seen/ unseen 2020/ 2021
“ Searching for music is... an effort to reclaim the
—David Bowie
curator’s note / We began designing Longy’s 20/21 season as the global pandemic unfolded, when we heard COVID-19 referred to as “the invisible enemy.” It made us consider how many aspects of our world are also invisible. Some are intangible, never meant to be seen. Some are clear to us, but we dismiss or neglect them. And some consume entire segments of our society, but those unaffected take no notice. In Seen/ Unseen, we confront what we think we know. What assumptions do we hold? Have our views been manipulated? Who remains invisible in our society? This season, hear the stories of our students and faculty, and as you listen, keep an eye out for a shift in your own perspective. Join our world-renowned guest artists and artistic partners to examine what we cannot see and what we have chosen not to see. Uncover pieces unjustly dismissed, voices actively suppressed, and give classic works a second glance. Explore dual meanings, hidden messages, elusive melodies. At Longy, we see the role of a conservatory differently. We believe anyone who wants to create should create. Our students and faculty don’t make music despite their varied backgrounds, but because of them, so whether you have a history with Longy or not, you are welcome here. Seen/Unseen features multimedia presentations, virtual concerts, and live performances, and be sure to check our website as we continue to update our programming and schedule! Don’t miss this chance to explore how music can quiet the mind, inspire revolution, and shine a spotlight on those shapes we can’t quite make out.
Karen Zorn, president
resistance / resilience
It’s no secret that music empowers generations and inspires revolutions. Resistance/resilience explores the role of music in questioning unjust systems, uniting communities against oppression, and paving a path forward in strength and hope.
credit: Jean-Michel Basquiat / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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new gallery / fragility and resilience Saturday / 9.12.2020 Sarah Bob, NGCS founding artistic director Sheila Gallagher, multimedia artist Nothing says resilience like airing your world premiere online, as composers Stephanie Ann Boyd, Aaron Trant, and Anthony Green are doing in this NewGallery Concert Series at Longy.edu/ live, also featuring performances by flutist Sarah Brady, pianist Sarah Bob, and more, with art by Sheila Gallagher—a night of making life’s uncertainty face the music, and that’s a virtual certainty.
horszowski trio / music versus politics Friday / 10.2.2020 Pope Clement XI banned opera, including Handel’s. China’s cultural revolution stifled Chen Yi’s music. The Nazis banned Jewish composers like Mendelssohn. Gubaidulina composed her masterworks under the Soviet yoke. And yet it is their music that prevailed and speaks to us tonight, saying: take heart.
“ I’m a real rebel with a cause.” —Nina Simone
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neave trio / rising Saturday / 10.10.2020 Expectations rise, people rise up, we rise to the occasion (and, yes, the sun also rises). With timely, timeless works of Shostakovich, Clara Schumann, and Jennifer Higdon to guide you, let this multimedia performance transport you into the world of meaning that “rising” unlocks. And remember, what goes up doesn’t always have to come down.
oktoberfest / irRESISTable Friday / 10.23.2020 Greg Smucker, stage director / Ryan Turner, music director Whether you are, per Johnny Mercer, “an old immovable object” or “an irresistible force,” social distancing has probably put a crimp in your style. Let an evening of song, satire, and nostalgia remind you of the charms of seduction and attraction, and the powers of resistance, that await your return. credit: Neave Trio (above); illustration by Diana Ejaita (right)
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catalyst concert / election eve blowout / counts and recounts: music and politics Monday / 11.2.2020 Donald Berman, artistic director Did somebody say, “Sing the Marseillaise?” Political resistance has always had a soundtrack, and whichever way it goes on Tuesday, November 3rd, someone is going to be singing the blues. So, pull out all the stops while you still can, for a rousing and rambunctious night of music on what promises to be the eve of destruction or (fingers crossed) whatever the opposite might be.
“ Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. ” —Edgar Degas
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“ Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was
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stirring within their souls.
—Martin Luther King Jr. faculty artist recital / i have a dream / building bridges, not walls Saturday / 2.20.2021 David Small, baritone Born of a desire to push back against rising intolerance and to support those targeted with hate, covert or overt, David Small’s faculty recital debut meets the moment with the Black and Latino voices of Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, Carlos Gustavino, Antonio Francisco Braga, c ulminating with Lee Hoiby’s epic setting of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech for baritone and piano.
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faculty artist recital / those unheard are sweeter Saturday / 3.6.2021 Renana Gutman According to Keats, “heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” Confined to the Polish Ghetto as a child, killed in Auschwitz at 25, escaped to Palestine in 1933: these are the unheard composers of the Jewish diaspora, brought together in pianist Renana Gutman’s faculty recital debut. Josima Feldschuh, Gideon Klein, Paul Ben-Haim, with the influences of Berg, Ravel, and Debussy, map a musical landscape of resistance, persistence, and infinite hope.
catalyst concert / resonance & resilience: music for change Saturday / 5.2.2021 Corrine Byrne and Andy Kozar, artistic directors The musical arts and political resistance have long stood shoulder-to-shoulder, confronting tyranny and injustice in myriad forms. Here we see how music gives voice to the silenced, empowers the powerless, and insists that society stand up for change.
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music / mindfulness/
Both meditation and music help us reach beyond our conscious mind. In this series, you will focus on each moment: the ethereal and transcendent, unseen and unexplored. You might be surprised what power you unlock by tuning into the present.
art credit: Sheila Gallagher
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a far cry / dawn breaks Saturday / 10.17.2020 Juantio Becenti’s string quartet, The Forest at Dawn, is at the heart of this programmatic journey from struggle and discord to hope and promise. The program begins with Shostakovich’s austere String Quartet No. 11, which, like the Becenti quartet, opens with a lone, melancholy voice, adding players one by one. From here, we take a collective breath of fresh air with the peaceful, lilting Allegretto from Mozart’s K. 590, which continues the uplift Becenti began. The program culminates as the mood continues to rise and “Dawn Breaks’’ with our arrangement of George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun.
neave trio / finding what is lost Saturday / 12.12.2020 Music opens a space for exploring what is seen. Come into this space as we search for Eric Nathan’s “missing words”, Glinka’s lost love, and perhaps the thrill of finding ourselves in Dale Trumbore’s “Another Chance”.
musicians from marlboro / drunk with moonlight Sunday / 1.31.2021 Sip the moonshine decanted in Moon Songs, Shulamit Ran’s incandescent companion piece to Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Sung by soprano Kristin Bachrach, the music embodies the myriad ways we have been struck, from the folksy to the poetic to the fantastical, by a glowing, mysterious lunar orb. Add to that a pair of effervescent classics by Haydn and Mozart and find, in the company of the Musicians from Marlboro, that the moon—is it fickle? or is it constant?—can be yours for a song.
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“ One eye sees, the other feels.” —Paul Klee horszowski trio / when the seen meets the unseen Friday / 3.26.2021 Synesthesia: Where some see red, others hear it. That’s synesthesia, the cross wiring of the senses—for Klee painting in the style of Bach, or Sibelius making a musical mosaic, or Fauré fathering musical impressionism, the result is the color of sound, the unseen made visible. If the piano tickles, or the stage light tastes of chocolate, don’t worry! You’re clearly a synesthete.
musicians from marlboro / in my nightly thoughts Sunday / 3.28.2021 Night is the dark of the day’s ending, the sweetness of forgetting, the dream of awakening to light. Performing the music of Brahms, Handel, Soper, and Schubert, the Musicians from Marlboro evoke all the hues of loss and longing, fear, and wonder the night holds. credit: Paul Klee, in the Style of Bach (above); Karl Stephan studio (right)
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horszowski trio / in the face of isolation Friday / 4.30.2021 Morton Feldman’s epic Piano Trio wakes us from our quarantine-induced torpor. As Feldman’s music shakes us, surprises us, and challenging us at every turn, the hypnotic images of Mark Rothko cast their own spell, inviting us into an ever-expanding mindscape where music and art conspire to inspire us.
new gallery / manifestation Saturday / 5.1.2021 Sarah Bob, NGCS founding artistic director Karl Stephan, visual artist How can we manifest our own sense of purpose and power through our texts, our history, our art, our music? Who can inspire such things in us? Join us for a powerful event highlighting Songs of Harriet Tubman by Nkeiru Okoye with soprano, Synthia Pullum and pianist Sarah Bob, featuring visual artist Karl Stephan.
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our partnerships / Longy gives students extraordinary performing opportunities through our world-class artistic partnerships.
Boston Early Music Festival
Celebrity Series of Boston
Castle of Our Skins
A Far Cry
Arts Engines
Boston Opera Collaborative
Emmanuel Music
Musicians from Marlboro
Boston Camerata
Radius Ensemble
uncorsetted / unbound
Art is no place for coloring within the lines. In this series, we use music to break the barriers we have inherited, shed expectations put upon us, and unleash the wholeness of ourselves into the world. This is the time to look at your own life from a new angle, so free your mind and dive into the unknown.
credit: Max Ernst / Les visiteurs du dimanche / Hubertus Wald Charitable Foundation
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castle of our skins / break away Friday / 3.5.2021 For its second Longy residency celebrating composers from the African diaspora, Castle of our Skins welcomes composer Jessie Montgomery. The three-day residency will include masterclasses, student performances, and lectures, to be capped by Castle of our Skins’s “Break Away” portrait concert featuring Montgomery’s extraordinary works.
student collaboration / operatica Thursday / 3.11.2021 Corrine Byrne, artistic director The Longy Vocal Studies Department and Longy’s Orchestra Flex under the baton of Ryan Turner team up to present beloved arias and duets from the operatic repertoire. Highlights of the evening include operatic selections by Boston-based composer Dr. Elena Ruehr, selections from Chevalier de St. George’s not often performed work L’amant anonyme, and a special guest artist performance by superstar mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy. Other works include arias and duets by Mozart, Handel, Strauss, Donizetti and more.
“ I think music is an instrument. It can create the initial thought patterns that can change the
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thinking of the people.
—John Coltrane
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credit: la chaussure de cendrillon by Dom Art 44 (France)
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student collaboration / spring opera: cendrillon Thursday–Friday / 4.15–16.2021 Angela Gooch, director / Ryan Turner, conductor Not your grandma’s Cinderella (though it did premiere when composer Pauline Viardot was 83 years old!). The stepmother’s a bumbling stepfather, the fairy godmother attends the ball (and treats everyone to song), and the prince isn’t really the prince but if the slipper fits...
catalyst concert / known/unknown frauenliebe Friday / 4.23.2021 Wayman Chin and Jane Struss, artistic directors In Robert Schumann’s widely known song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben the Frau’s Leben ends when her husband dies. In Carl Loewe’s lesser-known setting of Adelbert von Chamisso’s poem, Frauenliebe, the woman makes it past widowhood, well into old age. What does that tell you about the men, their music, their view of women, and Victorian values? Well, you might ask—and tonight, exploring these settings side by side, you’ll have your chance.
castle of our skins / dream-visions Sunday / 4.25.2021 In a collaboration with Winsor Music, we set dream visions alight. Celebrating historically underrepresented Black artists, this partnership presents Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet, Hannah Kendall’s string quartet “Vera”, and—aiming for “both raucous and exquisitely poised,” as New York Times critic Seth Colter Walls said of his work—an exciting new co-commission by David Sanford. The night features Rane Moore, clarinet, and Ashleigh Gordon, viola, the ensembles’ artistic directors and Longy faculty members, in a faculty recital duo debut. Lights out, night’s up, let’s see.
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our stories / our truth
You go first. No, you. No, really, you. We want to be heard, we want to be seen, but first we’ve got to gather our nerve, step up, and get started. Our Stories delves into the rites and rituals that help us along and the narratives that invisibly—and visibly—connect us.
credit: Joseph Holston, Jubilation
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boston camerata / #SheToo, her grief / dido and aeneas Saturday / 11.14.2020 Anne Azéma, director Before Carthage was delenda, its queen was no more. Dido revealed herself and surrendered everything for the faithless Aeneas—her dignity, her rule, and finally her life. Transcending her grief is Henry Purcell’s magnificent score, produced anew for our day, combining performance and media. Boston Camerata soloists—assisted by young artists from Longy and Harvard University—give full voice to Dido’s undoing, elevating her sorrow to an art and foreshadowing, perhaps, her second face-off, Aeneas 2.0, in the underworld. It was writ large all along: sunt lacrimae rerum (there are tears of things).
a far cry / amazonita Saturday / 12.12.2020 Amazonita is musically grounded in the cultural traditions of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil—countries that touch the Amazon River and surround the Amazon rainforest. Struck by these natural wonders, the program revels in the awe and beauty of the Earth and ancestral societies, and contemplates how modernity interacts with them.
“ We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” —Joan Didion
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new gallery / from there to here Saturday / 1.16.2021 Sarah Bob, NGCS founding artistic director Rashon “Rah-Lik” Briggs, photographer You can get there from here, as these musical pieces— along with photography from Rashon “Rah-Lik” Briggs— reveal in so many transporting ways. Featuring a piano solo commission by Jessica Mays, as well as works by composers Forbes Graham, Clifton Ingram, and Vanessa Lann, NewGal conducts us on travels as literal as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west and as metaphysical as the inner transformation of a Holocaust survivor. Reserve your ticket, the journey begins here.
credit: photography by Rashon “Rah-Lik” Briggs / Horszowski Trio (right)
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horszowski trio / the inside story Friday / 1.29.2021 Haydn advised Beethoven not to publish his Op.1, No. 3, now one of his signature pieces. Adjudicators of an anonymous competition were shocked to learn Rebecca Clarke’s gender after deeming hers the work of a poet. Korngold wrote his wild, grand suite for a pianist who lost his right hand in the war, showing that anything is possible. Even Horszowski’s own Jesse Mills lets us in on his improvising alter ego in this behind-the-scenes look (or listen) into music-making.
“In terms of helping people understand and know each other a little better, music is universal—
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universal and transporting.
—Aretha Franklin
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neave trio / her story Saturday / 2.6.2021 “Her story” has all too often been confined to a back chapter, or given way to “his”—but not tonight, as the powerful work of trailblazer Lili Boulanger, Longy’s own Alexandra du Bois, and Bostonian Elena Ruehr peel off the label “women composers” to reveal what they really are: composers.
boston camerata / #SheToo, her gift / douce dame jolie: guillaume de machaut’s last affair Sunday / 2.14.2021 Anne Azéma, artistic director Douce dame jolie, the lady fair and sweet, was well beyond the reach of the courtly romance that Machaut, consummate poet and musician of the middle ages, primarily penned. In this transcendent web of song and verse, made so wonderfully worldly by Boston Camerata and young artists from Longy, her youthful otherworldly appeal torments her older suitor, much as a young love would torment the aging Machaut in Le voir dit, the true story, literally “to see he says”—let this story speak, or sing, for itself.
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“ Music shows us that all of it matters. Every story within every voice, every
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note within every song.
—Michelle Obama gessner-schocken series / in his shadow Friday / 2.19.2021 Jessica Osborne, piano A highly sought-after musical collaborator, pianist Jessica Osborne is singularly suited to show us the unseen if never silent partner in some of classical music’s most fruitful pairings. After her bravura performance in last season’s Ames-Totenberg Stradivarius Homecoming concert, Osborne returns to Longy and compels us to ask who—and what—is Seen and Unseen in the works of Brahms/Clara Schumann, Schubert/Fanny Mendelssohn, Chopin/Maria Szymanowska, and others.
musicians from marlboro / the last faint spark Sunday / 2.21.2021 As in his Canticle III, Still falls the rain: The raids 1940, Britten captures the darkness, disillusion, and still inextinguishable hope summoned by the memory of the London Blitz, his third quartet, composed during his final illness, speaks of a profound, if personal, night and dawn. Between these works of eloquent despair and promise, the Musicians from Marlboro conduct us through Schubert’s Auf dem Strom and Quartet in E-flat Major, featuring artists Miles Mykkanen, tenor; Radovan Vlatkovic, horn; and Lydia Brown, piano—reminding us that even the last faint spark has the power to ignite.
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neave trio / youth and experience Saturday / 4.3.2021 It’s not so much the world that changes over time as the way we see it, in a transformation charted in these age-spanning works presented by Neave Trio. So, the Trio élégiaque composed by Rachmaninoff at 18 speaks of youth, while Ravel’s trio, written in his prime, conveys power and mastery. And Brahms’s trio, first composed at 20, revised 37 years later, looks forward and back, as if to say, per A.S. Byatt, “You wrote something easily in youth, and later you came to see how difficult it all was.”
faculty artist recital / the stories we carry with us Friday / 4.9.2021 Katherine Pukinskis, composer Dreams set responsibilities in motion, and the same can be said of music, at least for new Longy faculty member Katherine Pukinskis, whose work opens a world and beckons the listener in. Into this world she carries an idea, a memory, a person, with all the gravity of conveying what it means to be the child of an immigrant and a woman. Each piece holds a story—hers, the poet’s—but also the experience of all who share the space that music makes for a time.
catalyst concert / labelled degenerate Wednesday / 4.21.2021 Libor Dudas, artistic director In the late 1930’s, the Nazi regime identified hundreds of visual artists and musicians as “degenerate”. Preeminent figures in 20th century art, including Chagall, Kandinsky, Klee, Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Weill, all had works banned or burned. Hear this once forbidden music with visual projections and writings from the artists, composed for posterity as their identities and livelihoods were stripped away. credit (right): Marc Chagall / The Violinist
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annual / celebrations Longy’s virtual gala celebration Monday / 03.15.2021 Join us for Longy’s Virtual Gala Concert to celebrate the School’s commitment to the community and the community’s generosity to Longy. Enjoy curated performances while supporting Longy’s mission to prepare our students to become the musicians the world needs them to be.
the honor is ours Friday / 5.14.2021 A musician is a healer, an entertainer, an educator, a thoughtleader, an entrepreneur and so much more. At Longy we believe each musician’s voice matters and has the ability to change their world for the better. Witness how Longy students exhibit their commitment to artistic excellence, expression, and outreach at this year’s honors concert.
Catalyst Concerts: Step behind the scenes at Longy for an up-close look at our powerful student/faculty collaborations.
september 12 new gallery / fragility and resilience / p. 5
october 2 horszowski trio /
music versus politics / p. 5
10 17 24
neave trio / rising / p. 6
seen/ unseen
a far cry / dawn breaks / p. 11 oktoberfest / irRESISTable / p. 6
november 2 catalyst concert / election eve blowout /
counts and recounts: music and politics / p. 6
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boston camerata / #SheToo, her grief / dido and aeneas / p. 21
december 12 a far cry / amazonita / p. 21 12 neave trio / finding what is lost / p. 11
2020/2021
january 16 new gallery / from there to here / p. 22 29 horszowski trio / the inside story / p. 23 31 musicians from marlboro / drunk with moonlight / p. 11
at a glance Longy.edu
Follow the color coding of our season guide!
february 6 neave trio / her story / p. 24 14 boston camerata / #SheToo, her gift /
douce dame jolie: guillaume de machaut’s last affair / p. 10 19 gessner-schocken series / in his shadow / p. 25 20 faculty artist recital / i have a dream / building bridges, not walls / p. 8
21
musicians from marlboro / the last faint spark / p. 25
march 5 castle of our skins / break away / p. 17 6 faculty artist recital / those unheard are sweeter / p. 9 11 student collaboration / operatica / p. 17 26 horszowski trio / when the seen meets the unseen / p. 12 28 musicians from marlboro / in my nightly thoughts / p. 12 april 3 neave trio / youth and experience / p. 26 9 faculty artist recital / the stories we carry with us / p. 26 15/16 student collaboration / spring opera: cendrillon / p. 19 21 catalyst concert / labelled degenerate / p. 26 23 catalyst concert / known/unknown frauenliebe / p. 19 25 castle of our skins / dream-visions / p. 19 30 horszowski trio / in the face of isolation / p. 13 may 1 new gallery / manifestation / p. 13 2 catalyst concert / resonance & resilience: music for change / p. 9
Legend:
resistance/ resilience music/ mindfulness uncorsetted/ unbound our stories/ our truth
seen/ unseen 27 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138