19-20 Season: October Performance Program

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presents

ALPIN HONG Piano

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Sponsored by

UF HEALTH

MASTERS OF METAMORPHOSIS Alpin Hong Piano

———————— MAIN REPERTOIRE

Variations Sérieuses

Felix Mendelssohn

Desperate Measures

Robert Muczynski

Malagueña

arranged by Alpin Hong

Pictures at an Exhibition

Modest Mussorgsky

Additional repertoire announced on stage.

Program length: Approx. 1 hour 50 minutes with intermission.

———————— MASTERS OF METAMORPHOSIS is a dynamic concert piano performance and lecture that explores how great composers and performers transform themes and emotional experiences for their audiences.

Part stand-up routine, classical recital, and musicology lecture, this new program by piano phenomenon Alpin Hong presents three sets of classical themes and variations, as well as Mr. Hong’s arrangement of Lecuona’s beloved Malagueña that includes popular movie, video game, and television themes. In addition to the concert repertoire, Hong custom tailors the program to a presenter’s audience or theme. Mr. Hong provides a unique window into the mindset of the live performer, as he describes in detail the technical and emotional challenges musicians face as they execute virtuoso repertoire. Through humorous and poignant personal stories of his life as a student and performer, the audience is drawn into a journey that educates as well as entertains.

Originally developed for a distinguished university piano series, this program is designed to appeal to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Renowned internationally for his exceptional performance personality, Mr. Hong offers his talents as a speaker, performance coach, and fundraiser host to enhance the impact of his appearance at your venue. Master classes, educational outreach, and donor engagement round out the offerings that will transform and energize your audiences.

ALPIN HONG Piano Whirlwind American tours and performances across the globe have earned pianist Alpin Hong the reputation as a modern day Pied Piper. From Walt Disney Hall to the White House, his combination of stunning technique, emotional range, and rare humor continues to bring audiences young and old to their feet. Rooted in extensive classical training and a background in extreme sports, martial arts, and video games, Mr. Hong is a creative force unmatched in his vitality and charisma.

The New York Times called him a pianistic firebrand in a review of his standing-room only New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. The Idaho Statesman said, “Hong cut a magnetic physical presence and charmed the audience with engaging, powerful movements that were fun to watch. Throughout the piece he and the orchestra showed a wonderful give and take.” The Santa Barbara News Press hailed him as “a tour de force. Mr. Hong evoked a kind of Beatlemania when he came on stage. What a showman! What a musician!” His ability to captivate young audiences prompted the , to call him “Classical for the iGeneration.”

Recent performance highlights include the world premiere of his collaboration with The Flying Carpet Theater, Chasing Chopin. A daring mashup of autobiographical storytelling and dazzling piano performance, this extraordinary production is currently touring the United States, with performances at Lincoln Center, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, and Strings Music Festival. Mr. Hong’s triumphant return to the Gilmore Keyboard Festival in his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan, resulted in two weeks of concerts, culminating in a live-streamed performance of Rhapsody in Blue. Mr. Hong’s performances of Tchaikovsky’s epic Piano Concerto No. 1 electrified the season openers of the Cheyenne and North State Symphony Orchestras, as well as his astounding rendition of Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 with his hometown Riverside County Philharmonic. His third studio album, Myths and Legends, featuring works by Mussorgsky, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin was released to rave reviews, and his groundbreaking collaborations with rock bands, dance companies, and theatrical outfits continue to redefine the classical concert experience.

Mr. Hong’s visionary approach to arts education makes him a sought-after clinician and Artist-in-Residence worldwide. He was the inaugural artist for the PLAY! series for Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, performing and

lecturing in the country’s premier schools. His collaboration with Atlanta’s Trinity School culminated in a gala performance in Atlanta Symphony Hall, featuring Mr. Hong, members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, violin star Ben Beilman and Trinity students. This fall, he will return to Oshkosh, Wisconsin to curate a region-wide concert in the newly built Menominee Arena. In recognition of the pianist’s gift for communicating his passion for music to audiences of all ages, The McGraw-Hill Companies honored him with the Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach. Mr. Hong was recently appointed Music Director of the Riverside Arts Academy, where he has launched Harmony Project Riverside. This progressive program offers music training and instruments to underserved youth for little or no cost, and Mr. Hong has united these kids to form the region’s first youth orchestra. In addition to his musical talents, Mr. Hong is an internationally renowned speaker and host. His message of artistry, tolerance, and service knits communities together in a spirit of common humanity. Mr. Hong’s recent TEDx talk, Transform Yourself Into a Performer, at La Sierra University showcased his ability to inspire excellence in everyone, and has been viewed more than 180,000 times. Mr. Hong is regularly featured as a keynote speaker for philanthropic and educational events, including the Korean American Scholarship Foundation’s National Gala, the Michigan Music Teachers Association annual conference, WDPR Dayton’s Catch a Rising Star Gala, the Alvord School District’s Convocation in Riverside, California, and Diversity Day in Idaho Falls in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

Alpin Hong is a native of Michigan and made his orchestral debut with the Kalamazoo Symphony at the age of 10. He moved to Los Angeles soon after and garnered competition victories at a young age with wins at the 1989 Stravinsky Piano Competition, the 1993 Southern Youth Music Festival Competition, and the 1994 Los Angeles Spotlight Awards Competition. He was the winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition in 2001. His teachers include Mark Richman and Emilio del Rosario. He completed his master’s degree as a student of Jerome Lowenthal at The Juilliard School.

presents

YING QUARTET

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2019 | 2:00 P.M. University Auditorium

Ying Quartet Robin Scott, Violin Janet Ying, Violin Phillip Ying, Viola David Ying, Cello

———————— Program Quartet in A major, Op. 41, No. 3

Robert Schumann

Alleluia

Randall Thompson arr. Ying Quartet

Quartettsatz, D. 703

Franz Schubert

———————— INTERMISSION Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2

Johannes Brahms

Program Notes Quartet in A major, Op. 41, No. 3 Robert Schumann Born June 8, 1810, in Zwickau; died July 29, 1856, in Endenich Robert Schumann’s father was a smalltown bookseller who encouraged his son’s inclination toward the arts. At the age of 6, the boy began to play the piano and to compose. By the time he was 14, he had begun to write poetry and some of his works had been published. At 18, he entered Leipzig University as a law student, but the call of music was too strong for him to resist. In his third year, he abandoned the University, determined to become a great pianist. When he injured his hand permanently from using it too strenuously and incorrectly, he gave up the hope of a career as a performer, turning to composition and wrote the several brilliant collections of short, descriptive, and atmospheric piano pieces that established his position as Germany’s leading composer.

In 1838, Schumann wrote to Clara Wieck, who was later to be his wife, “The piano has become too limited for me.” He confided that he had begun working on ideas for string quartets. In 1839, he mentioned quartet writing again in letters to a friend; he added that he was “living through some of Beethoven’s last quartets,” but he did not yet act on his impulses. In 1840, the year of his marriage, he wrote almost nothing but songs, more than 130 of them, in a great outpouring of love. His attention was diverted to the orchestra in 1841, when he wrote four symphonic compositions and the first movement of his Piano Concerto.

In 1842, he finally put other work aside to concentrate on chamber music. That April, he ordered scores of all the Mozart and Beethoven quartets available and then studied them for two months. In a furious burst of creative energy between June and October, he composed three string quartets, a piano quartet, and a piano quintet.

The quartets are Schumann’s only chamber music without piano. He finished the first one on June 24 and the second on July 5, 1842. By this time, the third quartet must have been very nearly fully formed in his mind. It took only a few days for him to set it down on paper. On July 22, the quartet was complete.

On September 13, Clara’s 23rd birthday, four friends came to the Schumann home in Leipzig to play through the set of three quartets. Ferdinand David, the concertmaster of the Gewandhaus (“Draper’s Hall”) Orchestra, for whom Mendelssohn would later compose his Violin Concerto, took the first violin part.

At David’s house, on September 29, the three quartets were repeated for a small audience of friends, Mendelssohn among them. After each reading, Schumann made minor revisions, and in February 1843, the quartets were published with a dedication to Mendelssohn. Ten years later, Schumann made a gift of the sketches for these works to his young disciple, the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms, who left them, upon his death, to Joseph Joachim, the great violinist who had introduced him to Schumann.

The Quartet No. 3 is the largest of the three and, for many listeners, the most accomplished. It opens with a few, slow introductory measures, Andante espressivo, in which a vaguely questioning fragment of a melody is played three times and then is answered in the main section of the movement, Allegro molto moderato. The falling two-note figure from the introduction is an important element of the new melodic material here. It becomes one of the most important musical ideas discussed at length in the course of the movement’s development.

Next comes a fast movement, Assai agitato, with the function of a scherzo but in the form of a theme, variations, and coda. The subject, first heard restlessly syncopated, is not plainly stated until the slow contrapuntal variation. The slow movement, Adagio molto, is one of Schumann’s tender, passionate effusions, an extended song heard in alternation with contrasting material. The Finale, Allegro molto vivace, is a vigorous, free rondo.

Alleluia Randall Thompson (arr. Ying Quartet) Born April 21, 1899, in New York; died July 9, 1984, in Boston Randall Thompson, one of America’s most distinguished composers and music educators, was trained at Harvard and many years later, returned there as a member of the faculty. In the years between, he taught or served as an administrative officer at Wellesley College, the University of California at Berkeley, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the University of Virginia, and Princeton University. Thompson wrote opera and symphonies, as well as choral works.

Alleluia is a piece originally intended for unaccompanied four-part chorus and was composed over the first five days of July 1940. It was written on a commission from Serge Koussevitzky, director the Tanglewood Festival, who wanted a “fanfare” for chorus to be performed at the opening of the new Berkshire Music Center. It received its premiere on July 8, 1940, at the opening of the Tanglewood season, conducted by G. Wallace Woodworth. Koussevitzky had expected a joyous work, but instead, Thompson wrote a quiet, introspective work, feeling a jubilant piece would not have been appropriate while there was war in Europe.

The work’s text consisted of only one word: “Alleluia,” except, at the end, where the dynamics changed to loud, he added the word “Amen.” Some subtle chromatic inflections and some few passages of counterpoint give the work, whose overall harmonies are homophonic and simple, a special flair.

Thompson wrote that the Alleluia is “a very sad piece. The word ‘Alleluia’ has so many possible interpretations. The music in my particular Alleluia cannot be made to sound joyous. It is a slow, sad piece, and... here it is comparable to the Book of Job, where it is written, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’” Nevertheless, the piece has become Thompson’s most popular work. At every season of the Tanglewood Festival, for 75 years, Alleluia has been performed at the opening.

Quartettsatz, D. 703 Franz Schubert Born January 31, 1797, in Lichtenthal; died November 19, 1828, in Vienna Although Schubert was not unknown during his short lifetime, he never really had an important place in public musical life. He died only 16 months after Beethoven’s death, but the two composers inhabited a different Vienna.

Schubert, unlike Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, had no support from wealthy families. Although he had some influential friends, he lived mostly as a lower class Viennese. His simple lifestyle might today be termed “Bohemian”: he congregated with friends his age, many talented and some from wealthy families; together, they attended public musical events and admired the famous musicians, especially Beethoven, from a distance.

In December 1820, Schubert wrote the first movement of a string quartet in C minor and began an Andante second movement, but after 41 measures of what promised to be a rich, tragic movement, he put the score aside and never returned to it. For us, it is the chamber-music repertoire’s equivalent of his Unfinished Symphony, an exemplary work that ends suddenly for mysterious reasons. Posterity values it highly, whether Schubert did or not; the original manuscript later became one of the treasures of Johannes Brahms’ collection of autographed scores. Its first public performance, almost 40 years after the composer’s death, in 1867, was part of the Schubert revival of that decade; three years later, in 1870, the work was first published.

The single movement, Allegro assai, is a powerful, restless, dramatic work, in which the young composer, nearing his 24th birthday, finds a personal language of musical expression that owes little to his predecessors. The stormy opening crescendo, which almost prefigures Wagner, appears to be part of the formal first theme of the movement, but the listener is surprised to discover, at the end, that Schubert has put it aside and hardly referred to it again until the movement’s final measures. All four instruments play without pause or relief in almost every measure except the opening and closing crescendo passages.

There is an almost omnipresent use of tremolo, which can be heard in both the themes themselves and their accompaniments. This music has an intensity for which Schubert’s earlier instrumental works had not prepared his listeners.

Particularly noteworthy is that in the recapitulation, where we would expect to hear the theme again presented in a straightforward way and worked out so that the ending was in a major key, Schubert instead first recalls the second theme in a major tonality, then moves to the minor, but returns again to the major. He does not leave the music there: he closes with the initial theme to remind the listener of its hushed minor key.

In English speaking countries, this work has long been known by the title of its German first edition, Quartettsatz, which means only “Quartet-Movement.”

Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 Johannes Brahms Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna Brahms’ feelings about the importance of the string quartet as the ultimate expression of the composer’s craft may help to account for why he may have written 20 or more quartets over two decades before he allowed his first two quartets to be published. The long delay had two causes. One was the burden of being in the position of following Beethoven, while the other was that he needed a way to deal with the complex polyphony that was an inherent part of his musical thought, in order that his work could make the impression he wanted with only four instruments. The sextets of the 1860s, perhaps because the group was 50 percent larger, had given him a satisfactory medium, but a quintet had failed. In the 1870s, he felt confident, at last, that he knew what to do with only four players; as a result, his Op. 51 Quartets are works in which fullness of expression is unhindered by economy of means.

Brahms completed his Op. 51 quartets in 1873 during his vacation in the countryside not far from Munich. When the summer was over, he delivered the music to his publisher. In September, Clara Schumann, his musical confidante and trusted friend, wrote him, “I am delighted that you are getting such a good fee for your quartets. Now be careful how you invest your money. It is better to have a low interest rate and safety [of capital].” The Hellmesberger Quartet gave the first public performance of the quartet in Vienna on December 11, 1873.

Until his late 30s, Brahms lived his life as though he were to be forever young and perpetually in transit, physically, spiritually, and artistically. He had no fixed residence but moved from one to another of the many towns that supported Germany’s decentralized musical life, trying his new pieces for his friends and playing occasional concerts. In 1865, in Switzerland, he met a group of wealthy amateurs who admired his work and organized a private concert to hear his D-minor Piano Concerto and his A-Major Serenade.

Among these people was a Dr. Theodor Billroth (1829-1894), an eminent surgeon and also an excellent pianist and violist. The two became fast friends; Billroth’s move to Vienna in 1867 may have occasioned Brahms’ decision to settle there.

The two played piano duets; almost all the chamber music Brahms wrote had its first, private hearing at Billroth’s residence, with the doctor frequently a member of the performing ensemble. For Brahms, Billroth provided something rare and difficult to find: an informed musician who made honest musical judgments. In later years, disagreements on non-musical matters strained their friendship, and when Billroth became gravely ill, Brahms, with a cruel, curious instinct for emotional self-preservation, very nearly ceased to think of him at all; nevertheless, the first two quartets he wrote he dedicated to Billroth.

The emotion expressed in Quartet No. 2 differs from the grave, weighty passion one hears in No. 1. Its music has tender charm; it is delicate and lyrical, maintaining an extraordinary artistic unity and consistency of mood and style as

it progresses from its earnest opening to a gay close. The music is rhythmically complex and rich in counterpoint, yet the instrumental writing is beautifully transparent. The four movements are thoroughly integrated by subtle reference rather than by quotation of one another’s themes. In addition, there is a persistent little three-note figure first heard in the middle of the opening theme that reappears as an almost hidden motto in countless varied guises throughout the quartet.

The first movement, Allegro non troppo, is built around the touching melancholy of the opening theme and the graceful beauty of the second. Displaced accents sometimes give the music a sense of uneasiness; there are long moments of agitation in the development, but the pastoral, idyllic mood prevails. The second movement, Andante moderato, is cast in a large but simple form in which the somewhat solemn opening theme is greatly extended. The contrasting moments of agitated musical dialogue are few and brief.

Brahms called the third movement Quasi minuetto, moderato, almost a minuet but not quite, for its origins in the 18th century dance are barely distinguishable.

In place of the old form’s contrasting central section is a brilliant, scherzo-like Allegretto vivace, whose theme grows out of the minuet. The last movement, Allegro non assai, is a Hungarian dance of the kind that Haydn, Schubert, and Brahms used so well in so many guises.

— Program notes are copyright © Susan Halpern, 2019

Photo by Todd Maturazzo

YING QUARTET “The Ying Quartet came as close to the ideal as possible, delivering chamber music of astonishing, refreshing exaltation and exhilaration.” ­— Los Angeles Times The Grammy Award-winning Ying Quartet occupies a position of unique prominence in the classical music world, combining brilliantly communicative performances with a fearlessly imaginative view of chamber music in today’s world. Now in its third decade, the Quartet has established itself as an ensemble of the highest musical qualifications. Their performances regularly take place in many of the world’s most important concert halls; at the same time, the Quartet’s belief that concert music can also be a meaningful part of everyday life has also drawn the foursome to perform in settings as diverse as the workplace, schools, juvenile prisons, and the White House. In fact, the Ying Quartet’s constant quest to explore the creative possibilities of the string quartet has led it to an unusually diverse array of musical projects and interests.

The Ying’s ongoing LifeMusic commissioning project, created in response to their commitment to expanding the rich string quartet repertoire, has already achieved an impressive history. Supported by the Institute for American Music, the Ying Quartet commissions both established and emerging composers to create music that reflects contemporary American life. Recent works include Billy Childs’ Awakening; Lera Auerbach’s Sylvia’s Diary; Lowell Liebermann’s String Quartet No. 3, To the Victims of War; Sebastian Currier’s Next Atlantis; and John Novacek’s Three Rags for String Quartet. In August 2016, the Ying Quartet released a new Schumann/Beethoven recording on Sono Luminus with the cellist

Zuill Bailey, and in 2016-17 the five toured with the Schumann Cello Concerto transcribed for cello and string quartet along with Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” also reimagined for cello quintet.

The Quartet’s 2018-19 season featured performances with the jazz pianist Billy Childs, a tour of China, performances for the Philadelphia and Phoenix Chamber Music Societies, and performances in the group’s role as quartet-in-residence at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. 2019-20 sees the Quartet returning to the Los Angeles’ Clark Library, Palm Beach’s Flagler Museum, and taking part in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s celebration of the Guarneri Quartet.

The Ying Quartet’s many other recordings reflect many of the group’s wideranging musical interests and have generated consistent, enthusiastic acclaim.

The group’s CD, American Anthem (Sono Luminus), heralding the music of Randall Thompson, Samuel Barber, and Howard Hanson, was released in 2013 to rave reviews; their 2007 Telarc release of the three Tchaikovsky Quartets and the Souvenir de Florence (with James Dunham and Paul Katz) was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music Performance category.

The Ying Quartet first came to professional prominence in the early 1990s during their years as resident quartet of Jesup, Iowa, a farm town of 2,000 people.

Playing before audiences of six to 600 in homes, schools, churches, and banks, the Quartet had its first opportunities to enable music and creative endeavor to become an integral part of community life. The Quartet considers its time in Jesup the foundation of its present musical life and goals.

As quartet-in-residence at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., the Ying Quartet teaches in the string department and leads a rigorous, sequentially designed chamber music program. One cornerstone of chamber music activity at Eastman is the noted Music for All program, in which all students have the opportunity to perform in community settings beyond the concert hall. The Quartet is the ensemble-in-residence at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and from 2001-2008, the members of the Ying Quartet were the Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University.

presents

GARE ST LAZARE IRELAND The Beckett Trilogy Moby Dick

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Squitieri Studio Theatre

Program Notes MOBY DICK by Herman Melville Adapted by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett Director’s Note A good friend had been telling me for some time to read Moby Dick. I finally got a paperback edition and within two chapters, I told Conor Lovett he had better read it as it was going to be our next project for the theatre. We set about choosing the material for the adaptation with a mix of trepidation and excitement. I listed the scenes and chapters which I thought we should include in order to cover the story with a nod to Melville’s penchant for spending whole chapters on the biology, topography, and minute detail of whales and the whaling industry. Conor then took the book and disappeared into our semi-underground studio to fillet out the actual lines from the book, which, when spliced together, would serve as our final text. We whittled down some of the more unwieldy chapters and were careful at first to hold onto a distilled version of Father Mapple’s oratory in the Chapel in New Bedford. We gave our first performance in Youghal, Co. Cork, the Irish town which had been dressed as New Bedford in John Huston’s 1953 film starring Gregory Peck. As the applause ended a former mayor of Youghal, Oliver Casey, jumped to his feet to regale the audience with the story of how, as a 12-year-old boy, he would visit the costume department housed in the Town Hall. His mother was caretaker of the town hall and in the evenings they would dress up in various costumes including Gregory Peck’s peg-leg for the role of Ahab. He said that when Hollywood descended on Youghal, it put the small fishing port on the map and had a profound effect on the town and the townsfolk. When we were invited to perform Moby Dick at The Zeiterion Theatre in New Bedford in 2011, we brought Oliver with us and he presented a talk and slideshow of photos of the town during the filming. The Zeiterion partnered with New Bedford Whaling Museum to create a year long festival marking the town’s distinguished whaling history. As a result, Youghal and New Bedford have become sister cities and continue to have a strong connection. Father Mapple’s speech however became a casualty of the need for continuity and we cut it from the show.

From early in our rehearsals I felt there should be some music present in the show and ideally live music. We invited several actors who played instruments to work with us including Martin Lewis, Michael Harding, Louis Lovett, and finally we met Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh, who is one of Ireland’s most exciting traditional irish musicians. Although steeped in a variety of traditional styles, Caoimhin is also an artist who pushes the edges of the musical form and has collaborated with a wide variety of folks. His presence as a silent witness to Conor Lovett’s telling of the tale of Ishmael is as important to me as his beautiful and sensitive fiddle playing.

Caoimhin may also be known to New England audiences for his solo touring, his duets with fellow musician Brendan Begley, or indeed his work with the Irish groups, The Gloaming and This Is How We Fly.

Lovers of the novel will invariably feel the absence of many memorable events.

Our hope however is that they will enjoy hearing our take on it and that newbies and those who perhaps read it many moons ago, will be inspired to reach for the book as a way to continue to savour Melville’s mastery of language and story.

— Judy Hegarty Lovett, Director

Gare St Lazare Ireland — ­ 23 years of collaboration For more than 23 years, the Irish theatre company Gare St Lazare Ireland has been staging Samuel Beckett’s novels, short stories, and unclassifiable later prose texts thereby making a significant addition to Beckett’s performance legacy.

Their repertory of Beckett productions now consists of 18 separate Beckett titles.

As early as 2001, Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times declared of the company’s production of The Beckett Trilogy that it was “at once utterly strange and entirely faithful” to the spirit of Beckett’s work. The hallmark of the company’s work is collaboration. Founding artistic directors Judy Hegarty Lovett and Conor Lovett have built a repertory which though made up mostly of Beckett prose adaptations also includes some other fine writers.

In 2009, the company produced a solo adaptation of Moby Dick which premiered in Youghal Co. Cork and has toured to more than 30 cities in 10 countries. Since 2010, Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh has performed music alongside Conor Lovett in the production, with occasional substitutions by Cleek Schrey, Michael Harding, and Louis Lovett.

In 2013, Caoimhin lead an ensemble of musicians and singers alongside actor Conor Lovett and soloist Melanie Pappenheim in the company’s Beckett inspired creation, Here All Night, with an original score by Paul Clark and a visual art piece

by Brian O’Doherty. Also in 2013, Judy directed Waiting For Godot for Gare St Lazare in a co-production with Dublin Theatre Festival. The production toured to Belfast, Boston, Shanghai, and New York in 2015, and that year the company presented Here All Night and Beckett’s short story The End at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, returning in 2017 to perform the three hour solo show, The Beckett Trilogy.

In 2015, The New York Times wrote of “the unparalleled Beckett champions of Gare St Lazare Ireland,” and in 2016, The London Daily Telegraph gave a five star and a four star review to The End and Here All Night respectively at their Beckett In London Festival.

How It Is (Part 1), which premiered at The Everyman, Cork in 2018, is the first in a trilogy of productions staging Beckett’s 1961 novel How It Is in its entirety.

It has seen the company’s work reach new heights in terms of artistic output and collaboration and critical response. The Irish Times five star review called it “a flawless conjunction of acting and staging,” and it was nominated in four categories by The Irish Times Theatre Awards 2019 including Best Production; it won Best Lighting Design and Best Soundscape.

Also in 2018, the company gave the Irish premiere of Here All Night at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, a show which had already played in Paris, Brighton, London, Boston, and New York.

With How It Is, the sustained investigation of embodying the voice of Beckett’s prose has now given way to an artistic experiment around disembodiment of the voice in performance. Existing collaborations with musician Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh (on Moby Dick and Here All Night), composer Paul Clark (Beckett Radio Plays and Here All Night) have been added to with new relations with Irish artist Brian O’Doherty, sound designer/composer Mel Mercier, and actor Stephen Dillane, as a part of the continued artistic exploration.

Conor Lovett Conor Lovett trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. His work with Gare St Lazare Ireland performing the writings of Samuel Beckett has earned him a reputation as one of the world’s great Beckett actors. In all, Mr. Lovett has performed more than 18 Beckett roles in 25 different productions internationally and has performed Beckett in 25 countries worldwide.

Mr. Lovett’s sustained exploration of solo performance has earned him a reputation in Ireland and around the world as a master practitioner of the form.

With eleven solo shows to his credit, he continues to define the art form and combines his training at the Jacques Lecoq school in Paris with an excavation of the ancient Irish storytelling tradition. With the continued artistic partnership of his longtime collaborator Judy Hegarty Lovett, the Gare St Lazare Players Ireland have been pushing the form. GSLP is now Ireland’s most traveled theatre company, having performed in more than 83 cities in 25 countries worldwide.

In the U.S., Mr. Lovett has performed at the Lincoln Center (New York) Signature Theatre (New York), Arts Emerson (Boston), Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (Bard College), Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago), The Irish Arts Centre (New York), UCLA Live (Los Angeles), The International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven), The Public Theater (New York), Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Providence First Works Festival, Portland’s Time Based Art Festival, California International Theatre Festival, and at the Rubicon Theatre, Ventura.

For the screen, his appearances include Versailles, Endeavour, Acceptable Risk, Music War and Love, The Thin Man, Father Ted, Intermission, Moll Flanders, L’Entente Cordiale, The Kings of Cork City, Small Engine Repair, and Fallout.

Mr. Lovett has specialized in solo performance and starred in Title and Deed written especially for Gare St Lazare by award winning American playwright Will Eno, which premiered at Kilkenny Arts Festival in Ireland in August 2011.

He has performed for The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at the Embassy of Ireland in Paris in February 2013, at the launch of the Irish Presidency of the European Union, and at the Signature Theatre in New York in 2012 for the U.S. opening of Title and Deed.

His work with Gare St Lazare Ireland receives annual funding from The Arts Council of Ireland and international touring support from Culture Ireland.

From 2015 to 2018, he and Judy Hegarty Lovett were Artists in Residence at Everyman Theatre, Cork, Ireland.

He has received Artists Bursary Awards from The Arts Council of Ireland in 2015 and 2019.

His work has been cited in numerous scholarly articles on contemporary Beckett performance and reviews of his work have twice appeared in The Journal Of Beckett Studies and numerous times in The Beckett Circle, the quarterly magazine of The Samuel Beckett Society.

He has given master classes on Beckett and solo performance at Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, The Cork School of Music, Fordham (New York), Bard College (NY), Brown University (Providence, RI), UCLA (Los Angeles), Miami Dade College, and The University of Florida (Gainesville). He has spoken at symposia on Beckett at NYU and at Le Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris, France).

Mr. Lovett has been honored by many acting nominations and awards. In 2019 the Gare St Lazare production, How It Is, in which he plays one of the leads was nominated in four categories in the Irish Times Theatre Awards including Best Production, and winning Best Lighting Design and Best Soundscape. In 2015, he was a Best Actor Nominee in the Off-West End Awards in London (UK) for First Love by Beckett. In 2014, he won The Stage Award for Acting Excellence at Edinburgh Festival for Title and Deed by Will Eno. In 2010, Mr. Lovett was nominated for Best Actor for his performance of Moby Dick (adapted from the novel by Herman Melville) and the previous year he was a Judges Special Prize nominee for his Beckett performances. The Gare St Lazare production of Waiting For Godot, in which Mr. Lovett played the role of Vladimir, was nominated for Outstanding Visiting Production at the Boston Eliott Norton Theatre Awards. Mr. Lovett was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Performance Off-Broadway for Title and Deed in 2012. In 2007, Mr. Lovett received the Santa Barbara Independent Indy Award for Best Performance in The Good Thief by Conor McPherson at Rubicon Theatre (presented in 2006 and in 1999 he won the Thespis Festival of Monodrama Award for Molloy by Samuel Beckett. He was nominated for The Stage Magazine Best Actor Award also for Molloy at Edinburgh Festival in 1997.

More information at garestlazareireland.com.

Judy Hegarty-Lovett Director Judy Hegarty-Lovett has a BA in Fine Art from the Crawford College of Art & Design (Cork). She studied dramatherapy at The University of Hertfordshire (UK) and theatre with Philippe Gaulier in London and she is currently carrying out doctoral research into her work staging Beckett’s prose at Reading University, UK.

She joined the original Gare St Lazare Players in Paris in 1991 as a directing assistant to artistic director Bob Meyer and went on to direct Bouncers by John Godber and Rockaby and Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett. In 1996 Judy directed Conor Lovett in Molloy by Samuel Beckett in London and so began Gare St Lazare Ireland. She has since directed 16 Beckett titles including Waiting for Godot, Rockaby, The Beckett Trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable), Lessness, Enough, Texts For Nothing, Worstward Ho, All That Fall, Embers, Cascando, Words and Music, The Old Tune by Robert Pinget (translated

by Samuel Beckett), Rough For Radio 1 & 2, First Love, The Calmative, and The End, How It Is (Part 1) and a the musical collaborative creation, Here all Night.

Other directing includes Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (Rubicon Theater, California — LA Times Critics Pick), Title and Deed by Will Eno (off-Broadway, GSLI co-production with Signature Theatre Co.), Moby Dick (adapted by Judy with Conor Lovett), Swallow by Michael Harding, Tanks a Lot (co-written by Judy Hegarty Lovett and Raymond Keane for Calypso Productions), and The Good Thief by Conor McPherson.

Judy’s work has toured to more than 60 venues in Ireland and to 80 cities around the world. In 2015, she was an Off-West End Awards Best Director nominee for First Love by Samuel Beckett at The Arcola. Also in 2015 Judy mounted Here all Night, The End, and Waiting For Godot at New York’s Lincoln Center and Skirball Center respectively.

Her work has received awards and nominations in London, Boston, New York, Santa Barbara, Dublin, Germany, and China.

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh plays traditional and contemporary folk music on Hardanger d’Amore.

Caoimhín’s distinctive sound can be traced back to an early interest in both the sound of the flat-pitch uilleann pipes and a love for the traditional music of Kerry and Clare.

A proclivity for tuning the fiddle below concert pitch and a tendency to play on two strings simultaneously had already given him a unique and distinctive sound when he first encountered the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, which has since become his chosen instrument.

He has performed on some of the most beautiful stages in the world, including the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center.

He has made twelve albums to date, performs solo, in duos, and with the bands This is How we Fly and The Gloaming. He lives in Dublin. www.caoimhinoraghallaigh.com

Aedín Cosgrove Lighting Designer Aedín is co-artistic director of Pan Pan Theatre Company and as a set and lighting designer has worked extensively in Ireland and internationally.

Recent work includes The Temple at Melbourne Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, Eliza’s Adventures in the Uncanny Valley, The Good House of Happiness, A Doll House, Do Di Zhu (Fight the Landlord), and Playing the Dane for Pan Pan Theatre; Sacrifice at Easter, The Numbered, and Faraway on Spike Island for Corcadorca; Der Sturm (The Tempest) in a co-production between Pan Pan Theatre and Theatre Bonn; Beckett’s Cascando; A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin; Schone Neue Welt at Theatre Bonn, Germany; The Seagull and Other Birds at Chengdu Theatre, China; and Embers at the Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland. She won an Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Lighting for her work on All That Fall (2011); the Best Set Award for The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane (2010); Best Lighting with Paul Keogan for Faraway (2017); and has been nominated for her designs a further seven times.

Aedín’s design for opera includes: Suor Angelica, Mavra and Renard, Phaedra, and For a Look or a Touch, Gianni Schicchi for RIAM/The Lir; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Carmen, Cosi Fan Tutti, Don Pasquale, and Acis and Galatea for Opera Theatre Company, Ireland and most recently Time Time Time

by Jennifer Walshe for the Borealis Festival Norway 2019.

presents

BLACK LABEL MOVEMENT

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Black Label Movement ­— We Do Our Own Stunts Vision MOVE MORE / UNDERSTAND MORE Pushing the Integrated Body — ­ Mind, Body and Heart — to the Edge of Possible

Mission Work Hard ➤ Challenging, physical movement theater requires hard work Embrace Risk ➤ Too much caution and control rarely leads to powerful art Challenge Always ➤ Make art that pushes personal and societal boundaries Make Art ➤ Make your own art, it’s good for you and your local community Engage People ➤ Share art to build community and foster greater understanding

Black Label Movement (BLM) is a Twin Cities based movement theater company dedicated to making wildly physical, naturally virtuosic, and intellectually and emotionally engaging art. Led by Carl Flink, BLM creates intensely physical contemporary concert dance, seeks collaborations with unexpected partners and develops unique embodied presentations, such as our numerous TED Talks.

Program Canary (2012) Choreography: Carl Flink Soundscape: Greg Brosofske Original Costume Design: Annie Katsura Rollins Additional Costume Design for 2019: Rhiannon Fiskradatz Movers: Hannah Albers, Alexandra Bodnarchuk, Sarah McCullough, Mirabai Miller, Rachel Miller, Paul Vasquez Alzate, JT Weaver, and Cheng Xiong Catalyzing Idea: What does prom night look like at the bottom of a coal mine?

For She (2011) Choreography: Carl Flink Soundscape: Greg Brosofske Costume Design: Carl Flink Mover: Crystal Edwards Catalyzing Idea: In the final weeks of my mother’s life, her facial expressions and gestures began to change. For She is a remembrance of those precious moments shared with her at the end.

This Bleeding Heart (2006) Choreography: Carl Flink Soundscape: Queen Drea Costume Design: Amy Kaufman Light Box Design: Issac Roth Movers: Hannah Albers, Alexandra Bodnarchuk, Patrick Jeffrey, Sarah McCullough, Mirabai Miller, Rachel Miller, JT Weaver, and Cheng Xiong Catalyzing Idea: A cubist self-portrait by the choreographer on eight bodies Originally commissioned by the Stanford University Dance Division. Selected for the 2006 American College Dance Festival National Gala at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

———————— INTERMISSION

Morituri te Salutant (2019) Choreography: Carl Flink Soundscape: Greg Brosofske Tagtool Animator: Paul Herwig Costume Design: Rhiannon Fiskradatz Lighting Design: Joseph Bingham Movers: Hannah Albers, Alexandra Bodnarchuk, Patrick Jeffrey, Sarah McCullough, Mirabai Miller, Rachel Miller, JT Weaver, and Cheng Xiong Catalyzing Idea: Morituri te Salutant is a latin phrase that translates as “those who are about to die salute you.” It was the phrase that gladiators reportedly uttered before a contest took place in the ancient Coliseum of Rome.

———————— A Talk-Back led by Artistic Director Carl Flink, joined by the BLM movers, follows this performance

What’s in a Name?

Choreographer Carl Flink founded Black Label Movement (BLM) in the fall of 2005 as a creative laboratory and performance platform for his unique brand of athletic contemporary dance and to develop performers hungry to take it on.

BLM’s company name comes from the original generic foods of the late 1970s and early 1980s that simply bore white or yellow labels with bold black lettering declaring each product’s contents, e.g. fruit cocktail, peas, etc. Flink and his friends called these “black label foods.” The no frills simplicity of these products fit Flink’s aesthetic perfectly. The addition of movement to the company name captures BLM’s dynamic physical vocabulary and our goal to be a socially conscious community of artists.

Featured in the January 2014 issue of Dance Magazine, BLM is recognized as “one of the area’s most respected troupes.” — St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 6, 2018. BLM received the 2014 Outstanding Ensemble from the Minnesota Dance Community’s Sage Awards and the Twin Cities Star Tribune named BLM to its 2015 Best of Minnesota list. Flink is a two-time McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow, was named the 2012 Best Choreographer by the Twin Cities City Pages, and is the choreographer of two theater productions that received an “Ivey” for excellence in overall production from the Minnesota Theater Community’s annual Ivey Awards.

Company Biographies Artistic director of the Minneapolis based dance company Black Label Movement (BLM), Carl Flink & BLM’s awards and honors include two 2016 Upper Midwest Emmy Award nominations, a 2015 Twin Cities StarTribune Best of MN, a 2014 MN Dance Community Sage Award, and 2008 and 2012 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography, among others. His work has been commissioned by the American Dance Festival, Chicago’s Same Planet Different World, MADCO Dance Company (St. Louis, MO), among numerous others. He is also the co-creator of the pioneering TED Talk A Modest Proposal: Dance v.

Powerpoint and the Moving Cell Project, a unique collaborative research project with cancer researcher David Odde. During the 1990s, he was a member of the Limón Dance Company and Creach/Koster Men Dancing. Carl is the University of Minnesota’s (UMN) Jette Sween Professor of Dance. He holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a BA in Political Science and Women Studies from the University of Minnesota, and was a social justice attorney for Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Inc., St. Paul, MN, from 2001-2004. He collaborates every day with his life partner Emilie Plauché Flink on their family of three daughters.

Hannah Albers (Mover) is originally from Saukville, Wisconsin, having trained at Lake Shore Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance and a Business Management minor from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Class of 2017. She has performed with Shapiro & Smith Dance, Warped Dance Company, and COLLIDE Theatrical, among others. Hannah is school program director for Prairie School of Dance where she works and teaches full time. She is in her second season with BLM.

Alexandra Bodnarchuk (Mover) is a Carpatho-Rusyn-American dance artist who hails from Pittsburgh, PA. Alexandra has produced, directed, and choreographed original works that have been presented in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and New York City, as well as in Durham (NC), Athens (OH), and Columbus (OH). She has worked with STAYCEE PEARL dance project, Attack Theatre, Mark Conway Thompson, and Jeffrey Peterson Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography and a BA in French from Ohio University. She is in her third season with BLM and Ethnic Dance Theatre.

​Crystal Edwards (Managing Director and Mover) holds a BFA in dance and a minor in mass communications from the University of Florida, where she gained invaluable training and a love for using the arts to push boundaries and challenge people. She joined BLM as a mover in 2010 and managing director in 2013. She has also performed across the U.S. and internationally with DIAVOLO Dance Theater. Crystal teaches in Orlando, Florida, for the Dr. Phillips Center and is the Programming Director for Creative City Project. She is an arts administrator and educator passionate about arts education and integration. Along with her many arts roles, she is a wife and mother to two beautiful children William and Annabelle. Go Gators!

Patrick Jeffrey (Mover) has returned to Black Label Movement for a few months after two years away while pursuing his career in musical theater. He

danced with BLM from 2010 to 2016. BLM was the first professional company he joined after college, and he’s excited to perform alongside these powerful movers. Patrick performed at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, MN, for their 2017 season. He’s incredibly excited to be back to BLM before heading to California to dance for Carnival Cruise Lines.

Sarah McCullough (Mover), raised in Virginia, earned her BA in Dance and Math from James Madison University. Since moving to Minneapolis in 2018, she has been working with BLM and ARENA DANCES.

Mirabai Miller (Mover) was born and raised in Silverton, Oregon, and moved to Minneapolis in 2010 to attend the University of Minnesota’s dance program. She received her BFA in Dance in 2014. Since graduation, Mirabai has worked with many Twin Cities dance makers including Jennifer Glaws (Jagged Moves), John Mark Hostetler (John Mark Creative), Contempo Physical Dance, Chris Schlicting, and Shapiro & Smith Dance. In 2015, Mirabai was a guest artist for Black Label Movement and has been a full company member since the Fall of 2017.

Rachel Miller (Mover) has been dancing in multiple disciplines since the age of 5 at dance studios throughout Minnesota such as Studio 4 Dance. Recently graduating from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with a BFA in Dance, she had the opportunity to work with artists from New York, Los Angeles, and the Twin Cities area, including Gregory Dolbashian and Wynn Fricke. Rachel is also a company member of hip hop/contemporary company, SHAPESHIFT, and teaches/choreographs at Studio 4 Dance. Rachel has been with BLM since 2018.

Paula Vasquez Alzate (Mover) is a dancer, arts administrator, and movement educator from Medellin, Colombia. She is currently located in the Twin Cities and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from the University of Minnesota. In college, Paula performed works by Gregory Moqoma, Black Label Movement, Sidra Bell, Shapiro & Smith, Michel Kouakou, Luke Olson-Elm, Rosy Simas, and Luciana Achugar. Professionally, Paula has performed with Black Label Movement, Contempo Physical Dance, STRONGmovement, Brazzarte Dance Company, and Momentum Dance Company. She has also worked under the commercial direction of John Mark Creative and Derek Mitchell.

JT Weaver (Mover and Media Manager), from Eagan, Minnesota, grew up training in baseball, football, basketball, soccer, track, tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, and hip hop. He holds a BFA in dance from the University of Minnesota. In the past, he has performed with Zenon Dance Company, Daara Dance Company, ARENA Dances, SLO Dance Company, STRONGmovement, Crash Dance Productions, John Mark Creative, and the Minnesota Opera. This is his third season with BLM.

Cheng Xiong (Mover) grew up on the east side of St. Paul, Minnesota, and started off as a street dancer. He received a BA in Dance at the University of Minnesota in 2014. He has been with BLM since 2013 and also performs with STRONGMovement and BRKFST Dance Company.

Garvin Jellison (Production Stage Manager/Lighting Designer) is a freelance stage manager, lighting designer, and production manager. He has worked with many companies in various production capacities, including Joffrey Ballet, James Sewell Ballet, TU Dance, Alonso King’s LINES Ballet, and, of course, Black Label Movement. Garvin was the production stage manager for Hubbard Street 2 in 2013, currently production manager for Trinity Irish Dance Company, and also for the touring children’s show, Wild Kratts Live. Garvin holds a BFA in Lighting Design from The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Greg Brosofske (BLM Company Composer) has worked as a composer and sound designer in the Twin Cities and Chicago for the past 16 years. He is a longtime collaborator with Black Label Movement and has written music for the Guthrie Theater, the California Shakespeare Theater, the Jungle Theater, and has received two Live Music for Dance grants from the American Composers Forum, a Jerome Fund for New Music, as well as, grants from the Minnesota Arts Council. He is currently at work on an interactive media piece with BLM called In This House, which will premiere in October of 2019.

Emilie Plauché Flink (Founder, Artistic Associate, and Rehearsal Director) is the co-creator of the 2012 Regional Emmy Award winning TPT MN Original: Duet for Wreck and a 2010 McKnight Fellowship for Dancers recipient. Her latest independent projects, include work with Kjara Staric Wurst and John Mark for dream-pop duo Tiny Deaths. In addition to an 11-year career with the Limón Dance Company, among others, in New York City, Emilie performed OffBroadway with Martha Clarke. She has also performed with BLM and Shapiro & Smith and taught at the University of Minnesota’s Dance program. Emilie holds a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School. Current, collaborative masterpieces-inprogress are daughters, Willa, and twins, Iris and Freyja.

Rhiannon Fiskradatz (Costume Designer) is a theatre artist, musician, and craftswoman. Her costume design practice draws on 20 years’ experience in professional, youth, and immersive theatre; the circus arts; corporate entertainment; dance and puppetry with SteppingStone Theatre, Children’s Theatre Company, Circus Juventas, Theater Mu, Lakeshore Players, Interact, the Haunted Basement, Mad Munchkin Productions, and Alternative Motion Project. Recent career highlights include helping to build an enormous butterfly installation at the Mall Of America with public artist Chris Lutter-Gardella and costuming Interact’s Hot Funky Butt Jazz at the Guthrie last fall. Rhiannon is delighted to be costuming for Black Label Movement for the first time.

Paul Herwig (Live Projection Designer) For 36 years, Paul has worked as an actor, scenic designer, and artist, creating interdisciplinary work with an emphasis on visual theater and physical performance. He has performed with touring theater companies across 25 US states, throughout Canada, rural France, Budapest, and to the Edinburgh and Avignon Festivals. Paul has received a McKnight Theater Fellowship, a Sage Award for Design in Dance, and was recently chosen among a small group of national designers to represent the

U.S. at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance and Design. He is the co-artistic director of Off-Leash Area and the artistic producer of The Right Here Showcase.

Queen Drea (Sound Alchemist) — 2017 Minnesota Emerging Composer award winner is a vocalist, performance, and soundscape artist who’s pieces are often conceived under the fertile soil of improvisational settings. Drea has created her own work on depression in the black community and the loss of black men’s lives in America. She has also been commissioned to compose soundscapes for Ananya Dance Theater, Black Label Movement, and more recently, sound design for Penumbra Theater’s production of For Colored Girls and The Great Divide at Pillsbury House Theater. “I’ve been investigating some thoughts on Black Love... and how it is strong enough to withstand being denied but never will be.”

———————— BLM Artistic and Administrative Staff

Artistic Director Carl Flink

Artistic Associate Emilie Plauché Flink

Managing Director Crystal Edwards

Media Manager Joey Weaver

Company Composer

Greg Brosofske

Wardrobe and Tour Coordinator Kit Baumer

Production Manager and Lighting Designer Garvin Jellison Artistic Associate at Large Eddie Oroyan

Black Label Movement Board of Directors

Angela Renae Amarillas Professional Dance Educator and Health Policy Maker

Sharon Fischlowitz

Attorney, Sussman & Parkhurst

Janine Laird Executive Director Minnesota Justice Foundation

William Cameron Attorney, Henson & Efron and In Utero Photography Carl Flink Artistic Director Black Label Movement Issac Roth Founding CEO StrongLoop, Inc.

Follow all of BLM’s happenings on Facebook, Instagram and at blacklabelmovement.com.

BLM Season Highlights The Swede Hollow Project, September 2019 Physical Sciences Oncology Network National Conference, September 2019 University of Florida Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, October 2019

In This House, a MSAB supported Collaborative Project with Greg Brosofske, November 2019 Shaping Sound Project 2020

BLM Institutional Supporters Arts Midwest American Composers’ Forum Live Music for Dance Knight Foundation McKnight Foundation Minnesota State Arts Board Metropolitan Regional Arts Council The UMN Imagine Fund Faculty Award Program The UMN Institute for Advanced Study The University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts The University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering The University of Minnesota Our enormous gratitude to our many individual supporters, too many to list in this program. Please know that we are ever thankful for your support of our artmaking community. You are our bedrock.

———————— If you are interested in supporting BLM further, please visit

blacklabelmovement.com and click on the engage button on our homepage.

presents

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR & Other Eric Carle Favorites

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019 | 2:00 P.M. Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

Sponsored by

SKATE STATION FUN WORKS

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia’s

The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carle Favorites 2019-2020 U.S. and Canada Author/Illustrator: Eric Carle Director/Production Designer: Jim Morrow Composer: Steven Naylor Narrator: Gordon Pinsent Stage Manager: Kevin Olson Performers: Ben Leger, Andrew Young Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Nova Scotia. Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and engages professional Artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Copyright 1969 and 1987 by Eric Carle. All Rights Reserved. Published by Philomel Books. Little Cloud by Eric Carle. Copyright 1996 by Eric Carle. All Rights Reserved. Published by Philomel Books. The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. Copyright 1975 by Eric Carle. All Rights Reserved. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

———————— About The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carle Favorites Mermaid’s compilations of Eric Carle stories have generated remarkable statistics and earned considerable praise from audiences on several continents. In 2014, the production celebrated its 15th year of continuous touring and welcomed its 2 millionth spectator. Featuring innovative black-light puppetry and evocative original music, the 50-minute production includes three beloved stories: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Little Cloud and The Mixed-Up Chameleon. To date, more than 3,500 performances have been presented in 13 countries. Presentations have been offered in Dutch, English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, French, and Mandarin.

About Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia Founded in 1972, Mermaid Theatre’s unique adaptations of children’s literature have delighted more than 5 million young people in 16 countries on four continents. Based in Windsor, a small rural town in Nova Scotia’s Avon Region, the company performs for more than 300,000 spectators annually, and currently ranks among North America’s most active touring organizations. Closer to home, Mermaid offers instruction at all levels through its Institute of Puppetry Arts, welcomes artists-in-residence through its Theatre Loft, and offers a vibrant performing arts series at MIPAC (the Mermaid Imperial Performing Arts Centre).

Eric Carle, Author/Illustrator Eric Carle, internationally acclaimed author and designer, has written and illustrated more than 70 books for young children. Born in Syracuse, NY, he spent his youth in Germany where he studied fine art in Stuttgart prior to returning to the U.S. in 1952 to work as a graphic designer for The New York Times and later as art director of an international advertising agency. His delightful books, which combine stunning collage artwork with an imaginative approach to learning, have sold more than 110 million copies worldwide. In 2002, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art opened to the public in Amherst, MA. For more information, visit eric-carle.com and carlemuseum.org.

Jim Morrow, Director/Production Designer Jim creates puppets for stage, television, and film. He’s directed numerous shows for the Theatre, including Stella, Queen of the Snow; Guess How Much I Love You & I Love My Little Storybook; Swimmy, Frederick, and Inch by Inch; Goodnight Moon & The Runaway Bunny as well as designed many others. A gifted performer, Jim has toured extensively in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. He serves as director of puppetry for Symphony Nova Scotia’s production of The Nutcracker, and frequently conducts master classes in puppetry in North America and abroad. Jim is Mermaid Theatre’s Artistic Director.

Steven Naylor, Composer Steven has created the music for more than a dozen Mermaid shows, including Stella, Queen of the Snow; Guess How Much I Love You & I Love My Little Storybook; Swimmy, Frederick, and Inch by Inch; Goodnight Moon & The Runaway Bunny. His many other professional activities include original film and television scores; contemporary music composition and performance; university teaching and curriculum development; and a long-term international involvement with electroacoustic concert music. Steven is Mermaid Theatre’s Artistic Advisor for Music and Sound Design.

Gordon Pinsent, Narrator Born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, Gordon is an actor, director, writer, and singer of great versatility, and one of Canada’s most beloved artists. His work for more than three decades in theatre, film, radio, and television has earned him international recognition, as well as honorary doctorates from three universities. In 1999, he was named a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest award of merit.

ABOUT THE COMPANY Kevin Olson, Stage Manager Kevin is thrilled to return to Mermaid Theatre, after travelling across North America with The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Kevin has also toured across North America with Geordie Productions (Jabber), Carousel Players (Danny King of the Basement, The Remarkable Flight of Marnie McPhee), Kaha:Wi Dance Theatre (A Story Before Time, Here on Earth) and more than a dozen productions with Smile Theatre. He has also worked at Theatre Aquarius, Vancouver Playhouse, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Stanley Festival Theatre, and Theatre Orangeville.

Ben Leger, Performer Ben Leger is beyond delighted to be reunited with Mermaid Theatre, for this North American tour. The Cole Harbour native was first initiated in the #theatrelife in grade 11 when he played Roberto in Auburn Drive High School’s dinner theatre

Santa Baby (2009). From there he went on to continue his love affair with theatre by attending The Fountain School of Performing Arts, where he performed in such shows as: The Good Soul of Szechuan (2014), The Birds (2014), Our Country’s Good (2014), and The Seagull (2015). His most recent production was also with Mermaid Theatre, for the U.S./Canada tour of The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carl Favorites in 2019, and Eric Carle Classics when they toured to China (2018). Ben would like to thank the entire creative team at Mermaid for being an absolute dream to work with and hopes everyone enjoys the show!

Andrew Young, Performer Andrew has a passion for creating theatre focused on puppetry, clown, and non-verbal storytelling. He has performed in Festival de Casteliers International Puppetry Festival, Nuit Blanche North, SummerWorks, Toronto Festival of Clowns, Night of Dread, Edge of the Woods Theatre Festival, Puppets Up! International Festival, Next Stage Theatre Festival as well as other various festivals across Canada. Andrew is thrilled to be back performing with Mermaid Theatre again after taking Caterpillar all over Canada and the U.S. last year.

He splits his time bouncing between Toronto and Bruce County. andrewgyoung.com Selected performance credits include: The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carle Favorites (Mermaid Theatre), Table Top Tales (SNAFU), Old Man and the River (Theatre Direct), Unjustly (Festival Players of Prince Edward County/Small Pond Arts), Snack Music (SNAFU), To The Last Cry (Theatre Lab), We Walk Among You (Artichoke Heart).

For general information, please contact

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia P.O. Box 2697 Windsor, Nova Scotia, Canada B0N 2T0 Tel: +1 902-798 5841 Fax: +1 902-798-3311 email: puppets@mermaidtheatre.ca website: mermaidtheatre.ca

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia Staff Artistic Director: Jim Morrow General Manager: Danny Everson Public Affairs Consultant: Sara Lee Lewis Administrator: Cathy White Administrative Associate: Pam Moore Production Manager: Deborah MacLean Director of Education and Outreach: Struan Robertson Artistic Advisor for Music and Sound Design: Steven Naylor Technical Director: Michael Jamieson Scenic Painter: Sarah Haydon Roy Seamstress: Sarah Hart

presents

MAXIM LANDO Piano

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Squitieri Studio Theatre

Maxim Lando Piano

———————— There have been slight updates to this evening’s program.

Please see below and enjoy the performance.

Program Concert Etude Op. 40, No. 3 "Toccatina" Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

Nikolai Kapustin Ludwig Van Beethoven

Adagio espressivo Prestissimo Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo

Prelude in B major, Op. 11, No. 11

Alexander Scriabin

Etude in D-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12

Alexander Scriabin

———————— INTERMISSION Transcendental Etudes No. 1 Preludio No. 2 Molto vivace No. 3 Paysage No. 4 Mazeppa No. 5 Feux follets No. 6 Vision No. 7 Eroica No. 8 Wilde Jagd No. 9 Ricordanza No. 10 Allegro agitato molto No. 11 Harmonies du soir No. 12 Chasse-neige

Franz Liszt

Program Notes Concert Etude Op. 40, No. 3 “Toccatina” Nikolai Kapustin Born in 1937, in Gorlovka, Ukraine Kapustin began to play the piano as a young child and continued his musical education at the Moscow Conservatory. His teachers there were Avrelian Rubakh and Alexander Goldenweiser. During the late 1950s, he had already become well known as a jazz pianist, arranger, and composer, and had made numerous appearances with the quintet he formed, as well as with the Yuri Saulsky’s Central Artists’ Club Big Band in Moscow. In Moscow, Kapustin discovered jazz, created a jazz group and then toured the Soviet Union with Oleg Lundström’s Jazz Orchestra, from 1961-1972. He joined the USSR Composer’s Union in 1980.

His music bridges the worlds of classical and jazz music; his interest in both inspired him to combine the two disciplines. His music has an immediacy that is usually associated with improvisational inspiration.

Kapustin’s early music demonstrates his interest in the instrumental concerto, but more recently, he has focused on writing solo piano music; therefore, the vast majority of his compositions are piano music, all of it technically formidable.

As a pianist, he is the definitive interpreter of his own music, which required him to master some feats of technical and musical skill.

His musical style could be called crossover; it belongs to the “third stream” trend of the later 20th century. His musical output conforms to classical tradition in many ways; his compositions all have opus numbers, unusual for many contemporary composers. Kapustin explains how he sees his work, “I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I’m not interested in improvisation—and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisation is written, of course, and they become much better; it improved them.”

Kapustin’s music does not mesh with any specific musical trends of the 21st century as his music resists easy classification. Usually, he either writes for friends or composes for his own enjoyment rather than because he has received commissions. Very little of his music has been published; the small percentage that was published in Russia was largely inaccessible in the West until recently.

This immensely likeable and easily approachable music includes 13 piano sonatas, six piano concerti, 24 preludes and fugues for piano, eight concert etudes, a piano quintet, and many chamber works, as well as compositions for orchestra.

When he was asked what made him consider fusing classical structure and jazz he answered, “Because I had never heard it. And once I had started, I understood that it was real. When I took it to my friends, they were very excited, and so I understood that I was on the right way.”

Many classical composers had effectively incorporated jazz in their music, including Ravel, Stravinsky, Milhaud, and Copland. Jazz, however, for Kapustin

is not something that he integrated as they did; in his music he has completely internalized jazz’s stylistic and textural evolution. Undoubtedly, his piano works take some of their power from Kapustin’s considerable virtuoso capabilities and has the tactile immediacy associated with improvisation. Nevertheless, Kapustin feels that he has more control over his material when working within the traditional forms that have dominated Western classical piano literature: “You cannot make an improvisation of a sonata,” he claimed.

His Eight Etudes, Op.40 of 1984 partake of the 19th-century tradition of the concert-etude with stylistic reminiscences of Chopin, Scriabin, and Rachmaninoff.

As Chopin primarily focused on a single technical issue for each etude, Kapustin also treated one particular aspect of a technical problem in each of his Eight Concert Études; these pieces are not only pieces of technical difficulty, but also works of unique beauty and invention combined with a romantic flair. Critics feel Kapustin’s etudes hold their own against the celebrated masterworks of the genre, from Liszt to Godowsky’s re-worked Chopin.

A toccata is a virtuoso piece typically for a keyboard featuring quick, lightly fingered or virtuosic passages or sections, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer’s fingers. Concert Etude Op. 40, No. 3 “Toccatina,” is a short toccata, but in this case, original, flamboyant, full of drama and intense rhythms.

By marrying jazz and jazz-rock elements with traditional classical formal structure, here Kapustin created a provocative and captivating style. Some parts of “Toccatina” remind the listener of its more Romantic predecessors, such as Scriabin’s passionate Etude in C-sharp minor, which lies within the Russian pianistic tradition, but in “Toccatina” Latin elements are also evident. In “Toccatina,” a pervasiveness of minor harmonies and muscular accents produces a very exuberant character. Having repeated notes jump from register to register, some critics suggest resembles the syncopation of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Transcendental Etude No. 2 “Ronde des Fantômes” Sergei Lyapunov Born November 30, 1859, in Yaroslavl, Russia; died in 1924 in Moscow In Nizhny Novgorod, where his family moved after the death of his father, Lyapunov, as a young boy, began music studies at the Russian Musical Society.

He studied with former student of Franz Liszt before being noticed by Nikolai Rubinstein who suggested he apply to the Moscow Conservatory; consequently in 1878, Lyapunov began studying at the conservatory, where his main teachers were Klindworth, a student of Liszt’s, for piano, and Taneyev, who had been a student of Tchaikovsky, for composition. In 1885, he went to St. Petersburg where he studied with Mily Balakirev, who became the dominant influence in his creative life.

Lyapunov had a successful career as pianist and also wrote music in various genres from works for piano to songs, chamber music, and symphonies. He was a stunning pianist, and enjoyed a successful career, touring throughout Europe.

He followed Rimsky-Korsakov as assistant director of music at the Imperial Chapel and became a professor at St. Petersburg Conservatory.

The 12 Transcendental Etudes by Lyapunov are considered among the most difficult pieces in the entire literature for piano solo; today these are the works he is mostly known for. They completed the cycle of 24 major and minor keys that Lizst had begun with his own Transcendental Etudes op. 11, 12 (Études d’exécution transcendante), with the aim of following the “circle of fifths” and pairing the major and minor keys in brief but very challenging etudes. Lyapunov intended his works not only as tribute to Lizst, but also as a completion of the cycle of the same name. It seems indisputable that Lyapunov intended more than to pay homage, as the 12 etudes he completed in 1905, were composed in exactly the keys that Liszt had not been able to complete. Lyapunov composed his own 12 études in sharp keys, while Liszt’s were all in flat keys.

In Etude No. 2 Ronde des Fantômes (Ghost’s Dance) Lyapunov composed in his own style, although there is no question that he was undoubtedly much influenced by the style of Liszt, yet his music is very much the music of Russian romanticism.

Liszt’s etudes and Lyapunov’s represent similar ideas, but Lyapunov’s reflect his background: he incorporated authentic Russian folk melodies, and the music not only derives its inspiration from Liszt, but also from Balakirev.

The etudes’ resemblance to those of Liszt, even in their titles, is undeniable.

Ronde des Fantômes is nimble while displaying very demanding and intricate finger work. A demanding virtuosic tour-de-force, it calls for much skill as well as stamina. The piece begins lightly, like the dance of a ghost or phantom. A marvelous cantabile is introduced in the second theme. The music throughout the brief piece features gnome-like, furious very quick figures that are played independently by each of the hands. In the coda there are heightened dynamic waves and colorful harmonic juxtapositions. The piece concludes very quietly, as if the phantom disappears, in a witty, short staccato.

Lyapunov dedicated his set of etudes to the memory of Franz Liszt.

Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109 Ludwig van Beethoven Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in Vienna Between 1816 and 1826, a decade of originality, invention, and expressiveness unparalleled in the career of any other composer, Beethoven wrote a series of unmatchable masterpieces: five piano sonatas, five string quartets, the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. During the period just before these compositions began to appear, his output had been slim, for the works of his middle years had exhausted the possibilities of the forms he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. Withdrawn and separated from much of the rest of the musical world by his deafness, Beethoven conceived and wrote a body of musical literature without equal, and it sometimes seems even without roots in history and tradition; it seemed to be a new music of his own invention.

The word had circulated in Vienna that Beethoven had written himself out, that similar to Haydn in his old age, he was reduced to making folk song arrangements because he was incapable of doing anything else. When he heard about these malicious rumors from a disciple, Beethoven said, “Wait awhile.

They’ll soon learn differently.” To be sure, his Op. 108 was a collection of 25 Scottish songs, arranged in 1815 and 1816 for a British music publisher, but his last piano sonatas must be counted among his very greatest works. They were written between 1820 and 1822 (not exactly in a “single breath,” as Beethoven had claimed in a letter) while he was also working on the Missa Solemnis.

The great tension, density, and weight of Beethoven’s last works puzzled musicians and music-lovers for generations. The technical and interpretative problems they presented to performers were blamed on his loss of hearing, which was thought to have separated him from musical reality. Now we can understand his deafness as a kind of cruel liberation from concern for common practicalities, one that freed his imagination for flight into a new expressive world.

Sonata, Op. 109 was completed in 1820 and published in 1821 with a dedication to 19-year-old Maximiliane Brentano, daughter of Beethoven’s friends Franz and Antonie Brentano. “Maxe,” as Beethoven called her, was a gifted young girl for whom he had composed a Trio (WoO 39) when she was only 10. In a letter accompanying an inscribed copy of the sonata he wrote to her, “A dedication!!! [in] the spirit that binds good people together on this earth and that time cannot destroy. This is what I send you now, recalling your childhood and your beloved parents. Remember me often and well.”

The first two movements of this sonata have original, brief structures derived from the sonata-form principle of dualism: in the first, the materials are in two tempi, a quick and smooth Vivace, ma non troppo alternating with a slow and rhapsodic Adagio espressivo. The latter fades into the rapid Prestissimo second movement, which opens with its two themes presented simultaneously, one in the right hand, the other in the left as its bass. In recapitulation, their positions are inverted. The climax of the sonata is reached in the finale, a movement so great it makes the first two seem an extended introduction to it. It consists of a theme, Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo, and six variations, which seem to reduce the theme down to its essence. Finally, the theme itself returns at the end.

Transcendental Etudes Franz Liszt Born October 22, 1811, in Raiding, Hungary; died July 31, 1886, in Bayreuth, Germany The idea of the piano-etude as music for public performance rather than just a technical practice-piece began long before the days of Liszt and Chopin in 1738, when Domenico Scarlatti published his book of Essercizi (Exercises). Liszt’s Études follow in the tradition of Scarlatti. Liszt’s collection of etudes might have its roots in a collection of piano compositions called Études en douze exercices

that he wrote when he was 15 in 1826. He reworked them, and in 1838, published them as a set of etudes.

Schumann called this impossibly difficult second version of Liszt’s etudes “studies of Sturm und Drang for, at the most, 10 or 12 players in the world.” Liszt must have finally realized that he had created a host of insuperable complexities that few other pianists could manage, and he decided to revise them again in 1851-2. He republished them in 1852, and then he titled them Etudes d’execution transcendante. The two sets are actually quite similar, but it is the third version that is most often performed today. The third edition is still extremely difficult, but even more refined and poetic than the version which preceded it, and the writing is highly pianistic. Liszt often explained the etudes as a comparison: “orchestral effects, as a painting is to a steel engraving without colours.” He was devoted to color and poetic content in music and was a Romantic highly impressed by Niccolo Paganini’s feats on the violin, which he wanted to reproduce in the medium of the pianistic.

The first etude, Preludio, in C major, is short (only a minute long) but imposing and with a very typical Liszt flavor. The composer Ferruccio Busoni characterized it almost as a warm-up exercise: “The Preludio is less a prelude to the cycle than a prelude to test the instrument and the disposition of the performer after stepping on to the concert platform.” It is often described as an “opening flourish.” It is full of resounding chords and runs that traverse the whole keyboard. Étude No. 2, Fusées (Rockets) in A minor, Molto vivace, was given its name by Busoni, feeling that the speedy forays to the extreme ends of the keyboard reminded him of rockets, Fusées. A brilliant, radiant, and muscular piece, this etude, Busoni asserted, is “one of those Paganini devilries.”

Paysage, (Landscape) in F major, the third etude, is the least demanding of the etudes; it has a serene and lovely character. It has a graceful, repetitive theme that has a descending pattern. Busoni wrote: “This is a calm renunciation of everything worldly taking breath during the contemplation of nature, a selfcontemplation but not quite without passion.” Étude No. 4, Mazeppa, in D minor, was one of the last of the etudes to be completed. Liszt was inspired by Victor Hugo’s 1828 poem, Les Orientales, which tells of Mazeppa, a Cossack chief and a Ukrainian separatist, who in his youth was employed as a page by the King of Poland. After Mazeppa made advances to a Polish noblewoman, her angry husband tied him naked to a wild horse, which carried him to the Cossacks of the Ukrainian steppes. He was finally released, and much later, led a Cossack uprising. This etude begins with an imposing cadenza. It has a frenzied sound initially and a colorful theme, a broad sort of a march combined with the feel of a gallop hammered out in octaves. The music of this etude is full of pianistic brilliance.

Liszt gives the theme a brilliant series of variations. At the conclusion, the etude modulates into the major mode, and Liszt quotes Hugo’s words, “Il tombe enfin! ...et se releve Roi (He falls. . . and arises King!).”

The fifth etude, Feux Follets (Will-o’-the-wisps), Allegretto, in B-flat major, is a swift, delicate, light, and playful work that demands the pianist to have control of technique as well as dynamics and coloration. It has a fanciful character and is very difficult to perform.

The sixth etude, Vision, in G minor, Lento, is somber and creates an extremely large sound and an ominous effect with arpeggiations and tremolos. Busoni claimed it depicted Napoleon’s funeral. It ends with thunderous chords and a descending torrent of octaves; according to Busoni it is a musical painting “of the funeral of the first Napoleon, advancing with solemn and imperial pomp.”

The seventh etude, Eroica, (Heroic) in E-flat major, begins with large chords and descending runs, before the main theme, Tempo di Marcia, is introduced. There are long passages of octaves for both hands, and a sudden silent pause. When it begins again, it progresses to a powerful ending. Étude No. 8, Wilde Jagd (Wild Hunt) in C minor, only received its name long after Liszt finished the music. Full of dazzling virtuosity, it begins very loudly and quickly, Presto furioso. The music is technically very difficult to perform because of its rhythmic complexities and huge sonorities which take turns with an expression of gentler flowing, melodic material; nevertheless, speed and power are pre-eminent, and the music rushes to a dramatic end. Étude No. 9 in A-flat major is named Ricordanza (Remembrance) and the music Liszt creates is nostalgic. Busoni described it as giving “the impression of a bundle of faded love letters from a somewhat old-fashioned world of sentiment.”

After a lengthy improvisatory introduction, the piano takes up the gentle lyrical subject dolce, con grazia (sweetly with grace). The music displays some brilliance before coming to a quiet conclusion. Étude No. 10, Allegro agitato molto, in F minor, which appears in the 1851 edition of the Transcendental Etudes, is exciting and passionate, a fiercely dramatic piece that is technically very demanding. Busoni gave it its nickname, Appassionata. It begins with a descending cascade of notes and then evolves into an expression of driving energy and urgency. The lyrical main theme is yearning, but rhythmic chords and ominous bass sounds accompany it. Nervous agitation and a tempestuous quality predominate until the middle section, when the lyrical theme returns briefly. The intense ending contains demanding virtuosic leaps up and down the keyboard, concluding with ominous sounding chords. Étude No. 11, the penultimate piece of the set, the meditative Harmonies du soir (Evening Harmonies), is one of Liszt’s most famous compositions. It begins softly in D-flat major but it soon becomes passionate, before a section that Liszt marked “with intimate sentiment;” he directs the left-hand to play the accompaniment to the melody quasi Arpa: “like a harp.” The music grows to a triumphant climax before the calm of the beginning returns and the etude ends with a quiet chordal melody.

Étude No. 12 in B-flat minor “Chasse-Neige” (literally Snowplow, but often called Blizzard or Snowstorm) Andante con moto, in B-flat minor, is the final of the 12 the Transcendental Etudes. This extremely demanding work is a melancholic study in tremolos and also contains many difficult wide jumps and fast chromatic scales. Beginning gently and softly, it gradually builds to a powerful climax.

Depicting a tempestuous snowstorm, it is an example of program music; whirling, chromatic passages depict the storm. Chromatic figures in the left hand indicate the moaning of the wind. Busoni called this “poetised music,” and described it as “a sublime and steady fall of snow which gradually buries landscape and people.” Its continuous tremolo gives it peculiar charm. It begins quietly, reaches powerful climaxes, and quietly subsides.

— Program notes are copyright © Susan Halpern, 2019

MAXIM LANDO Pianist American pianist Maxim Lando received national attention in 2017 at the age of 14 when he appeared on the piano bench alongside Lang Lang, performing the parts intended for Mr. Lang’s injured left hand, at Carnegie Hall’s Gala Opening Night. Chick Corea joined them at this concert for an unprecedented threepianist version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The collaboration was chronicled in The New York Times.

As soloist with orchestra this season, Mr. Lando performs the Beethoven Photo by Island Photography Triple Concerto with violinist Daniel Hope, cellist Lynn Harrell, and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and appears as soloist with the Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony (PA), Ft. Smith Symphony, and Wheeling Symphony. He has previously performed with the symphonies of Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, and Hawaii, Russia’s Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony, Russian National Orchestra, Bolshoi Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Kazakh State Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, and China’s NCPA Orchestra.

Mr. Lando won First Prize and four special prizes at the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and opens the 2019-20 Young Concert Artists Series with recital debuts in New York, in the Peter Marino Concert at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, and in Washington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

His debut program is a tour de force of works by Beethoven, Scriabin, and Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes. He also performs recitals this season for the Port Washington Library (NY), Rockefeller University (NY), University of Florida Performing Arts, Levine School of Music (D.C.), Abbey Church Events (WA) and Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (AL).

Mr. Lando was invited to play at the grand opening of Steinway and Sons in Beijing, and has also performed at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, Dinard International Music Festival in France, Samos Young Artist Festival in Greece, Rising Stars Munich, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York City, Ravinia and Aspen and Music Festivals, and Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Dedicated to making classical music accessible to his own generation, Maxim Lando has been featured on CNN’s Best of Quest, NPR’s From The Top, Russian TV-Kultura, BBC Radio 4, and WQXR. A proponent of Sing For Hope’s mission, he served as a last-minute replacement for Lea Salonga at its 2017 Gala.

Winner of the Gold Medal at the 2017 Berlin International Music Competition, Maxim Lando is an Artemisia Akademie Fellow at Yale University, an alumnus of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and a student of Hung-Kuan Chen (YCA Alumnus), and Tema Blackstone at Juilliard Pre-College.

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE: UNTAMED TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

ENTERCOM COMMUNICATIONS AND OAK HAMMOCK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA ARE PROUD SPONSORS OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE IN GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA

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FILIPE DEANDRADE Filmmaker A native of Brazil, nature courses through Filipe DeAndrade’s veins. After winning Nat Geo WILD’s Wild to Inspire film competition in 2014, DeAndrade spent four months documenting wildlife for Nat Geo WILD and the African Wildlife Foundation.

With his lifelong dream realized, DeAndrade is now bringing his skill, unbridled passion, and irreverent sense of humor to the Nat Geo WILD family in his digital series, Untamed With Filipe DeAndrade, which premiered March 15, 2017, on the network’s YouTube Channel.

Previously DeAndrade was profiled on Outside TV’s original series The Final Cut, he worked as a Director of Photography in New York, traveled 40 states filming

Photo by Brian Moghari

a commercial assignment with AT&T and Direct TV, and he has been nominated for 19 Emmys as a Director of Photography, winning 10 of them.

DeAndrade is a University of Florida graduate with a major in film production and a minor in wildlife ecology.

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MozART GROUP WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

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MozART group “We exist despite the sober formality of great concert halls, despite the boredom of classical musicians’ life, despite fanatical lovers of classical music, despite fans of rock, rap, or pop who are afraid of classical music. We treat our Muse with a humorous irony and we’re sure she will have nothing against it!” ­— MozART group All four gentlemen of the MozART group are well-educated instrumentalists who graduated from prestigious music academies in Warsaw and Łódz but decided to play classical music in a humorous way. MozART group created a worldwide unique musical cabaret, where the music, not the words, is the source of joy and laughter. Take a classical composition as canvas, analyze its structure and theme, surround it with musical associations and brilliant, outstanding ideas, and while listening to the final product the listener is constantly surprised, amazed, moved to laughter and tears.

The musicians of the MozART group have been playing together since 1995.

In the beginning, they presented short musical jokes on Canal Plus Television and made their debut in 1997 at the PAKA competition of young Polish cabaret acts in Krakow. Later that year, they presented their first cabaret program titled Mozart’s Still Alive. Since then they have given concerts across Europe, North America, and Asia.

The group’s first show, in which they took Antonio Vivaldi as their patron, was titled The Four Seasons à la MozART group. Similarly subtitled was their CD Creatures, where each of the seasons begins the same way as Vivaldi’s

compositions. Later on, however, they run freely in the direction of various world songs about spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The quartet also performs with colleagues around the world including shows with the mime Irek Krosny and the multitalented Bobby McFerrin. MozART group frequently appears on televised concerts and international galas.

The quartet has garnered numerous prestigious prizes including the Grand Prix of the XVIII Festival of Satire and Comedy in Lidzbark, the “Pingwin z brazu” (the Bronze Penguin)—the prize given by the cabaret community of Zielona Gora, an informal capitol of Polish cabaret—and two Golden Troughs at the RYJEK Festival in Rybnik. In 2010, MozART group received a special prize from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland for outstanding achievements and 15 years on stage. GAGY, the European Humor Festival, awarded MozART group the Grand Prix at the 31st Festival in 2011. In March 2013, MozART group won all three main prizes at the 10th Festival des Artes Burlesques in St. Etienne: the Grand Prix of the Jury, the Audience Award, and the Press Award.

In 2018, MozART group toured North America, Asia, and Europe. From October 2018 through January 2019, the quartet performed a 65-show residency at the Bobino Theatre in the heart of Paris.

In 2017, the quartet visited more than 20 countries including France, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Germany. Just for Laughs, the world’s largest and most highprofile comedy festival, hosted the quartet with a total of 20 shows in Montreal.

In 2015, MozART group celebrated its 20th anniversary with a gala show at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw with friends and colleagues from Poland and Switzerland. Twenty years on stage is a good reason to show the audience all the funny and interesting stories that happened during this time! To mark this occasion, MozART group premiered their new show, MozART travels!, their take on the trials and tribulations of life on the road.

2011 marked a very important year for the quartet artistically. Over seven months, MozART group visited 24 countries across four continents, performing more than 150 public and private shows. The quartet made its debuts in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Latvia, Turkey, Mexico, Costa Rica, the United States, Estonia, Slovakia, Portugal, and France.

Their latest DVD, Mozart Comes to Town, was released in December 2017.

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PEGGY AN D JAY EN JOY THE BEACH. BUT SUPPORTI NG UF PERFORMING ARTS IS TH EI R PASSION. Peggy and Jay, both 70, love their beach house. That’s why they gifted it to the University of Florida, while retaining the right to use it for the remainder of their lives. They earned a significant tax deduction from the gift. And after they’re gone, it will fund their passion at the University of Florida, forever connecting them to the performances they love. Bravo, Peggy and Jay. GIFTPLANNING.UFF.UFL.EDU | 352-392-5512

GO GREATER

D anscompany of Gainesville Resident Company of Cameron Dancenter

— 37th Anniversary —

Cinderella A holiday tradition since 1993 December 14, 2019, 1:30 & 7 p.m.

Phillips Center

shows will be interpreted in american sign language

Wordmark

Reverse wordmark

S pring Concertand

The Wiz

March 14, 2020, 1:30 & 7 p.m. | Phillips Center Ticket Information — 352-371-0761 | 352-392-arts

danscompanyofgainesville.org | performingarts.ufl.edu

14 reasons to choose one of the top hospitals in the nation.

UF Health Shands Hospital is nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report in seven specialties and high performing in seven adult procedures and conditions. This recognition reflects our unwavering dedication to providing high-quality care for patients and validates the work of physicians, scientists, nurses and staff at UF Health.

UFHealth.org