mondavi center
2o11–12
Ballet Preljocaj: Blanche Neige Photo by Jean-Claude Carbonne
program Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 3
san francisco symphony
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alexi kenney, violin and hilda huang, piano
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soledad barrio and noche flamenca
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alfredo rodriguez trio
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royal philharmonic orchestra
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alexander string quartet
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oliver stone
from the directo
before the show
• As a courtesy to others, please turn off all electronic devices. • If you have any hard candy, please unwrap it before the lights dim. • Please remember that the taking of photographs or the use of any type of audio or video recording equipment is strictly prohibited. • Please look around and locate the exit nearest you. That exit may be behind you, to the side or in front of you. In the unlikely event of a fire alarm or other emergency please leave the building through that exit. • As a courtesy to all our patrons and for your safety, anyone leaving his or her seat during the performance may not be re-admitted to his/her ticketed seat while the performance is in progress.
Accommodations for Patrons with Disabilities 530.754.2787 • TDD: 530.754.5402 In the event of an emergency, patrons requiring physical assistance on the Orchestra Terrace, Grand Tier and Upper Tier levels please proceed to the elevator alcove refuge where this sign appears. Please let us know ahead of time for any special seating requests or accommodations. See page 55 for more information. Donors 530.754.5438 Donor contributions to the Mondavi Center presenting program help to offset the costs of the annual season of performances and lectures and provide a variety of arts education and outreach programs to the community. Friends of Mondavi Center 530.754.5000 Contributors to the Mondavi Center are eligible to join the Friends of Mondavi Center, a volunteer support group that assists with educational programs and audience development. Volunteers 530.754.1000 Mondavi Center volunteers assist with numerous functions, including house ushering and the activities of the Friends of Mondavi Center and the Arts and Lectures Administrative Advisory Committee. Tours 530.754.5399 One-hour guided tours of the Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall, Vanderhoef Studio Theatre and Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby are given regularly by the Friends of Mondavi Center. Reservations are required. Lost and Found Hotline 530.752.8580 Recycle We reuse our playbills! Thank you for returning your recycled playbill in the bin located by the main exit on your way out.
H
appy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. In the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, we at the Mondavi Center promise you a 2012 filled with art, not only throughout the rest of this season, but as we launch our 10th anniversary season in October.
We hope and believe that our region is a better place in which to live since the Mondavi Center opened in 2002. During our first decade, for example, nearly 100,000 students and teachers have experienced our school matinees—in some cases the only opportunity these children have to be exposed to the arts. Through our residency programs (discussed in last month’s playbill) many young people have also been able to interact with artists in “up close and personal” settings.
r
info
Photo: Lynn Goldsmith
Before the Curtain Rises, Please Play Your Part
Willie Nelson, Jane Goodall, Bill Clinton, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Lobos, Michael Tilson Thomas, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, John Cleese, Elvis Costello—while you won’t find these great performers sharing a stage, they have all appeared on the Jackson Hall stage. Since opening our doors in 2002, our aim has been to bring you the best— leaders in the arts world and beyond, without being hemmed in by any one genre or style. At the same time, we aim to share with you artists whom you do not yet know, who are not household names, but who have something important to say, beautiful or witty to share. Like the wonderful a cappella chorus Cantus whose holiday program All is Calm—a re-telling of the 1914 Christmas Truce— was one of the most moving combinations of words and song ever to appear on our stage. In that vein, this month we bring you (in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre) the young Cuban-born jazzman Alfredo Rodriguez and from Madrid, the great Flamenco troupe Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca. This month, my colleague Jeremy Ganter and I are putting the final touches on our 10th anniversary season (2012–13). Our goal is to continue to bring our region a mix of great stars, alongside artists and ensembles that we hope you will find revelatory. We will have more on that later. In the meantime, there are more than 40 events left during this second half of the current season: cultural icons like Oliver Stone and Patti Smith; great jazz, classical and soul musicians to traditions from around the world; more film and theater; and of course, the longawaited U.S. premiere of Blanche Neige in March. Enjoy!
Don Roth, Ph.D. Executive Director Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Copyright © UC Regents, Davis campus, 2011. All Rights Reserved.
WHAT DO YOU SEE? We see cancer-fighting nanoparticles. You see the promise of tomorrow. As a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, UC Davis is among the top 1 percent of cancer centers in the nation and is leading the way to unlocking the mysteries of cancer. Here, world-renowned health-care specialists conduct groundbreaking research, teach, and offer innovative treatments not available elsewhere— including tiny nanoparticles that can deliver targeted cancer-fighting agents to attack the tumor without harming healthy tissue. And that’s just the beginning. To see the full story and more, visit YouSeeTheFuture.UCDavis.edu. For more information, call 800-2-UC DAVIS.
YOU SEE NEW HOPE
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas, music director and conductor Christian Tetzlaff, violin A Western Health Advantage Orchestra Series Event Thursday, January 5, 2012 • 8PM Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. Sponsored by
Pre-Performance Talk Thursday, January 5, 2012 • 7PM Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis Speaker: Peter Grunberg, Musical Assistant to Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony (see bio on p.6)
further listening see p. 8
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas, music director and conductor Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Prometheus, Symphonic Poem No. 5
Liszt
Violin Concerto Praeludium: Vivacissimo luminoso—attacca: Aria, Hoquetus, Choral: Andante con moto—attacca: Intermezzo: Presto fluido Passacaglia: Lento intenso Appassionato: Agitato molto
Ligeti
Intermission
Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Opus 13, “Winter Daydreams” Allegro tranquillo: “Dreams on a Wintry Road” Adagio cantabile manon tanto: “Land of Gloom, Land of Mists” Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso Finale: Andante lugubre—Allegro moderato—Allergro maestoso
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Tchaikovsky
Prometheus, Symphonic Poem No. 5 (1855) Franz Liszt (Born October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary; Died July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany) In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who played a prank on Zeus (king of the gods), whereby Zeus got the less desirable cuts of meat when the spoils of sacrifices were divided between men and gods. Zeus released his anger by depriving humankind of fire. Prometheus, however, stole fire from Zeus and delivered it back to mortals. Zeus retaliated by chaining Prometheus to a remote rock in the Caucasus, where an eagle dined eternally on his liver. In his fifth-century B.C.E. tragedy Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus ennobled the fallen god as the bringer of fire—and with it, the possibility of civilization. For Greeks raised in the religious traditions governing the Homeric epics, defying the gods would lead to disaster. In casting Prometheus as a sort of heroic rebel, Aeschylus reflected a change in attitudes about the proper balance of power between deity and humanity. If Prometheus was doomed to suffer, he did so to benefit humankind. Not surprisingly, Prometheus would pique the interest of quite a few composers, writers and artists who saw personal sacrifice as the price of enlightenment. Liszt came to Prometheus via Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744– 1803), the theorist of the German Sturm und Drang movement and a gifted literary critic-philosopher. Herder had spent much of his career in Weimar, where Liszt settled in 1847 after giving up his concertizing career. In 1850, Weimar presented a Herder Festival, three days of readings, lectures and concerts. Liszt conducted music he had written for the occasion, including a symphonic overture based on Herder’s Prometheus Unbound. This was unquestionably his own work, but its orchestration was by Joachim Raff, the composer’s musical assistant. We feel honorbound at least to mention Raff, since he had some involvement in the work at hand. Liszt himself had further things in mind for his Prometheus Overture, things connected to his development of the “symphonic poem,” a term he coined in 1853 just as he was embarking on his first works in the then-novel genre. Liszt was the first major composer to champion such large-scale, single-movement orchestral pieces, which he structured to convey a specific scenario or a poetic depiction of characters and their emotional states. On October 18, 1855, he unveiled his expansion of the earlier overture into a full symphonic poem. When Liszt published his first five symphonic poems he penned literary prefaces for the scores. The comments on Prometheus stress mood rather than plot: “It was sufficient to translate into music those phases of feeling which, under repeatedly varied forms of the myth, together constitute its entirety, its soul: namely, boldness, suffering, endurance and redemption … Suffering and apotheosis! Thus compressed, the fundamental idea of this too-truthful fable demanded a sultry, stormy and tempestuous mode of expression. A desolating grief, triumphing at last by energy and perseverance, constitutes the musical character of the piece now offered to notice.” Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this playbill for reuse.
San Francisco Symphony
Program Notes
As these comments suggest, this is dark and tempestuous music, foreshadowing the symphonic writing of Tchaikovsky. We have here a 14-minute piece in which brief sections succeed one another quickly, yet all add up to create an overall mood. The piece bursts forth with vehemence: a rumble on the timpani, cellos and basses is followed by an outburst by practically the whole orchestra—Prometheus defiantly shaking his fist, perhaps. After two such shakes, the tempo relaxes, and we hear a theme articulated in unison by the strings. This leads to an andante in which muted violas, English horn and bassoon put forth solemn ruminations. Tempestuous music follows, with the fist-shaking figure soon worked into the stormy texture. Another recitative passage delivers us to the symphonic poem’s midpoint, marked by a spacious, lyrical theme in the violins (surely this depicts the theme of redemption) and then a fugue. Its development is interrupted by the fist-shaking motif. The central lyric theme finally returns, now as a sort of recapitulation and flirting with both the fist-shaking motif and the fugal material to build an intriguing texture. At the end, blazing A major affirms a heroic conclusion. —James M. Keller Violin Concerto (1989–93) György Ligeti (Born May 28, 1923, in Dicsöszentmarton, Hungary; Died June 12, 2006, in Vienna) György Ligeti, one of music’s greatest modern masters, was born on May 28, 1923, to a Jewish family in the then Hungarian province of Transylvania. He studied composition at the conservatory in his boyhood home of Kolozsvár during the early years of World War II, when he also managed to take some private lessons in Budapest with the noted Hungarian pianist and composer Pál Kadosa. In 1944, however, Ligeti, with many other Jews, was pressed by the Nazis into forced labor in dangerous situations, including working in a munitions dump just in front of the Russian advance. After the war, Ligeti continued his studies at the Budapest Academy of Music. He pursued field research in Romanian folk music for a short time following his graduation in 1949 but returned to the Budapest Academy a year later, when he was appointed professor of harmony, counterpoint and analysis. He fled Hungary in the wake of the Russian occupation of 1956 and settled in Vienna, where he met several important figures of the musical avant-garde, most notably Karlheinz Stockhausen; Ligeti became a naturalized Austrian citizen in 1967. In 1957, he was invited to work at West German Radio in Cologne, where he again took up several modernistic compositions in daring idioms that he had had to put aside because of the repressive political situation in Hungary. He achieved his first wide recognition when his Apparitions was performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Cologne in 1960. Ligeti continued to compose prolifically while teaching at the Darmstadt Contemporary Music Summer Courses, Stockholm Academy of Music, Stanford University, Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and Hamburg Musikhochschule. He was elected to membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, West Berlin Academy of Arts and Hamburg Free Academy of Arts and received the Bach Prize of the City of Hamburg and the German decoration Pour le mérit. He died in Vienna on June 12, 2006.
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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capradio.org
Pre-Performance Talk Speaker: Peter Grunberg
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Peter Grunberg served as head of music staff at San Francisco Opera from 1992–99 and is currently musical assistant to Michael Tilson Thomas. He has appeared as piano soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, performed at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg festivals and collaborated in recital with such artists as Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson and Joshua Bell. He has conducted at the Moscow Conservatory, Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Pacific Music Festival. Over the last few years, Grunberg has been a principal collaborator on the symphony’s Keeping Score project, both as music editor for the documentaries and as music consultant for the website.
Saschko Gawriloff, born in Leipzig in 1929, is one of Germany’s most highly regarded violinists—former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony and Dresden Philharmonic, internationally celebrated soloist and sought-after teacher at Cologne’s Hochschule für Musik. Gawriloff performed the premiere of Ligeti’s Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano in Hamburg in August 1982, and soon thereafter began encouraging him to write a concerto for his instrument. It was not until 1989, however, that Ligeti agreed to accept the commission and then worked on the piece for four years before it reached its finished form. Gawriloff premiered an early three-movement version of the concerto in Cologne in November 1990, after which Ligeti completely replaced the first movement and added what are now the second movement and finale; Gawriloff introduced this five-movement version in Cologne on October 8, 1992. In 1993, Ligeti re-orchestrated the third and fourth movements, and this definitive version was first performed in Paris by the Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Pierre Boulez on June 9, 1993; Gawriloff was again the soloist. Gawriloff constructed the concerto’s concluding cadenza from some of Ligeti’s unused sketches for the work. In this performance, Christian Tetzlaff plays his own cadenza. Ligeti quested for new sonorities and expressive devices throughout his career, and in the Violin Concerto he created a unique sound world not only through the work’s enormous variety of textures, complex rhythms, extreme demands of range and technique from both soloist and orchestra, micro-intervals between the conventional scale notes, “scordatura” (from the Italian “to put out of tune”) for one violin and one viola who are required to tune their instruments to alternate pitches, and brasses who must leave their naturally slightly-out-of-tune upper tones unadjusted, but also by calling for the woodwind players to double on a pair of recorders and a quartet of ocarinas, an ancient, sweet potatoshaped, flute-like instrument.
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San Francisco Symphony
Ligeti’s works include compositions for orchestra, voices, chamber ensembles, organ, piano, theater, electronics (though his music after 1958 was written only for traditional acoustic instruments) and one experimental piece for 100 metronomes. He achieved his widest audience when Stanley Kubrick used excerpts from his Lux aeterna, Requiem and Atmosphères to stunning effect in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ligeti’s music ranges in style from his early flirtations with folk music, Bartók and post-Webern serialism, through the meterless, blurred chromatic “clouds” of soft, densely packed chords of Lux aeterna and Atmosphères and the minimalistic repetitions of several ostinato-based works of the 1960s and 1970s, to the more traditional pieces of his later years, which often incorporate the influence of non-European music while re-embracing his Hungarian heritage. Ligeti summarized his creative philosophy: “My most basic aim as a composer is the revivification of the sonorous aspect of musical form. Those factors of contemporary composition that do not manifest themselves directly as acoustical experience seem to me only of secondary importance. However, this emphatically does not mean that I intend to limit myself to the invention of new tone colors or other sound-phenomena. It is much more important to me to discover new musical forms and a new manner of expression.”
Each of the concerto’s five movements is fitted with a title related to its expressive nature or structural principles. The Praeludium begins with a soft murmuring from the soloist that spreads through the strings to produce what Ligeti called “a glassy, shimmering character.” A melody embedded in the soloist’s figurations is defined by isolated points of sound in the marimba and continued in the pizzicato strings to the accompaniment of chattering woodwinds. The violin persists with its obsessive, non-stop commentary amid permutations of the points-ofsound melody, chattering figures and glassy sonorities before the movement disintegrates with vanishing taps from the timpani and bass drum. Aria, Hoquetus, Choral is a fascinating formal hybrid. The Aria, a slow-moving melody of simple intervals and vague meter chanted by the violin alone at the outset, continues in some form throughout, first by two flutes, then in a strange, almost unearthly setting for ocarina quartet in the block-chord style of a Choral, then softly by trumpet and trombone, then by flutes and ocarinas, then by violin again and finally by flute. The Hoquetus between the flutes and soloist, which begins when the trumpet and trombone take over the Aria, is derived from a Medieval technique in which the notes of a melody are rapidly exchanged between two voices; the resulting short rests in each part inspired the name, Latin for “hiccup.” The violin tries to make the Intermezzo a romantic statement with its lyrical, high-register theme, but muttered descending scales in the strings undermine the melody’s mood and style. The violin perseveres, but the scales start to engulf the entire orchestra and by the end have overwhelmed the soloist in what the score describes as “un cataclisma.” The Passacaglia is a 17th-century musical form based on the continuous repetition of a short phrase or chord pattern. The repeating element in the concerto’s fourth movement, presented by the clarinets, is a soft, slow, double chromatic line that, mirrorlike, simultaneously ascends and descends. The soloist and then the ensemble continue this idea, but it comes under assault by stark, hammered notes from various quarters. The Passacaglia “theme” remains patiently controlled until it finally erupts in a scream (marked ffffffff, impossibly loud, in the score) from the xylophone. The finale (Appassionato) is not a literal reprise of earlier events as much as a suggestion of their musical characters—glassy sonorities, hammered notes, long scalar lines, extremes of range and dynamics, angry exchanges among instruments—that culminates in a virtuosic solo cadenza (“hectic throughout,” according to the score) before the concerto abruptly ends. —Dr. Richard E. Rodda
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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by jeff hudson
further listening
San Francisco Symphony
san francisco symphony orchestra
Audience members who were present when the San Francisco Symphony visited the Mondavi Center in October might remember that gregarious conductor James Conlon gave the audience a quiz: “How many of you have heard the Shostakovich 14th Symphony in concert?” Conlon asked from the podium. Maybe a dozen hands went up. “And how many are hearing it live for the first time?” Nearly 1,500 hands went up, including Conlon’s. The Shostakovich 14th—intensely personal, sparely scored, dark and death-obsessed—dates from 1969, near the end of the composer’s nervewracking life under an autocratic regime. It is a “rare catch” in the concert hall—the San Francisco Symphony’s performance in October was the first time the orchestra had played the piece. Conlon followed up this challenging offering with the opulent, oft-performed Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky’s piano piece from the Czarist era, Pictures at an Exhibition, which Conlon conducted from memory. Tonight’s program—with longtime music director Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Symphony—bears some similarity to October’s program. It’s highly likely that very few people in the audience tonight have heard the Violin Concerto by György Ligeti (who fled Hungary for Vienna after the U.S.S.R.’s army occupied his homeland in 1956). Ligeti’s Violin Concerto was written late in the composer’s life, when the U.S.S.R. was unraveling by the hour.
Like the Shostakovich 14th, the Ligeti Violin Concerto is no easy, tuneful ride. It’s been dubbed by The New York Times “an otherworldly work” that “moves between chaotic (yet often pianissimo) textures and nebulous clustery harmonies.” When tonight’s soloist, Christian Tetzlaff, played this concerto at Carnegie Hall last year, The New York Times noted that while Teztlaff is “best known for his patrician interpretations of Bach and Brahms,” it was “his knockout performance of Ligeti’s complex, idiosyncratic Violin Concerto (that) brought down the house.” (If you enjoy Tetzlaff tonight, look up his recordings of Schönberg, Bartók and Berg.) Tonight’s program concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 (Winter Daydreams), written just eight years earlier (1866) than Mussorgsky’s Pictures. It’s not as iconic as Tchaikovsky’s three late symphonies, but it contains some lovely melodies and imagery that foreshadow the composer’s music to come. Many conductors like this piece and wish they could perform it more often. The other early Tchaikovsky symphonies (Little Russian, Polish) offer rewards as well. Tonight you will also hear Franz Liszt’s Prometheus, the first of his symphonic poems (which established the form in the mid-1800s). While this kind of dramatic, story-driven orchestral music has been somewhat out of fashion for decades, these things are cyclical and the pendulum now seems to be swinging back.
Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing arts to Capital Public Radio, the Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News and Review.
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We tend to think of most first symphonies as initial excursions toward greater things. But Tchaikovsky’s No. 1 also merits honor in its own right. It is bold, inventive and assured in a way that the composer would not capture again until the first movement of the Fourth Symphony (1877–78) and not manage through an entire symphonic span until the Pathétique (1893). The Symphony No. 1 cost Tchaikovsky more trouble than any other of his works. It was introduced initially in 1868, but in 1874, he reworked the score again. At that, it was nine years before the Russian Musical Society presented the work in its final form—in which we hear it this evening. The first movement is subtitled “Dreams on a Wintry Road.” Against a soft buzzing in the violins, flute and bassoon sing a tune as Russian as Tchaikovsky’s name. This curling melody is trailed by conspiratorial ghosts that soon claim considerable space for themselves. The gently rounded second theme generates much harmonic momentum, and Tchaikovsky stirs the remainder of the exposition into a storm. The development begins with syncopated horn music. The contour of the melody seems to look ahead to the “Waltz of the Flowers” in The Nutcracker, but the total effect is more forward-looking still—to Stravinsky’s poetic Tchaikovsky transformation, The Fairy’s Kiss. The lead-back to the recapitulation is masterful, and to the end of the movement we shall find a wonderful treasury of harmonic and orchestral felicities. “Land of Gloom, Land of Mists” is Tchaikovsky’s heading for the Adagio. First come the mists, an inspired, enigmatic music for muted strings, borrowed from his 1864 Overture to Ostrovsky’s The Storm. This is a frame for the movement, whose main business is a long melody, gloomy indeed, heard first as an oboe solo, beautifully set against gently throbbing syncopations in the violins, decorative swirls from the flute and what we might call a demicounterpoint on the bassoon. It is a movement of melodic and textural magic. Tchaikovsky borrowed the main part of the Scherzo from his Piano Sonata in C-sharp Minor of 1865. Neither Scherzo nor finale bear subtitles. Once again, the scoring is assured and ingenious. Tchaikovsky begins the Finale with a lugubrious introduction, the adjective being his own, based on a folk song, “The Gardens Bloomed.” From this, he moves into the main part of the movement. He introduces skillful fugal writing and then a big, swinging version of “The Gardens Bloomed.” He also makes it clear that his fugue is central to the vocabulary of this movement. The Andante lugubre returns. This time the emergence from it is quite differently managed—slow music in contrary motion, elusive in harmony, a gradual parting of the clouds. After which Tchaikovsky roars to an emphatic close. —Michael Steinberg
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San Francisco Symphony
Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 13, “Winter Daydreams” (1874) Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Born May 7, 1840, at Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia; Died November 6, 1893, in Saint Petersburg)
The San Francisco Symphony, which celebrates its centennial this season, gave its first concerts in December 1911. Its music directors have included Henry Hadley, Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, Issay Dobrowen, Pierre Monteux, Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt and, since 1995, Michael Tilson Thomas. The SFS has won such recording awards as France’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award and the United States’s Grammy. For RCA Red Seal, Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS have recorded music from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, two Copland collections, a Gershwin collection, Stravinsky ballets (Le Sacre du printemps, The Firebird and Perséphone) and Charles Ives: An American Journey. Their cycle of Mahler symphonies has received seven Grammys and is available on the symphony’s own label, SFS Media. Some of the most important conductors of the past and recent years have been guests on the SFS podium, among them Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein and Sir Georg Solti, and the list of composers who have led the orchestra includes Stravinsky, Ravel, Copland and John Adams. The SFS Youth Orchestra, founded in 1980, has become known around the world, as has the SFS Chorus, heard on recordings and on the soundtracks of such films as Amadeus and Godfather III. For two decades, the SFS Adventures in Music program has brought music to every child in grades 1 through 5 in San Francisco’s public schools. SFS radio broadcasts, the first in the U.S. to feature symphonic music when they began in 1926, today carry the orchestra’s concerts across the country. In a multimedia program designed to make classical music accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, the SFS has launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV, DVD, radio (The MTT Files) and at the website keepingscore.org. San Francisco Symphony recordings are available at shopsfsymphony.org.
Michael Tilson Thomas (music director and conductor) first conducted the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and has been music director since 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, becoming music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at 19 and working with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Concerts. He was pianist and conductor for Piatigorsky and Heifetz master classes and as a student of Friedelind Wagner, an assistant conductor at Bayreuth. In 1969, Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. Ten days later he came to international recognition, replacing music director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the BSO’s associate conductor, then principal guest conductor. He has also served as director of the Ojai Festival, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, a principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and principal conductor of the Great Woods Festival. He became principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and now serves as
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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principal guest conductor. For a decade he served as co-artistic director of Japan’s Pacific Music Festival, which he and Leonard Bernstein inaugurated in 1990, and he continues as artistic director of the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1988. Thomas’s recordings have won numerous international awards, and his recorded repertory reflects interests arising from work as conductor, composer and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts, and in 2004, he and the SFS launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV. His compositions include From the Diary of Anne Frank, Shówa/Shoáh (commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing), Poems of Emily Dickinson, Urban Legend, Island Music and Notturno. Among his honors are Columbia University’s Ditson Award for services to American music and Musical America’s 1995 Conductor of the Year award. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France, was selected as Gramophone 2005 Artist of the Year, was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2010, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.
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Christian Tetzlaff (violin) is a regular guest with the San Francisco Symphony and has joined the orchestra for concerts at home and abroad. He performs at major festivals including those of Edinburgh and Lucerne and at the BBC Proms, in addition to summer festivals throughout the U.S. He also gives recitals with chamber partners Leif Ove Andsnes, Alexander Lonquich and Lars Vogt, as well as performances with his own Tetzlaff Quartet. Tetzlaff has performed with ensembles around the world, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and Tonhalle Orchestra of Zürich. His discography for Virgin Classics and other labels includes the major concerto repertory, Bartók sonatas with Leif Ove Andsnes and the three Brahms Violin Sonatas with Lars Vogt. Tetzlaff’s recordings have received such awards as the Diapason d’Or, the Edison Prize, the Midem Classical Award and the ECHO Klassik prize as well as several Grammy nominations. He is particularly renowned for his performances of the Bach solo sonatas and partitas and has recently recorded those works on the Haenssler label. Other recent recordings include a Szymanowski album with the Vienna Philharmonic and Pierre Boulez and Schumann piano trios with Tanja Tetzlaff and Leif Ove Andsnes. Last season he curated a series of projects as a Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” artist, including the world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a play-conducting project with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, violin duos with Antje Weithaas, concerts with the Tetzlaff Quartet and performances with the Ensemble ACJW and Sir Simon Rattle. He also gave a master class presented by the Weill Music Institute for young violinists and pianists. Tetzlaff plays a violin by German violinmaker Peter Greiner. He lives with his family near Frankfurt.
San Francisco Symphony
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director and Conductor Donato Cabrera, Resident Conductor Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor Laureate
First Violins Alexander Barantschik Concertmaster Naoum Blinder Chair Nadya Tichman Associate Concertmaster San Francisco Symphony Foundation Chair Mark Volkert Assistant Concertmaster 75th Anniversary Chair Jeremy Constant Assistant Concertmaster Mariko Smiley Paula & John Gambs Second Century Chair Melissa Kleinbart Katharine Hanrahan Chair Yun Chu Sharon Grebanier Naomi Kazama Hull In Sun Jang Yukiko Kurakata Catherine A. Mueller Chair Suzanne Leon Leor Maltinski Diane Nicholeris Sarn Oliver Florin Parvulescu Victor Romasevich Catherine Van Hoesen Second Violins Dan Nobuhiko Smiley Principal Dinner & Swig Families Chair Dan Carlson Associate Principal Audrey Avis Aasen-Hull Chair Paul Brancato Assistant Principal Kum Mo Kim The Eucalyptus Foundation Second Century Chair Raushan Akhmedyarova David Chernyavsky John Chisholm Cathryn Down Darlene Gray Amy Hiraga Frances Jeffrey Chunming Mo Kelly Leon-Pearce Polina Sedukh Isaac Stern Chair Robert Zelnick Chen Zhao
Violas Jonathan Vinocour Principal Yun Jie Liu Associate Principal Katie Kadarauch Assistant Principal John Schoening Joanne E. Harrington & Lorry I. Lokey Second Century Chair Nancy Ellis Gina Feinauer David Gaudry David Kim Christina King Wayne Roden Nanci Severance Adam Smyla Stephanie Fong† Cellos Michael Grebanier Principal Philip S. Boone Chair Peter Wyrick Associate Principal Peter & Jacqueline Hoefer Chair Amos Yang Assistant Principal Margaret Tait Lyman & Carol Casey Second Century Chair Barbara Andres The Stanley S. Langendorf Foundation Second Century Chair Barbara Bogatin Jill Rachuy Brindel Gary & Kathleen Heidenreich Second Century Chair Sébastien Gingras David Goldblatt Christine & Pierre Lamond Second Century Chair Carolyn McIntosh Anne Pinsker
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Basses Scott Pingel Principal Larry Epstein Associate Principal Stephen Tramontozzi Assistant Principal Richard & Rhoda Goldman Chair S. Mark Wright Charles Chandler Lee Ann Crocker Chris Gilbert Brian Marcus William Ritchen Flutes Tim Day Principal Caroline H. Hume Chair Robin McKee Associate Principal Catherine & Russell Clark Chair Linda Lukas Alfred S. & Dede Wilsey Chair Catherine Payne Piccolo Oboes William Bennett Principal Edo de Waart Chair Jonathan Fischer Associate Principal Pamela Smith Dr. William D. Clinite Chair Russ deLuna English Horn Joseph & Pauline Scafidi Chair Clarinets Carey Bell Principal William R. & Gretchen B. Kimball Chair Luis Baez Associate Principal E-flat Clarinet David Neuman Steve Sanchez† Bass Clarinet
Bassoons Stephen Paulson Principal Steven Dibner Associate Principal Rob Weir Steven Braunstein Contrabassoon Horns Robert Ward Principal Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Chair Nicole Cash Associate Principal Bruce Roberts Assistant Principal Jonathan Ring Jessica Valeri Kimberly Wright* Trumpets Mark Inouye Principal William G. Irwin Charity Foundation Chair Glenn Fischthal Associate Principal Peter Pastreich Chair Michael Tiscione* Ann L. & Charles B. Johnson Chair Jeff Biancalana Micah Wilkinson† Trombones Timothy Higgins Principal Robert L. Samter Chair Paul Welcomer John Engelkes Bass Trombone
Percussion Jack Van Geem Principal Raymond Froehlich Tom Hemphill James Lee Wyatt III Keyboards Robin Sutherland Jean & Bill Lane Chair Staff John D. Goldman President Brent Assink Executive Director John Kieser General Manager Nan Keeton Director of External Affairs D. Lance King Director of Development John Mangum Director of Artistic Planning Oliver Theil Director of Public Relations Rebecca Blum Orchestra Personnel Manager Joyce Cron Wessling Manager, Tours and Media Production Tim Carless Production Manager Vance DeVost Stage Manager Dennis DeVost Stage Technician Rob Doherty Stage Technician Roni Jules Stage Technician
Tuba Jeffrey Anderson Principal James Irvine Chair Harp Douglas Rioth Principal Timpani David Herbert Principal Marcia & John Goldman Chair
*On Leave †Acting member of the San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony string section utilizes revolving seating on a systematic basis. Players listed in alphabetical order change seats periodically.
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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PPT speaker: Lara Downes Lara Downes is the curator for the Young Artist Program and artist-in-residence at the Mondavi Center. Lauded by NPR as “a delightful artist with a unique blend of musicianship and showmanship” and praised by the Washington Post for her stunning performances “rendered with drama and nuance,” Downes has won acclaim as one of the most exciting and communicative young pianists of today’s generation. Since making early debuts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and the Vienna Konzerthaus, this powerfully charismatic artist has appeared on many of the world’s most prestigious stages, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center. Recent appearances include Portland Piano International, San Francisco Performances, University of Vermont Lane Series, American Academy Rome, El Paso Pro Musica Festival, Montreal Chamber Music Festival and the University of Washington World Series.
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
MC
Debut
Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano Young Artist Competition 2010 Winners A Debut Series Event Saturday, January 14, 2012 • 8PM Sunday, January 15, 2012 • 2PM Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. Pre-Performance Talk Saturday, January 14, 2012 • 7PM Sunday, January 15, 2012 • 1PM Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center, UC Davis Composer Matt McBane in conversation with Lara Downes, Artist-in-Residence, Mondavi Center, UC Davis
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano
Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano Young Artist Competition 2010 Winners
Sonata for Violin and Cembalo in G Major, BWV 1019 Allegro Largo Allegro (Cembalo Solo) Adagio Vivace
J.S. Bach
Sonata for Solo Violin Allegro con fuoco Andante cantabile Scherzo: Allegretto grazioso Finale: Allegro risoluto
Schulhoff
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2 Allegro vivace Andante, più tosto Allegretto Allegro piacevole
Beethoven
Intermission
Selections from the Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 76 No. 1. Capriccio in F-sharp minor No. 2. Capriccio in B minor No. 6. Intermezzo in A major No. 7. Intermezzo in A minor No. 8. Capriccio in C major
Brahms
Commissioned Work for Violin and Piano World Premiere
McBane
Sonatina for Violin and Piano in G Major, Op. 100 Allegro risoluto Larghetto Scherzo: Molto vivace Finale: Allegro
Dvořák
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano
Program Notes Sonata for Violin and Cembalo in G Major, BWV 1019 (ca. 1720) Johann Sebastian Bach (Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany; Died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig) From 1717–23, Bach was director of music at the court of AnhaltCöthen, north of Leipzig. He liked his job. His employer, Prince Leopold, was a well-educated man, 24 years old at the time he engaged Bach. (Bach was 32.) Leopold was fond of travel and books and paintings, but his real passion was music. He was an accomplished musician who not only played violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord well enough to join with the professionals in his household orchestra, but also had an exceptional bass voice. He started the court musical establishment in 1707 with three players (his puritanical father had no use for music), and by the time of Bach’s appointment, it had grown to nearly 20 performers equipped with a fine set of instruments. It was for this group that Bach wrote many of his outstanding instrumental works, including the Brandenburg Concertos, orchestral suites, violin concertos and much of his chamber music, including the three sonatas and three partitas for unaccompanied violin and the six sonatas for violin and keyboard. The Sonata for Violin and Cembalo in G Major (BWV 1019) follows an unusual formal plan: a sonata da chiesa—four movements (slow–fast–slow–fast), contrapuntal in texture, serious in expression—prefaced by a spirited Allegro with a central movement for keyboard alone. The opening movement, while not imitative, is rich in dialogue between the instruments. The Largo, somber and stately, is perfectly balanced by the buoyant keyboard solo (Allegro) that follows. The solemnity of the Adagio is enhanced by some of Bach’s most adventurous harmonic writing. The Sonata closes with a dance-like movement perfectly suited in mood to the original Italian meaning of its tempo marking, Allegro—“cheerful.” Sonata for Solo Violin (1927) Erwin Schulhoff (Born June 8, 1894, in Prague; Died August 18, 1942, in a concentration camp at Wülzburg, Germany) Czech composer and pianist Erwin Schulhoff experienced profoundly the ancient Chinese curse/blessing by living in interesting, and, for him, ultimately treacherous times. Born into a musical family in Prague, Schulhoff studied (on the advice of Dvořák) at the conservatory in his hometown from 1904–06 before completing his formal education at music schools in Vienna (1906–08), Leipzig (1908–10, where he was a student of Max Reger) and Cologne (1911–14); he also took some lessons with Debussy. After military service in World War I, Schulhoff returned to Prague, where he worked as a composer, teacher and concert and jazz pianist before settling again in Germany in 1919. He was back in Prague in 1929, teaching piano and orchestration at the city’s conservatory and working for Czech Radio. He took up the cause of Marxism in the early 1930s as a reaction to the rise of Nazism and joined the Communist Party, writing a half-dozen symphonies in the optimistic, easily accessible style dictated
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by Stalin. He was granted the supposed protection of Soviet citizenship when the Nazis overran Czechoslovakia in 1939, but it did not work. Schulhoff, outspoken in his political views and of Jewish origins, was imprisoned before he could flee from Prague to Russia and interned in a concentration camp at Wülzburg, in Bavaria, where he died of tuberculosis on August 18, 1942. Schulhoff composed his Sonata for Solo Violin in Paris and London in January 1927, the time when he was concertizing and absorbing musical influences across northern Europe. He had earlier written for violin—the Suite for Violin and Piano in 1911 and the Sonata No. 1 two years after that—but the Solo Sonata shows a significant advance in the handling of the instrument, evidence of his collaboration for several years with the excellent Czech violinist Richard Zika, leader of the Prague Quartet and professor at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. The Sonata for Solo Violin comprises four nicely varied movements: a moto perpetuo Allegro con fuoco with several phrases surprisingly reminiscent of Appalachian fiddle music; a long, soulful Andante cantabile; a playful, open-textured Scherzo and a finale indebted to Eastern European folk dance. Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2 (1798) Ludwig van Beethoven (Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn; Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna) Beethoven took some care during his first years after arriving in Vienna from his native Bonn in November 1792 to present himself as a composer in the day’s more fashionable genres, one of which was the sonata for piano nominally accompanied, according to the taste of the time, by violin. Mozart had addressed the form in 42 works, some of which moved beyond the convention that expected the keyboard to dominate the string instrument toward a greater equality between the partners. Beethoven continued on this tack so decisively that, despite their conservative structure and idiom, his first three string sonatas, Op. 12 of 1798, presage the full parity that marks the 19th-century duo sonata. The Op. 12 sonatas are products of Beethoven’s own practical experience as both pianist and violinist, an instrument he had learned while still in Bonn and on which he took lessons shortly after settling in Vienna with the noted performer (and, later, great champion of his chamber music) Ignaz Schuppanzigh. In view of their gestating friendship, it was fitting that Schuppanzigh and the composer presented one of the Op. 12 sonatas at a public concert benefiting the singer Josefa Duschek on March 29, 1798. The A Major Sonata opens with a teasing two-note motive that tumbles downward through the piano’s range to constitute the first movement’s main theme and set the playful mood (one of Beethoven’s rarest emotions) for what follows. A melody buoyed upon a surprising harmonic excursion, emphasized by accented notes, provides the gateway to the second subject, a phrase of snappy descending, neighboring tones which is first cousin to the main theme. Transformations of all three themes occupy the development section. The recapitulation provides another hearing of the thematic material before the movement ends, almost in mid-thought, with an airy coda spun from the main theme. Jelly
Selections from Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 76 (1878–79) Johannes Brahms (Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna) Brahms’s piano playing was noted less for its flashy virtuosity than for its rich emotional expression, fluency, individuality, nearly orchestral sonority and remarkable immediacy, especially in performances of his own music. The English pianist Florence May, who studied with him in the 1870s, reported, “Brahms’s playing ... was not [that] of a virtuoso, though he had a large amount of virtuosity (to put it mildly) at his command. He never aimed at mere effect, but seemed to plunge into the innermost meaning of whatever music he happened to be interpreting, exhibiting all its details, and expressing its very depths.” Richard Specht, an intimate of Brahms during his last decade, recalled in his biography of the pianist-composer, “His playing, for all its reticence, was filled with song, there was in it a searching, a gliding of light and flitting of shadows, a flaring and burning out, a restrained masculine feeling and a forgetful, romantic passion.” Brahms’s compositions for solo piano, which began with the Eight Pieces, Op. 76 of 1878–79, are marked by the same introspection, seriousness of purpose and deep musicality that characterized his playing. Commissioned Work for Violin and Piano (2011) World Premiere Matt McBane (Born in 1979, in Carlsbad, California) Composer, violinist and festival administrator Matt McBane was born in the San Diego coastal suburb of Carlsbad in 1979 and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where his principal composition teacher was Donald Crockett. McBane decided after graduating from USC in 2001 that “if I wanted something to happen, I had to make it happen,” and so “began talking with the Calder Quartet [which specializes in contemporary string quartet music] and the city of Carlsbad and came up with the idea for a Carlsbad Music Festival. Starting a festival with no prior arts administration experience was an incredibly steep learning curve.” He organized the first festival for spring 2004, and it has since become an established part of the Southern California new-music scene; in 2010, the Carlsbad Music Festival won the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming.
Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano
d’Aranyi (1893–1966), the distinguished Hungarian violinist who inspired Ravel’s Tzigane in 1924, left a charming word-picture of the images conjured for her by the plaintive second movement: “The Andante has the most touching and wonderful dialogue. I can only imagine that St. Francis and St. Clara spoke of things like this when they met at Assisi, and which Beethoven alone could put into music, as he did so many conversations, each lovelier than the other.” The finale is an elegant rondo whose expressive nature is indicated by its heading: piacevole—“agreeable and pleasant.”
for which he is violinist and composer. Build has since performed across the country and released two critically acclaimed albums. As a composer, McBane draws from a wide array of influences, including experimentalism, European classical music, jazz, film music and electronic music. His numerous grants, awards and prizes include those from the American Music Center, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, Copland Fund, American Composer’s Forum, Arts Ministry of New South Wales (Australia), Norwegian Consulate and International Music Products Association. In 2007, he was an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Sonatina for Violin and Piano in G Major, Op. 100 (1893) Antonín Dvořák (Born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia; Died May 1, 1904, in Prague) After Dvořák had composed both the F Major String Quartet, Op. 96 (“American”) and the E-flat Major String Quintet, Op. 97 during a respite from his duties as director of the National Conservatory in New York City at a community of Czech immigrants in Spillville, Iowa, in summer 1893, he realized that the milestone of his 100th opus number was quickly approaching. Rather than devote that special number to some public musical monument, however, Dvořák decided to reserve it for his private family use by assigning it to a modest piece written specially for his 15-year-old daughter Otilie and her 10-year-old brother Antonín—the Sonatina for Violin and Piano in G major (Opp. 98 and 99 were later allotted to the Piano Suite in A major and the Biblical Songs). The Sonatina was composed quickly between November 22 and December 3, 1893, in New York City, and played immediately thereafter at the family’s apartment at 327 East 17th Street by Otilie (piano) and little Tony (violin). The Sonatina opens with a determined melody that begins like a drawing-room waltz before adding a suave complementary phrase to comprise the movement’s main theme. A gapped-scale strain, part Indian, part Bohemian folk song, serves as the subsidiary subject. The development section, exactly the right length and weight for this compact sonata form, leads to a full recapitulation of the earlier materials and a short, quiet coda. The Larghetto, which Fritz Kreisler often included on his recitals under the title Indian Lament, is based on a haunting melody that Dvořák had scribbled onto his shirt cuff during a visit to Minnehaha Falls in Minnesota the previous summer. The center of the movement is given over to a brighter piano theme whose arpeggiated chords and pentatonic scale might suggest a banjo tune. The Scherzo, energetic and succinct, takes as its subject yet another folkish, gapped-scale melody. The sonata-form finale provides an emotional microcosm of Dvořák’s New World experience: a perky, syncopated tune reminiscent of an old plantation song is used as the main theme, while the pair of melodies making up the second theme area, one minor and one major, seem to capture his longing for his beloved Czech homeland. —Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Soon after starting the Carlsbad Music Festival (which he continues to direct), McBane moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he founded the five-member “indie-classical band” Build,
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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By Kevin O’COnnOr an d FOl awOle Thu-SaT Feb 16-18 & 23-25 8pm Sun Feb 19 & 26 2pm Va n d e r h o e f S t u d i o t h e at r e, M o n daV i C e n t e r
t i C k e tS & i n fo r M at i o n: 53 0.754 . a r T S
Th e aTr e dan C e .u C dav iS. e du
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Alexi won the grand prize at the 2010 Mondavi Center Young Artist Competition, leading to a recital at Napa’s Festival del Sole and two upcoming recitals on the Mondavi Center’s Debut Artist series in January 2012. During the 2010-11 season he served as concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, with which he toured Europe in 2008. He was invited to perform at Music@Menlo’s 2011 Winter Residency with its artistic director Wu Han. Alexi appeared on NPR’s From the Top in 2009. In the summer of 2011, Alexi was the youngest artist accepted to the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute, where he held the Gene Witz Memorial Fellowship. Other summer festivals include Yellow Barn, Heifetz, the Beethoven Institute at Mannes College and Music@Menlo, where he was a student for six summers. A strong supporter of contemporary music, Alexi recently collaborated with the composer and electric guitarist Steven Mackey, playing his quintet “Physical Property” last summer at Yellow Barn and “Interior Design” for solo violin in February at the Hot Air Festival of Contemporary Music in San Francisco. He continually expands his repertoire to include premieres and neglected works from the 20th and 21st centuries. Passionate about chamber music, Alexi has been fortunate to collaborate with such eminent musicians as Frans Helmerson, Wu Han, Steven Mackey, and Christopher O’Riley. Alexi’s former teachers were Wei He, Jenny Rudin and Natasha Fong.
Hilda Huang (piano), age 15, studies piano with John McCarthy and harpsichord with Corey Jamason in the Preparatory Division at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She has also received coaching from Anton Nel, Gilbert Kalish and Wu Han.
Alexi Kenney, violin, and Hilda Huang, piano
Alexi Kenney Born in California in 1994, violinist Alexi Kenney currently studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston as a first-year undergraduate student of Donald Weilerstein.
Last October, Huang won the First Prize at the Tureck International Bach Competition for Young Pianists. She was also awarded the Special Jury Prize and the Faust Harrison Piano Recital Award and presented a solo recital in 2011 featuring J.S. Bach’s piano works. As part of the May 2010 world premiere of Michael Lawrence’s documentary film Bach & Friends, Huang played in Symphony Space in New York; she was the youngest musician featured in the documentary. Last season, Huang soloed with the Philharmonia Baroque under the baton of Nicholas McGegan. She also played with the Peninsula and Fremont symphonies. This season, Huang will present a solo recital at the Haus Blankenheim in Saarbrüken, Germany, and the Faust Harrison Piano Showroom in New York. She will also debut as a soloist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the Symphony Parnassus. As a first prize winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano competition, Huang has played in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2007 and 2008. She has also appeared as soloist at the Carmel Bach Festival in California and performed in the Young Artists Concert of the Steinway Society of the Bay Area. Haung has performed on both the nationally-broadcasted television program From the Top and From the Top on National Public Radio. She has also been a student in the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Institute in California for the past five summers. Huang is featured on Big Think, a global forum connecting people and ideas. She also presented her work at the TEDX Gunn High School in May 2011. Huang studies at the Palo Alto High School and will graduate in 2013. In addition to her musical pursuits, she enjoys acrobatic sports such as diving and gymnastics and serving as a reporter for The Viking, her school’s sports magazine.
Huang was awarded the top prize in the 2010 International J.S. Bach Competition in Würzburg, Germany. She became the first American and the youngest prize winner in the competition’s 20year history. In 2010, Huang won the Junior Grand Prize in the Mondavi Center’s Young Artist Competition, which led to a solo recital at Napa Valley’s Festival del Sole. Huang was named a 2008 Davidson Fellow by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development and received her award at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In October of the same year, she made her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under the late Erich Kunzel. This performance also marked her international recording debut with Telarc International. In addition to her instrumental studies, Huang was invited to conduct the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in a family concert in April 2010. She also conducted the San Francisco Bach Choir along with its Baroque Orchestra for their 75th Anniversary Season concert in March 2011.
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Q&A session Moderators: Henry Spiller and Anthony Dumas
an exclusive wine tasting experience of featured wineries for inner circle donors Complimentary wine pours in the Bartholomew Room for Inner Circle Donors: 7-8PM and during intermission if scheduled. January 19 Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca Truchard Vineyards 27 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Robert Mondavi Winery February 9 17
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Honig Winery Eric Owens • Silverado Vineyards
March 2 24
Angelique Kidjo • Fiddlehead Cellars Circus Oz • Silver Oak Cellars
April 17 28
Anoushka Shankar • Roessler Cellars Maya Beiser • Corison Winery
Henry Spiller, associate professor, Department of Music, UC Davis is an ethnomusicologist whose research focuses on Sundanese music and dance from West Java, Indonesia. Spiller teaches world music classes and graduate seminars, and he directs the Department of Music’s gamelan ensemble. He has studied Sundanese music and dance for more than 20 years, and he has conducted fieldwork in Bandung, West Java, on several occasions, including 10 months of Fulbrightsponsored dissertation research in 1998–99. His books include Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia (Routledge 2008) and Erotic Triangles: Sundanese Dance and Masculinity in West Java (Chicago 2008). Spiller holds a bachelor’s degree in music from UC Santa Cruz, a master’s degree in harp performance from Holy Names College and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UC Berkeley. Anthony (Tony) Dumas is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology at UC Davis where he is completing his dissertation, titled “(Re)Locating Flamenco: Bohemian Habitus and Cosmopolitan Ethics in Northern California.” He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Musical Studies from the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam (1999), a Master of Arts in Music from Arizona State University (2002) and a Master of Arts in Music from the UC Davis (2008). He is the 2010 recipient of the Marnie Dilling Prize from the Northern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology.
May 2 San Francisco Symphony Chamber Ensemble Traverso Wines 12 New York Philharmonic • D’Argenzio Winery Featured wineries
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
MC
Photo by Zarmik Modtaderi
Debut
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca A Director’s Choice Series Event Thursday, January 19, 2012 • 8PM Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. Question & Answer Session With Artistic Director Martín Santangelo, moderated by Henry Spiller, Associate Professor of Music, UC Davis and Anthony Dumas, Ethnomusicology Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Music, UC Davis (see bios on p.20)
Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca Oda al Amor Martín Santangelo Artistic Director, Choreographer and Producer of Noche Flamenca Featuring Soledad Barrio and Guest Artists: Alejandro Granados and Antonio Jiménez Cantaores Manuel Gago Emilio Florido
Guitarristas Salva de María Eugenio Iglesias
Lighting Designer S. Benjamin Farrar Program Amanecer Performed by the company Solo de Guitarra Eugenio Iglesias or Salva de María Caminando Antonio Jiménez Oda al Amor Soledad Barrio and Antonio Jiménez Lyrics from Antigone by Sophocles Excerpt from work in progress Antigona Solo de Cante Manuel Gago and Emilio Florido El Patuka Alejandro Granados Soledad Soledad Barrio Performers and program are subject to change. All choreography by Martín Santangelo and company members Music by Salva de María and Eugenio Iglesias “Chuscales” Vocal arrangements by Manuel Gago and Emilio Florido
Noche Flamenca’s United States tour and New York Season are supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Support has also been provided by the Harkness Foundation, the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund and the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation. Noche Flamenca Thanks Its Funders The National Endowment for the Arts The National Dance Project of New England Foundation for the Arts The Harkness Foundation for Dance The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation Barbara and Donald Tober Foundation The Rosenblatt Foundation 22
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The precarious conditions of the Andalucían singer of the past made it inevitable that he/she should dwell on the more tragic aspects of existence. Even though conditions are now incomparably better, the feelings inherent in the cante are universal and timeless and represent a link between past and present. Andalucía, the region of southern Spain that is flamenco’s home, has a strong musical tradition documented from ancient times, and flamenco takes its place in that heritage. Throughout the centuries, Andalucía absorbed peoples of different cultures and backgrounds, including Romans, Jews and Moors. Perhaps the most significant arrival was in the 15th century when tribes of nomadic Gypsies settled in southern Spain, coinciding with Ferdinand and Isabella’s conquest of Granada, the last bastion of the Moors, and the subsequent expulsion of Jews and Arabs from Spain. Historian Felix Grande, writing about life in the 15th–17th centuries stated: “The Jews were massacred, the Gypsies humiliated and persecuted, the Arabs exterminated, the Moriscos (converted Arabs) expelled and the Andalucíans generally exploited ... if we do not relate the music ... to brutality, repression, hunger, fear, menace, inferiority, resistance and secrecy, then we shall not find the reality of cante flamenco ... it is a storm of exasperation and grief.” It was against this background that flamenco evolved. While earlier records suggest that flamenco was at one time unaccompanied, it is hard for us today to imagine flamenco without a guitar. In effect, the guitar forms an integral part of the song; singer and guitarist are one creating the cante. The different types of cante provide the basis for all flamenco guitar playing. Most of the cante has an underlying rhythmic structure which must be strictly adhered to—the compass. One of flamenco’s chief characteristics is the complex syncopation against the compás, with the cante being sung almost entirely off the beat and the guitarist maintaining the rhythm, adding further to the syncopation. In some forms, like the cante libre (free song), the compás is less apparent, but the singer may break into an established rhythm, which the guitarist then has to follow. Indeed, the singer is at liberty to improvise, whether the toque (guitar playing) is free or in compás, and the guitarist may not know beforehand what is to be expected of him. There is no evidence that the guitar was initially used to accompany the cante, and even today some of the most dramatic forms of cante are invariably performed unaccompanied. However, it was certainly in regular use by the end of the 19th century in Spain. The lute was extremely popular in the rest of Europe during the Renaissance, but was rejected in Spain as a foreign intrusion since it was of Arab origin. Furthermore, the vihuela (the guitar’s predecessor) was more suited to the accompaniment of ballads by strumming, since the lute requires notes to be picked more delicately. It was also cheaper to produce and more robust. In the 19th century, there were two types of singing in Andalucía: the cante gitano of the Gypsies and the cante andaluz. Silverio Franconetti, an Andalucían of Italian origin and an exceptional singer of Gypsy styles, was the first to bring these two styles together. This integration of both forms resulted in the cante flamenco. The wail of the cante jondo (deep song) resembles the mournful chant of the exiled Sephardic Jews. Its poetry has the existentialist angst and philosophical questioning common in Arabic poetry. The
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Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
Program Notes
dance that evolved slowly, fully blossoming in the 1840s, suggests the repetitive key symbol prevalent in Islam, the trance inducing rhythms of Africa and the stubborn search of Jewish music. Flamenco developed rapidly, gaining in artistic stature as well as popularity. Establishments appeared throughout Andalucía and beyond, dedicated wholly to the performance of flamenco. They came to be known as cafes cantantes, coffee theaters, where refreshment could be enjoyed while watching the performance. Although some of them survived until the middle of the 20th century, their heyday was gone by the 1920s. Generally they were like cabaret theaters with as many as four shows a day. Dance has always been associated with flamenco. It is difficult to imagine this music without movement. While sophisticated flamenco dance companies have been touring the world for more than 50 years, it is the raw un-choreographed dances of Andalucían Gypsies that have maintained the art form in its most creative essence.
Noche Flamenca Under the direction of Martín Santangelo, the award-winning Noche Flamenca has become Spain’s most successful touring company. Formed in 1993 by Santangelo and his Bessie Award-winning wife Soledad Barrio, the company regularly tours throughout the world. Performance highlights around the globe include regular seasons in New York City and performances in Europe, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, the U.S., Australia and Canada. Hailed by critics everywhere for its transcendent and deeply emotional performances, Noche Flamenca is recognized as the most authentic flamenco touring company in the field today. Santangelo has successfully brought to the stage the essence, purity and integrity of one of the world’s most complex and mysterious art forms without the use of tricks or gimmicks. All aspects of flamenco— dance, song and music—are interrelated and given equal weight in the presentations of Noche Flamenca, creating a true communal spirit within the company: the very heart and soul of flamenco. In support of its mission to educate and enlighten audiences about flamenco, the company offers extensive residency programs that reach out to people of all ages. With company members based in Spain, Noche Flamenca is a registered U.S. not-for-profit with its office and representation based in New York City. Noche Flamenca’s artistic integrity has been recognized with awards from the National Dance Project (2006 and 2009), the National Endowment for the Arts (annually since 2007) and the Lucille Lortel Award for Special Theatrical Experience (2003) among others. Martín Santangelo (artistic director) founded Noche Flamenca. He studied flamenco with Ciro, Paco Romero, El Guito, Manolete and Alejandro Granados. He has performed throughout Spain, Japan and North and South America, appearing with Maria Benitez’s Teatro Flamenco, the Lincoln Center Festival of the Arts and Paco Romero’s Ballet Espanol. He also appeared in Julie Taymor’s Juan Darien at Lincoln Center. He choreographed and performed in Eduardo Machado’s Deep Song, directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett. He choreographed a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Denver Theater Center. He has directed and choreographed Bodas de Sangre, The Lower Depths, La Celestina, A Streetcar Named Desire, among many other productions in Spain and Buenos Aires. He has collaborated with many artists, but his most fulfilling collaboration has been with his wife Soledad Barrio and his two wild daughters, Gabriela and Stella. MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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January 19–21, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
12:05 pm
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center Guitar Festival: Michael Goldberg, guitar Michael Goldberg has extensive experience teaching both classical and jazz guitar, and is on the faculty at both UC Davis and UC Berkeley. He has toured throughout the United States as part of the Alma Duo and is also a member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, a group devoted to contemporary music performance. Goldberg has been featured with UC Davis’s Empyrean Ensemble, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, Diablo Valley Ballet, and many other Bay Area groups. Free (not ticketed)
Friday, January 20, 2012
7:00 pm
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center Guitar Festival: Gypsy Jazz Quartet and Marc Teicholz, guitar Guitarist Marc Teicholz is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He won first prize in the 1989 International Guitar Foundation of America competition and has traveled extensively throughout America and the world giving recitals and master classes. Teicholz’s latest album, Valseana, includes works performed on historic guitars of the period for each selection. San Francisco Bay Area jazz guitarist, Doug Martin, has performed with some of the finest artists on the West coast and abroad including Germany-based gypsy guitarist and composer, Lulo Reinhardt, Grammy award winning guitarist John Jorgenson, gypsy guitarist Mike Reinhardt, guitarist Paul Mehling of the Hot Club of San Francisco, Swedish guitarist Andreas Öberg, Dutch gypsy guitarist Paulus Schafer, French vocalist Jessica Fichot, as well as legendary jazz guitar virtuosos Howard Alden and Mimi Fox. $8 Students & Children, $20 Adults | Standard Seating
saTurday, January 21, 2012
7:00 pm
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center Guitar Festival: David Tanenbaum, guitar / Caminos Flamencos David Tanenbaum is renowned for his classical guitar performances and recordings. In 1988 Tanenbaum became the first American guitarists to be invited to perform in China by the Chinese government and is currently a member of the World Guitar Ensemble. Caminos Flamencos is made up of guitarist Jason McGuire, Emmy Awardwinning dancer and choreographer Yaelisa, and a flamenco singer. In 1995 McGuire recorded with Flamenco guitarist Carlos Heredia on his album Gypsy Flamenco, and released a recording of his own composition Distancias in 2005, which has received unanimous praise. $8 Students & Children, $20 Adults | Standard Seating
Tickets available through the Mondavi Center Box Office 12–6 pm Monday – Saturday (530) 754.2787 | mondaviarts.org
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Alejandro Granados (dancer), considered one of the most accomplished dancers in Spain, has toured the world as a soloist with the Spanish Ballet of Madrid with its productions of Yerma and El Amargo. He has danced in the National Ballet of Spain with Carmen Cortez and is now a soloist with Miguel Narros in Fedra. Alejandro is a featured artist and prestigious choreographer with the companies Mario Maya, Compañía Andaluza, La Choni Compañía Flamenca and Cristina Hoyos. His work has been presented in famous and renowned international flamenco festivals such as Festival de Jerez, Bienal de Sevilla and Lope de Vega Theatre (Seville). He is also a guest artist at the world acclaimed Teatro Albeniz with the Gala International de Danza. Alejandro has an authentic and strong personality and his flamenco dance is inspired by cante jondo and the emotion that it provokes. Alejandro has been with Noche Flamenca since it was founded. Antonio Jimenéz (dancer) “El Chupete” was born in 1974 in Osuna and began dancing at an early age in the flamenco festivals, fairs and peñas of Andalucía. His dance training was not obtained in school but alongside the professional singers and dancers who served as his guide. He debuted professionally in El Cordobés de Barcelona, considered one of the finest flamenco tablaos of Spain. Rodríguez has performed with the National Ballet of Spain and has shared the stage with Carmen Ledesma in the National Opera of Tokyo. He has also choreographed for Yoko Komatsubara. Rodríguez has toured extensively as a featured soloist in Italy, Germany, Holland, Brazil, Japan, Mexico and New York. He continues to dance in tablaos in Seville and Granada. This is his ninth season with Noche Flamenca. Manuel Gago (singer) Born in Cadiz to a family of flamenco singers, Gago began singing at the age of five. By 14, he was singing in flamenco festivals with such well-known singers as Juan Villar, Charo Lobato and Rancapino. Later, he began singing for dancers, including Joaquin Cortez, Isabel Bayón, Sara Varas, Rafaela Carrasco, Domingo Ortega, Adrian Galia, El Guito, Manolete, Javier Baron and Cristobal Reyes. Gago has traveled the world, singing in Europe, Asia, South America and the United States. This is Gago’s ninth season with Noche Flamenca.
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca
Soledad Barrio (dancer) was born in Madrid. She has appeared as soloist with Manuela Vargas, Blanca del Rey, Luisillo, El Guito, Manolete, Cristobal Reyes, El Toleo, Ballet Espanol de Paco Romero, Festival Flamenco and many other companies. She has performed throughout Europe, Japan and North and South America with such artists as Alejandro Granados, El Torombo, Isabel Bayón, Jesus Torres, Miguel Perez, Belen Maya, Manolo Marin, Javier Barón, Merce Esmeralda, Rafael Campallo and Belen Maya. She has won awards from more than 15 different countries around the globe for her excellence in dance. She received a 2001 Bessie Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement. She is a founding member of Noche Flamenca and is married to Martín Santangelo. They have two beautiful daughters, Gabriela and Stella.
Emilio Forido (singer) was born in Cadiz, Spain. He began singing at a young age and performed professionally all over Spain as a solo singer. He has accompanied such dancers as Sara Varas, Adrian Galia, Domingo Ortega, Luis Ortega, Belen Maya, Yolanda Heredia and Miguel Angel Espino among others. He has worked with the companies Sara Varas, Cristina Hoyos, El Ballet de Madrid and La Raza. He has toured extensively in Japan, South America and Europe. He has been performing with Noche Flamenca for 10 years. Salva De María (guitarist) was born in Madrid. He is the son of Basilio de Cadiz and the singer/dancer Maria Fernandez and grandson of legendary singer Antonio “La Chaqueta.” He began his career in the peña flamenca Chaqueton accompanying singers Carmen Linares, José Merce, Vicente Soto, Chaqueton and others. He moved to Barcelona to work with Maite Martin, La Chana, Guinesa Ortega and other mythic figures in flamenco. He went on to work with Carmen Cortes and Gerardo Nuñez in the Lorca’s Yerma. Since 2001, he has collaborated with guitarist Chicuelo, working with artists Miguel Poveda, La Susi, Maite Martin Chano Lobato, Israel Galvan, Isabel Bayón, Javier Latorre and Duquende. This is De María’s fifth season with Noche Flamenca. Eugenio Iglesias (guitarist) began playing professionally at a very young age working in all the important tablaos in Seville. He began touring with various companies and has accompanied many dancers such as Antonio Canales, Farruco, Farruquito, El Guito, La Tona, Javier Baron, Sara Varas, Manuela Carrasco, Israel Galvan, Mario Maya, Angelita Vargas and Alejandro Granados. He has also accompanied many of the greatest flamenco singers in Spain including Lole Montoya, La Negra, Chiquetete, La Susi, Carmen Montoya, Juan Villar and El Potito among many others. He is currently working on his own flamenco show as composer and songwriter. This is his seventh season with Noche Flamenca. S. Benjamin Farrar (lighting design) is a lighting and scenic designer based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is the resident designer and professor of design for Dickinson College. Over the last five years, he has also designed and assisted at the Public Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, Impact Theatre and American Airlines Theatre in New York, as well as La Jolla Playhouse in California, Alley Theatre in Texas and Long Wharf Theatre in Connecticut. This is Benjamin’s fourth year with Noche Flamenca. Laura Colby (representation) established Elsie Management in 1995 an artist management company representing a global roster of dance, theater, world music and special attractions including the venerable Mummenschanz and the Australian outdoor spectacle theater company Strange Fruit. She served as the president of NAPAMA (North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents 2007–08) and was the founding Chair of the Dance/USA Agents Council. Since forming Elsie, Colby has represented more than 25 performing arts touring companies from five continents, coordinating tours to more than 200 global venues. She was the initiating facilitator between Brooklyn’s Woodhull Hospital and Medical Center and the performing arts community in the creation of ArtistAccess, the groundbreaking healthcare program for artists and arts workers begun in 2005. A frequently invited speaker for panels, workshops and educational sessions, Colby began her arts administration career as a manager for several independent contemporary choreographers. She has had the pleasure of representing Noche Flamenca since 2003. For information on Noche Flamenca and to join our mailing list: www.nocheflamenca.com
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capradio.org
campus community relations is a proud sponsor of the robert and margrit mondavi Center for the performing arts
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
MC
Photo by Roberto Cifarelli
Debut
Alfredo Rodriguez Trio A Capital Public Radio Studio Jazz Series Event Wednesday–Saturday, January 25–28, 2012 • 8PM Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. Sponsored by
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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BALLET DIRECTOR
RON CUNNINGHAM ISSUE #6
PLAYWRIGHT
GREGG COFFIN ISSUE #7
TONY WINNER
FAITH PRINCE ISSUE #8 ACTOR
COLIN HANKS ISSUE #15
PERFORMANCE ARTIST
DAVID GARIBALDI ISSUE #16
BROADWAY STAR
MARA DAVI ISSUE #19
Available at Raley's, Nugget Markets and Barnes & Noble.
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alfredo rodriguez trio
Alfredo Rodriguez Trio Alfredo Rodriguez Francisco Mela Peter Slavov
Piano Drums Bass
Selections will be announced from the stage.
Alfredo Rodriguez (piano) was born in Havana and trained at the famous Manuel Saumell Classical Music Conservatory, the Amadeo Roldan Music Conservatory and the Instituto Superior de Arte. His lucky break came in 2006, when he was selected as one of 12 pianists from around the world to play at the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival. In Montreux, Rodriguez struck a chord in legendary music producer Quincy Jones, who noticed Rodriguez’s immense talent and decided to begin working with Alfredo. In 2009, Rodriguez made the difficult decision to leave his family and country behind and embark on a journey to pursue a career in music in the United States. In his first two years since moving to the United States, Rodríguez has played to capacity crowds during the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Detroit Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival and many others. In 2010, Rodriguez did his first European tour with his trio playing at XVI International Open Air Festival (Poland), Jazz a Vienne Festival (France), North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherlands), Umbria Jazz Festival (Italy), Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) and with the Quincy Jones Global Gumbo All Stars, a group featuring Richard Bona, Lionel Loueke, Paulinho da Costa, Francisco Mela and Nikki Yanofsky. He has built an enormous presence in China after co-writing, with Quincy Jones, the song “Better City, Better Life,” which was chosen to be the official theme song of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. He has since played to crowds at the Shanghai Film Festival and the Shanghai Tourist Festival. Rodriguez’s debut CD was released in early 2011 on Qwest Records, with Alfredo’s influences from Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky to Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones being displayed prominently. In his words, “Everything I learn, in all aspects of my life, contributes to my music.” In the words of Quincy Jones, “He is very special, and I do not say that easily, because I have been surrounded by the best musicians in the world my entire life, and he is one of the best.”
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Francisco Mela (drums), born in 1968 in the small town of Bayamo, Cuba, was pointed towards music from a young age through the encouragement of his father. Mela fostered his love of jazz music and percussion after enrolling in the El Yare Music School in the small town of Bayamo. Eventually he moved to Havana and later continued to pursue his love of jazz by moving to Boston, where he played at venues like Wally’s Café as the house drummer. Through his music, Francisco became acquainted with various faculty members at the Berklee School of Music and he was eventually offered the opportunity to join the faculty at the music conservatory. He has enjoyed his position there, where he teaches a course in Afro-Cuban and Brazilian percussion and provides private lessons for more than two dozen music students. After less than a decade as a drummer and composer in the United States, Francisco can be counted as one of the most illustrious Afro-Cuban musicians of his generation. Francisco worked with musician Jane Bunnett, who invited Mela to join her band, Spirits of Havana, and recorded the Grammy-nominated album Cuban Odyssey as an anchor of the rhythm section. His first release Melao, which was released by the Spanish record label AYVA Musica, features a cadre of jazz greats like Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Lionel Louke and Peter Slavov. Peter Slavov (bass) Born in Helsinki, Finland, to the family of legendary Bulgarian drummer Peter Slavov, Slavov has been playing bass since the age of 12. As a young man he traveled and toured extensively in Bulgaria and became well known for his jazz musicianship. In 1997, he received the Best Composition Award at the Plovdiv International Jazz Festival. In 1998, Slavov received a scholarship from the Berklee School of Music and in 1999, moved to Boston to attend the music conservatory. Since moving to the U.S., Slavov has performed and recorded with Joe Lovano, Danilo Perez, George Garzone, Kevin Mahogany and Simon Shaheen. He has performed at some of the most prestigious venues around the world including the Monterey Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, Paris Jazz Festival, La Cigale (Paris), MGM Grand (Las Vegas) and Blue Note (New York), to name just a few. Peter has been featured on television and radio programs on the CBC (Canada), PBS (U.S.), and TF1 (France) among many others. As the house bassist at historic Wally’s Café in Boston, Peter has accompanied Wynton Marsalis and Roy Hargrove. Slavov resides in New York City. MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Ballet Preljocaj
U.S. re e i m e r P Saturday, March 17 Sunday, March 18
Mondavi Gala Wine, food, and the performing arts intersect in a remarkable gala evening celebrating an inimitable California couple, Robert and Margrit Mondavi. A benefit for the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science presented by
Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
Margrit Mondavi
University of California, Davis
Chair, Honorary Gala Committee
with special gratitude to Lois and John Crowe
Paul and Sandra Montrone
Opus One
Ann and Gordon Getty
Consul General of France Romain Serman
Wells Fargo
Barbara K. Jackson
Lea d P r e s e n t i n g Sp o n s o r
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Sofia and Angelo K. Tsakopoulos
P r e s e n t i n g Sp o n s o r
Western Health Advantage
Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
MC
Debut
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Charles Dutoit, artistic director and principal conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano A Western Health Advantage Orchestra Series Event Friday, January 27, 2012 • 8PM Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. Sponsored by
Individual support provided by Ralph and Clairelee Leiser Bulkley
further listening see p. 34
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Charles Dutoit, artistic director and principal conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Overture, Le Corsaire Op. 92
Berlioz
Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103, “Egyptian” Allegro animato Andante Finale: Allegro vivace
Saint-Saëns
Intermission Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64 Andante—Allegro con anima Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza Allegro moderato Finale: Andante maestoso—Allegro vivace
Tchaikovsky
Patron: HRH The Duke of York Artistic Director and Principal Conductor: Charles Dutoit Managing Director, Ian Maclay Finance Director, Michelle Johnson Concerts Director, Elizabeth Forbes Tours Manager, Graham Midgley Head of Press & Marketing, Chris Evans Education Manager, Ruth Currie Orchestra Managers, Jane Aebi, Debbra Walters Librarian, Patrick Williams Stage Manager, Chris Ouzman
If you would like to join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s free mailing list or for further information about concerts and recordings, please take a look at our website: www.rpo.co.uk or call us at +44 (0)20 7608 8800.
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Overture, Le Corsaire, Op. 21 (1844) Hector Berlioz (Born December 11, 1803, in Côte-Saint-André,France; died March 8, 1869, in Paris) The Random House Dictionary defines “corsair” both as “a pirate” and as “a ship used for piracy.” Berlioz encountered one of the former on a wild, stormy sea voyage in 1831 from Marseilles to Livorno on his way to install himself in Rome as winner of the Prix de Rome. The grizzled, old buccaneer claimed to be a Venetian seaman who had piloted the ship of Lord Byron during the poet’s adventures in the Adriatic and the Greek archipelago, and his fantastic tales helped the young composer keep his mind off the danger aboard the tossing vessel. They landed safely, but the experience of that storm and the image of Lord Byron painted by the corsair stayed with him. When Berlioz arrived in Rome, he immersed himself in Byron’s poem The Corsair, reading much of it in, of all places, St. Peter’s Basilica. It was also at that time that word reached him that his fiancée in Paris, Camile Moke, had thrown him over in favor of another suitor. Revenge, he vowed, must be done. He fled by stage from Rome (disguised as a serving maid!) and got as far as Nice, where he threw himself into the ocean in an attempted suicide. After being “yanked out like a fish,” his rage completely drowned, and he spent the next three weeks recovering (“the happiest twenty days of my existence”). He was put up in a room with a view of an ancient, ruined tower, and, while gazing upon that Romantic sight, the idea of a musical work was born. He sketched some ideas, a few while actually sitting in the crumbling old structure, but did not complete the score at that time. Thirteen years later, in 1844, his doctor ordered him to take a rest cure from the hectic pace of his life in Paris. He returned to the site of his earlier convalescence in Nice and completed the sketches that he conceived there in 1831 as an overture named The Tower of Nice. The work was first played in Paris early the next year under that title, but Berlioz was not satisfied with what he heard, and he revised the work in 1851–52, renaming it Le Corsair. Le Corsaire opens with dashing introductory string scales answered by a bracing response from the woodwinds. Shortly thereafter a lyrical section appears. The quick pace resumes with some anticipatory measures before the rushing scales of the introduction return to initiate the main body of the work. A complementary theme—a vigorous marching melody—is presented by the low strings and bassoons, and becomes the subject of much of the rest of the overture, recurring in close-order canon, in various rhythmic and instrumental guises and in other elaborations. A lyrical but still vigorous interlude precedes the recapitulation of the rushing scales, and a further grand treatment of the marching theme brings this stirring work to a close. Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103, “Egyptian” (1896) Camille Saint-Saëns (Born October 9, 1835, in Paris; died December 16, 1921, in Algiers) At the age of two, Camille Saint-Saëns climbed up onto the piano bench and spent a large part of the rest of his life there. At fourand-a-half, he played the piano part of a Beethoven violin sonata
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Program Notes
and prodigiously made his formal debut in 1846, at the tender age of 10. As a teenager, he became organist at the Church of Saint-Merry in Paris; five years later, he moved to the prestigious post at the Church of the Madeleine. His artistry (and later his compositions) gained the respect of Liszt, who performed and conducted several of Saint-Saëns’ important scores in Germany. (Liszt oversaw the premiere of Samson et Dalila in Weimar in 1877.) Berlioz said of him that “he is an absolutely shattering master-pianist.” He impressed even the redoubtable Wagner by playing Tristan und Isolde from memory at the piano. Saint-Saëns was so constantly in demand throughout his life as a pianist in his own and other composers’ works, especially those of Mozart and Beethoven, that he religiously practiced for two hours each morning, an activity he continued, literally, until the day he died. To perform, of course, meant to tour, and travel became one of Saint-Saëns’ chief pastimes. He went to the corners of the earth, from Singapore to San Francisco, but he tried to spend his winters in the baking sun and relative anonymity of Algiers, away from the drab Parisian weather. His fondness for North Africa carried him on at least two occasions to Egypt, each visit inspiring from him a work for piano and orchestra: Africa, of 1891, was based on native songs; the Fifth Piano Concerto (“Egyptian”) was composed at Luxor in 1896. The composer was the soloist in the premiere of the Concerto on June 2, 1896, in Paris at a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of his debut as a pianist. The opening movement of the F major Piano Concerto follows traditional sonata-concerto structure, with a chordal main theme and a complementary, dance-like subordinate melody. “The second movement,” Saint-Saëns wrote, “takes us on a journey to the East and even, in one section, to the Far East. The G major passage is a Nubian love song which I heard sung by the boatmen on the Nile as I went down the river in a dahabieh.” The finale is a breathtaking tour-de-force of keyboard technique, proof that SaintSaëns had lost none of his piano facility during the half-century of his performing career. Arthur Hervey, one of the composer’s early biographers, interpreted the incessant rhythmic motion of the finale as Saint-Saëns’ attempt “to describe his experiences on the sea voyage” home from Egypt. “A note of realism,” Hervey continued, “is introduced by the sound of the propeller, while the serenity of the voyage is interrupted by a short storm.” Storms, propellers and voyages there well may be, but the real point of this music is its dazzling display for the soloist in one of Saint-Saëns’ great, unsinkable exercises in virtuosity. Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64 (1888) Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Born May 7, 1840, in Votkinsk; died November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg) Tchaikovsky was never able to maintain his self-confidence for long. More than once, his opinion of a work fluctuated between the extremes of satisfaction and denigration. The unjustly neglected Manfred Symphony of 1885, for example, left his pen as “the best I have ever written,” but the work failed to make a good impression at its premiere and Tchaikovsky’s estimation of it tumbled. The lack of success of Manfred was particularly painful, because he had not produced a major orchestral work since the Violin Concerto of 1878, and the score’s failure left him with the gnawing worry that he might be “written out.” The three years after Manfred were devoid of creative work. It was not until May continued on p.35
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department
of
music
Music professor and department chair Christopher Reynolds is the president-elect of the American Musicological Society (AMS). He was one of two candidates who stood for election for president in the membership’s spring voting. Board Director Reynolds, begins his two-year term as president in November 2012. He is the editor of the AMS Studies in Music book series. Reynolds has made significant contributions to his field, and his own research has focused on ways in which composers have influenced one another, as well as determining the providence of their musical ideas. His recent book explores this topic: Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music. Reynolds also leads a distinguished teaching career, having held visiting professorships at Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and at the University of Göttingen, Germany. In 2001, he received UC Davis’s “Distinguished Teaching Award for Undergraduate Teaching.” Reynolds is the second UC Davis music professor to serve as an AMS president—the other being Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, who led the society from 2000 to 2002, during her long tenure at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The department also boasts two AMS members who have received the society’s highest accolade, the designation “honorary” member: Owens in 2008 and Professor D. Kern Holoman in 2010. Reynolds has been chair of the Department of Music since 2009 and previously served as chair from 1992– 96. He served as faculty chair in the College of Letters and Science from 1995–96. The American Musicological Society, founded in 1934, promotes “research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship.” Reynolds’s research centers on the Renaissance, musical influence and American music. The society’s roster comprises 3,300 individual members and 1,200 institutional subscribers from 40 nations. 34
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further listening
royal philharmonic orchestra by jeff hudson If tonight’s performance of the Saint-Saëns Egyptian piano concerto grabs you, there is a well-regarded 2007 recording on Decca, featuring pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and conductor Charles Dutoit (with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, not the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). Thibaudet has recorded more than 40 albums, and as you might expect, he’s done a lot of the French repertoire: Debussy (the complete piano works), Ravel (the concertos, under Dutoit), Satie (the complete piano works), Messiaen, Chausson, d’Indy, etc. And if you like tonight’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, Dutoit recorded the piece with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (released in 1990, on the London label). Dutoit has a long and distinguished discography (more than 170 recordings) that extends back decades. A bit more about Camille Saint-Saëns: He liked to travel—the concerto you will hear tonight was written during a winter vacation in Egypt during 1896. Saint-Saëns also liked to visit Algeria (then a French colony), and he passed away from pneumonia at a hotel in Algiers in 1921. One gets the sense that he was a “snowbird.” But did you know that Saint-Saëns also made a celebrated visit to northern California? In 1915, at the age of 80, he bravely sailed to the New World, and through the newly completed Panama Canal, to attend the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco (Never mind that WWI was on, and German U-boats were sinking passenger liners—the Lusitania was torpedoed in May 1915, and sank in 18 minutes, carrying nearly 1,200 passengers to watery graves.). Saint-Saëns, however, made his Atlantic crossing unscathed. While in San Francisco, he was a guest conductor with the San Francisco Symphony (founded just four years earlier). Saint-Saëns stayed at the luxurious Palace Hotel—the symbol of the city’s swift recovery after the 1906 earthquake. That grand hotel is still in business; you can enjoy a meal in the elegant glass-roofed Garden Court, where the composer undoubtedly dined. You can also stroll through San Francisco’s Palace of the Fine Arts, which is the only surviving structure from that “world exhibition” held nearly a century ago. For the exhibition, Saint-Saëns premiered a new piece titled Hail California, a cantata scored for an orchestra of 80, a military band of 60, a chorus of 300 voices, plus a pipe organ and a piano (shades of Charles Ives!). Alas, Hail, California is now rarely performed; I’ve never located a recording. The ever-curious Saint-Saëns also took a stagecoach south to coastal Santa Cruz, stopping along the way to see a redwoods grove— much as many residents of Sacramento and Davis make the same vacation trek today.
Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing arts to Capital Public Radio, the Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News and Review.
Tchaikovsky never gave any indication that the Symphony No. 5, unlike the Fourth Symphony, had a program, though he may well have had one in mind. In their biography of the composer, Lawrence and Elisabeth Hanson reckoned Tchaikovsky’s view of fate as the motivating force in the Symphony No. 5, though they distinguished its interpretation from that in the Fourth Symphony. “In the Fourth Symphony,” the Hansons wrote, “the Fate theme is earthy and militant, as if the composer visualizes the implacable enemy in the form, say, of a Greek god. In the Fifth, the majestic Fate theme has been elevated far above earth, and man is seen, not as fighting a force that thinks on its own terms, of revenge, hate, or spite, but a wholly spiritual power which subjects him to checks and agonies for the betterment of his soul.” The structure of the Fifth Symphony reflects this process of “betterment.” It progresses from minor to major, from darkness to light, from melancholy to joy—or at least to acceptance and stoic resignation. The symphony’s four movements are linked together through the use of a recurring “Fate” motto theme, given immediately at the beginning by unison clarinets as the brooding introduction to the first movement. The sonata form proper starts with a melancholy melody intoned by bassoon and clarinet over a stark string accompaniment. Several themes are presented to round out the exposition: a romantic tune, filled with emotional swells, for the strings; an aggressive strain given as a dialogue between winds and strings; and a languorous, sighing string melody. All of the materials from the exposition are used in the development. The solo bassoon ushers in the recapitulation, and the themes from the exposition are heard again, though with appropriate changes of key and instrumentation. At the head of the manuscript of the second movement Tchaikovsky is said to have written, “Oh, how I love … if you love me …,” and, indeed, this wonderful music calls to mind an operatic love scene. (Tchaikovsky, it should be remembered, was a master of the musical stage who composed more operas than he did symphonies.) Twice, the imperious Fate motto intrudes upon the starlit mood of this romanza. If the second movement derives from opera, the third grows from ballet. A flowing waltz melody (inspired by a street song Tchaikovsky had heard in Italy a decade earlier) dominates much of the movement. The central trio section exhibits a scurrying figure in the strings. Quietly and briefly, the Fate motto returns in the movement’s closing pages. The finale begins with a long introduction based on the Fate theme cast in a heroic rather than a sinister or melancholy mood. A vigorous exposition, a concentrated development and an intense recapitulation follow. The long coda uses the motto theme in its major-key, victory-won setting. —Dr. Richard E. Rodda
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
1888 that Tchaikovsky again took up the challenge of the blank page, collecting “little by little, material for a symphony,” he wrote to his brother Modeste. Tchaikovsky worked doggedly on the new symphony, ignoring illness, the premature encroachment of old age (he was only 48, but suffered from continual exhaustion and loss of vision), and doubts about himself. He pressed on, and when the orchestration of the Fifth Symphony was completed, at the end of August, he said, “I have not blundered; it has turned out well.”
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Acknowledged as one of the U.K.’s most prestigious orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) enjoys an international reputation for bringing audiences worldwide first-class performances and the highest possible standards of music-making across a diverse range of musical repertoire. This was the vision of the orchestra’s flamboyant founder Sir Thomas Beecham, whose legacy is maintained today as the orchestra thrives under the exceptional direction of its artistic director and principal conductor, Charles Dutoit. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is London-based and performs a prestigious series of concerts each year at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, featuring artists of the highest caliber. The orchestra’s London home is at Cadogan Hall, just off Sloane Square, where concert-goers enjoy an intimate atmosphere in an idyllic location. Complementing the concert series at Cadogan Hall, the orchestra regularly performs in the magnificent Royal Albert Hall, presenting works of great magnitude designed to suit the immensity of this historic and grand venue. Within the U.K., the orchestra is committed to offering an extensive regional touring program, including established residencies in Croydon, Northampton, Lowestoft, Reading and Crawley. As an international orchestra, the RPO has toured more than 30 countries in the last five years. Recent tours have included performances in Egypt, Russia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Azerbaijan and China. The orchestra is also recognized for its artistic work through a vibrant and innovative community and education program, titled RPO resound. Specially trained members of the Orchestra, alongside accomplished project leaders, provide comprehensive workshops where music is used as a powerful and inspirational force. Frequently found in the recording studio, the orchestra records extensively for film and television as well as for all the major commercial record companies. The orchestra also owns its own record label and is proud to be the first U.K. orchestras to stream its entire series of concerts live from Cadogan Hall.
Charles Dutoit In the 2010–11 season, the Philadelphia Orchestra celebrates its 30-year artistic collaboration with Charles Dutoit, who made his debut with the orchestra in 1980 and who has held the title of chief conductor since 2008. With the 2012–13 season, the orchestra will honor Dutoit by bestowing upon him the title of conductor laureate. Also artistic director and principal conductor of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Dutoit regularly collaborates with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic. His more than 170 recordings for Decca, Deutsche Grammophone, EMI, Philips and Erato have garnered more than 40 awards and distinctions. For 25 years (1977–2002), Charles Dutoit was artistic director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, a dynamic musical partnership recognised the world over. Between 1990 and 2010, he has been artistic director and principal conductor of the Philadelphia
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From 1991–2001, Dutoit was music director of the Orchestre National de France with which he has toured extensively on five continents. In 1996, he was appointed music director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo) with which he toured in Europe, the United States, China and Southeast Asia. He is today music director emeritus of this orchestra. Dutoit has been artistic director of both the Sapporo Pacific Music Festival and the Miyazaki International Music Festival in Japan as well as the Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guangzhou, China, which he founded in 2005. He became the music director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in 2009. In 1991, Charles Dutoit was made Honorary Citizen of the City of Philadelphia; in 1995, Grand Officier de l’Ordre national du Québec; in 1996, Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France; and in 1998, he was invested as Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest award of merit whose other honorary recipients include John Kenneth Galbraith, James Hillier, Nelson Mandela, the Queen Mother, Vaclav Havel and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Dutoit was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and his extensive musical training included violin, viola, piano, percussion, history of music and composition at the conservatories and music academies of Geneva, Siena, Venice and Boston. When still in his early 20s, Charles Dutoit was invited by Herbert Von Karajan to conduct the Vienna State Opera. He has since conducted at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Deutsche Oper in Berlin and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. A globetrotter motivated by his passion for history, archaeology, political science, art and architecture, Dutoit has traveled in all 196 nations of the world. Jean-Yves Thibaudet Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano) is one of today’s most sought-after soloists and he has the rare ability to combine poetic musical sensibilities with dazzling technical prowess. His talent at coaxing subtle and surprising colors and textures from each work he plays has led the New York Times to exclaim that “every note he fashions is a pearl … the joy, brilliance and musicality of his performance could not be missed.” Thibaudet’s musical depth and natural charisma have underlined a career with global impact, including 30 years of performing around the world and more than 40 recorded albums. After three striking summer appearances at Tanglewood in which he played the complete piano works of Ravel, Thibaudet began his 2011-2012 schedule with a European tour with Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Thibaudet builds seasons around composers, delving into their repertoire with un-matched passion and depth. Much of the 2011-2012 season is centered on Liszt, Ravel and Saint-Saëns, and he performed the concertos of Ravel and Liszt with the Philadelphia Orchestra and with the San Diego Symphony at its season-opening gala in October. During the months of October and November, Thibaudet performed a
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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Orchestra’s summer festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York.
program of Liszt lieder and Brahms lieder with mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager, including a stop at New York’s Carnegie Hall. He will also tour Europe with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the U.S. with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Saint-Saëns. After New York performances with the New York Philharmonic for its PBS-televised New Year’s Eve Gala and with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Thibaudet will conclude his season with Debussy recitals in Germany and France. These Debussy evenings celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Thibaudet has released more than 40 albums with Decca, which have earned the Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, a Gramophone Award, two Echo awards and the Edison Prize. In 2010, Thibaudet released his latest CD, Gershwin, featuring big jazz band orchestrations of “Rhapsody in Blue,” variations on “I Got Rhythm,” and Concerto in F live with the Baltimore Symphony and music director Marin Alsop. On his Grammy-nominated recording Saint-Saëns, Piano Concerti Nos. 2&5, released in 2007, Thibaudet is joined by long-standing collaborator Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Also released in 2007, Thibaudet’s Aria—Opera Without Words features transcriptions of opera arias by Saint-Saëns, R. Strauss, Gluck, Korngold, Bellini, J. Strauss II, P. Grainger and Puccini. Some of the transcriptions are by Mikhashoff, Sgambati, Brassin and others are Thibaudet’s own. Among his other recordings are Satie: The Complete Solo Piano Music and the jazz albums Reflections on Duke: Jean-Yves Thibaudet Plays the Music of Duke Ellington and Conversations With Bill Evans, his tribute to two of jazz history’s greats. Known for his style and elegance on and off the traditional concert stage, Thibaudet has had an impact on the world of fashion, film and philanthropy. His concert wardrobe is by celebrated London designer Vivienne Westwood. In 2004, Thibaudet served as president of the prestigious Hospices de Beaune, an annual charity auction in Burgundy, France. He had an onscreen cameo in the Bruce Beresford feature film on Alma Mahler, Bride of the Wind, and his playing is showcased throughout the movie soundtrack. Thibaudet was the soloist on the Oscar- and Golden Globe-award winning soundtrack to Universal Pictures’ Atonement and the Oscar-nominated Pride and Prejudice. He was also featured in the 2000 PBS/Smithsonian special Piano Grand!, a piano performance program hosted by Billy Joel to pay tribute to the 300th anniversary of the piano. Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, where he began his piano studies at age five and made his first public appearance at age seven. At 12, he entered the Paris Conservatory to study with Aldo Ciccolini and Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel. At age 15, he won the Premier Prix du Conservatoire and, three years later, won the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York City. In 2001, the Republic of France awarded Thibaudet the prestigious Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2002, he was awarded the Premio Pegasus from the Spoleto Festival in Italy for his artistic achievements and his long-standing involvement with the festival. In 2007, he was awarded the Victoire d’Honneur, a lifetime career achievement award and the highest honor given by France’s Victoires de la Musique. On June 18, 2010, the Hollywood Bowl honored Thibaudet for his musical achievements by inducting him into its Hall of Fame.
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
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Presents
Alexander String Quartet Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz, violins Paul Yarbrough, viola Sandy Wilson, cello with special guest
Jon Nakamatsu, piano Lecturer: Robert Greenberg (2PM concert only) An Alexander String Quartet Series Event Sunday, January 29, 2012 • 2PM and 7PM Vanderhoef Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center, UC Davis There will be one intermission. (2PM concert only) Question & Answer Session (7PM concert only) with members of Alexander String Quartet
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.
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Alexander String Quartet Lecturer: Robert Greenberg (2PM only) Guest Artist: Jon Nakamatsu, piano
Terzetto for Two Violins & Viola in C Major, Op. 74 Introduzione—Allegro ma non troppo Larghetto Scherzo: Vivace Tema con variazioni: Poco adagio—Moderato—Molto allegro
Dvořák
Intermission (2PM only)
Dvořák
Quintet for Piano & Strings in A Major, Op. 81 Allegro, ma non tanto Dumka: Andante con moto Scherzo: Furiant. Molto vivace Finale: Allegro
The Alexander String Quartet records for FoghornClassics www.asq4.com
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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Terzetto for Two Violins & Viola in C Major, Op. 74 Antonín Dvořák (Born September 8, 1841, in Muhlhausen, Bohemia; died May 1, 1904, in Prague) A terzetto is simply a trio. In opera, the term denotes a piece for three voices, but in chamber music it usually means a trio for some combination other than violin-cello-piano; it is in the latter sense that Dvořák uses the term, for his Terzetto is scored for the unusual combination of two violins and viola. He wrote it in the space of a week in January 1887, originally intending that he would play the viola and that an amateur violinist would play first violin. The music turned out to be too difficult for the amateur violinist, and Dvořák compensated for this by writing him a somewhat easier set of pieces (arranged by the composer for piano and violin; the easier set is known today as the Four Romantic Pieces, Op. 75). Dvořák felt no hesitation about composing for amateur musicians. In fact, he was adamant about the importance of writing for them, and while working on these pieces he wrote to his publisher: “I am now writing some small Bagatelles for two violins and viola, and this work gives me just as much pleasure as if I were composing a great symphony; what do you say to that? They are, of course, intended for amateurs, but didn’t Beethoven and Schumann also write quite insignificant material, and how?” The Terzetto, though, is hardly “insignificant.” Good-natured as this music may be, it demands three accomplished musicians and shows some unusual technical features. Faced with the challenge of writing for three high voices (string quartet minus the cello), Dvořák had to provide a full harmonic palette and a bass line. He accomplished this by frequent multiple-stopping and by the viola’s active role in underpinning the harmony. One of the other surprising aspects of the Terzetto is the freedom with which Dvořák chooses keys. The first movement opens in C major, while the second is in E major; the third switches to A minor, but the finale begins in F major, moves through D-flat major and concludes in the unexpected key of C minor. The four brief movements require little comment. The first two are similar: both are lyric, both open gently and both feature more animated material in the development. The third movement is a scherzo in ABA form. Its outer sections show some similarity to the furiant, a Bohemian folk-dance, while the middle section is a genial waltz. Longest of the movements, the finale is in themeand-variation form; the theme itself is marked Poco adagio, but the five variations are quick-paced. Dvořák toys with the listener by moving through several different keys as he announces the theme; only eventually does it settle into C major, and then—as we have seen—he concludes in the unexpected key of the tonic minor: C minor. This all sounds technical, and the listener should not be put off by it; Dvořák’s Terzetto is as genial, attractive and good-spirited as anything that composer ever wrote.
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alexander string quartet
Program Notes
Quintet for Piano & Strings in A Major, Op. 81 Antonín Dvořák (Born September 8, 1841, in Muhlhausen, Bohemia; died May 1, 1904, in Prague) Universally acclaimed as one of Dvořák’s finest works, the Piano Quintet comes from the summer of 1887, between the composition of two of his greatest symphonies: the Brahmsian Seventh (1885) and the lyric Eighth (1889). Dvořák was 46 at this time, and the Quintet shows the hand of a master at every instant. This is tremendously vital music, full of fire, sweep and soaring melodies. Written at Dvořák’s summer home at Vysoka, in the forests and fields of Czechoslovakia, the Quintet comes from one of the composer’s periods of intense nationalism, and he employs characteristic Czech musical forms in the middle movements. The Quintet also takes much of its character from the sound of the viola. Dvořák was a violist, and in the Quintet the viola presents several of the main ideas, its dusky sound central to the rich sonority of this music. The cello has the lyric opening idea of the Allegro, ma non tanto. This undergoes some surprising transformations, both thematic and harmonic, before the viola introduces the pulsing second theme. This movement, in sonata form, is built on sharp contrasts: the music ranges from delicate effects to thunderous climaxes before closing on a triumphant restatement of the second theme. The second movement is a dumka, a form derived from an old Slavonic song of lament. Dvořák moves to the relative minor (F-sharp minor) for this movement, and he makes an effective contrast of sonorities in the first few moments: in its high register, the piano sounds glassy and delicate; far below, the viola’s C-string resonates darkly against this. This powerful opening gives way to varied episodes: a sparkling duet for violins that returns several times and a blistering Vivace tune introduced by the viola. The somber opening music returns to bring the movement to its quiet close. Dvořák notes that the brief Molto vivace is a furiant, an old Bohemian dance based on shifting meters, but—as countless commentators have pointed out—the meter remains unchanged throughout this movement, which is a sort of fast waltz in ABA form. The dancing opening gives way to a wistful center section, which is in fact a variant of the opening theme. The finale shows characteristics of both rondo and sonata-form movement. Its amiable opening idea—introduced by the first violin after a muttering, epigrammatic beginning—dominates the movement. Dvořák even offers a deft fugato on this tune as part of the development before the music races to the powerful close of one of this composer’s finest scores. —Eric Bromberger
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alexander String quartet
The Alexander String Quartet has performed in the major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing among the world’s premier ensembles for more than three decades. Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart and Shostakovich, the quartet has also established itself as an important advocate of new music through more than 25 commissions and numerous premiere performances. The Alexander String Quartet is a major artistic presence in its home base of San Francisco, serving there as directors of the Morrison Chamber Music Center at the School of Music and Dance in the College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University and Ensemble in Residence of San Francisco Performances. The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts includes engagements at major halls throughout North America and Europe. The quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd Street Y and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan Hall in Boston; the Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington and chamber music societies and universities across the North American continent. Recent overseas tours have taken them to the U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia, Argentina and the Philippines. The many distinguished artists to collaborate with the Alexander String Quartet include pianists Menahem Pressler, Gary Graffman, Roger Woodward, Jeremy Menuhin and Joyce Yang; clarinetists Eli Eban, Charles Neidich, Joan Enric Lluna and Richard Stoltzman; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sadao Harada and David Requiro; violist Toby Appel and soprano Elly Ameling. Among the quartet’s more unusual collaborations has been numerous performances of Eddie Sauter’s seminal Third Stream work Focus, in collaboration with Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez and Andrew Speight. The Alexander String Quartet’s 25th anniversary as well as the 20th anniversary of its association with New York City’s Baruch College as Ensemble in Residence was celebrated through a performance by the ensemble of the Shostakovich string quartet cycle. Of these performances at the Baruch Performing Art Center Engelman Recital Hall, The New York Times wrote, “The intimacy of the music came through with enhanced power and poignancy in the Alexander quartet’s vibrant, probing, assured and aptly volatile performances … Seldom have these anguished, playful, ironic and masterly works seemed so profoundly personal.” The Alexander was also awarded Presidential Medals in honor of its longstanding commitment to the arts and education and in celebration of its two decades of service to Baruch College. Highlights of the 2010–11 season included two multiple concert series for San Francisco Performances, one presenting the complete quartets of Bartók and Kodály and the other music of Dvořák; the conclusion of a Beethoven cycle for Mondavi Center and a continuing annual series at Baruch College in New York City. The quartet also performed an all-Beethoven program at the Lied Center of Kansas, two tours of Spain (including the inaugural performances of a new festival in Godella) and a second tour of Argentina. They also continued their annual residencies at Allegheny College, Lewis & Clark College and St. Lawrence University. Over the past decade the Alexander String Quartet has added considerably to its distinguished and wide-ranging discography. Currently recording exclusively for the FoghornClassics label, the Alexander’s most recent release (June 2009) is a complete Beethoven cycle. Music Web International has described the per44
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formances on this Beethoven set as “uncompromising in their power, intensity and spiritual depth,” while Strings Magazine described the set as “a landmark journey through the greatest of all quartet cycles.” The FoghornClassics label released a threeCD set (Homage) of the Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in 2004. Foghorn released a six-CD album (Fragments) of the complete Shostakovich quartets in 2006 and 2007 and a recording of the complete quartets of Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco composer Wayne Peterson was released in 2008. BMG Classics released the quartet’s first recording of the Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim in 1999. In celebration of the Alexander String Quartet’s forthcoming 30th anniversary, San Francisco Performances has commissioned a new work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano from Jake Heggie; the work will be premiered in a performance in collaboration with Joyce DiDonato in February 2012 at the Herbst Theater. Other recent Alexander premieres include Rise Chanting by Augusta Read Thomas, commissioned for the Alexander by the Krannert Center and premiered there and simulcast by WFMT radio in Chicago. The quartet has also premiered String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 by Wayne Peterson and works by Ross Bauer (commissioned by Stanford University), Richard Festinger, David Sheinfeld, Hi Kyung Kim and a Koussevitzky commission by Robert Greenberg. The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in 1981 and the following year became the first string quartet to win the Concert Artists Guild Competition. In 1985, the quartet captured international attention as the first American quartet to win the London International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury’s highest award and the Audience Prize. In 1995, Allegheny College awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees to the members of the quartet in recognition of their unique contribution to the arts. Honorary degrees were conferred on the ensemble by St. Lawrence University in 2000.
Robert Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1954, and has lived in the San Francisco Bay area since 1978. Greenberg received a B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976. In 1984, Greenberg received a Ph.D. in music composition, with distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley. Greenberg has composed more than 45 works for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal ensembles. Recent performances of his works have taken place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands, where his Child’s Play for String Quartet was performed at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam. Greenberg has received numerous honors, including three Nicola de Lorenzo Composition Prizes and three Meet-TheComposer Grants. Recent commissions have been received from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the Alexander String Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Strata Ensemble, San Francisco Performances and the XTET ensemble. Greenberg is a board member and an artistic director of Composers, Inc., a composers’ collective/production organization based in San Francisco. Greenberg has performed, taught and lectured extensively across North America and Europe. He is currently music historian-in
Greenberg has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor and San Francisco Chronicle. For many years Greenberg was the resident composer and music historian to National Public Radio’s Weekend All Things Considered and presently plays that role on Weekend Edition, Sunday with Liane Hansen. In 1993, Greenberg recorded a 48-lecture course, How to Listen to and Understand Great Music for the Teaching Company/SuperStar Teachers Program, the preeminent producer of college level courses-on-media in the United States. Twelve further courses— Concert Masterworks, Bach and the High Baroque, The Symphonies of Beethoven, How to Listen to and Understand Opera, Great Masters, The Operas of Mozart, The Life and Operas of Verdi, The Symphony, The Chamber Music of Mozart, The Piano Sonatas of Beethoven, The Concerto and The Fundamentals of Music—have been recorded since, totaling more than 500 lectures. In 2003, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News referred to Greenberg as “the Elvis of music history and appreciation,” an appraisal that has given him more pleasure than any other. Greenberg is currently writing a book on opera and its impact on Western culture, to be published by Oxford University Press.
Jon Nakamatsu (piano) Since his dramatic 1997 Van Cliburn Gold Medal triumph, Nakamatsu’s brilliant but unassuming musicianship and eclectic repertoire have made him a clear favorite throughout the world both on the concert circuit and in the recording studio. He has performed widely in North America, Europe and Asia and has collaborated with such conductors as James Conlon, Philippe Entremont, Marek Janowski, Raymond Leppard, Gerard Schwarz, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Michael Tilson Thomas and Osmo Vänskä. His extensive recital tours throughout the United States and Europe have featured appearances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Paris, London and Milan. Nakamatsu maintains a nearly incessant touring schedule with orchestra performances, chamber collaborations and solo recitals. In addition to his numerous appearances with orchestra in the 2011–12 season, he returns to New York’s Lincoln Center for an exclusive recital engagement and brings his highly sought out artistry as a recitalist and chamber musician to such cities as Atlanta, Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this playbill for reuse.
alexander string quartet
residence with San Francisco Performances, where he has lectured and performed since 1994, and a faculty member of the Advanced Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He has served on the faculties of the University of California, Berkeley; California State University, East Bay; and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he chaired the Department of Music History and Literature from 1989-2001 and served as the Director of the Adult Extension Division from 1991-96. Greenberg has lectured for some of the most prestigious musical and arts organizations in the United States, including the San Francisco Symphony (where for 10 years he was host and lecturer for the Symphony’s nationally acclaimed “Discovery Series”), the Ravinia Festival, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Van Cliburn Foundation, Chautauqua Institute (where he was the Everett Scholar in Residence for the summer of 2006), Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Music@ Menlo.
Dallas and Chicago and at universities and on presenting series nationwide. The 2010–11 U.S. season included Nakamatsu’s first appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also appeared with jazz pianist David Benoit in a special program mixing Gershwin with jazz and classical repertoire at the prestigious Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga. In 2010, he performed a recital for the Chopin Institute in Warsaw at Warsaw’s Philharmonic Hall and in October of that year, he returned to China for a debut at the Beijing International Piano Festival. In past seasons, Nakamatsu has been soloist with many leading orchestras, including those of Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Rochester, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo and Vancouver. In 2010, he was the featured soloist for the highly acclaimed American tour of the Berlin-based Philharmonie der Nationen, conducted by Justus Franz, performing Brahms’s First Piano Concerto and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in 12 cities nationwide. Numerous summer festival engagements have included appearances at the Aspen, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Caramoor, Vail, Sun Valley, Wolftrap and Britt festivals. In 1999, Nakamatsu was invited to the White House to perform for President and Mrs. Clinton. Among the numerous chamber ensembles with which Nakamatsu has collaborated are the Brentano, Jupiter, Tokyo, Prazak, St. Lawrence and Ying String Quartets. He also tours frequently with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet and in 2008, debuted on the Philharmonic’s chamber music series performing with the Quintet and members of the orchestra. His long association with clarinetist Jon Manasse, as part of the Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo, continues in the 2011–12 season with tours throughout the U.S. In 2008, the Duo released its first CD (Brahms Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano) which received the highest praise from New York Times Classical Music and Dance Editor James R. Oestreich, who named it a “Best of the Year” choice for 2008. The Duo’s most recent recording (American Music for Clarinet and Piano), released by Harmonia Mundi in 2010, received overwhelming praise from such publications as the International Record Review and The Mercury News, who listed it among their Top Classical CDs of 2010. In 2011, Nakamatsu and Manasse recorded both the Brahms Clarinet Quintet and the Piano Quintet on one disc with the Tokyo String Quartet. Nakamatsu and Manasse continue to serve as artistic directors of the esteemed Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, founded by pianist Samuel Sanders in 1979. Nakamatsu records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA, which has released 10 CDs to date. His recent all-Gershwin recording with Jeff Tyzig and the Rochester Philharmonic featuring “Rhapsody in Blue” and the Concerto in F rose to number three on Billboard’s classical music charts, earning extraordinary critical acclaim. Nakamatsu studied privately with Marina Derryberry from the age of six and has worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel, son of the great pianist Artur Schnabel. He has also studied composition and orchestration with Dr. Leonard Stein of the Schoenberg Institute at the University of Southern California and pursued extensive studies in chamber music and musicology. Nakamatsu is a graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in German studies and a master’s degree in education.
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Robert and Margrit Mondavi
Center for the Performing Arts
| UC Davis
Presents
MC
Debut
Oliver Stone A Distinguished Speakers Series Event Friday, February 3, 2012 • 8 PM Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center, UC Davis Sponsored by
In partnership with
Individual support provided by Lawrence and Nancy Shepard Question & Answer Session Moderated by Jaimey Fisher, Associate Professor of German and Director of Cinema and Technocultural Studies, UC Davis (see bio on p.47)
The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices. Videotaping, photographing and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal. 46
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oliver stone
Oliver Stone Oliver Stone has directed Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), W. (2008), World Trade Center (2006), Alexander (2004), Any Given Sunday (1999), U-Turn (1997), Nixon (1995), Natural Born Killers (1994), Heaven and Earth (1993), JFK (1991), The Doors (1991), Born On The Fourth Of July (1989), Talk Radio (1988), Wall Street (1987), Platoon (1986), Salvador (1986), The Hand (1981) and Seizure (1973). He has written or co-written all of the above, with the exception of U-Turn, World Trade Center and W.
Hyatt P la ce is a proud sponsor of The robert and margrit Mondavi Center for the performing arts, UC Davis
Stone has also written or co-written Midnight Express (1978), Scarface (1983), Conan The Barbarian (1982), Year Of The Dragon (1985), Evita (1996) and 8 Million Ways To Die (1986). Stone has directed four documentaries: Looking for Fidel (2004), Comandante (2003), Persona Non Grata (2003) and South of the Border (2009). He’s produced or co-produced The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Savior (1998), Freeway (1996), South Central (1998), Zebrahead (1992), Blue Steel (1990) and the ABC mini-series Wild Palms (1993). An Emmy was given to him and his co-producer for the HBO film Indictment: The McMartin Trial and he was nominated for the documentary The Last Days of Kennedy and King. Stone has won Oscars for directing Born On The Fourth Of July and Platoon and for writing Midnight Express. He was nominated for director (JFK) and co-writer (Nixon). He’s also received three Golden Globes for directing (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July and JFK), and one for writing (Midnight Express). Stone wrote a novel, published in 1997 by St. Martin’s Press, A Child’s Night Dream, based on Stone’s experiences as a young man. He is also a contributor of some 200 pages of essays on movies, culture, politics and history to the book Oliver Stone’s USA, edited by Robert Brent Toplin and published by the University Press of Kansas (2000). Stone was born in New York. Prior to his film career, Stone worked as a schoolteacher in Vietnam, a Merchant Marine sailor, taxi driver, messenger, production assistant and sales representative. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Vietnam in 1967–68. He was wounded twice and decorated with the Bronze Star for Valor. After returning from Vietnam he completed his undergraduate studies at New York University Film School in 1971.
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Hyatt Place UC Davis 173 Old Davis Road Extension Davis, CA 95616, USA Phone: +1 530 756 9500 Fax: +1 530 297 6900
Q&A session moderator: Jaimey Fisher
Jaimey Fisher is associate professor of German and director of Cinema and Technocultural Studies at the University of California, Davis. He has an A.B. from Stanford University in Modern Thought and Literature and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in German Studies and Film and Video studies. He is the author of Disciplining German: Youth, Reeducation, and Reconstruction after the Second World War (2007) and is co-editor, with Peter Uwe Hohendahl, of Critical Theory: Current State and Future Prospects (2001). He has published more than 20 essays and chapters in journals and books, including Iris, New German Critique, Genre, German Quarterly and Germanic Review. He has recently co-edited, with Brad Prager, Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century and with Barbara Mennel Spatial Turns: Space, Place and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture (both 2010). His current book project analyzes war films from the 1910s to the 1950s, and he is editing a volume on genre in German cinema.
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Mondavi Center
Corporate Partners Platinum
g n i v i g f o t r a e th Donors
Your generous donation allows us to bring world-class artists and speakers to the Sacramento Valley and energize and inspire tens of thousands of school children and teachers through our nationally recognized Arts Education programs. In appreciation of your gift, you receive a host of benefits which can include: • Priority Seating • Access to Donor-Only Events • Advance ticket sales for Just Added shows • Invitation to a cast party • Much, much more …
gold
Remember: Ticket sales cover only 40% of our costs.
silver Office of Campus Community Relations
For more information about how you can support the Mondavi Center, please contact: Mondavi Center Development Department 530.754.5438.
bronze
Visit our video booth and share your Mondavi Moment.
MONDAVI CENTER GRANTORS AND ARTS EDUCATION SPONSORS
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Tell Your Stor y Simply pop in by yourself or with a friend or family member and start talking!
As our audience, you have been a vital part of our success over the last 10 years. Now that we’re approaching our 10th anniversary, we want to hear your stories. Tell us how the performing arts at the Mondavi Center have thrilled you, inspired you and entertained you!
EVENT & ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PARTNERS
Boeger Winery Caffé Italia Ciocolat El Macero Country Club Hot Italian
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Hyatt Place Osteria Fasulo Seasons Restaurant Strelitzia Flower Company Watermelon Music
Talk to us about: • A favorite show • A time with friends or family • Something that surprised you • The show that made you think The video booth will be in the lobby before the shows and during intermission. Your few moments of sharing will play an important role as we get ready to celebrate our 10th season.
mondavi center
Mondavi Center
Individual Supporters
MondaviCenter InnerCircle Inner Circle Donors are dedicated arts patrons whose leadership gifts to the Mondavi Center are a testament to the value of the performing arts in our lives. Mondavi Center is deeply grateful for the generous contributions of the dedicated patrons who give annual financial support to our organization. These donations are an important source of revenue for our program, as income from ticket sales covers less than half of the actual cost of our performance season. Their gifts to the Mondavi Center strengthen and sustain our efforts, enabling us not only to bring memorable performances by worldclass artists to audiences in the capital region each year, but also to introduce new generations to the experience of live performance through our Arts Education Program, which provides arts education and enrichment activities to more than 35,000 K-12 students annually. For more information on supporting the Mondavi Center, visit MondaviArts.org or call 530.754.5438.
† Mondavi Center Advisory Board Member * Friends of Mondavi Center
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Impresario Circle $25,000 and up
John and Lois Crowe †* Barbara K. Jackson †* Friends of Mondavi Center And one donor who prefers to remain anonymous virtuoso Circle $15,000 - $24,999
Joyce and Ken Adamson Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Anne Gray †* Mary B. Horton* Grant and Grace Noda* William and Nancy Roe †* Lawrence and Nancy Shepard † Tony and Joan Stone † Joe and Betty Tupin †* Maestro Circle $10,000 - $14,999
Wayne and Jacque Bartholomew †* Ralph and Clairelee Leiser Bulkley* Oren and Eunice Adair-Christensen* Dolly and David Fiddyment † M. A. Morris* Shipley and Dick Walters* Benefactors Circle $6,000 - $9,999 California Statewide Certified Development Corporation Camille Chan † Cecilia Delury and Vince Jacobs † Patti Donlon † First Northern Bank † Samia and Scott Foster † Benjamin and Lynette Hart †* Dee and Joe Hartzog † Margaret Hoyt* Bill Koenig and Jane O’Green Koenig Garry Maisel † Stephen Meyer and Mary Lou Flint† Grace and John Rosenquist* Chris and Melodie Rufer Raymond and Jeanette Seamans Ellen Sherman Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef †*
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Producers Circle $3,000 - $5,999
Neil and Carla Andrews Hans Apel and Pamela Burton Cordelia Stephens Birrell Kay and Joyce Blacker* Neil and Joanne Bodine Mr. Barry and Valerie Boone Brian Tarkington and Katrina Boratynski Michael and Betty Chapman Robert and Wendy Chason Chris and Sandy Chong* Michele Clark and Paul Simmons Tony and Ellie Cobarrubia* Claudia Coleman Eric and Michael Conn Nancy DuBois* Stephen Duscha and Wanda Lee Graves Merrilee and Simon Engel Catherine and Charles Farman Domenic and Joan Favero Donald and Sylvia Fillman Andrew and Judith Gabor Kay Gist Fredric Gorin and Pamela Dolkart Gorin Ed and Bonnie Green* Robert Grey Diane Gunsul-Hicks Charles and Ann Halsted Judith and Bill Hardardt* The One and Only Watson Lorena Herrig* Charley and Eva Hess Suzanne and Chris Horsley* Sarah and Dan Hrdy Dr. Ronald and Lesley Hsu Debra Johnson, MD and Mario Gutierrez Teresa and Jerry Kaneko* Dean and Karen Karnopp* Nancy Lawrence, Gordon Klein, and Linda Lawrence Greiner Heat, Air, and Solar Brian and Dorothy Landsberg Drs. Richard Latchaw and Sheri Alders Ginger and Jeffrey Leacox Claudia and Allan Leavitt Robert and Barbara Leidigh Yvonne LeMaitre John T. Lescroart and Lisa Sawyer Nelson Lewallyn and Marion Pace-Lewallyn Dr. Ashley and Shiela Lipshutz Paul and Diane Makley* In memory of Jerry Marr Janet Mayhew* Robert and Helga Medearis Verne Mendel* Derry Ann Moritz Jeff and Mary Nicholson Philip and Miep Palmer Gavin Payne Suzanne and Brad Poling 50
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Lois and Dr. Barry Ramer David Rocke and Janine Mozée Roger and Ann Romani* Hal and Carol Sconyers* Tom and Meg Stallard* Karen and Jim Steidler Tom and Judy Stevenson Donine Hedrick and David Studer Jerome Suran and Helen Singer Suran* Rosemary and George Tchobanoglous Della Aichwalder Thompson Nathan and Johanna Trueblood Ken Verosub and Irina Delusina Jeanne Hanna Vogel Claudette Von Rusten John Walker and Marie Lopez Cantor & Company, A Law Corporation* Bob and Joyce Wisner* Richard and Judy Wydick And six donors who prefer to remain anonymous Directors Circle $1,100 - $2,999 John and Kathleen Agnew Dorrit Ahbel Beulah and Ezra Amsterdam Russell and Elizabeth Austin Murry and Laura Baria* Lydia Baskin* Connie Batterson Jo Anne Boorkman* Clyde and Ruth Bowman Edwin Bradley Linda Brandenburger Robert Burgerman and Linda Ramatowski Davis and Jan Campbell David J. Converse, ESQ. Gail and John Cooluris Jim and Kathy Coulter* John and Celeste Cron* Terry and Jay Davison Bruce and Marilyn Dewey Martha Dickman* Dotty Dixon* Richard and Joy Dorf* Thomas and Phyllis Farver* Tom Forrester and Shelly Faura Sandra and Steven Felderstein Nancy McRae Fisher Carole Franti* Paul J. and Dolores L. Fry Charitable Fund Karl Gerdes and Pamela Rohrich Henry and Dorothy Gietzen Craig A. Gladen John and Patty Goss* Jack and Florence Grosskettler* Virginia Hass Tim and Karen Hefler Sharna and Myron Hoffman Claudia Hulbe
Ruth W. Jackson Clarence and Barbara Kado Barbara Katz* Hansen Kwok Thomas Lange and Spencer Lockson Mary Jane Large and Marc Levinson Edward and Sally Larkin* Hyunok Lee and Daniel Sumner Linda and Peter Lindert Angelique Louie Natalie and Malcolm MacKenzie* Stephen Madeiros Douglas Mahone and Lisa Heschong Dennis H. Mangers and Michael Sestak Susan Mann Judith and Mark Mannis Maria Manoliu Marilyn Mansfield John and Polly Marion Yvonne L. Marsh Robert Ono and Betty Masuoka Shirley Maus* Ken McKinstry Joy Mench and Clive Watson Fred and Linda J. Meyers* John Meyer and Karen Moore Eldridge and Judith Moores Barbara Moriel Mary-Alice and Augustus B. Morr Patricia and Surl Nielsen Linda Orrante and James Nordin Alice Oi, In memory of Richard Oi Jerry L. Plummer Linda and Lawrence Raber* Larry and Celia Rabinowitz Kay Resler* Prof. Christopher Reynolds and Prof. Alessa Johns Thomas Roehr Don Roth and Jolán Friedhoff Liisa A. Russell Beverly “Babs” Sandeen and Marty Swingle Ed and Karen Schelegle The Schenker Family Neil and Carrie Schore Bonnie and Jeff Smith Wilson and Kathryn Smith Ronald and Rosie Soohoo* Richard L. Sprague and Stephen C. Ott Maril Revette Stratton and Patrick Stratton Brandt Schraner and Jennifer Thornton Verbeck and friends Louise and Larry Walker Scott Weintraub Dale L. and Jane C. Wierman Mary Wood, Ph.D. Paul Wyman Yin Yeh And five donors who prefer to remain anonymous
Mondavi Center Donors
Encore Circle $600 - $1,099
Gregg T. Atkins and Ardith Allread Drs. Noa and David Bell Marion Bray Don and Dolores Chakerian Gale and Jack Chapman William and Susan Chen Robert and Nancy Nesbit Crummey John and Cathie Duniway Shari and Wayne Eckert Doris and Earl Flint Murray and Audrey Fowler Gatmon-Sandrock Family Jeffery and Marsha Gibeling Paul N. and E. F. “Pat” Goldstene David and Mae Gundlach Robin Hansen and Gordon Ulrey Cynthia Hearden* Lenonard and Marilyn Herrmann Katherine Hess Barbara and Robert Jones Paula Kubo Frances and Arthur Lawyer* Gary and Jane Matteson Don and Sue Murchison Robert Murphy Richard and Kathleen Nelson Frank Pajerski John Pascoe and Susan Stover Jerry and Ann Powell* J. and K. Redenbaugh John and Judy Reitan Jeep and Heather Roemer Jeannie and Bill Spangler Sherman and Hannah Stein Les and Mary Stephens Dewall Judith and Richard Stern Eric and Patricia Stromberg* Lyn Taylor and Mont Hubbard Cap and Helen Thomson Roseanna Torretto* Henry and Lynda Trowbridge* Donald Walk, M.D. Geoffrey and Gretel Wandesford-Smith Steven and Andrea Weiss* Denise and Alan Williams Kandi Williams and Dr. Frank Jahnke Karl and Lynn Zender And three donors who prefer to remain anonymous
Orchestra Circle
$300 - $599 Michelle Adams Mitzi Aguirre Susan Ahlquist Paul and Nancy Aikin Jessica Friedman Drs. Ralph and Teresa Aldredge Thomas and Patricia Allen Fred Arth and Pat Schneider Al and Pat Arthur Shirley and Michael Auman* Robert and Joan Ball Beverly and Clay Ballard In memory of Ronald Baskin Delee and Jerry Beavers Robert Hollingsworth and Carol Beckham Carol L. Benedetti Donald and Kathryn Bers* Bob and Diane Biggs Al J. Patrick, Bankruptcy Law Center Elizabeth Bradford Paul Braun Rosa Maquez and Richard Breedon Joan Brenchley and Kevin Jackson Irving and Karen Broido* In memory of Rose Marie Wheeler John and Christine Bruhn Manuel Calderon De La Barca Sanchez Jackie Caplan Michael and Louise Caplan Anne and Gary Carlson Koling Chang and Su-Ju Lin Jan Conroy, Gayle Dax-Conroy, Edward Telfeyan, Jeri Paik-Telfeyan Charles and Mary Anne Cooper James and Patricia Cothern Cathy and Jon Coupal* David and Judy Covin Larry Dashiell and Peggy Siddons Thomas B. and Eina C. Dutton Micki Eagle Janet Feil David and Kerstin Feldman Sevgi and Edwin Friedrich* Dr. Deborah and Brook Gale Marvin and Joyce Goldman Stephen and Deirdre Greenholz Judy Guiraud Darrow and Gwen Haagensen Sharon and Don Hallberg Alexander and Kelly Harcourt David and Donna Harris Roy and Miriam Hatamiya Stephen and Joanne Hatchett Paula Higashi Brit Holtz Herb and Jan Hoover Frederick and B.J. Hoyt Pat and Jim Hutchinson* Mary Jenkin Don and Diane Johnston Weldon and Colleen Jordan Mary Ann and Victor Jung Nancy Gelbard and David Kalb Douglas Neuhauser and Louise Kellogg Charles Kelso and Mary Reed Ruth Ann Kinsella* Joseph Kiskis Judy and Kent Kjelstrom Peter Klavins and Susan Kauzlarich Charlene Kunitz Allan and Norma Lammers Darnell Lawrence and Dolores Daugherty Richard Lawrence Ruth Lawrence Carol and Robert Ledbetter Stanley and Donna Levin Barbara Levine Ernest and Mary Ann Lewis* Michael and Sheila Lewis* David and Ruth Lindgren
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Jeffrey and Helen Ma Pat Martin* Yvonne Clinton Mazalewski and Robert Mazalewski Sean and Sabine McCarthy Catherine McGuire Michael Gerrit Nancy Michel Hedlin Family Robert and Susan Munn* Anna Rita and Bill Neuman John and Carol Oster Sally Ozonoff and Tom Richey John and Sue Palmer John and Barbara Parker Brenda Davis and Ed Phillips Bonnie A. Plummer* Deborah Nichols Poulos and Prof. John W. Poulos Harriet Prato John and Alice Provost J. David Ramsey Rosemary Reynolds Guy and Eva Richards Ronald and Sara Ringen Tracy Rodgers and Richard Budenz Sharon and Elliott Rose* Barbara and Alan Roth Marie Rundle Bob and Tamra Ruxin Tom and Joan Sallee Mark and Ita Sanders Eileen and Howard Sarasohn Mervyn Schnaidt Maralyn Molock Scott Ruth and Robert Shumway Michael and Elizabeth Singer Al and Sandy Sokolow Edward and Sharon Speegle Curtis and Judy Spencer Tim and Julie Stephens Pieter Stroeve, Diane Barrett and Jodie Stroeve Kristia Suutala Tony and Beth Tanke Butch and Virginia Thresh Dennis and Judy Tsuboi Ann-Catrin Van Ph.D. Robert Vassar Don and Merna Villarejo Rita Waterman Norma and Richard Watson Regina White Wesley and Janet Yates Jane Y. Yeun and Randall E. Lee Ronald M. Yoshiyama Hanni and George Zweifel And six donors who prefer to remain anonymous
Mainstage Circle $100 - $299
Leal Abbott Thomas and Betty Adams Mary Aften Jill Aguiar Suzanne and David Allen David and Penny Anderson Elinor Anklin and George Harsch Janice and Alex Ardans Debbie Arrington Shota Atsumi Jerry and Barbara August George and Irma Baldwin Charlotte Ballard and Bob Zeff Diane and Charlie Bamforth* Elizabeth Banks Michele Barefoot and Luis Perez-Grau Carole Barnes Paul and Linda Baumann Lynn Baysinger* Claire and Marion Becker
Sheri Belafsky Merry Benard Robert and Susan Benedetti William and Marie Benisek Robert C. and Jane D. Bennett Marta Beres Elizabeth Berteaux Bevowitz Family Boyd and Lucille Bevington Ernst and Hannah Biberstein Katy Bill Andrea Bjorklund and Sean Duggan Lewis J. and Caroline S. Bledsoe Fred and Mary Bliss Bobbie Bolden William Bossart Mary and Jill Bowers Alf and Kristin Brandt Robert and Maxine Braude Daniel and Millie Braunstein* Francis M. Brookey Linda Clevenger and Seth Brunner Mike and Marian Burnham Margaret Burns and Roy W. Bellhorn Victor W. Burns William and Karolee Bush Lita Campbell* Robert and Lynn Campbell Robert Canary John and Nancy Capitanio James and Patty Carey Michael and Susan Carl John and Inge Carrol Bruce and Mary Alice Carswell* Jan and Barbara Carter* Dorothy Chikasawa* Frank Chisholm Richard and Arden Christian Michael and Paula Chulada Betty M. Clark Gail Clark L. Edward and Jacqueline Clemens James Cline Wayne Colburn Sheri and Ron Cole Steve and Janet Collins In honor of Marybeth Cook Nicholas and Khin Cornes Victor Cozzalio and Lisa Heilman-Cozzalio Lorraine Crozier Bill and Myra Cusick Elizabeth Dahlstrom-Bushnell* John and Joanne Daniels Nita Davidson Johanna Davies Voncile Dean Mrs. Leigh Dibb Ed and Debby Dillon Joel and Linda Dobris Gwendolyn Doebbert and Richard Epstein Val Docini and Solveig Monson Val and Marge Dolcini* Katherine and Gordon Douglas Anne Duffey Marjean Dupree Victoria Dye and Douglas Kelt David and Sabrina Eastis Harold and Anne Eisenberg Eliane Eisner Terry Elledge Vincent Elliott Brian Ely and Robert Hoffman Allen Enders Adrian and Tamara Engel Sidney England Carol Erickson and David Phillips Jeff Ersig David and Kay Evans Valerie Eviner Evelyn Falkenstein Andrew D. and Eleanor E. Farrand* Richard D. Farshler Liz and Tim Fenton Steven and Susan Ferronato Bill and Margy Findlay Judy Fleenor* Manfred Fleischer David and Donna Fletcher Glenn Fortini
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Lisa Foster Robert Fowles and Linda Parzych Marion Franck and Bob Lew Anthony and Jorgina Freese Joel Friedman Larry Friedman Kerim and Josina Friedrich Joan M. Futscher Myra Gable Charles and Joanne Gamble Peggy E. Gerick Gerald Gibbons and Sibilla Hershey Louis J. Fox and Marnelle Gleason* Pat and Bob Gonzalez* Michael Goodman Susan Goodrich Louise and Victor Graf Jeffrey and Sandra Granett Jacqueline Gray* Donald Green Mary Louis Greenberg Paul and Carol Grench Alexander and Marilyn Groth June and Paul Gulyassy Wesley and Ida Hackett* Paul W. Hadley Jim and Jane Hagedorn Frank and Ro Hamilton William Hamre Jim and Laurie Hanschu Marylee and John Hardie Richard and Vera Harris Cathy Brorby and Jim Harritt Ken and Carmen Hashagen Mary Helmich Martin Helmke and Joan Frye Williams Roy and Dione Henrickson Rand and Mary Herbert Roger and Rosanne Heym Larry and Elizabeth Hill Calvin Hirsch and Deborah Francis Frederick and Tieu-Bich Hodges Michael and Peggy Hoffman Steve and Nancy Hopkins Darcie Houck David and Gail Hulse Lorraine J. Hwang Marta Induni Jane Johnson* Kathryn Jaramillo Robert and Linda Jarvis Tom and Betsy Jennings Dr. and Mrs. Ronald C. Jensen Pamela R. Jessup Carole and Phil Johnson SNJ Services Group Michelle Johnston and Scott Arranto Warren and Donna Johnston In memory of Betty and Joseph Baria Andrew and Merry Joslin Martin and JoAnn Joye* John and Nancy Jungerman Nawaz Kaleel Fred Kapatkin Shari and Timothy Karpin Anthony and Beth Katsaris Yasuo Kawamura Phyllis and Scott Keilholtz* Patricia Kelleher* Dave and Gay Kent Robert and Cathryn Kerr Gary and Susan Kieser Louise Bettner and Larry Kimble Ken and Susan Kirby Dorothy Klishevich Paulette Keller Knox Paul Kramer Dave and Nina Krebs Kurt and Marcia Kreith Sandra Kristensen Leslie Kurtz Cecilia Kwan Donald and Yoshie Kyhos Ray and Marianne Kyono Bonnie and Kit Lam* Angelo Lamola Marsha M. Lang Bruce and Susan Larock
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Harry Laswell and Sharon Adlis C and J Learned Marceline Lee Lee-Hartwig Family Nancy and Steve Lege Suzanne Leineke The Lenk-Sloane Family Joel and Jeannette Lerman Evelyn A. Lewis Melvyn Libman Motoko Lobue Mary S. Lowry Henry Luckie Maryanne Lynch Ariane Lyons Ed and Sue MacDonald Leslie Macdonald and Gary Francis Thomas and Kathleen Magrino* Deborah Mah* Mary C. Major Vartan Malian Julin Maloof and Stacey Harmer Joan Mangold Bunkie Mangum Raymond and Janet Manzi Joseph and Mary Alice Marino Donald and Mary Martin J. A. Martin Mr. and Mrs. William R. Mason Bob and Vel Matthews Leslie Maulhardt Katherine F. Mawdsley* Karen McCluskey* John McCoy Nora McGuinness* Donna and Dick McIlvaine Tim and Linda McKenna Blanche McNaughton* Richard and Virginia McRostie Martin A. Medina and Laurie Perry Cliva Mee and Werner Paul Harder III DeAna Melilli Barry Melton and Barbara Langer Sharon Menke The Merchant Family Roland and Marilyn Meyer Leslie Michaels and Susan Katt Jean and Eric Miller Phyllis Miller Sue and Rex Miller Douglas Minnis Steve and Kathy Miura* Kei and Barbara Miyano Vicki and Paul Moering Joanne Moldenhauer Louise S. Montgomery Amy Moore Hallie Morrow Marcie Mortensson Christopher Motley Robert and Janet Mukai Bill and Diane Muller Terry and Judy Murphy Steve Abramowitz and Alberta Nassi Judy and Merle Neel Cathy Neuhauser and Jack Holmes Robert Nevraumont and Donna Curley Nevraumont* Keri Mistler and Dana Newell K. C. Ng Denise Nip and Russell Blair Forrest Odle Yae Kay Ogasawara James Oltjen Marvin O’Rear Jessie Ann Owens Bob and Beth Owens Mike and Carlene Ozonoff* Michael Pach and Mary Wind Charles and Joan Partain Thomas Pavlakovich and Kathryn Demakopoulos Dr. and Mrs. John W. Pearson Bob and Marlene Perkins Pat Piper Mary Lou Pizzio-Flaa David and Jeanette Pleasure Bob and Vicki Plutchok
Ralph and Jane Pomeroy* Bea and Jerry Pressler Ann Preston Rudolf and Brigitta Pueschel Evelyn and Otto Raabe Edward and Jane Rabin Jan and Anne-Louise Radimsky Kathryn Radtkey-Gaither Lawrence and Norma Rappaport Evelyn and Dewey Raski Olga Raveling Dorothy and Fred Reardon Sandi Redenbach* Paul Rees Sandra Reese Martha Rehrman* Eugene and Elizabeth Renkin David and Judy Reuben* Al and Peggy Rice Joyce Rietz Ralph and Judy Riggs* David and Kathy Robertson Richard and Evelyne Rominger Andrea Rosen Catherine and David Rowen Paul and Ida Ruffin Michael and Imelda Russell Hugh Safford Dr. Terry Sandbek* and Sharon Billings* Kathleen and David Sanders* Glenn Sanjume Fred and Polly Schack John and Joyce Schaeuble Patsy Schiff Tyler Schilling Leon Schimmel and Annette Cody Fred and Colene Schlaepfer Julie Schmidt* Janis J. Schroeder and Carrie L. Markel Rick Schubert Brian A. Sehnert and Janet L. McDonald Andreea Seritan Dan Shadoan and Ann Lincoln Ed Shields and Valerie Brown Sandi and Clay Sigg Joy Skalbeck Barbara Slemmons Marion Small Judith Smith Juliann Smith Robert Snider Jean Snyder Blanca Solis Roger and Freda Sornsen Marguerite Spencer Johanna Stek Raymond Stewart Karen Street* Deb and Jeff Stromberg Mary Superak Thomas Swift Joyce Takahashi Francie Teitelbaum Jeanne Shealor and George Thelen Julie Theriault, PA-C Virginia Thigpen Janet Thome Robert and Kathryn Thorpe Brian Toole Lola Torney and Jason King Michael and Heidi Trauner Rich and Fay Traynham James E. Turner Barbara and Jim Tutt Robert Twiss Ramon and Karen Urbano Chris and Betsy Van Kessel Bart and Barbara Vaughn* Richard and Maria Vielbig Charles and Terry Vines Rosemarie Vonusa* Richard Vorpe and Evelyn Matteucci Carolyn Waggoner* M. Therese Wagnon Carol Walden Marny and Rick Wasserman Caroline and Royce Waters Marya Welch*
Dan and Ellie Wendin* Douglas West Martha S. West Robert and Leslie Westergaard* Linda K. Whitney Jane Williams Marsha Wilson Linda K. Winter* Janet Winterer Michael and Jennifer Woo Ardath Wood Timothy and Vicki Yearnshaw Elaine Chow Yee* Norman and Manda Yeung Teresa Yeung Phillip and Iva Yoshimura Heather Young Phyllis Young Verena Leu Young* Melanie and Medardo Zavala Mark and Wendy Zlotlow And 47 donors who prefer to remain anonymous
CORPORATE MATCHING GIFTS Bank of America Matching Gifts Program Chevron/Texaco Matching Gift Fund DST Systems We appreciate the many Donors who participate in their employers’ matching gift program. Please contact your Human Resources department to find out about your company’s matching gift program. Note: We are pleased to recognize the Donors of Mondavi Center for their generous support of our program. We apologize if we inadvertently listed your name incorrectly; please contact the Development Office at 530.754.5438 to inform us of corrections.
Audience Enrichment Committee The Friends of Mondavi Center is an active donor-based volunteer organization that supports activities of the Mondavi Center’s presenting program. Deeply committed to arts education, Friends volunteer their time and financial support for learning opportunities related to Mondavi Center performances. When you join the Friends of Mondavi Center, you are able to choose from a variety of activities and work with other Friends who share your interests.
Audience Enrichment is a new Friends of Mondavi Center committee focusing on communication with the adult community. An outgrowth of the former Adult Education committee, the goal of Audience Enrichment is to help community members know more about the educational activities that are held at the Mondavi Center. Audience Enrichment organizes the Spotlight Series which feature talks by artists and arts administrators on the performing arts for Friends of Mondavi Center. Extended discussions are part of these evening talks.
The Audience Enrichment Committee also helps to support the public relations activities of the Mondavi Center. These activities include coordinating an upcoming storytelling pilot program in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of Mondavi Center. While this is a new committee, it consists of many experienced volunteers interested in continuing to be involved “behind the scenes.”
For information on becoming a Friend of Mondavi Center, email Jennifer Mast at jmmast@ucdavis.edu or call 530.754.5431
Shakespeare Works when Shakespeare Plays A three-day workshop conference for teachers at the Mondavi Center, UC Davis, January 13-15, 2012 Teaching Artists from some of the world’s most respected Shakespeare Theaters share active and playful approaches that will enliven your teaching of Shakespeare. This conference of hands-on workshops at the Mondavi Center, UC Davis, will also transform your teaching across the curriculum to support the VAPA standards. The weekend is presented by the UC Davis School of Education and the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis in association with Globe Education (Shakespeare’s Globe, London) and the Shakespeare Theatre Association. www.regonline.com/shakespeare_works Registration is $349. Limited openings will sell out fast. Visit the Conference Website for more information: http://shakespeareplays.ucdavis.edu
Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this playbill for reuse.
Invited Presenters: Shakespeare Festival/LA San Francisco Shakespeare Company Oregon Shakespeare Festival Bard on the Beach (Vancouver) American Shakespeare Center (Virginia) Shakespeare and Company (Lennox, Mass) Shakespeare’s Globe Education (London) Folger Shakespeare Theater
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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Mondavi Center Staff DON ROTH, Ph.D. Executive Director
AUDIENCE SERVICES Emily Taggart Audience Services Manager/ Artist Liaison Coordinator
Jeremy Ganter Associate Executive Director
Yuri Rodriguez Events Manager
PROGRAMMING Jeremy Ganter Director of Programming
Natalia Deardorff Assistant Events Manager
Erin Palmer Programming Manager
Nancy Temple Assistant Public Events Manager
Ruth Rosenberg Artist Engagement Coordinator
BUSINESS SERVICES Debbie Armstrong Senior Director of Support Services
Lara Downes Curator: Young Artists Program
Mandy Jarvis Financial Analyst
ARTS EDUCATION Joyce Donaldson Associate to the Executive Director for Arts Educaton and Strategic Projects
Russ Postlethwaite Billing System Administrator
DEVELOPMENT Debbie Armstrong Senior Director of Development
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Darren Marks Programmer/Designer
Alison Morr Kolozsi Director of Major Gifts
Mark J. Johnston Lead Application Developer
Elisha Findley Corporate & Annual Fund Officer
Tim Kendall Programmer
Amanda Turpin Donor Relations Manager
MARKETING Rob Tocalino Director of Marketing
Angela McMillon Development and Support Services Assistant
Will Crockett Marketing Manager
Morissa Rubin Senior Graphic Artist
Greg Bailey Lead Building Maintenance Worker
Amanda Caraway Public Relations Coordinator
Steve David Ticket Office Supervisor
Daniel Goldin Master Electrician Michael Hayes Head Sound Technician
Susie Evon Ticket Agent
Daniel F. Dannenfelser Registered Piano Technician
Russell St. Clair Ticket Agent
Adrian Galindo Scene Technician
production Donna J. Flor Production Manager
Kathy Glaubach Scene Technician Daniel Thompson Scene Technician
Christopher Oca Stage Manager
Erin Kelley Senior Graphic Artist
FACILITIES Herb Garman Director of Operations
TICKET OFFICE Sarah Herrera Ticket Office Manager
Christi-Anne Sokolewicz Stage Manager Jenna Bell Production Coordinator Zak Stelly-Riggs Master Carpenter
Head Ushers Huguette Albrecht George Edwards Linda Gregory Donna Horgan Mike Tracy Susie Valentin Janellyn Whittier Terry Whittier
Jennifer Mast Arts Education Coordinator
Mondavi Center Advisory Board The Mondavi Center Advisory Board is a university support group whose primary purpose is to provide assistance to the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, UC Davis, and its resident users, the academic departments of Music and Theatre and Dance and the presenting program of the Mondavi Center, through fundraising, public outreach and other support for the mission of UC Davis and the Mondavi Center. 11-12 Season Board Officers John Crowe, Chair Joe Tupin, Patron Relations Chair Randy Reynoso, Corporate Relations Co-Chair Garry P. Maisel, Corporate Relations Co-Chair
Members Jeff Adamski Wayne Bartholomew Camille Chan Michael Chapman John Crowe Lois Crowe Cecilia Delury Patti Donlon
David Fiddyment Dolly Fiddyment Mary Lou Flint Anne Gray Benjamin Hart Lynette Hart Dee Hartzog Joe Hartzog Vince Jacobs
Garry P. Maisel Stephen Meyer Randy Reynoso Nancy Roe William Roe Lawrence Shepard Nancy Shepard Joan Stone Tony Stone
Joe Tupin Larry Vanderhoef Rosalie Vanderhoef Honorary Members Barbara K. Jackson Margrit Mondavi
Ex Officio Linda P.B. Katehi, Chancellor, UC Davis Ralph J. Hexter, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, UC Davis Jessie Ann Owens, Dean, Division of Humanities, Arts & Cultural Studies, College of Letters & Sciences, UC Davis Jo Anne Boorkman, Friends of Mondavi Center Board Don Roth, Executive Director, Mondavi Center Erin Schlemmer, Arts & Lectures Chair
Arts & Lectures Administrative Advisory Committee
friends of Mondavi Center
The Arts & Lectures Administrative Advisory Committee is made up of interested students, faculty and staff who attend performances, review programming opportunities and meet monthly with the director of the Mondavi Center. They provide advice and feedback for the Mondavi Center staff throughout the performance season.
11-12 Executive Board
11-12 Committee Members Erin Schlemmer, Chair Celeste Chang Prabhakara Choudary Adrian Crabtree Susan Franck
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Kelley Gove Aaron Hsu Holly Keefer Danielle McManus Bella Merlin
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Lee Miller Kayla Rouse Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
Jo Anne Boorkman, President Laura Baria, Vice President Francie Lawyer, Secretary Jim Coulter, Audience Enrichment Jacqueline Gray, Membership Sandra Chong, School Matinee Support Martha Rehrman, Friends Events Leslie Westergaard, Mondavi Center Tours Phyllis Zerger, School Outreach Eunice Adair Christensen, Gift Shop Manager, Ex Officio Joyce Donaldson, Director of Arts Education, Ex Officio
Accommodations for Patrons with Disabilities
Ticket Exchange
The Mondavi Center is proud to be a fully accessible state-of-the-art public facility that meets or exceeds all state and federal ADA requirements.
• • • • • • • •
Tickets must be exchanged at least one business day prior to the performance. Tickets may not be exchanged after your performance date. There is a $5 exchange fee per ticket for non-subscribers and Pick 3 purchasers. If you exchange for a higher-priced ticket, the difference will be charged. The difference between a higher and a lower-priced ticket on exchange is non-refundable. Subscribers and donors may exchange tickets at face value toward a balance on their account. All balances must be applied toward the same presenter and expire June 30 of the current season. Balances may not be transferred between accounts. All exchanges subject to availability. All ticket sales are final for events presented by non-UC Davis promoters. No refunds.
Parking You may purchase parking passes for individual Mondavi Center events for $7 per event at the parking lot or with your ticket order. Rates are subject to change. Parking passes that have been lost or stolen will not be replaced.
Group Discounts
Patrons with special seating needs should notify the Mondavi Center Ticket Office at the time of ticket purchase to receive reasonable accommodation. The Mondavi Center may not be able to accommodate special needs brought to our attention at the performance. Seating spaces for wheelchair users and their companions are located at all levels and prices for all performances. Requests for sign language interpreting, real-time captioning, Braille programs and other reasonable accommodations should be made with at least two weeks’ notice. The Mondavi Center may not be able to accommodate last minute requests. Requests for these accommodations may be made when purchasing tickets at 530.754.2787 or TDD 530.754.5402.
Special Seating Mondavi Center offers special seating arrangements for our patrons with disabilities. Please call the Ticket Office at 530.754.2787 [TDD 530.754.5402].
Assistive Listening Devices
Entertain friends, family, classmates or business associates and save! Groups of 20 or more qualify for a 10% discount off regular prices. Payment must be made in a single check or credit card transaction. Please call 530.754.2787 or 866.754.2787.
Assistive Listening Devices are available for Jackson Hall and the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Receivers that can be used with or without hearing aids may be checked out at no charge from the Patron Services Desk near the lobby elevators. The Mondavi Center requires an ID to be held at the Patron Services Desk until the device is returned.
Student Tickets (50% off the full single ticket price*)
Elevators
Student tickets are to be used by registered students matriculating toward a degree, age 18 and older, with a valid student ID card. Each student ticket holder must present a valid student ID card at the door when entering the venue where the event occurs, or the ticket must be upgraded to regular price.
Children (50% off the full single ticket price*) Children’s tickets are for all patrons age 17 and younger. No additional discounts may be applied. As a courtesy to other audience members, please use discretion in bringing a young child to an evening performance. All children, regardless of age, are required to have tickets, and any child attending an evening performance should be able to sit quietly through the performance.
Privacy Policy The Mondavi Center collects information from patrons solely for the purpose of gaining necessary information to conduct business and serve our patrons efficiently. We sometimes share names and addresses with other not-for-profit arts organizations. If you do not wish to be included in our e-mail communications or postal mailings, or if you do not want us to share your name, please notify us via e-mail, U.S. mail, or telephone. Full Privacy Policy at MondaviArts.org.
POlicies
Policies and Information
The Mondavi Center has two passenger elevators serving all levels. They are located at the north end of the Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby, near the restrooms and Patron Services Desk.
Restrooms All public restrooms are equipped with accessible sinks, stalls, babychanging stations and amenities. There are six public restrooms in the building: two on the Orchestra level, two on the Orchestra Terrace level and two on the Grand Tier level.
Service Animals Mondavi Center welcomes working service animals that are necessary to assist patrons with disabilities. Service animals must remain on a leash or harness at all times. Please contact the Mondavi Center Ticket Office if you intend to bring a service animal to an event so that appropriate seating can be reserved for you.
*Only one discount per ticket.
Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this playbill for reuse.
MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Jan–Feb 2012 |
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september 2011
december 2011
21 30
7–10 8 11 15 18
Return To Forever IV with Zappa Plays Zappa Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder
october 2011 1 2 6 8 13 19 20 21 24 29 29–30
Wayne Shorter Quartet Alexander String Quartet Yamato Jonathan Franzen San Francisco Symphony Scottish Ballet k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang Rising Stars of Opera Focus on Film: Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould Hilary Hahn, violin So Percussion: “We Are All Going in Different Directions”: A John Cage Celebration
november 2011 4 5–6 7–8 9–11 12 12–13 14 14–15
mondavi center–
Tia Fuller Quartet Mariachi Sol de México de Jóse Hernàndez Lara Downes Family Concert: Green Eggs and Ham Blind Boys of Alabama Christmas Show American Bach Soloists: Messiah
january 2012 5 9 14–15 19 25–28 27 29 30
San Francisco Symphony Focus on Film: Platoon Alexi Kenney, violin and Hilda Huang, piano Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca Alfredo Rodriguez Trio Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Alexander String Quartet Focus on Opera: Tosca
february 2012
3 4 Cinematic Titanic Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise 9 Hot 8 Brass Band 11–12 Trey McIntyre Project 14 and Preservation Hall Jazz Band 17 Lara Downes: 18 13 Ways of Looking at the Goldberg Focus on Film: Salaam Bombay! 22 Growing Up In India: 25 A Film and Photo Exhibition
Oliver Stone Rachel Barton Pine, violin, with the Chamber Soloists Orchestra of New York Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo CIRCA Loudon Wainwright III & Leo Kottke Eric Owens, bass-baritone Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers The Chieftains Overtone Quartet
Media Clips & More Info:
MondaviArts.org
MondaviArts.org
Rachel Barton Pine
530.754.2787
2 9 10–11 17–18 18 22 24–25 29
Angelique Kidjo Garrick Ohlsson, piano Curtis On Tour Ballet Preljocaj: Blanche Neige Alexander String Quartet Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion Circus Oz SFJAZZ Collective
april 2012 1 9 11 13 14–15 17 18–21 19–22 28
2 9 12 13 14 16–19
530.754.2787
| mondaviarts.org
march 2012
Young Artists Competition Winners Concert Focus on Opera: The Elixir of Love Sherman Alexie Bettye LaVette Zippo Songs: Poems from the Front Anoushka Shankar The Bad Plus The Improvised Shakespeare Company Maya Beiser: Provenance
may 2012
Call for Tickets!
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2o11 12
866.754.2787 (toll-free)
San Francisco Symphony Chamber Ensemble Patti Smith New York Philharmonic ODC/Dance: The Velveteen Rabbit Focus on Opera: Lucia di Lammermoor Supergenerous: Cyro Baptista and Kevin Breit
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The art of performance draws our eyes to the stage
Our community’s commitment to arts and culture says a lot about where we live and it brings us together from the moment the lights go down and the curtains come up.
wellsfargo.com © 2011 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC. (594507_02705)
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