PROGRAM NOTES

FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN MUSIC: JOURNEYS OF FAITH 1

March 4, 2023

by Laurie Shulman ©2023 |

ONE MINUTE NOTES MASAOT / CLOCKS WITHOUT HANDS

Austria’s Olga Neuwirth is interested in literature, cinema, and painting, all of which lend her music diverse layers. Masaot / Clocks Without Hands originated as a commission from the Vienna Philharmonic commemorating the centennial of Gustav Mahler’s death. Mahler’s commingling of styles fascinated Neuwirth. Her Mahler ‘tribute’ conflated with a dream she had about her grandfather (whom she never met), in which he shared his stories. Neuwirth has written, “I wanted to explore this musical phenomenon and the ‘ancient fragrance from fabled times’ – specifically the childhood and adolescence of my grandfather on the Danube... Masaot / Clocks Without Hands evolved out of the multi-voiced sound of my fragmented origins and my desire for an uninterrupted flow, determined throughout the piece by constantly interchanging cells.” The result is a glorious cacophony that can resemble a Jackson Pollack spatter painting, or a cinematic dream sequence with one image dissolving as another comes into focus.

PHENOMENAL OF THE EARTH TJ Cole

When I found out I was accepted into the Creator Corps program, one of my first thoughts was, “I hope they’ll let me write a synthesizer concerto about the Earth and perform the synthesizer part,

First North American Serial Rights Only

SYMPHONY NO. 3, “KADDISH”

Leonard Bernstein’s Third Symphony, Kaddish, combines text from the Jewish prayer for the dead with a substantial narrated text that Bernstein wrote himself. He began work on it in the mid-1950s. By the time he completed it late in 1963, John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Bernstein decided to dedicate the work to the memory of the martyred president. Bernstein’s Kaddish is more like an oratorio than a symphony. It consists of three settings of the Kaddish prayer, each for different performing forces and, more importantly, communicating different moods. The trajectory is from darkness to light and joy. Kaddish is an ambitious and sprawling work, encompassing the musical diaspora in which Bernstein lived. He flirts with twelve-tone music and borrows freely from jazz and American dance rhythms. Popular-style melodies metamorphose into complex counterpoint. The role of the narrator is crucial, articulating the composer’s internal crisis of faith. Ultimately, Bernstein’s music is as personal as his speaker’s words: one man’s struggle with the issue of faith.

even though I’ve never soloed with an orchestra and I don’t know a lot about nature.” Thankfully, Teddy and the LO team welcomed my idea without hesitation.

Not having much time to compose the piece, I found myself turning to nature whenever and wherever I could for inspiration. The most vibrant memories I have are playing in my yard with my cat under a big tree, watching brightly colored sunsets while driving down I-65, visiting Seneca Park with Tyler Taylor and hitting stones against each other to see how they sounded, harvesting kale in my yard, walking past the autumn red trees in Shelby Park during a rainstorm, and watching a flock of birds flying in a V formation over Logan Street Market. I found so much beauty and joy in collecting inspiration in Louisville, and I believe that the spirit of these little moments made their way into the piece. One of the most formative parts of my writing process was being able to stay at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research

Forest. My time at Bernheim consisted of a few dreamy days of hiking interspersed with fervent writing. Instead of feeding off of my mostly urban surroundings, I was able to exist and create in an environment that immediately felt gradual, spiritual, balanced, cleansing, and focused. During a rehearsal, Lisa Bielawa leaned over and said to me, “This piece isn’t working in musical time. It’s working in nature time.”

I want to extend a ginormous thank you to Jenny Zeller and Hannah ColemanZaitzeff of the Bernheim Forest for setting up my stay, Teddy Abrams and Jacob Gotlieb for their support, the entire LO team for their dedication, and Lisa and Tyler for their incredible friendship.

Artist Biography

TJ COLE, composer (b. 1993)

TJ Cole (they/she) is a composer and synthesizer performer, originally from the suburbs of Atlanta. They are currently in a yearlong residency with the Louisville Orchestra, part of the inaugural year of the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, where they are writing new large-scale works for orchestra and organizing community engagement projects throughout Louisville, Kentucky.

They have been commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Nashville in Harmony, Intersection, Time for Three, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Play On Philly!, the Music in May Festival, Music in the Vineyards, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, One Book One Philadelphia, the Bakken Trio, among others.

Their music has been performed by various ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, Ensemble Connect, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra, the Dover Quartet, the Bakken Trio, the

Artist Biography

Nebula Ensemble, among others. They have also worked on numerous projects with Time for Three as an orchestrator and arranger, and served as a composerin-residence at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in 2014.

In 2019, they collaborated with Eric Huckins (Astral Artists) and the Aquinas Center in Philadelphia on an after-school program for children ages 6-12 that aimed to foster emotional self-awareness and expression through music and creativity.

− Cincinnati Enquirer

TJ has also been a singer-songwriter, producer, and engineer in the fully electronic synth-pop band, Twin Pixie, which focused on making music at the intersection of queerness, pop culture, and the supernatural.

TJ has participated in composition programs including the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and the New Emerging Artists Festival, and studied with Samuel Adler for a summer at the Freie Universität Berlin. They have won two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer awards (2014 and 2020), including the Leo Kaplan Award in 2020 for their string sextet 'Playtime'.

TJ has also been involved with musicrelated community engagement projects. They collaborated with bassist Ranaan Meyer as an orchestrator on his project, The World We All Deserve Through Music, and with First Person Arts by co-curating and performing in a musical story slam. During a yearlong ArtistYear Fellowship (2016-17), TJ was able to co-run and collaborate in musical performances and songwriting workshops with residents of Project HOME, a Philadelphia-based organization fighting to end chronic homelessness.

As part of the 2022-23 Louisville Orchestra Creator-Corps residency, TJ is curating and composing music to be paired with children’s stories that will be performed across Louisville Free Public Libraries. They are also partnering on a project with VOICES of Kentuckiana, an LGBTQ+ and alliances community chorus based in Louisville.

TJ received their Bachelor's degree in composition from the Curtis Institute of Music, and studied at Interlochen Arts Academy. Their mentors include John Boyle Jr., Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, and Richard Danielpour.

Other than music, TJ also enjoys cooking, sewing, video games, swing sets on playgrounds, and playing with their cat, Zucchini.

Olga Neuwirth was born in Graz, Austria and studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and

San Francisco Conservatory of Music. While in the United States, she also studied painting and film at San Francisco Art College.

Her composition teachers included Adriana Hölszky, Tristan Murail and Luigi Nono. She sprang to international prominence in 1991, at the age of 22, when two of her mini-operas with texts by Nobel prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek were performed at the Vienna Festwochen. Since then her works have been presented worldwide.

Highlights include two portrait concerts at the Salzburg Festival (1998); her multi-media opera Baa-Lambs Feast (1993/1998) after Leonora Carrington; Clinamen/Nodus for Pierre Boulez and the London Symphony Orchestra (2000); composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival in 2002 and in 2016; the world première of her music-theatre work Lost Highway (2003) after David Lynch; two new operas while living in New York (2010/11) – The Outcast-Homage to Herman Melville and American Lulu, based on Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’; composerin-residence at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Berliner Musikfest in 2019; and an opera for the Vienna State Opera with costumes by Comme des Garçons.

With Nobel Prize winning novelist Elfriede Jelinek, Neuwirth has created two radio plays and three operas. Her opera Lost Highway, based on the film by David Lynch, premiered in 2003 and won a South Bank Show Award for the production presented by English National Opera at the Young Vic in 2008.

For over 30 years Olga Neuwirth’s works have explored a wide range of forms and genres: operas, radio-plays, soundinstallations, art-works, photography and film-music. Aside from composing, she realizes sound installations for art exhibitions and short films and has written several articles and a book on the topic. One of her multi-media installations was presented at the documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007. In March 2017 her 3D sound-installation in collaboration with IRCAM was inaugurated at Centre Pompidou in Paris for its 40th anniversary.

In many works she fuses live-musicians, electronics and video into audio-visual experiences and calls her main aesthetics an “Art-in-between”. Among numerous prizes, she was the first-ever woman to receive the Grand Austrian State Prize in the category of music (2010).

In 2012 Olga Neuwirth completed two new operas while living in NYC: The Outcast on Hermann Melville, and American Lulu, a version of Alban Berg’s Lulu which was premiered in Berlin and subsequently given a new production in Bregenz, Edinburgh and London in 2013, and then in Vienna in 2014. In early 2015 she completed a film score for a silent film and a feature film by Franz/ Fiala, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and the orchestral work Masaot / Clocks without Hands for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. It was premiered in Cologne and had its US premiere in February 2016 at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Valery Gergjev.

At the Salzburg Festival her Eleanor Suite for blues singer, drum-kit-player and ensemble was premiered in August 2015. Her 80 minute electronic / space / ensemble piece Le Encantadas based on the acoustics of a Venetian church received its premiere at Donaueschingen and had further performances at the Festival d’Automne à Paris in 2016 and 2017. She received the prestigious Roche Commission for the Lucerne Festival in 2016 for her percussion concerto Trurliade–Zone Zero and was Composerin-residence at the festival for the second time. In 2017 she collaborated with Pritzker prize winning architect Peter Zumthor and with NY based Asymptote Architects. Besides several concerts for her 50th birthday in 2018, Lost Highway and The Outcast could be seen in new productions, Lost Highway under the direction of Yuval Sharon and The Outcast under Netia Jones. The BBC Proms programmed Aello - ballet mécanomorphe in August 2018 for Claire Chase and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

Her opera Orlando after Virginia Woolf was premiered at the Vienna State Opera in December 2019 with huge international success. She was the first woman to be commissioned by the Vienna State Opera in the 150-year history of the house. Orlando was released on DVD in the winter of 2021 on the Unitel label.

Keyframes for a Hippogriff - in memoriam Hester Diamond was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of John Adams for their Project 19 – an initiative to commission 19 new works by 19 women composers. Co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Proms, it is the largest women-only commissioning initiative in history.

During the Coronavirus pandemic Neuwirth created a cycle of diverse pieces called CoroAtion Cycle and is now working on a new opera based on an old

Manga story, with a libretto written in 2019 by Neuwirth and American novelist Barry Gifford.

In 2020 she was awarded the Robert Schumann-Preis für Dichtung und Musik and in 2021 she was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize together with Stevie Wonder. Olga Neuwirth was appointed as a composition professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria in 2021.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN, composer (1918-1990)

Leonard Bernstein (né Louis Bernstein) was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 25, 1918 to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Bernstein studied piano and went on to attend Harvard where he studied with Walter PIston. He then went on to study piano, composition and conducting (with Fritz Reiner) at the Curtis Institute of Music. While at Harvard, Bernstein met Aaron Copland and the two would remain friends for the rest of their lives. Post Curtis, Bernstein continued his studies at Tanglewood and in 1943 became the Assistant Conductor for the New York Philharmonic (he would become Music Director in 1958 and eventually given the title of Laureate Conductor). Throughout the remainder of the 1940s, Bernstein’s fame as a conductor grew exponentially. While Bernstein had composed smaller works in the early 1940s, he expanded his scope to include the Jerome Robbins ballet Fancy Free (1944) that led to the musical On the Town (1944) with longtime friends Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

In 1951, Bernstein premiered Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic (a piece that had been composed 50 years earlier). Bernstein branched out into television through the CBS program Young People’s Concert As early as 1947, Jerome Robbins had approached Bernstein about a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet but it wasn’t until almost a decade later that all the key components came together to produce West Side Story (1957). Along with Stephen Sondheim (libretto/ lyrics), and Arthur Laurent (book), Bernstein’s score captured the essence of the Upper West side of New York City in the 1950s. West Side Story would win two Tonys (it lost Best Musical to The Music Man) and the 1961 movie adaptation won 10 Oscars including Best Picture.

In 1970, Bernstein was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to compose a piece for the opening of the Kennedy Center slated for 1972. Bernstein had been a great friend of President John F. Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy so it seemed appropriate for him to create a grand work for this momentous occasion

Throughout his musical life, Bernstein championed contemporary composers from around the world and continued a flourishing conducting and teaching career. A lifelong heavy smoker, Bernstein was diagnosed with emphysema in his 50s. Time ran out on October 14, 1990 when Bernstein died from a heart attack at age 72. Not only was Bernstein a major conducting and composing figure of the latter half of the 20th century, but he also left a wealth of major recordings, a legacy of embracing arts education and for many of a certain generation, the first introduction to classical music through his televised concerts.

AMANDA MAJESKI, soprano (b. 1984)

Internationally renowned American lyric soprano, Amanda Majeski is rapidly garnering critical acclaim for a voice of “silvery beauty” (Musical America), “sings with remarkable commitment and radiance of tone... She sounds exquisite.” (The Guardian), and “Majeski’s well-rounded soprano... is so warm and glorious, the singing so outstanding, that she leaves no emotions unstirred.” (Financial Times) Her 201920 season includes four debuts with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, New York Philharmonic, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Real Madrid and performances with Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Majeski’s season commences with her debut with the Nürnberger Symphoniker bringing her Straussian expertise to his Vier letzte Lieder conducted by Kahchun Wong. She then returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago, the company that launched her international career, for her house role debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, followed by her debut with the New York Philharmonic as a soprano soloist in Mozart’s Mass in C minor under the direction of Jaap van Zweden. She will also perform Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches

Liederbuch at the 92nd Street Y, alongside bass-baritone Philippe Sly and pianist Julius Drake. Her season continues with a debut with Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, as the title role in Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová. The season closes with her reprisal as Marta in Weinberg’s The Passenger at Teatro Real Madrid for its Spanish premiere — a role she debuted at Lyric Opera of Chicago for which the Chicago Tribune hailed her as “radiant” and “immensely touching” adding that “she has done nothing finer.”

Highlights from her previous season include rave reviews for her Royal Opera House Káťa Kabanová, “If there is a more compelling solo performance on the operatic stage this year than Amanda Majeski’s in the title role of Janacek’s opera, I will need a new stock of superlatives...

I unhesitatingly say that you are unlikely to encounter a Katya more profoundly acted than by the American soprano, nor more strikingly sung.”

- The Times

Her 2018-19 season also included her concert debuts with the Sydney Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Music of the Baroque, and her debut at Staatsoper Stuttgart as the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride was praised as “Amanda Majeski in the title role has a voluminous, cleansounding and beautiful soprano. She is the ideal person for this role” (Kultura Extra), as well as a return to Santa Fe Opera as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte in a new production under conductor Harry Bicket and director R. B. Schlather.

Ms. Majeski made her Metropolitan Opera debut on the opening night of the 2014-2015 season as Countess Almaviva in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro conducted by James Levine, which was broadcast in HD internationally and on PBS across the United States. Since then, she has returned for revivals of Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, both conducted by Fabio Luisi, and a new production of Così fan tutte conducted by David Robertson which was a featured HD broadcast in the 2017-2018 season. An alumna of the Ryan Opera Center, she made her mainstage Lyric debut with only a few hours’ notice as Countess Almaviva conducted by Andrew Davis. Named “Best Breakout Star” by Chicago Magazine, she has since continued her relationship with Lyric audiences as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and as Marta in The Passenger, hailed as a “shattering, star-making performance” by the Chicago Classical Review.

She made her critically-acclaimed role debut as the Marschallin in Claus Guth’s new production of Der Rosenkavalier at Oper Frankfurt, where she has also been seen as the Goose-Girl in Humperdinck’s Königskinder, Vreli in Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet, and the title role in Dvořák’s Rusalka. Ms. Majeski made her European debut at the Semperoper Dresden where her performances included new productions of Alcina and La clemenza di Tito, as well as revivals of Le nozze di Figaro and Capriccio. Her significant international debuts include the Glyndebourne Festival as Countess Almaviva and Eva, Opernhaus

Zürich as Marguerite in a new production of Faust, as well as the Paris Opera and Teatro Real as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito. She made her debuts at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing as Eva in Kasper Holten’s new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and her debut at Teatro Colón as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Her US career also includes performances with Opera Philadelphia as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Pittsburgh Opera as Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, and her Washington National Opera debut as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro. Ms. Majeski’s long-standing relationship with the Santa Fe Opera includes her debut in Vivaldi’s Griselda as Ottone in a production by Peter Sellars, subsequently appearing as Countess Madeleine in Capriccio and her first performances of the Composer in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos to rave reviews.

On the concert stage, Ms. Majeski made her debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic as Gutrune in Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung conducted by Jaap van Zweden which will be released commercially on Naxos Records as the final installment of their Ring Cycle. She has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and sang her first performances of Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder at Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall with the Curtis Orchestra conducted by Karina Canellakis. She debuted with Sinfonieorchester Aachen singing Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder and Mozart’s Requiem, has been heard in concert singing

Agathe’s arias from Der Freischütz with conductor Erik Nielsen and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Quad City Symphony. She also sang Gounod’s Marguerite in concert with Washington Concert Opera under Antony Walker, Bach’s Magnificat under Sir Gilbert Levine in Chicago, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the title role in Stanisław Moniuszko’s Halka at the Bard Music Festival. She made her New York City recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation and returned for her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2014.

Ms. Majeski holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University. She was a member of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Steans Institute at Ravinia. Awards include the George London Foundation Award, first prize of the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition, and a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.

KEISHA DORSEY, speaker

Keisha Dorsey is a millennial native Louisvillian living in the Shively area. Keisha grew up in Portland and moved to the North Shively/West Louisville area, where she was elected as Councilwoman for District 3 in November 2018, and took office on January 7th, 2018. Keisha holds an undergraduate degree in Biological Studies from Oakwood College, an HBCU and attended the University of Louisville for her Master’s in Public Health.

Keisha is a highly accomplished political and healthcare professional, but her passion lies within the realm of arts and culture. Her body of work spans from her early days with the local theatrical group, CIA (Christians in Action) to the Alabama Hall of Fame, and the World Choir Games Winner, Oakwood University Aeolians. In 2016, Keisha stepped into her first major lead role in the Faith Works Studio production of Esther. Keisha has been performing with Faith Works company since 2014. As of recently much of her energy has shifted from not just being a performer but advocating for Faith Works as it nurtures and cultivates talent within cultures and populations of people that are often overlooked.

Keisha is joining the cast of The Color Purple as Nettie, who through her evolution becomes as an advocate for human and women’s rights, while she explores the world on her own terms. It is this place where Keisha and Nettie find themselves intertwined, due to their natural curiosity of life being equally intellectual and empathetic and interlaced with a profound since of self. Keisha hopes to not just bring Nettie to life, but to take Nettie with her on as she journeys to ‘BECOME’.

Teddy Abrams, Music Director

Bob Bernhardt, Principal Pops Conductor

Graham Parker, Chief Executive COFFEE SERIES SPONSOR

Coffee Series

FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN MUSIC:

Journeys Of Faith 2

Friday, March 10, 2023 • 11AM

The Kentucky Center, Whitney Hall

Teddy Abrams, conductor | Sebastian Chang, piano

Tyler TAYLOR Revisions (World Premiere)

Leonard BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety

Part I: The Prologue

The Seven Ages (Variations 1-7)

The Seven Stages (Variations 8-14)

Part II: The Dirge

The Masque

The Epilogue

Sebastian Chang, piano

Please

Festival Sponsors:

Creators Corps Sponsors:

Owsley Brown II Family Foundation

Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation

William M Wood Foundation

Edie Nixon

Anonymous

Link to extended Program Notes

Teddy Abrams, Music Director

Bob Bernhardt, Principal Pops Conductor

Graham Parker, Chief Executive

Classics Series Sponsor

Lo Classics

FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN MUSIC:

Journeys Of Faith 2

Saturday, March 11, 2023 • 7:30PM

The Kentucky Center, Whitney Hall

Teddy Abrams, conductor | Jecorey Arthur, narrator | Sebastian Chang, piano

Joel THOMPSON (text by James Baldwin) To Awaken the Sleeper

Tyler TAYLOR Revisions (World Premiere)

Jecorey Arthur, narrator

Intermission

Leonard BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety

Part I: The Prologue

The Seven Ages (Variations 1-7)

The Seven Stages (Variations 8-14)

Part II: The Dirge

The Masque

The Epilogue

Sebastian Chang, piano

Festival Sponsors:

Creators Corps Sponsors:

Owsley Brown II Family Foundation

Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation

William M Wood Foundation

Edie Nixon

Anonymous

Link to extended Program Notes

FESTIVAL OF AMERICAN MUSIC: JOURNERYS OF FAITH 2

March 10-11, 2023

by Laurie Shulman ©2023 | First North American Serial Rights Only

One Minute Notes

SYMPHONY NO. 2, "THE AGE OF ANXIETY"

Leonard Bernstein’s provocative subtitle for his Second Symphony, “The Age of Anxiety,” is drawn from a poem by W.H. Auden. Written in the 1940s, it explores the empty lives of three men and one woman who meet in a New York City bar. All four are trying to solve their problems through drinking. They take a taxi back to the woman’s apartment, lapsing into a collective melancholy on the way. Upon arrival at her place, they embark on a wild party, attempting to recapture the gaiety that drew them together at the bar. Eventually the guilt of their escapist living yields to spiritual faith.

Bernstein’s symphony comprises two large parts, each subdivided into three sections. Part I consists of a Prologue, ‘The Seven Ages,’ and ‘The Seven Stages.’ Part II opens with a Dirge, followed by Masque and a concluding Epilogue. The Age of Anxiety contains no vocal music. Bernstein suggests all the action and human interplay of Auden’s poem using purely instrumental means. He took Auden’s poem as a point of departure rather than as a literal programme. The prominent solo piano part, which reaches its zenith in Part II’s Masque section, derives from Bernstein’s sense of personal identification with the

Revisions

Tyler Taylor

Revisions draws its inspiration from the historical relationship – or lack thereof –between the saxophone and the poem: the pianist as autobiographical protagonist. The Epilogue – his closing expression of faith — brings the journey to a satisfying end. It is the symphony’s ultimate message.

To Awaken The Sleeper

Atlanta-based Joel Thompson is only in his 30s, but he has already made a name for himself as a composer. To Awaken the Sleeper, for narrator and orchestra, was a co-commission from the Colorado Music Festival and the Louisiana Philharmonic. Thompson chose texts from the writings of James Baldwin, which he describes as “a beacon for me, a source of comfort: a way for me to focus my craft.” Thompson’s instrumental interludes between narrated passages serve as meditations on Baldwin’s words; for example, when he speaks of “ignorance, allied with power” we hear ominous military music underscored by snare drum. Later, a reference to “seas of blood” evokes the Civil War with a fleeting quotation from “Dixie.” Ultimately Baldwin’s text and Thompson’s music challenge us to redefine ourselves with a new behavioral vocabulary that both accepts today’s reality and makes for a better future. That challenge is powered by hope and determination.

orchestra. In Europe, the instrument’s creator Adolph Sax was known as an arrogant and difficult man whose new and advanced instruments threatened to disrupt the scene as it was. His

Program Notes

reputation, alongside the performers’ general fear and distrust of change, kept his instruments from being widely used at the time. In early 20th century America, the saxophone had become an instrument associated with Jazz and black expressions of music, and therefore associated with a race of people who were viewed as inferior by a majority in the classical scene. Classical music institutions, the orchestra being a prime example, were not known for welcoming these expressions, or things associated with them, into their traditions. In both cases, the saxophone was viewed as a potential threat – unworthy infiltrators of something sacred. Thus, the saxophone, with few exceptions, became a family of instruments othered by the orchestra.

I have experienced the residue of this attitude toward the saxophone in my lifetime with composers and performers frequently perpetuating the erroneous idea that saxophones do not blend well with orchestral instruments and therefore do not belong. The saxophone’s specifically engineered ability to blend well with orchestral instruments, in addition to the tremendous strides made by saxophone players in the last

50 years, has proven the instrument to be extremely versatile and valuable in many contexts, including the symphony orchestra. Even still, we rarely see them included.

Lately, I have thought about how an instrument or a group of instruments’ “meaning” or connotation can be used to inform dramatic musical scenarios. In a broad sense, these scenarios create abstract analogies for socialpolitical happenings. In the case of Revisions, the saxophone’s history comes charged with immense dramatic and symbolic potential.

The presence of the saxophone quartet, seated alongside the string section principals, creates a dramatic tension within the orchestra as part of a scenario that explores power dynamics, unity, division, companionship, and finding a sense of place.

I offer Revisions to you with many thanks to Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra for their trust in and commitment to my work, and to my fellow Creators Lisa and TJ for their unending support and friendship.

Artist Biography

TYLER TAYLOR, composer (b. 1992)

Tyler Taylor is a composerperformer from Louisville, KY.

Tyler’s recent pieces are explorations of the different ways identity can be expressed in musical scenarios. Common among these pieces is a sense of contradiction – sometimes whimsical, sometimes alarming – that comes from the interaction of diverse musical layers. This expression of contradiction comes from his experiences as a person of mixed race; being raised on hip hop and R&B while inheriting a European tradition of “classical art music” as his primary form of musical expression; and pursuing a career in a field that generally lacks representation of his demographic.

The KY Lottery has raised over $4.4 BILLION for college scholarships and grants.

Tyler is currently a full time resident composer at the Louisville Orchestra as part of the inaugural installation of their Creators Corps residency program. In

To learn more visit: KYLottery.com professional settings, including the Louisville Ballet and the Owensboro Symphony. He maintains a studio of young horn players in Louisville and southern Indiana.

Artist Biography

Tyler holds degrees from Indiana University (Doctor of Music with minors in Music Theory & Horn Performance), the Eastman School of Music (Master of Music), and the University of Louisville (Bachelor of Music).

SEBASTIAN CHANG, piano (b.

1988)

Sebastian Chang's first major performance as a piano soloist was of his composition Concertino for Piano and Orchestra with the Tokyo Symphony at the age of 9. Sebastian obtained his B.M. in Composition from the Curtis Institute of Music and an M.M. in Composition from the University of Southern California. From '16-'18, Sebastian was the Resident Composer for the Louisville Orchestra. Sebastian is the youngest three time BMI Student Composer Awards recipient. He received his first award at the age of 14 (receiving the Carlos Surinach Prize that year for being the youngest recipient), his second award at the age of 17, and third award at the age of 19. BMI has since reduced the maximum amount of awards per individual from three to two. Sebastian is a Davidson Fellow Laureate through the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.

Sebastian's compositions have been performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Britt Festival Orchestra, the Louisville Chamber

Choir, the NouLou Chamber Players, the Louisville Ballet, and the Louisville Orchestra. His Symphony, premiered in January '15 by the Louisville Orchestra, is subject of Episode 9: First Symphony” of the Music Makes a City Now documentary. Between Heaven and Earth, based on oil paintings of visual artist Vian Sora, premiered on February '18, performed by the Louisville Orchestra & Louisville Chamber Choir at the Kentucky Center in Louisville, KY. Cryptogenic Infrastructure Fantasy for violin, clarinet, piano, and timpani, premiered in July '18 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center as part of ChamberFest Cleveland. It received its second performance at St. Stephen's Anglican Church in Calgary, Canada, in December '18. Sebastian's Piano Concerto "The Empress," for piano and full orchestra, premiered on June 17, '22, in Jacksonville, Oregon, by the Britt Festival Orchestra, featuring the composer as piano soloist. His new Piano Trio No. 2 “Beyond Silence” premiered Sunday, November 20, '22, perf performed by the Trio Barclay at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

He is Louisville Orchestra’s first-call pianist. He worked the summer '22 Britt Orchestra Season as Orchestral Pianist following the premiere of his Piano Concerto. He is an instructor in the Instrumental Music conservatory at the Orange County School of the Arts.

Sebastian freelances around Orange County & Los Angeles as a keyboardist. His publishing company is Sebastian Press, registered under the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers (ASCAP).

Artist Biography

JOEL THOMPSON, composer (b. 1988)

Joel Thompson, best known for the choral work, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, is an artist and educator currently serving as composer-in-residence with the Houston Grand Opera (HGO). Committed to creating spaces for healing and community through music, Thompson has collaborated with the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Colorado Music Festival, and also serves as composer-inresidence at the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. His opera, The Snowy Day, based on the beloved children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats, was commissioned and premiered by the Houston Grand Opera in December 2021.

JECOREY ARTHUR, narrator (b. 1992)

Jecorey "1200"

Arthur is an award-winning teacher, musician, and activist from the West End of Louisville, KY. He earned his nickname “1200” after teaching himself to produce hip hop on a KORG D-1200 studio at age 12. A decade later he earned his Bachelor's of Music Education and Master's of Arts in Teaching at the University of Louisville. He most recently earned the title of Councilman, as the youngest elected official in city history, representing Louisville Metro Council District 4.

Mr. Arthur — your new favorite music teacher (New York Times), has served hundreds of thousands of students around the world in public schools, community centers, and beyond, including a tour to Boys and Girls Clubs of America, a cultural exchange with De Montfort University in England, an artist-in-residency at New York City's 92nd Street Y, and digitally as host of The Music Box, peaking at #3 on podcast charts for kids education.

As a musician, Arthur has performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Big Ears Festival, Forecastle Festival, and Jungfrau Erzählfestival; performed as a soloist with the Stereo Hideout Brooklyn Orchestra and the Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Nashville, Columbus, and Oregon Symphony Orchestras; performed as the first hip hop artist with the Louisville Orchestra including world premieres of folk opera The Way Forth and rap opera The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, where he starred as his hometown hero; and composed music for theatre, film, television, radio, podcast, and studio albums.

As an activist, Arthur has produced multi-media educational content about the state of Black America, organized hundreds of events hiring thousands of regional artists, and used the arts to advocate for policy change. In 2020 his activism led him to being elected to represent Louisville Metro Council District 4, representing downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. As a member of the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Foundation — he writes policy, organizes campaigns, and trains activists across the U.S.. Arthur has been featured on Al Jazeera, PBS, BET, BBC, CBC, NPR, NYT, and more.

Arthur is a professor at the Historically Black College and University — Simmons College of Kentucky, an artist roster member of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), and an endorsed artist with Salyers Percussion. In 2019 he became a BMe Genius Fellow, using his reward to help open the Parkland Plaza, an outdoor green space, community venue, and natural playground in his childhood neighborhood. The plaza is curated with residents alongside 1200 LLC, the independent music agency specializing in compositions, performances, and events that Arthur founded. Since joining Louisville Metro Council, he has legislated dozens of policies focused on abolishing poverty. You can follow Arthur's work online at @jecoreyarthur, @1200llc, and @parklandplaza.

JAMES BALDWIN, author (1924–1987)

James Baldwin was a American essayist, novelist, playwright writer, and civil rights activist who is best known for his semi-autobiographical novels and plays that center on race, politics, and sexuality. He was an important voice, particularly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the United States and, later, through much of western Europe. James

Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924. He was reared by his mother and stepfather David Baldwin, a Baptist preacher, originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. During his early teen years, Baldwin attended Frederick Douglass Junior High School, where he met his French teacher and mentor Countee Cullen, who achieved prominence as a poet of the Harlem Renaissance. Baldwin went on to DeWitt Clinton High School, where he edited the school newspaper Magpie and participated in the literary club.

After graduating from high school in 1942, he had to put his plans for college on hold to help support his family, which included seven younger children. He took whatever work he could find, including laying railroad tracks for the U.S. Army in New Jersey.

In 1948, feeling stifled creatively because of the racial discrimination in America, Baldwin traveled to Europe to create what were later acclaimed as masterpieces to the American literature canon. While living in Paris, Baldwin was able to separate himself from American segregated society and better write about his experience in the culture that was prevalent in America. Baldwin took part in the Civil Rights Movement, becoming close friends with Medgar Evers, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, and Lorraine Hansberry. The deaths of many of these friends influenced his novels and plays and his writing about race relations in America.

Baldwin’s works helped to raise public awareness of racial and sexual oppression. His honest portrayal of his personal experiences in a national context challenged America to uphold the values it promised on equality and justice. He explored these topics in such works as Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Another Country. Baldwin firmly believed sexuality was fluid and should not be divided into strict categories, an idea that would not be acceptable until modern day. Through his popularity and writings produced at home and abroad, Baldwin contributed as an agent of change to the artistic and intellectual traditions in American society.

Baldwin remained an outspoken observer of race relations in American culture. He would branch out into other forms of creative expression, writing poetry and screenplays, including treatments for the Autobiography of Malcolm X that later inspired Spike Lee’s feature film, Malcolm X. He also spent years as a college professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hampshire College. Baldwin died at this home in St. Paul de Vence, France, on December 1, 1987, of stomach cancer at age 63. Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House was the subject of the critically acclaimed 2016 Raoul Peck film, I Am Not Your Negro.

W.H. AUDEN (1907 – 1973)

English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist

Wystan Hugh Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the 20th century. Auden grew up in Birmingham, England and was known for his extraordinary intellect and wit. His first book, Poems, was published in 1930 with the help of T.S. Eliot. Just before World War II broke out, Auden emigrated to the United States where he met the poet Chester Kallman, who became his lifelong lover. Auden won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for The Age of Anxiety. Much of his poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. While the teachings of Marx and Freud weighed heavily in his early work, they later gave way to religious and spiritual influences. Some critics have called Auden an antiRomantic — a poet of analytical clarity who sought for order, for universal patterns of human existence. Auden’s poetry is considered versatile and inventive, ranging from the tersely epigrammatic to book-length verse, and incorporating a vast range of scientific knowledge. Throughout his career, he collaborated with Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice, and also frequently joined with Chester Kallman to create libretti for musical works by Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Today he is considered one of the most skilled and creative mid-20th century poets who regularly wrote in traditional rhyme and meter.