11/1/2024, PUBLIQuartet — Rhythm Nation | Schwartz Artist in Residence
Rhythm Nation
Friday, November 1, 2024 at 8 p.m.
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The Schwartz Center wishes to gratefully acknowledge the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.
Cover Design: Nicholas Surbey
Photo by Lelanie Foster
SCHWARTZ ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
PUBLIQuartet
Friday, November 1, 2024, 8:00 p.m.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
Program
Voodoo Dolls (2008)
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
MIND | THE | GAP: Pavement Pounding Rose (2019) PUBLIQuartet Improvisations on Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose”
Sixfivetwo (2018) Henry Threadgill (b. 1944)
Dig the Say for string quartet (2012)
Vijay Iyer
I. carry the ball (b. 1971)
IIa. this thing together
IIb. up from the ground
III. to live tomorrow
Intermission
Blues for Buddy (2024)
Jeff Scott (b. 1967)
Sunjata’s Time (2015) Fodé Lassana Diabaté
I. Sumaworo (b. 1971)
II. Nana Triban arr. Jacob Garchik
III. Bala Faseke
Prelude for Piano (1946, rev. 1962)
Julia Perry (1924-1979) arr. Hamilton Berry
Arrangement by Hamilton Berry of Prelude for Piano by kind permission of The Estate of Julia A. Perry
MIND | THE | GAP: Wild Women (2021) PUBLIQuartet Improvisations on:
“Black Coffee” by Tina Turner
“They Say I’m Different” by Betty Davis
“Er Ra” by Alice Coltrane
“Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues” by Ida Cox
Program Notes
Voodoo Dolls
Written by PUBLIQuartet’s founding violinist Jessie Montgomery for Rhode Island’s JUMP! Dance Company, Voodoo Dolls presents an evershifting texture of propulsive rhythms and percussive sounds, which serves as a backdrop for improvised solos by each violinist. Montgomery says of the piece, “The choreography was a suite of dances, each one representing a different traditional children’s doll: Russian dolls, marionettes, rag dolls, Barbie, voodoo dolls . . . The piece is influenced by West African drumming patterns and lyrical chant motives, all of which feature highlights of improvisation within the ensemble.” The frenetic opening and closing sections bookend a somewhat calmer middle, in which the players pass around a melody that evokes the blues tradition.
MIND | THE | GAP: Pavement Pounding Rose
Improvisations on “Honeysuckle Rose” by Fats Waller
This piece is an excerpt from PUBLIQuartet’s larger project Reflections on Beauty, which celebrates the life of Madam C.J. Walker, the pioneering Black entrepreneur, self-made millionaire, and activist. Inspired by Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” these improvisations evoke Madam Walker’s entreprenurial hustle in Harlem in the early years of the 20th century.
Sixfivetwo
Commissioned by Kronos Quartet as part of their 50 for the Future project, Henry Threadgill’s Sixfivetwo, a fifteen-minute work for string quartet, includes ample opportunities for players to improvise. “The improvisational component is very important,” he said in an interview while describing his philosophy which guided the creation of this piece. “Kronos knows it’s important and I know it’s important. It’s a shame that the classical concert world doesn’t understand how important it is . . . Everything is about exploration. We get to where we are because of exploration. That’s why improvisation is so important . . . We won’t improve anything unless we have an improvisational approach to life.”
—Excerpted from 50ftf.kronosquartet.org
Dig the Say for String Quartet
Commissioned by Brooklyn Rider in 2012, Vijay Iyer’s Dig the Say is an homage to the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown. Describing his inspiration by Brown’s music, Iyer says: “[ . . . ] of course it’s best to enjoy it with your body and soul, but there is also much to learn from analyzing his music’s interlocking bass, drums, guitar, horn, and vocal parts. As a composer and bandleader I have strived for years to put some of his tactics into practice. He brought a lot of ideas to the table about groove, communication, form, and space. Each song had its own vivid and distinct identity, beginning with the intricacies in the rhythm section.”
Much of the excitement, and challenge, of Iyer’s quartet lies in his distribution of such intricate, driving rhythmic textures among multiple players; there are even moments where the score asks a single player to stomp or tap one rhythm while playing another. The titles of the work’s four continuous movements refer to lyrics delivered emphatically by Brown in his 1969 song “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I’ll Get It Myself).”
Blues for Buddy
PUBLIQuartet is excited to present this brand new work by Jeff Scott, a composer and horn player who was a founding member of Imani Winds and is currently Associate Professor of Horn at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. We commissioned this single-movement piece—along with works by Jlin, Mazz Swift, and Eddie Venegas—as part of our Rhythm Nation project, which celebrates American rhythmic traditions as expressions of bodily autonomy and tacit history keeping. We received a 2024 Chamber Music America Artistic Projects grant for the commissioning of this work, made possible by the support of the Howard Gilman Foundation.
Sunjata’s Time
Also commissioned by Kronos Quartet as part of their 50 for the Future project, Sujata’s Time is dedicated to Sunjata Keita, the warrior prince who founded the great Mali Empire in 1235, which at its height stretched across the West African savannah to the Atlantic shores. Sunjata’s legacy continues to be felt in many ways. During his time as emperor he established many of the cultural norms that remain in practice today— including the close relationship between patron and musician that is the hallmark of so much music in Mali.
The word “time” is meant to denote both “rhythm,” an important element in balafon performance, and “epoch,” since the composition sets out to evoke the kinds of musical sounds that might have been heard in Sunjata’s time, drawing on older styles of balafon playing which Lassana Diabaté has learned while studying with elder masters of the instrument in Guinea.
—Excerpted from 50ftf.kronosquartet.org
Prelude for Piano
This arrangement of Prelude for Piano celebrates the hundredth birthday of American composer Julia Perry, whose music enjoyed a brief window of popularity in the 1950s and 60s, only to go largely unpublished and rarely performed for decades afterward until very recently. As Dr. Fredara M. Hadley states in her Biographical Sketch of Julia Perry, Perry “may be new to 21st century listeners, but she was well-known in her lifetime. Listening to her compositions and learning about her life is an act of rediscovery in the purest sense of the word, because the world had, indeed, discovered her.” This reimagining seeks to highlight the original work’s spaciousness and distinctive harmonic palette, and includes a moment for improvisation along the way.
MIND | THE | GAP: Wild Women
Inspired by Ida Cox’s 1924 feminist blues anthem “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,” this MIND | THE | GAP also spotlights the work of Tina Turner (“Black Coffee”), Betty Davis (“They Say I’m Different”), and Alice Coltrane (“Er Ra”). In the spirit of Cox’s lyrics, this set celebrates the legacy of independent women who hold their own.
About PUBLIQuartet
Applauded by the Washington Post as “a perfect encapsulation of today’s trends in chamber music,” and by the New Yorker as “independentminded,” multi Grammy-nominated PUBLIQuartet is an improvising string quartet whose repertoire blends genres and highlights American multiculturalism. PUBLIQuartet rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 garnered Chamber Music America’s prestigious Visionary Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music. The Quartet’s genre-bending programs range from newly commissioned pieces to re-imaginations of classical works featuring open-form improvisations that expand the techniques and aesthetic of the traditional string quartet.
PUBLIQuartet has held artist residencies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Sawdust, and has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Montreal, Newport, and Detroit Jazz Festivals. Their 2016 appearance on the Colbert Report, “Requiem for a Debate”—in which they improvised a live soundtrack to the third presidential debate—not only received over a million views, but saw the Washington Post declaring them “the winner . . . indubitably.” Their 20232024 season included performances at USC and the Library of Congress, with the New York City Ballet, and with jazz artists including Hiromi, Diane Monroe, and Magos Herrera.
The quartet’s latest album, the Grammy-nominated What Is American, released in June 2022 on the Bright Shiny Things label, explores resonances between contemporary, blues, jazz, freely-improvised, and rock-inflected languages, all of which trace their roots back to the Black and Indigenous musical traditions that inspired Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet (op. 96). The album also includes CARDS 11-11-2020, written by Roscoe Mitchell for PUBLIQuartet, as well as works by Ornette Coleman, Rhiannon Giddens, and Vijay Iyer.
Committed to creating an inclusive performance space, supporting living composers of varying genres, and expanding the classical canon, PUBLIQuartet was the inaugural ensemble-in-residence for Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA program in 2021–2022, working with high school music classes across the country on a large-scale creative project called Reflections on Resilience. Their innovative PUBLIQ Access program has promoted emerging composers by presenting a wide variety of under-represented music for string quartet—from classical, jazz and electronic, to non-notated, world, and improvised music. Other unique
projects include MIND | THE | GAP, a series of creative projects developed by the Quartet that weave together different styles of music via group composition, arranging, and improvisation. These unique works range from “Bird in Paris” (Claude Debussy meets Charlie Parker) to more recent extended works including Reflections on Beauty, a multimedia celebration of the life and legacy of Madam C.J. Walker featuring visual projections and narration by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter, A’Lelia Bundles. Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet is based in New York City.
Curtis Stewart
A New York City native and graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Curtis Stewart has performed as a soloist with the National Repertory Orchestra, in Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. He has made chamber music appearances at Zankel Hall, and the Rochester International Jazz Festival, holding his audiences “spellbound” with his “warm, clear sound . . . sparkling rhythmic energy” and “prodigious technique,” (New Amsterdam Times, SoundWordSight.) An avid teacher, he currently teaches at the Laguardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts. Stewart’s eclectic background has led him to concerts in many different realms of music from MTV specials with Wyclef Jean, to stints at the Kennedy Center with the Jimmy Heath Big Band. Stewart has worked with today’s prominent musicians including Henry Threadgill, Dick Oatts, Jason Lindner, Edmar Casteneda, Linda Oh, Chris Dingman, Dave Liebman, and Matt Wilson, among many others. A supporter and practitioner of many styles of music, Stewart is excited to continue expanding and blending all the elements of his stylistic and expressive range, developing a unique and relevant voice in New York’s boundless music scene.
Jannina Norpoth
Jannina Norpoth made her debut as a soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at age 14. Since then she has built a career as an innovative collaborative artist, performer, arranger, and educator. She has performed internationally, including appearances on the Lincoln Center “Great Performers” Series, Mostly Mozart Festival, Women of the World Festival at The Apollo Theater, The Ecstatic Music Festival, VH1’s Save the Music, and SNL. She has been featured alongside acclaimed musicians James Carter, Nadia Sirota, Regina Carter, Marcus Belgrave, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Pharell, Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, My Brightest Diamond and many others.
Norpoth is a sought after arranger in the classical and non-classical worlds. Praised by Strad Magazine for her ability to write a transcription
“so natural sounding that it could have been the composer’s original version,” recent commissions include an adaptation of Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” for the Volcano Theatre Company in Toronto and Dvorak’s “American Suite” for Trinity Wall Street’s “12th Night Festival.” Norpoth has arranged/recorded strings for Grammy-winning producers Jerry “Wonda” Duplessis and Bryce Goggin and for artists Keyshia Cole, Keri Hilson, Black Dahlia Murder, Akron Family, John Legend, and her own ensembles PUBLIQuartet and HOLLANDS.
Nick
Revel
When Nick Revel is not touring as founding violist of the multi-Grammynominated PUBLIQuartet, he is composing, producing, and performing original solo pieces, audio engineering ensembles of various shapes and sizes, and teaching students of all ages. His recent compositions have won the Red Jasper Award Shortlist, the Catalyst Quartet’s CQ Minute competition, fivebyfive’s 2020 call for original scores, and placement on top podcasts like Doug Fearn’s My Take on Music Recording. These works appear on his newest album, Dream Collider (Sapphire Records), available on all major platforms. He has served as artistic and executive director of the Norwalk Youth Chamber Ensembles, co-creator of the New York String Studio, and on the board of the Seabury Academy of Music and the Arts in Norwalk, CT.
Hamilton Berry
Cellist Hamilton Berry’s eclectic taste has led him to pursue a variety of performing, arranging, and composing projects in the New York area and beyond. A member of PUBLIQuartet, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Toomai String Quintet, Founders, and the Con Brio Ensemble, Hamilton has also performed with Ensemble Connect, Decoda, NOVUS NY, and A Far Cry, and has collaborated with artists including Vampire Weekend, Rostam, Bjork, Debbie Harry, FUN, Léa Freire, Hiromi, Magos Herrera, Diane Monroe, and Becca Stevens. He is assistant program director of the Musicambia program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he teaches string students.
A Nashville native, Berry has played at the Montreal Jazz, MecklenburgVorpommern, Olympic, and Yellow Barn music festivals. In 2009 he received his Master of Music from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Timothy Eddy; his previous teachers include Felix Wang, Grace Bahng, and Anne Williams. During his fellowship with Ensemble Connect—a program of Carnegie Hall, Juilliard, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education—Berry was a visiting teaching artist at IS61 on Staten Island.
Schwartz Artist-in-Residence Program
The Donna and Marvin Schwartz Foundation Artist-in-Residence program at Emory seeks to substantially increase the depth, diversity, and profile of performing arts education in the Emory and greater Atlanta communities by providing opportunities for meaningful contact with performing artists, composers, and art scholars from throughout the world. To learn more about performances and interactive learning workshops with Schwartz artists in residence, visit schwartz.emory.edu/SAIR.
Next in the Schwartz Center Concert Season
American Railroad
Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens
Saturday, November 16, 8:00 p.m.
Schwartz Center, Emerson Concert Hall
Led by artistic director Rhiannon Giddens, Silkroad Ensemble’s newest initiative, American Railroad, re-contextualizes the railroad through music. Chinese traditional music on the suona and pipa are contrasted with the fiddle and banjo of Black musical traditions, or their Indigenous and Celtic counterparts. These cultural intersections reveal a thread of commonality despite their varied origins and remind us of the intricately rich American story.
