American Innovative Music Series
PRESENTS
St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton BN1 3LJ • May 5th - June 3rd 2017
Artistic Director: Norman Jacobs
Charles E. Ives DANBURY, CONNECTICUT
Stephen Montague SYRACUSE, NY John Zorn NEW YORK CITY Francis Schwartz ALTOONA, PENNSYLVANIA
Ruth Crawford Seeger
EAST LIVERPOOL, OHIO
Edward “Duke” Ellington WASHINGTON DC
George Crumb
John Cage
CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Henry Cowell
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA
James Tenney
SILVER CITY, NEW MEXICO
Wadada Leo Smith
LELAND, MISSISSIPPI
Produced with support from The Earle Brown Music Foundation
www.earle-brown.org
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Earle Brown
LUNENBURG, MASSACHUSETTS
Leonard Bernstein LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS
Morton Feldman QUEENS, NEW YORK
Aaron Copland BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
George Gershwin BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Welcome “LISTEN AMERICA!” From the New World come the indigenous sounds of ragtime, jazz, Gospel, Latin dance and American popular musical theatre. American composers of the 20th-century at times infused these vernacular elements in their works. Radicals turned their backs on the main street to cut their own musical furrow and create some of the highly individualised pieces presented and celebrated in this series.
“Sachs leaves us thinking of Cowell as not just a great American musician but a great American, period.” - Booklist “Gorgeously written… Sachs sets a furious narrative tempo from the get-go, each page seemingly revealing a nugget of information that history was hitherto reluctant to divulge… This man made of music deserves this first biography and a revival too.” - Gramophone “A magisterial biography… Essential.” - Choice
SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE AT EVENTS ON JUNE 2 & 3 ONLY £20 (RRP £22.99/ Amazon £21.27)
ALSO AVAILABLE HERE: AMERICAN CLASSICS CONTINUUM CDs ON NAXOS AT £8.99 HENRY COWELL, RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER, ROBERT ERIKSON, CHARLES IVES, LEON KIRCHNER, CONLON NANCARROW, ROBERTO SIERRA, VIRGIL THOMSON
It is a special privilege to welcome Joel Sachs who is performing in the last two concerts as pianist and as conductor. Joel has been a member of the music faculty at Juilliard School, New York since 1970, working with many of the composers featured, including John Cage, Aaron Copland and Earle Brown. He has contributed to this project with his typical boundless reserves of enthusiasm and dedication. American Contemporary Ensemble comprises talented young undergraduate and postgraduate students from Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Trinity-Laban Conservatory of Music as well as A-level pupils from the Sussex region currently at East Sussex Academy of Music, Lewes and Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester. Their dedication during the past four months to the concert programme on June 3rd has been tremendous. Do not miss what is guaranteed to be quite a memorable event! The series commences with the Ligeti Quartet. Ever innovative, they move beyond their instrumental constraints to perform George Crumb’s unique piece Black Angels and works by other leading composers from the past and of today. In one month, this series comprises four events featuring more than 20 works, including 2 new commissions, written by 17 composers (7 living) performed by 22 musicians. It is going to be a thrilling month of innovative musical events.
Norman Jacobs – artistic director/series producer MOOT - music of our time (Registered Charity no. 1169015)
To learn more about MOOT please contact us via Facebook or www.musicofourtime.co.uk
Members of the public observing Jasper Johns’ Flag (1954), January 2017, MoMA, New York. Photographed by Norman Jacobs.
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GEORGE CRUMB’S BLACK ANGELS
WADADA LEO SMITH (b.1941) – String Quartet No.4 In the Diaspora: Earthquakes and Sunrise Missions… (1999) 7’
Friday, May 5, at 7.30pm · St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton
Wadada Leo Smith is one of the most visionary, boldly original figures in contemporary American jazz and free music, as well as one of the greatest trumpet players of our time.
Performed by Ligeti Quartet
In the Diaspora Smith uses what he calls “Ankhrasmation”, evocative colourful graphic scores. The four parts are often individual and improvisatory. Smith writes: This work employs ideas concerning the social history of displaced people from every moment in our “human” interactions with each other in a world where power is the rule and love mostly the affair of deep pretend. George Crumb
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) – Rondino from Two Pieces for String Quartet (1923-28) 5’ JOHN ZORN (b.1953) – Cat O’Nine Tails (1988) 15’ [n., pl., cat-o’-nine-tails: A whip consisting of nine knotted cords fastened to a handle, used in flogging, and leaves marks like the scratches of a cat.] For Cat O’Nine Tails John Zorn wrote numerous musical “moments” onto file cards which were then assembled in order. Subtitled “Tex Avery meets the Marquis de Sade” the piece references Carl Stalling’s music for “Fred/Tex” Avery’s Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny animated cartoons, with sudden switches between more than fifty very short segments. All are highly varied in style, including classical, country, swing, hardcore punk, ragtime, and blues genres, and close imitations of music by Ives, Xenakis, Schoenberg, Bartók, Messiaen, and no doubt other composers. The only work to be directly quoted appears to be Paganini’s Caprice No. 17 in Eb major, from which very short fragments are exchanged by the violins. Zorn avoids any linear narrative, although there is an overall theme of theatrical, comic violence and dark humour.
LAURA JURD (b.1990) – Jump/Cut/Shuffle (2016) 10’ Ligeti Quartet commission Notes by the composer: A defining feature of Duke Ellington’s characterful compositions and eclectic body of work was the fact that he wrote for specific musicians, including Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges and Cootie Williams. Whilst writing this piece I took a few building blocks from Ellington’s Queen’s Suite - released in 1976 - and constructed a new work for the Ligeti Quartet. The chosen ingredients have been mostly taken from the gutsy and wondrous “Northern Lights” movement. Having worked with the Ligeti Quartet in the past, I feel fortunate to have got to know the essence of their music-making as an ensemble and as four individuals. This has hugely influenced the compositional process as I have introduced some choice Ellington phrases to the vivacious and daring realm of the contemporary string quartet. I would list Duke Ellington’s music alongside that of Igor Stravinsky and Alfred Schnittke - all composers who relish the idea of juxtaposition and whose strength of idea lead to highly memorable and distinctive compositions.
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From the time Copland studied in Paris in the early twenties, he was convinced that it was important for American composers to become known in Europe as well as at home. With this in mind, he returned to Paris in 1926 and composed two new pieces for an all-American program Nadia Boulanger was planning. He invited the violinist Samuel Dushkin to play the pieces with him. The latter, Ukelele Serenade, is lively and includes quarter tones as well as arpeggiated chords simulating a ukelele sound. - Notes by Vivian Perlis, 1998
***Intermission*** EARLE BROWN (1926-2002) – String Quartet (1965) 12’ Notes by the composer: String Quartet is one of several works in which I have attempted to combine the “graphic” and “mobile” – improvisational qualities of the 1952 works (as in Folio), and the “composed material, open form” conditions of Twenty Five Pages (1953) and the Available Forms works of 1961-62. In composing these later works, which use more than one performer without conductor, I have fixed the over-all form but have left areas of flexibility within the inner structures. The works achieve a strong formal identity while maintaining the “performer process” spontaneity and the balance of collaboration between the composition and the performers that are characteristic of the previously mentioned open-form and graphic works.
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George Crumb (b. 1929) – Black Angels : Thirteen Images From the Dark Land (1970) 20’
I. Departure 1. Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes 3. Lost Bells 4. Devil-music 5. Danse Macabre
II. Absence 6. Pavana Lachrymae 7. Threnody II: Black Angels! 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura 9. Lost Bells (Echo)
III. Return 10. God-music 11. Ancient Voices 12. Ancient Voices (Echo) 13. Threnody III: Night of the Electric Insects
“Things were turned upside down. There were terrifying things in the air… they found their way into Black Angels.” —George Crumb George Crumb’s Black Angels, perhaps the only quartet to have been inspired by the Vietnam War, draws from an arsenal of sounds including shouting, chanting, whistling, whispering, gongs, maracas, and crystal glasses. The score bears two inscriptions: “in tempore belli” (in time of war) and “Finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March, 1970.” George Crumb writes: “Black Angels was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world. The work portrays a voyage of the soul. The three stages of this voyage are Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation) and Return (redemption). The numerological symbolism of Black Angels, while perhaps not immediately perceptible to the ear, is nonetheless quite faithfully reflected in the musical structure. These ‘magical’ relationships are variously expressed: e.g., in terms of length, groupings of single tones, durations, patterns of repetition, etc. At certain points in the score there occurs a kind of ritualistic counting in various languages, including German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, and Swahili… There are several allusions to tonal music: a quotation from Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet; an original Sarabanda; the sustained B-major tonality of God-Music; and several references to the Latin sequence Dies Irae (Day of Wrath). The work abounds in conventional musical symbolisms such as the Diabolus in Musica (the interval of the tritone) and the Trillo Di Diavolo (the Devil’s Trill, after Tartini). The amplification of the stringed instruments is intended to produce a highly surrealistic effect. This surrealism is heightened by the use of certain unusual string effects, e.g. pedal tones (the intensely obscene sounds of the Devil- music); bowing on the “wrong” side of the strings (to produce the viol consort effect); trilling on the strings with thimble-capped fingers. The performers also play maracas, tam-tams, and water-tuned crystal glasses, the latter played with the bow for the “glass-harmonica” effect in God-music.”
Ligeti Quartet Ligeti Quartet is dedicated to performing modern and contemporary music and engaging a diverse audience. Formed in 2010, they were united by their fascination with the music of György Ligeti. The Ligeti Quartet regularly works with artists outside classical music; they have performed with musicians such as Wadada Leo Smith, Shabaka Hutchings, Laura Jurd, Meilyr Jones and You Are Wolf. Ligeti Quartet are: Mandhira de Saram, Richard Jones, Patrick Dawkins, Val Welbanks
James Bull – sound technician James is an Audio Engineer, Sound Designer and Musician. He is also a singer with Intimate Voices who performed Stockhausen’s Stimmung to sell-out audience at a previous MOOT event.
- From George Crumb: Profile of a Composer (C.F. Peters Corporation, 1986)
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AMERICAN CLASSICS
with Valeria Guidotti & Kemp Duo
Wednesday, May 24, at 12.30pm · St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) – Hoe Down from Rodeo (1946) 3’ GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) – Three Preludes (1927; arr. Gregory Stone, 1945) 7’
AARON COPLAND
GEORGE GERSHWIN
“Somewhere”, a song ostensibly hoping for reconciliation through love between the Americans and the Puerto Ricans in the story, became popular in New York City during the 1960s as an expression of the gay freedom movement. The musical, after all, was the product of four men, Bernstein, Sondheim, choreographer Jerome Robbins and writer Arthur Laurents, who lived largely closeted lives due to the prevailing homophobia of the times, a situation that changed only relatively recently. “Thousands of gay Americans fell in love with West Side Story when they were children in the fifties. To many gay adults coming of age in the 60s, romance, violence, danger and mystery so audible in the original cast album all felt like integral parts of the gay life they had embraced. The lyrics of “Somewhere” in particular seemed to speak directly to the gay experience before the age of liberation.” – Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis Notes by Norman Jacobs
AARON COPLAND – Variations on a Shaker Melody from Appalachian Spring (1945; arr. Bennett Lerner, 1985) 10’ ‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free ’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right ‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed. To turn, turn will be our delight Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Valeria Guidotti Valeria Guidotti started to play the piano at the age of 10 and become interested in singing when she was 14. After some years training in popular music, she joined the Conservatoire in L’Aquila, Italy, where she achieved a Diploma in Soprano in 2012. After graduating from Conservatoire she went to France to study languages and worked as a language teacher for French students studying Italian. Brighton has been the place for her to start singing again where she is now participating at several classical events and festivals.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990) – Selections from West Side Story (1957; arr. Carol Klose, 2007) Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (b.1930) 15’ America - I Feel Pretty - Maria - One Hand, One Heart -Tonight - Somewhere
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Piano duet arrangements of well-known pieces by Copland, Gershwin and Bernstein, three composers who lived and worked in New York, feature in this concert. Gershwin, bestknown for his songs and show-tunes, most of the lyrics written by his brother Ira, wrote the Piano Preludes (just 7 out of a proposed 24 were completed) to underscore how he could cross the tracks from Tin Pan Alley tunesmith to serious concert-hall composer. The pieces by Copland and Bernstein are examples of musical traffic in the opposite direction, aimed at reaching out to a larger audience through using traditional and popular musical idioms. Copland used the Shaker tune Simple Gifts in his score for the ballet Appalachian Spring and later again in the first volume of Old American Songs for voice and piano. Bernstein is regarded as America’s first great home-born conductor and was the composer of works including West Side Story, one of the finest American musicals. Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics present an urban retelling of “Romeo & Juliet”, brought to Manhattan’s west side, with the Jets and the Sharks in the place of the Montagues and Capulets.
Kemp Duo Zhanna Kemp was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Saint Petersburg College of Music and then from University as a music teacher majoring in classical music. She moved to Brighton five years ago and continues teaching piano in English and Russian languages. Norman Jacobs studied piano with Yael MolchadskyZmora and Nelly Ben-Or. He studied 20th-century music at University of Sussex. As a result of his interest in contemporary music he founded MOOT - music of our time in 2011, since then creating more than one hundred events. Norman also curates the weekly lunchtime concert series at St Nicholas’ and is a STRINGS ATTACHED committee member.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
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AMERICAN PIANO MUSIC with Joel Sachs (USA)
Friday, June 2, at 7.30pm · St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton
Programme notes written by Joel Sachs on supplementary sheets
AARON COPLAND (1900-1990) – Proclamation (1973/1982) 3’ Midday Thoughts (1944/1982) 4’ Night Thoughts (Homage to Ives) (1972) 8’
HENRY COWELL(1897-1965) – Deep Colour (1938) 7’ The Fairy Answer (1929) 4’ The Banshee (1925) 5’ Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 6 (1946) 7’ Tiger (1922-29) 3’
Joel Sachs Joel Sachs, founder and director of the New Juilliard Ensemble and co-director of the internationally acclaimed new-music ensemble Continuum, performs a vast range of traditional and contemporary music as conductor and pianist, appearing in hundreds of performances in New York, nationally, and throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He has also conducted orchestras and ensembles in Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, El Salvador, Germany, Iceland, Mexico, Mongolia, Switzerland, and Ukraine, and has held new music residencies in Berlin, Shanghai, London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Salzburg, Curitiba (Brazil), Helsinki, and Canada’s Banff Centre. Piano recitals include many performances of John Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes” for prepared piano on four continents, in venues including the gothic chapel of King’s College, University of Cambridge. Traditional repertory in recent years includes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which he will play in November in Horsham. One of the most active presenters of new music in New York, he has produced and directed Juilliard’s annual Focus! Festival since founding it in 1986, and has been artistic director of Juilliard’s concerts at New York’s Museum of Modern Art since 1993. A member of Juilliard’s music history faculty, Dr. Sachs wrote a biography of American composer Henry Cowell (Oxford University Press, 2012) and is now working on a study of music and the law in Britain, 1737-1843. A frequent commentator on recent music, he was the studio guest and performer on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week show in 2015 when it devoted five one-hour programs to Cowell. Among his occasional services as an expert witness in lawsuits, his favorite was to aid the team that proved that “Happy Birthday” was not covered by copyright. A graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Sachs received his MA and PhD from Columbia University. In 2002, he was given Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Conductor’s Award for his service to American Music. In 2011, he was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard for his work in support of new music, and received the National Gloria Artis Medal of the Polish Government for his service to Polish music.
***Intermission*** CHARLES E. IVES (1874-1954) – Piano Sonata No. 1 (ca. 1902-1920) 40’ I IIa – IIb (In the Inn) III IVa – IVb V
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AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE Saturday, June 3, at 7.30pm · St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton
American masterworks for instrumental ensemble directed by Dr. Joel Sachs (Juilliard School, New York) In the presence of The Right Worshipful The Mayor of Brighton & Hove, Counsellor Mo Marsh
JOHN CAGE (1912-1992) – The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs (1942) 3’ Sarah Gabriel, soprano & Joel Sachs, closed piano Commissioned by singer Janet Fairbank,The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs marks the start of Cage’s interest in the writer James Joyce. Cage chose to set a passage from page 556 of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, a book he had bought soon after its publication in 1939. The composition is based, according to Cage himself, on the impressions received from reading the passage.
JAMES TENNEY (1934-2006) – In the Aeolian Mode (1973) 12’ For prepared piano, marimba, vibraphone, flute and harp, clarinet, muted violin, oboe and cello In the early ‘70s, having all but abandoned his previous interest in electronic music, James Tenney engaged in a number of instrumental works that sought to explore the sonic working out of audibly straightforward structural or acoustical concepts. Among these works is In the Aeolian Mode, a chamber piece Tenney composed for the California New Music Ensemble (a student group at the California Institute of the Arts, where he taught at the time)… Utilizing minimum pitch elements, the instruments repeatedly and simultaneously intone a simple sequence of tones in an effort to explore the gap between melody (or successive tones) and harmony (or concurrent tones)… The piece is of an unspecified direction - “the longer the better,” according to the composer. The pianist, playing an instrument with strings that have been dampened or altered to bring out certain resonances, controls the span of the piece. She/he lays out the first simple melodic layer of the piece, and likewise signals the end of the work by reaching for the first time down to the bottom of the instrument and striking the low A (the lowest note on the keyboard). The other players then intone their own final “A” reiterations, drawing the piece to a meditative close. - Notes by Jeremy Grimshaw
GEORGINA BOWDEN (b.1989) – Thank you, Dr. Sachs… (2017) 4’ new commission For flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola, and cello Thank you, Dr. Sachs... is a commission with gratitude to Joel Sachs for his work in collaboration with MOOT - music of our time. A motif based on the musical monogram ‘Sachs’ (Eb, A, C, B, Eb) is transformed through a variety of musical contexts. - Notes by Georgina Bowden
JOHN CAGE – Aria (1958) plus Solos from CONCERT] 10’ Sarah Gabriel, soprano and solo instrumentalists RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER (1901-1953) – Diaphonic Suite No.1 for Flute (1930) 6’ Rebecca Griffiths, flute Ruth Crawford Seeger’s compositional career is strikingly divided into two phases. Her earliest material compositions, dating from about 1924, shows strong influences of postRomanticism and Impressionism… particularly the music of Scriabin… As the composer began to work with Charles Seeger [commencing in 1929], her music became much more concentrated. Each movement is restricted to a single idea developed intensively. The four Diaphonic Suites, composed in 1930 for solo or duo wind/string combinations… were compositional etudes, intended to perfect the technique of “dissonating” long melodic lines - that is, propelling the harmonic tension, without respite, from first to last note. The financial impact of the Great Depression, meant that Ruth Crawford Seeger’s most striking compositions were written in the short space from 1927 to 1932. She recommenced composing in the late 1940s, but had completed very little at the time of her death. - Notes by Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs
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Aria (1958) was composed for the American soprano Cathy Berberian, whose versatile voice was legendary. Its score looks a graph gone out of control, wildly popping up and down and brightly illuminated in eight colors and two forms of black lines. The singer selects 10 distinguishable vocal styles, assigning each to one of the score’s colors. The text comprises words in English, French, Russian, Italian, and Armenian - Berberian’s family was Armenian - whose meanings are unrelated one to another; and isolated vowels and consonants. The singer also selects sounds and noises, represented on the score by black squares. The flow of time is represented spatially; Cage recommends that each page last thirty seconds. The vertical dimension represents unspecified pitch and should represent the total range of the individual singer. The result suggests an aria sung by an extremely unstable diva. Aria can be performed as a solo, simultaneously with now-obsolete tape piece, or together with any or all of Concert for piano and ensemble, which was also composed around 1958. “Any or all” refers to the fact that Concert is actually a set of solos for piano and 13 players, any or all of whom can participate in the performance. Not only is the final instrumentation left open, but each player selects what he or she wishes to perform from the part, even playing nothing at all. There is no score; only the flow of time needs indication by a clock or conductor. Nor are there rehearsals; each player is entirely independent. But there is also no improvisation: decisions must be made in advance and properly practiced. One hardly needs to say that no two performances are alike. - Notes by Joel Sachs
***Intermission***
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RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER – Diaphonic Suite No.4 for Oboe and Cello (1930) 8’ Eliza Carew, cello & Maria Papathanasiou, oboe See previous notes for Diaphonic Suite No.1
MORTON FELDMAN (1926-1987) – The Viola in My Life II (1970) 11’ Susan Appel, viola and ensemble Extremely quiet, all attacks at a minimum, with no feeling of a beat. - Morton Feldman Morton Feldman, when he began this opus, spent two decades working with various kinds of indeterminate notation. Here, on the contrary, everything is prescribed: the notes, the timings and durations, the tempo at which they will go (fixed through each piece and changing only very little from one to another in the cycle), the instrument or instruments that will play them, and their dynamic level. Feldman, in a short note remarks how, “since 1958 (not unlike an aspect of minimal painting) the surface of my music was quite ‘flat’”, but that in these works, then new, “the viola’s crescendos are a return to a preoccupation with musical perspective which is not determined by an interaction of corresponding musical ideas”. He wrote all four works [in the cycle] for the U.S. viola player, Karen Phillips, but the choice of solo instruments seems to be more than the arbitrary product of a personal relationship. The viola, with its unassertive voice, its history of living in the shadows and yet its centrality to Western music, is well qualified for a special place in Feldman’s life. - Notes by Paul Griffiths
EARLE BROWN (1926-2002) – Syntagm III (1970) 12’ For flute, bass clarinet, piano/Celeste, harp, vibraphone, marimba, violin, and cello Notes by Earle Brown: Syntagm III is an extension of my early graphic, improvisational scores… in combination with aspects of open form… and more recent scores… in which I have combined all of these “experimental” scoring and performance techniques. Syntagm III Is a further attempt to create relevant and responsible aspects of my function as a composer and an optimistic attitude toward performance spontaneity… a kind of “programmed environment” of composer-performance collaboration. This is very close to the definition of “synergy” as I worked with the concept in 1952. Syntagm III is a closed-form work but with some graphically notated and flexible inner structures. Much of it is strictly notated and even the “graphic” areas are very closely controlled. Some materials from Event: Synergy II have been collaged into this work. I am interested in a kind of “echo” relationship within and between works.
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STEPHEN MONTAGUE – Wild Nights (1993) 7’ Sarah Gabriel, soprano; Fresca David, clarinet; Toby Marr, viola; Julian Trevelyan, piano Stephen Montague writes: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) spent most of her quiet life in and around the small New England town of Amherst, Massachusetts. She was virtually unknown as a poet during her lifetime, never married, and hardly travelled beyond the town bounds. The title Wild Nights is taken from the first line of her poem, Wild Nights-Wild Nights written about 1861 at the beginning of the American Civil War. The second poem, How Slow the Sea, is only three lines long and written some twenty-two years later in 1883. In this setting of Wild Nights-Wild Nights the complete poem is sung three times, each setting depicting a different mood and mental state of its author. In the first, the soprano is seated as if thinking these erotic lines to herself. She rises, moves slowly toward the piano and for the second setting quietly accompanies herself on the piano strings - a lonely spinster singing to an imaginary lover. Finally, in an emotional outburst, she sings the poem ardently, with full voice and passion, to a climax. How Slow the Wind, an unfinished poem written near the end of her life, reduces the temperature, saps the pulse and lowers the heart-rate for a quiet, surreal coda. The Dickinsons and my family, the Montagues, were founders of the small village of Hadley, Massachusetts (near Amherst) in 1649. They intermarried several times and in one of those unions Emily Dickinson and I share a common great, great grandfather, John Montague (b. Hadley, Massachusetts in 1655).
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FRANCIS SCHWARTZ (b.1940) – Cannibal-Caliban (1975) 4’ Sarah Gabriel, soprano and instrumentalists Francis Schwartz writes: How refreshing it is that Cannibal-Caliban should be performed in Brighton Fringe. Forty-two years ago, this work was banned in Buenos Aires, Argentina because some inept government functionary confused the title with that of a perceived-to-be ‘subversive’ sociopolitical essay by the Cuban writer Roberto Fernández-Retamar. My colleagues in that dynamic South American capital were informed that it would be ‘unwise’ if my work were performed in public. The fear that emanated from my distinguished collaborators made it quite clear that in that particular circumstance a protest would have been both futile and dangerous. The great irony is that my openly political piece Caligula was allowed to be performed at the San Martín Theater with its many references to massacres and atrocities for which the then prevailing regime shared some responsibility. I composed Cannibal-Caliban in Paris in 1975 while sitting on a bench in the Latin Quarter. The renowned Catalan cellist Pablo Casals was partly to blame for the structure and strategy of the piece. He and two colleagues were performing on television in Puerto Rico during a Casals Festival. I was writing a TV review of this event for The San Juan Star. Suddenly, the audio disappeared due to a technical failure. I sat there fascinated by the grimaces, the bobbing and weaving and the corporeal tension of the performers on the TV screen. The trio’s six eyebrows went skyward, downward, crunched up and floated ecstatically during the performance. It became obvious to me that gestures play an important part of musical communication; of ALL communication, really. Thus, I created this work that alternates sound and gesture.
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE PERFORMERS
Joel Sachs, director
Maria Papathanasiou, oboe
Joel Sachs is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, where he conducts the New Juilliard Ensemble, a chamber orchestra for new music, and directs the annual Focus! festival of new music. He has also been Artistic Director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Summergarden festival. He received Columbia University’s Alice M. Ditson Award to a conductor for service to American music. (For full biography please see page 11).
Maria, 29, was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. She graduated with distinction with a MPerf and a MMus in oboe orchestral training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Maria now lives and works in London as an oboist, oboe and recorder tutor and music educator with major orchestras, including LSO Discovery, BBC Total Immersion and Barbican Creative Learning projects. She is very passionate about music education, performing and research about music pedagogy. One upcoming highlight is a presentation of her work at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Sarah Gabriel, soprano Sarah made her USA debut conducted by Lorin Maazel; European debut as Eliza in My Fair Lady at Théâtre du Châtelet, described by Le Monde as ‘As fine an actor as she is a singer’. Recitals at Wigmore Hall, Cheltenham Festival. World premieres include Michael Daugherty’s Labyrinth of Love for Rambert Dance Company. Solo shows 2016/17 include Dorothy Parker Takes a Trip; Lucretia’s Last Breath. www.sarahgabriel.eu
Rebecca Griffiths, flute Rebecca, 25, born in Wales, enjoys an international career as a soloist and chamber musician. Rebecca recently graduated from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with a first class masters in music. Highlights include solo performances broadcasted on BBC Radio 3 and a solo concert at the Welsh Millennium Stadium.
Fresca David, clarinet Fresca, 18, has studied at Chetham’s School of Music for the past 6 years. She is a member of Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra, Chetham’s Chamber Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Fresca has participated in Britten Sinfonia Academy, Pro Corda courses as well as a course at Curtis Institute of Music. She currently studies with Marianne Rawles.
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January 18-25, 1985: Joel Sachs moderating a preconcert roundtable on the postwar decade. Left to right: Milton Babbitt, Sachs, William Schuman, Morton Feldman, and John Cage. Photo by Beth Bergman
Matthew Smith, trombone Matt, 22, is a freelance trombonist and music teacher living in London and studying in his final year at the Royal College of Music. He has a lot of experience in a wide variety of genres, including playing in orchestras, operas, musicals, big bands, wind bands, brass bands, function bands, ska bands, brass quintets, and trombone quartets, as well as performing as a soloist with several orchestras and doing session work in studios.
Dorothy Raphael, percussion Dorothy, 27, is a percussionist and educator, trained at the New Zealand School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, having received a Distinction in her Master’s degree at the latter. She is founding member of Beaten Track percussion ensemble, which specialises in experimental and visual music. She has grown up with a passion for community music and teaching group classes in African drumming, marimba and singing.
Daniel Lauro, percussion Daniel, 17, lives in Brighton and studies A-level Music and Music Technology at East Sussex Academy of Music. He began percussion studies at the age of 14 with local teacher Adam Bushell. Daniel has played in several major events including MOOT’s Dark Sun concert (2015) and Varèse’s Ionisation in Brighton Festival 2016. Daniel plays in Brighton Youth Orchestra, East Sussex Youth Orchestra and National Schools Symphony Orchestra. From September 2017, Daniel will be studying at Junior Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.
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Thank you Elin Samuel, harp Elin, 22, is from Wales. Elin began the harp at the age of 10. She became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain where she was tutored by prestigious harpists. In 2012 Elin received her place to study a four year Undergraduate Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying with Charlotte Seale and Imogen Barford.
Julian Trevelyan, piano Julian, 18, was awarded a laureate at the 2015 Long-Thibaud international piano competition in Paris. He now has a busy schedule of concertos and recitals in France, Switzerland, Russia, Poland, Germany and Hungary. In England, he gave the world premiere performance of The Snowman Rhapsody by Howard Blake, a solo piano concert arrangement of music drawn from the film and stage show. He is studying piano and composition at the Ecole Normale in Paris. Julian also plays violin and viola, sings as a tenor, and is working towards a geology degree with the Open University.
Maria Fiore Mazzarini, violin/Leader Maria Fiore, 28, studied violin at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where in 2012, under the guidance of Matthew Trusler, she was awarded a Master in Perfomance with Distinction. After her graduation, she moved to Vienna to continue her studies with Anna Kandinskaya and Peter Schuhmayer. Maria Fiore has performed in various festivals as soloist and orchestral leader, including the London Handel Festival, Greenwich International Early Music Festival, Klangspuren Schwaz Festival and Taormina Arte Festival. Maria Fiore has nurtured an interest for contemporary music, which led her to successfully take part to the London Sinfonietta Academy, Ensemble Modern International Academy Klangspuren, and has been invited to perform as part of the Bang on a Can Festival 2016 in the USA.
Toby Warr, viola Toby, 17, is currently studying with Sue Appel. He is a keen chamber musician, playing regularly in a quartet at the Purcell School and has recently played with the National Youth Orchestra. He will be playing the Stamitz viola concerto in the summer with a local orchestra.
Sue Appel, viola (Feldman) Sue fell in love with the viola at the age of nine after hearing recordings of the legendary virtuosic violist Lionel Tertis. After her graduation from the Royal Academy of Music, Sue studied with the esteemed violist Nobuko Imai in Holland. Since then, Sue has performed with most of the UK’s major orchestras and chamber orchestras as well as the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Amsterdam Philharmonic orchestras. Sue presently enjoys performing with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra.
Eliza Carew, cello Eliza Carew, 20, studies cello as an ABRSM scholar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She was principal cellist of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in 2015, performing in the BBC Proms under Sir Mark Elder. In 2016 she won the RNCM’s Barbirolli cello prize and also was awarded the Raphael Sommer Memorial Scholarship.
Lily Beatrice Cooper cello Lily Beatrice Cooper, 22, is a British cellist, working in a variety of mediums. Set to study in Italy this summer with Sebastian Comberti, Roel Dieltiens and Raphael Walfisch, her work includes the LTMO, Hanover Band under Anthony Halstead and Ensemble Reza, as well as soloist for premiere works by Jeff Moore. She has performed in a variety of venues, including Abbey Road Studios and St James’s, Piccadilly and has undertaken performances with Rambert Dance Company.
Without the support of the following organisations, this series would not have been able to take place: Arts Council England The Aaron Copland Fund for Music The Earle Brown Foundation Hinrichsen Foundation RVW Trust Thanks also to: Brighton & Hove Mayor Cllr. Mo Marsh Professor Gavin Henderson CBE Dr Ed Hughes, University of Sussex Guildhall School of Music & Drama Trinity-Laban Conservatory of Music East Sussex Music Services Brighton & Hove Music Services Special thanks to: USA: Dr. Joel Sachs, Juilliard School, New York Michael Boriskin, Copland House Thomas Fichter, Earle Brown Foundation Georgina Rossi, New York Sandra B. Shorr, Maryland Dr. Francis Schwartz Cheryl Seltzer, New York Jane Gottlieb and Jeni Dahmus Farah, Juilliard School Library, New York
Beth Bergman, New York Hiroyuki Ito, New York Nan Melville, New York Hotel Belleclaire, New York MoMA, New York Trevco Varner Publications, Florida UK: Georgina Bowden Laura Jurd Stephen Montague Paul Griffiths Dr. Simon Jenner Daria Robertson Peggy Seeger Katerina Pavlakis, KAPA Productions Chris Brannick, GSMD Richard Benjafield, GSMD Ivana Peranic Zoë Martlew, NYO Tutor Lynne Ackerman, Ackerman Music Grant Allardyce, ESMS Arnold’s of Lewes Grahame Booth, GMSD David Botibol Brighton Jubilee Library Olivia Canham, Community Base Rik Child, Brighthelm Community Centre Encore Enterprise Car Club GENIE Print Elizabeth Hughes Mike Jackson, BHMS
Mary McKean Richard Naiff, Waterstones Luzia Norman, Visit Brighton Oxford University Press Catherine Stead, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra Sussex Event Hire Dr. Adam Swayne, University of Chichester Rod Taylor, MDS UMP Publications Harry Weston, Maxx Media Martin Williams, Select Music Andrew Comben, Gill Kay, Brighton Festival Father Dominic Keech and Joanne Morrell, St Nicholas’ Church Tim Cattermole Piano Services Richard Horne, Fiddle-de-sticks Mark James, SCIP Maff Littlemore, draw blank design Nick Giles aka “Resonatadog” Germany: Robert König, Peters Edition Supporters: Anonymous donors Sue Appel Betty Ann Duggan Andrew Nash All the musicians and volunteers involved in this project
“Listen America!” May – June 2017 MOOT is a non-profit group promoting contemporary music arts education MOOT – music of our time, Community Base, 113 Queens Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 3XG. Registered Charity number 1169015
Patrons: Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), Alexander Waugh, Dr Paul Whittaker OBE (Music and the Deaf) Committee: Norman Jacobs; Georgina Bowden; Thomas Jones; Will Kemp; Dr Adam Swayne Photo credits: Beth Bergman, Hiroyuki Ito, Nan Melville (Joel Sachs); Stephanie Brauer (Francis Schwartz); Copland House (Aaron Copland); Imogen Cunningham (Henry Cowell); Katy Dash (Kemp Duo); The Earle Brown Foundation (Earle Brown, Morton Feldman); Simon Elwell, Inspire Photography (Dorothy Raphael); Scott Groller (Wadada Leo Smith); David Jacobs (Julian Trevelyan); Cathy Pyle, Lemon Yellow Photography (Ligeti Quartet), Library of Congress (Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland); Raphaelle Photography (Sarah Gabriel); Daria Robertson (Norman Jacobs, Daniel Lauro); Dave Stapleton (Laura Jurd); Simon Way, Yannis Photograpy (Maria Papathanasiou). All performer images unless credited are the property of the individuals. We apologise for any unintentional credit errors or omissions. They will be corrected in future editions.
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Program compiled and edited by Norman Jacobs; design by Maff Littlemore (draw blank design).
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The Brighton Phil at Brighton Dome | 2017/18 Concert Season SUNDAY 8TH OCTOBER 2017 Barry Wordsworth Conductor Alexandra Dariescu Piano SCHUMANN Overture: Genoveva TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1 BRAHMS Symphony No.3
SUNDAY 3RD DECEMBER 2017 Barry Wordsworth Conductor Melvyn Tan Piano ELGAR In the South RAVEL Piano Concerto RACHMANINOV Symphony No.2
SUNDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2017 Barry Wordsworth Conductor Matthew Trusler Violin BACH (ARR STOKOWSKI) Toccata & Fugue BRITTEN Violin Concerto No.1 BUTTERWORTH A Shropshire Lad VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No.4
SUNDAY 31 DECEMBER 2017 NEW YEAR’S EVE VIENNESE GALA Barry Wordsworth Conductor Rebecca Bottone Soprano
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SUNDAY 28TH JANUARY 2018 Michael Collins Clarinet / Director HAYDN Symphony No.102 MOZART Clarinet Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No.1
SUNDAY 11TH FEBRUARY 2018 Howard Shelley Director / Piano SCHUBERT Symphony No.8 (Unfinished) MENDELSSOHN Piano Concerto No.1 DVOŘÁK Symphony No.6 SUNDAY 4TH MARCH 2018 Stephen Bell Conductor Gareth Small Trumpet MUSSORGSKY Night on a Bare Mountain ARUTUNIAN Trumpet Concerto TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No.4
SUNDAY 25TH MARCH 2018 Barry Wordsworth Conductor Steven Worbey & Kevin Farrell Piano SIBELIUS Karelia Suite ARNOLD Piano Concerto Op.104 DELIBES (ARR WORDSWORTH) Coppelia Suite SAINT-SAËNS Carnival of the Animals
Tickets go on sale from Monday 4th September via Brighton Dome Ticket Office: brightondome.org (01273) 709709 50% student discount available Discounted parking at NCP Church Street
brightonphil.org.uk @BPO_orchestra
/BrightonPhil
Priority booking for Friends of the Philharmonic Details correct at time of going to print. The Brighton & Hove Philharmonic Society reserve the right to substitute artists and vary programmes if necessary.
Roots
27th october to 12th November
BREMF 2017 discovers the tangled origins of classical music with highlights including two new opera productions – Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Rameau’s Pygmalion, as well as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with a line-up of specially auditioned rising star soloists. Full listing and join the mailing list at bremf.org.uk Tickets on sale early September @BREMF
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