Pacific Strings
Matilda Hofman, guest conductor
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
7:30 pm
Faye Spanos Concert Hall
Entr’acte (2011/2014)
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)
Source Code (2013)
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
Serenade for Strings in C major, op. 48 (1880)
Pezzo in forma di Sonatina
Waltzer
Élégie
Finale (Tema russo)
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
PROGRAM NOTES
Shaw: Entr’acte (Between the Acts)
Entr’acte was written in 2011 after hearing the Brentano Quartet play Haydn’s op. 77, No. 2—with their spare and soulful shift to the D-flat major trio in the minuet. It is structured like a minuet and trio, riffing on that classical form but taking it a little further. I love the way some music (like the minuets of op. 77) suddenly takes you to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition.
—Caroline Shaw
Montgomery: Source Code
The first sketches of Source Code began as transcriptions of various sources from African American artists prominent during the peak of the Civil Rights era in the United States. I experimented by re-interpreting gestures, sentences, and musical syntax (the bare bones of rhythm and inflection) by choreographer Alvin Ailey, poets Langston Hughes and Rita Dove, and the great jazz songstress Ella Fitzgerald into musical sentences and tone paintings. Ultimately, this exercise of listening, re-imagining, and transcribing led me back to the Black spiritual as a common musical source across all three genres.
The spiritual is a significant part of the DNA of Black folk music, and subsequently most (arguably all) American pop music forms that have developed to the present day. This one-movement work is a kind of dirge, which centers on a melody based on syntax derived from Black spirituals. The melody is continuous and cycles through like a gene strand with which all other textures play.
Jessie Montgomery
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings in C major, op. 48
Written in 1880, the serenade comes soon after the collapse of his marriage, at a time when Tchaikovsky spent much time traveling in Europe. The serenade blends Russian melodies and sentiments with an at times Italian feel and a classical approach. Tchaikovsky wrote that the first movement of his serenade for strings was modeled on his hero, Mozart. "This is a piece from the heart," he wrote.
Matilda Hofman
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 co-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 and has also served as director of the Early Music Ensemble (EME). During her tenure with EME she performed a highly successful St John’s Passion, an ambitious undertaking for the group. In the Fall 2019 and 2021 Matilda was a resident artist at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, working and performing with the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Sinfonietta and the Opera.
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.
Pacific Strings performs inclusive and diverse repertoire. Faculty and guest conductors prepare the ensemble to perform music written only for the violin, viola and cello, including contemporary and historic works that explore the musical capabilities of the string instruments. The conservatory string faculty will often perform side-by-side with students in the ensemble.
Pacific Strings
First Violins
Ann Miller, concertmaster†^
Jamie Lue, concertmaster‡**
Lizzie Mendoza
Mereth Niemoeller
Christopher Thant
Raffaella Wong
Second Violins
Emma Young, principal
Kiersten Hogue
Carissa Lee
Alizon Lopez
Julianna Ramirez
Violas
Igor Veligan, principal^
Ekaterina Dorozhkina*
Erick Sariles
Kylie Trenhaile
Cellos
Hasina Torres, principal†‡
Vicky Wang, principal**^
Marco Cervantes
Jane Damon
Jordan Hendrickson
Bailey LaBrie
Hope Lee
Jiangshuo Ma
Nicholas Trobaugh
Benedict Ventura
Basses
Kathryn Schulmeister, principal^
Julianna Meneses
Miguel Velarde
*community member
^faculty member
†Shaw ‡Montgomery **Tchaikovsky
Faculty Coaches
Ann Miller, violin
Igor Veligan, viola
Vicky Wang, cello
Kathryn Schulmeister, double bass
Jonathan Latta, ensembles program director
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