PROGRAM NOTES
Montgomery: Hymn for Everyone
Hymn for Everyone is based on a hymn that I wrote during the spring of 2021 that was a reflection on personal and collective challenges happening at the time. Up until that point, I had resisted composing “response pieces” to the pandemic and social-political upheaval, and had been experiencing an intense writer’s block. But one day, after a long hike, this hymn just came to me—a rare occurrence. The melody traverses through different orchestral “choirs,” and is accompanied by the rest of the ensemble. It is a kind of meditation for orchestra, exploring various washes of color and timbre through each repetition of the melody.
—Jessie Montgomery
Brief insights from Matilda Hofman, guest conductor:
Mozart: Porgi, amor
The young countess in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro is lamenting the love that has been lost between her and her husband.
Menotti: Steal Me, Sweet Thief
In Menotti’s opera The Old Maid and the Thief, Laetitia is wishing for some love to arrive before life steals away her best years.
Verdi: Addio, del passato
The heroine of Verdi’s La Traviata, Violetta, is dying. In this aria, she bids farewell to happiness, to love, and to life.
Price/Still: Dances in the Canebrakes
Florence Price wrote Dances in the Canebrakes for solo piano in the last year of her life. After her death, William Grant Still, the most famous African American classical composer of his day, orchestrated the three dances. Florence Price and William Grant Still were both born in Little Rock, Arkansas, but it is uncertain whether they ever met.
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, KV 551 “Jupiter”
Mozart completed his last three symphonies in just a few weeks in the summer of 1788, “Jupiter” being the last. All of Mozart's works are dramatic in some way, like an opera, full of different characters—sometimes singing heart-felt arias, sometimes talking all at once.
Artist’s Note
These three arias each symbolize ideas felt by complex women who have lived, loved, and lost. We can experience feelings of sadness, humor, passion, and grief as we follow them through their journeys and reflect on our own.
—Heidi Moss Erickson
Mozart: Porgi, amor
Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro
al mio duolo, a' miei sospir.
O mi rendi il mio tesoro, o mi lascia almen morir.
—Lorenzo Da Ponte
Menotti: Steal Me, Sweet Thief
Mozart: O love
O love, bring some relief
To my sorrow, to my sighs; O give me back my loved one, Or in mercy let me die.
—trans. aria-database.com
What a curse for a woman is a timid man!
A week has gone by, He's had plenty of chances
But he made no advances.
Miss Todd schemes and labors to get him some money, She robs friends and neighbors, the club and the church...
He takes all the money!
With a smile that entrances, But still makes no advances.
The old woman sighs and makes languid eyes...
All the doors are wide open,
All the drawers are unlocked!
He neither seems pleased or shocked.
He eats and drinks and sleeps
He talks of baseball and boxing
But that is all!
What a curse for a woman is a timid man!
Steal me, oh steal me, sweet thief
For time's flight is stealing my youth...
And the cares of life steal fleeting time, Steal me, thief, for life is brief and full of theft and strife.
And then, with furtive step, Death comes and steals time and life—
O sweet thief, I pray make me die, Before dark death steals her prey.
Steal my lips, before they crumble to dust
Steal my heart, before death must.
Steal my cheeks, before they're sunk and decayed, Steal my breath, before it will fade.
Steal my lips, steal my heart, steal my cheeks,
Steal, oh steal my breath
And make me die before death will steal her prey... Oh, steal me!
For time's flight is stealing my youth.
—Gian Carlo Menotti
Verdi: Addio, del passato
Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti, Le rose del volto già son pallenti; L'amore d'Alfredo pur esso mi manca, Conforto, sostegno dell'anima stanca Ah, della traviata sorridi al desio; Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti, A lei, deh, perdona; tu accoglila, o Dio, Or tutto finì. (...)
—Francesco Maria Piave
Verdi: Farewell, happy dreams
Farewell, happy dreams of the past, The rosiness in my cheeks has already gone pale; The love of Alfredo I will miss, Comfort, support my tired soul Ah, the misguided desire to smile; Farewell, happy dreams of the past, God pardon and accept me, All is finished.
(...)
—trans. liveabout.com
Matilda Hofman has a varied and busy conducting schedule in California and Europe. In Europe she has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Holland Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Luzern Festival, Paris Autumn Festival, and at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Matilda has worked with Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, SWR Sinfonie-orchester, Bochumer Symponiker and Kammerakdemie Potsdam. She has performed alongside Maestro Ingo Metzmacher in many performances of Luigi Nono’s Prometeo. In 2018 she was on the faculty for the soundSCAPE new music festival in Italy.
Hofman works with both instrumental and choral groups, and prepared Chorwerk Ruhr for their tremendously successful debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in MusikFest Berlin, with George Benjamin conducting. Hofman is music director of the Diablo Symphony Orchestra and artistic director and member of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, as well as conductor-inresidence for Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis. She also serves as a cover conductor for the San Francisco Symphony.
San Francisco Gate has described Hofman’s conducting as “taut and finely controlled” and San Francisco Classical Voice as giving “a striking sense of purpose.
Hofman’s guest engagements in California include Festival Opera, the Fremont Symphony Orchestra, Sierra Summer Festival, San Francisco Ballet, Sacramento Ballet and Earplay. She has also worked at Sacramento Opera, and has assisted Michael Morgan on several operas including Pagliacci, Gianni Schicchi and Il Trovatore. Operas conducted in staged performances include Così fan tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro, Turn of the Screw, Albert Herring, Carmen, Bluebeard's Castle, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, and Acis and Galatea.
Hofman serves on the faculty at UC Davis, where she is guest-conducting the symphony orchestra in fall 2024. She has also served as director of the Early Music Ensemble. In 2019 and 2021 she was resident artist at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and will be a guest conductor at the Eastman School of Music in 2025.
Hofman is very committed to education and outreach. As music director of the Diablo Symphony, she initiated an education program which includes music to schools in the Contra Costa area as well as family concerts and an instrument drive.
Hofman holds degrees from Cambridge University, the Royal Academy of Music (viola performance), and the Eastman School of Music (conducting), and has served as a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Her mentors include Ingo Metzmacher, Martyn Brabbins and Neil Varon. She studied viola with Garfield Jackson, Martin Outram and Tatiana Masurenko. She has received awards from the League of American Orchestras and the Conductors Guild of America.
Heidi Moss Erickson joined the faculty at University of the Pacific in fall 2024. She serves as assistant professor of voice.
Moss Erickson received a dual biology and voice degree at Oberlin where she worked in the voice lab of Richard Miller. Her more than 20 year performing career spans both opera and concert repertoire, with a focus on new music. Her scientific achievements include a landmark paper in Cell showing that the ends of DNA in telomeres are looped.
In 2007 Moss Erickson came down with a rare CNVII nerve injury which resurrected her passion for how the brain controls the voice. Her courses and lectures have been featured both nationally and internationally at conferences and universities, including Renee Fleming’s Music and Mind series. Her many published writings link neuroscience with vocal pedagogy, therapy, and rehabilitation and she is currently working on a book.
She is married to composer Kurt Erickson and they share music, many children, and many cats.
PACIFIC CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Pacific Chamber Orchestra performs an inclusive range of contemporary and historically significant works. The ensemble provides performers with a variety of sizes and settings to explore an exciting range of repertoire. Pacific faculty, students, and guest artists perform with the ensemble as concerto and aria soloists and as guest conductors. Participation in the ensemble is open to all Pacific students by audition.
First Violin
Jamie Lue*
Emma Young†
Lizzie Mendoza
Mereth Niemoeller
Christopher Thant
Raffaella Wong
Second Violin
Lizzie Mendoza††
Erick Sariles**
Emma Young‡‡‡
Kiersten Hogue
Carissa Lee
Alizon Lopez
Julianna Ramirez
Viola
Kylie Trenhaile, principal
Erick Sariles
Cello
Hasina Torres††‡‡
Nicholas Trobaugh‡**
Marco Cervantes
Jane Damon
Jordan Hendrickson
Hope Lee
Jiangshuo Ma
Benedict Ventura
Bass
Miguel Velarde, principal
Julianna Meneses
Flute
Bobby Singh‡‡
Jasmine Valentine**
Ethan Williamsࠠ
Oboe
Jayden Laumeister**
Emily Zamudio††‡‡
Gabriel Zarata‡
Walker Austin
Chase White
Clarinet
Edmund Bascon‡
Vanessa Lopez**
Abigail Miller††
Audrey Ewing
Joseph Schwarz
Andrew Seaver
Alto Saxophone
Tristan McMichael
Bassoon
Justin Silva **††‡‡
Nadege Tenorio‡
Jess Vreeland
Horn
Jada Ramos**
Owen Sheridanࠠ
Skylar Warren‡‡
Don Parker
Trumpet
Parker Deems ‡**‡‡
Kamron Qasimi††
Alayna Ontai
Trombone
William Giancaterino**††
Radley Rutledge‡
Bronson Burfield
Miguel Palma
Tuba
Alejandro Villalobos
Timpani
Matthew Kulm
Robert McCarl
Percussion
Hunter Campbell
Ryan Eads
Casey Kim
Matthew Kulm
Harp
Jacquelyn Venter ***
Faculty Coaches
Ann Miller, violin
Igor Veligan, viola
Vicky Wang, cello
Kathryn Schulmeister, bass
Brittany Trotter, flute
Kyle Bruckmann, oboe
Patricia Shands, clarinet
Ricardo Martinez, saxophone
Nicolasa Kuster, bassoon
Sadie Glass, horn
Leonard Ott, trumpet
Bruce Chrisp, low brass
Jonathan Latta, timpani, percussion, ensembles program director
*concertmaster, Montgomery and Mozart “Jupiter”
†concertmaster, Mozart, Menotti, Verdi and Price
‡principal, Montgomery
**principal, Mozart, Menotti and Verdi
††principal, Price
‡‡principal, Mozart “Jupiter”
***community member
