to study at St. Edward College in Austin (1916-1918) and then to the Chicago Musical College (1918-1920). Revueltas returned to Mexico to give violin recitals in the capital and several states. But Chicago drew him back in 1922 for a fouryear course of violin study. In the mid-1920s Revueltas made trips down to Mexico for several series of recitals of modern music; his piano accompanist was the young Carlos Chavez. Ultimately, Chavez persuaded him to return to Mexico City to teach violin and chamber music at the National Conservatory and to serve as assistant conductor of Chavez's newly formed Orquesta Sinf6nica de Mexico, a position he held from 1929-1935. During this time, Revueltas also became active in the cause of artists' and workers' rights. The Neo-Classical movement, which tried to marry old forms to new harmonies and melodic techniques, was sometimes criticized for producing arid, unlovable music. But Silvestre Revueltas never wrote a dull note in his life, and his Toccata for chamber ensemble takes an old Baroque form and injects it with the vitality of Mexican popular music and Revueltas' own keen ear for exotic sonorities. The work begins in an all-out rush after a quick bang on a drum. The woodwinds start it off with dazzling, coruscating scales, which quickly yield to the violins and horns. After some prefatory material, the violins play the main melody and the piece is fully underway. Baroque sounds in the Toccata include sections where the violins play melody with scampering contrapuntal accompaniment in the woodwinds, and the slower, minor-key melody that breaks the momentum in the middle, which winds around itself in much the manner of a Bach melody. But these scholarly methods cannot for a moment suppress the fun in the Toccata, and when the instruments finally come together near the work's close, with piquant fanfares from the brass and running melodies on the winds, the joy is irresistible. Revueltas closes the work with a fun little coda. Revueltas is often referred to as a "Mexican Stravinsky," but on the evidence of unique works like the Toccata, it's probably more correct just to call him Silvestre Revueltas. - All Music Guide
El demonio de Maxwell (Maxwell's Demon) In 2007 I concluded a musical Bestiary depicting six fabulous beasts or monsters that belong to different historical periods and cultural traditions: 1. EI Trauco (2007) [solo Clarinet]
2. Jabberwock (2004) [Flute/Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet and Piano] 3. Ellaberinto de los sacrificios (2006) [Woodwind Quintet] (The labyrinth of the sacrifices) 4. EI sueflO del Kraken (2007) [Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano] (The Kraken' s dream) 5. EI G6lem (2006) [Bass Clarinet Duo] 6. EI demonio de Maxwell (2007) [Fl.!Alto Flute, Cl./Bass Cl., Vn., Pf. and Vc.] Each one of the pieces in the cycle may be performed separately, if desired. Maxwell's Demon is an imaginary creature that the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell created in 1867 to contradict the second law of thermodynamics. Maxwell imagined one container divided into two parts. Both parts are filled with the same gas at equal temperatures and placed next to each other. Observing the molecules on both sides, an imaginary demon guards a trapdoor between the two parts. When a faster than average molecule approaches the door he makes certain that it ends up on the left side and when a slower than average molecule approaches the door he makes sure that it ends up on the right side. So after these operations he ends up with a container in which all the faster than average gas molecules are in the left side and all the slower than average ones are in the right side, contrary to the second law of thermodynamics.
EI demonio de Maxwell is dedicated to the Onix Ensemble, while the Bestiary was written for my 4-year-old-daughters, Emma and Natalia. - Hebert Vazquez
Enlightenment While in Mexico City in 2006, I spent an evening in the home of two musicians I deeply admire, composer Gabriela Ortiz and her husband, flautist-composer Alejandro Escuer. After dinner, Alejandro offered to show me two instruments he had recently acquired from a maker in the Netherlands: a contrabass and a subcontrabass flute. These remarkable contraptions of PVC pipe allow a flautist to play in the range of the double bass and the tuba, and they have a haunting, chthonic quality. I fell in love with them immediately. Because Alejandro plays all members of the flute family, I hit upon the idea of writing a piece in which he would start out on the contrabass flute (he vetoed the sub-contrabass because it's so cumbersome to transport) and gradually work his work up to the piccolo. When he mentioned that he'd be interested in my includ-
ing the entire ONIX ensemble in the piece, I decided that all of the other instrumentalists would follow the same trajectory, from very low to very high, and that the rate at which the music unfolded would reinforce this arc of ascending energystarting out almost inertly, then slowly and steadily accelerating to demonic velocity. Two meanings of the title refer to these aspects of the plot line: the music becomes gradually more luminous as the notes rise, as well as more and more free of weight and encumbrance as the beat quickens. A third meaning of "enlightenment" is a state of spiritual understanding, often reached in a moment of transcendent revelation. The climax: of the piece, a white-hot vortex of sound in which pitch and rhythm seem to vanish into a singularity, might be though of as representing such a moment. And indeed, on the other side we emerge into a different world, still at the uppermost extreme of musical pitch but now crystalline, mystical, a music of eternity rather than of time. - David Vayo
EI Aguila Bicefala (2005) (The two-headed eagle) is dedicated to the ONIX Ensemble and was written thanks to the support of the Programa Mexico en Escena of the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes award. On textiles and fabrics of the Mizteca zone of the Metlat6noc there are exquisitely conceived embroideries of fantastic birds with extended wings and two, three or even six heads. The two-headed eagle was a common graphic motive from the beginning of colonial times. These eagles are bilaterally symmetric and flexible designs that fit into rectangular or triangular spaces. Such a motive has evolved through history and one can discover an iconographic resemblance with the Hapsburg's eagle. Just like in the designs on the textiles, my piece is based on geometrical similarities. Musical motives are interwoven in such a way that they overlap in order to create various geometrical acoustic shapes that unfold through a continuous musical discourse, a discourse where past and imaginary future references meet to shape what I .perceive as a unified present: a dual discourse that reflects my personal history through a sincretism that has permeated my cultural background - Gabriela Ortiz
0ymposium o~ 7jontemporary ~usic Guest Composers • Performers • Scholars 1952-2009 1952: Earl George, Grant Fletcher, Burrill Phillips 1953: Anthony Donato, Homer Keller 1954: Normand Lockwood, Robert Palmer 1955: Wallingford Riegger, Peter Mennin 1956: Hunter Johnson, Ulysses Kay 1957: Ernst Krenek, William Bergsma 1958: Aaron Copland 1959: Paul Pisk, George Rochberg 1960: Roy Harris 1962: Robert Erickson, George Rochberg, Glenn Glasow 1963: Robert Wykes, Alabama String Quartet 1964: Robert Wykes, E. J. Ulrich, Salvatore Martirano, Herbert Briin, Ben Johnston 1966: Louis Coyner, Edwin Harkins, Philip Winsor, Edwin London 1967: Frederick Tillis, George Crumb 1968: lain Hamilton 1969: The Loop Group, DePaul University 1970: Halim EI-Dabh, OIly Wilson 1971: Edward J. Miller 1972: Stravinsky Memorial Concert 1973: Courtney Cox, Phil Wilson 1974: Scott Huston 1975: David Ward-Steinman 1976: Donald Erb 1977: Lou Harrison, Ezra Sims 1978: M. William Karlins 1979: Leonard B. Meyer 1981: Walter S. Hartley 1982: David Ward-Steinman 1983: George Crumb Concert
1984: Robert Bankert, Abram M. Plum, R. Bedford Watkins 1985: Michael Schelle 1986: Jean Eichelberger Ivey 1987: Jan Bach 1988: John Beall 1989: Hale Smith 1990: .Karel Husa 1991: Alice Parker 1993: (Spring) Alexander Aslamazov 1993: (Fall) Leslie Bassett, John Crawford (Society of Composers, Inc. Region 5 Conference) 1995: David Diamond 1996: Morton Gould Memorial Concert 1997: Joseph Schwantner 1998: Arvo Part 1999: John Corigliano 2000: Libby Larsen 2001: William Bolcom, Joan Morris 2002: Present Music 2003: Mario Lavista, Carmen Helena Tellez 2004: Louis Andriessen, James Quandt, Monica Germino, Cristina Zavalloni 2005: Vince Mendoza 2006: New York New Music Ensemble 2007: Stephen Paulus 2008: (Spring) Roderik de Man, Annelie de Man 2008: (Fall) John Sharpley, Orchid Ensemble 2009: ONIX