New Music New Haven, with Jane Ira Bloom, guest composer, March 7, 2019

Robert Blocker, Dean

N E W M US IC N E W H AV E N Hannah Lash, Artistic Director

Featuring music by

Jane Ira Bloom and Yale School of Music graduate-student composers Thursday, March 7, 2019 | 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Paul Mortilla b. 1995

Music for Horn, with strings, 2 bass clarinets, organ, and percussion Victoria Knudtson, horn soloist Michael Moy, bass clarinet Richard Adger, bass clarinet Bora Kim, violin Brandon Garbot, violin Emily Switzer, violin Max Yiming Mao, violin Abby Elder, viola Rubina Lee, viola

Tanner Porter b. 1994

“What Good’s A Home” from Harbor Tanner Porter, soprano Eli Greenhoe, baritone Jung Eun Kang, violin Kyungah Oh, violin

Gabrielle Lily Herbst b. 1986

Valentina Crnjak, cello Sophie Yu, cello Ross Wightman, double bass Amy Nickler, double bass Russell Fisher, percussion Kevin Zetina, percussion Miles Walter, synthesizer Paul Mortilla, conductor

Minji Kim, viola Chin To Kelvin Ng, double bass Chuang-Chuang Fang, piano

Farewell, first lady of the air Amelia Earhart: Leah Brzyski, soprano Choir: Paul Mortilla, Frances Pollock, Gabrielle Herbst Brendan Dooley, flute Coco Ma, piano Amy Hur, clarinet Matthew Woodard, conductor Shiqi Zhong, percussion

Program, cont. intermission

Joel Thompson b. 1988

“We Were Kings Once” from Songs from Prison Haitham Haidar, tenor Hannah Lash, harp

Frances Pollock b. 1990

Pillow Talk – Promises I promise to keep Maria Luisk, flute Ziqi Yue, clarinet Yintong Liu, violin Marlea Simpson, viola

Jane Ira Bloom b. 1955

Ha Eun Song, cello Ying-Yin Chia, double bass Peng Lin, piano

Blue Poles

Mind Gray River

Singing the Triangle Jane Ira Bloom, saxophone Mark Helias, double bass Bobby Previte, drums

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Guest Profiles Jane Ira Bloom, composer, ’76BA ’77MM Jane Ira Bloom has been steadfastly developing her singular voice on the soprano saxophone for over 40 years creating a body of music that marks her as an American original. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz and the winner of the 2018 GRAMMY Award for Best Surround Sound Album for her trio album Early Americans. Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, the Jazz Journalists Award and Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone, the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz and the Charlie Parker Fellowship for Jazz Innovation. Bloom is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and was honored to have an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom). She has performed at such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations, Grace Cathedral, the Smithsonian’s Einstein Planetarium, the Houston Astrodome and the Montreal, JVC, and Monterey Jazz Festivals. She has recorded and produced 17 albums of her music dating from 1977 to the present on her own record label (Outline) and for ENJA, CBS, Arabesque, Pure Audio, and Artistshare Records. She is a professor at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC and holds degrees from Yale University (’76) and Yale School of Music (’77). Nat Hentoff called Bloom an artist “beyond category.” Bill Milkowski called her “A true jazz original... a restlessly creative spirit, and a modern day role model for any

aspiring musician who dares to follow his or her own vision.”

Mark Helias, double bass, ’74MM Mark Helias is a renowned bassist and composer who has performed throughout the world for more than three decades. After receiving his B.A. from Rutgers University and his M.A. from the Yale School of Music, he began his international career in the Anthony Braxton Quartet. He has performed with artists including Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Uri Caine, Marcel Khalife, Abbey Lincoln, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, Marilyn Crispell, Julius Hemphill, Don Byron, Bobby Bradford, Barry Altshul, Ray Anderson, Michael Moore, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, and Gerry Hemingway.

A prolific composer, Helias has written music for two feature films as well as chamber pieces and works for large ensemble and big band.

His orchestra piece Stochasm was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 2011. He has produced many recordings for other artists including Ray Anderson, Tony Malaby, Bobby Previte, Jerome Harris, and Mark Dresser. Twelve albums of his music have been released since 1984. His trio, Open Loose, with Tony Malaby and Tom Rainey, has become an archetypal improvising ensemble on the New York scene. He continues performing and recording with BassDrumBone, a four-decade-long collaboration with Gerry Hemingway and Ray Anderson. Mr. Helias performs solo bass concerts and can also be heard in the innovative bass duo, The Marks Brothers, with fellow bassist Mark Dresser.

He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, The New School University and SIM (School for Improvisational Music).

Guest Profiles, cont.

Student Profiles

Bobby Previte, drums

Gabrielle Lily Herbst ’20MM Student of Martin Bresnick and Aaron Jay Kernis iamgabimusic.com

Bobby Previte is a composer and performer whose work explores the nexus between notated and improvised music. One of the seminal figures of the 1980s New York “Downtown” scene, Previte is the recipient of the 2015 Greenfield Prize for music and was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 2012. He has received multiple awards for composition from the NEA, NYFA, NYSCA, New Music USA, The Jerome Foundation, The New York State Music Fund, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the American Music Center. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, Civitella Ranieri, The Montalvo Arts Center, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, and nine times at the MacDowell Colony. His original compositions have been recorded and released on Sony, Elektra, Rykodisc, Palmetto, New World, Ropeadope, Tzadik, Thirsty Ear, Cantaloupe, and Rarenoise. Leading a plethora of diverse ensembles from his instrument, the drums, he has collaborated with many of the leading lights in and beyond the world of music, including master composer John Adams, iconic singer Tom Waits, pantheon filmmaker Robert Altman, and most recently, rock legend Iggy Pop. His music has been labeled as “utterly original” by The New York Times, while The New Yorker has said his ensembles “speak in visionary tongues.” Mr. Previte has given master classes at schools and universities around the world including The Eastman School of Music, The New School, Bard College, and Princeton University.

Paul Mortilla ’20MM Student of Martin Bresnick soundcloud.com/aulortilla Frances Pollock ’19MM Student of Martin Bresnick francespollock.com Tanner Porter ’19MM Student of David Lang tannerporter.com Joel Thompson ’20MMa Student of Hannah Lash

Staff Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri assistant manager/ Music Librarian Samuel Bobinski Office Assistant Kristy Tucker

Program Notes Paul Mortilla

Joel Thompson

Music for Horn [feat. strings, 2 bass clarinets, organ, and percussion] is a new piece for horn written for Victoria Knudtson, who currently studies at Curtis. The piece is a concerto, but does not behave in the fashion of a concerto.

The horn exists alongside the ensemble, as opposed to dominating it.

Songs from Prison is a setting of three poems by the incarcerated that examines the symbiosis of our society and our criminal justice system. The third song, “We Were Kings Once,” is the internal monologue of a prisoner currently serving a 15-year sentence for armed robbery. He reflects on the power he once craved, ruthlessly exercised, and lost:

Tanner Porter “What Good’s A Home” is a piece from Harbor, a musical for six actors, strings, keyboard, and percussion. A piece I first began work on in 2011 (ack!), I’ll thrilled to be attending the Djerassi Resident Artists Program this coming fall to work on Harbor.

Gabrielle Lily Herbst Farewell, first lady of the air is inspired by the life of Amelia Earhart, investigating Amelia’s inner world and dialogue as well as what she has come to represent in our culture. The piece meditates on flight, fear, and facing the unknown with an unrelenting propulsion forward movement, using found text from her conversations, radio transmissions from her last flight as heard by Betty Brown (in Betty’s Notebook), quotations from Maureen Owen’s poem from Amelia Earheart: The Aviator’s Dream, and The Quotable Amelia Earhart by Michelle Wehrwein Albion. This piece was commissioned by Fresh Squeezed Opera Company.

We were kings once... and we wielded our power ruthlessly Invincible as long as our guns were high And the things we did were written across the sky We were kings once...

Dispensaries overflowing We medicated individuals with the balm for their need Cocaine, heroin, ecstacy, and weed We were kings once...

And we never realized our world was glass And we never realizeed the sands of time slowly floating Pushing us into a different world without us knowing We were kings once...

Trapped in a war of circumstance Badgered by bad choices, worse options, fate Boxed in by poverty, greed, love, and hate We were kings once...

We failed our subjects We failed our families, our people, our homes We failed our nation.

We were kings once.*

Program Notes, cont. * Poem by Charles Brooks, Sr. published in Origami Handcuff Keys: Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing, Vol. 8 (ISBN 978-0-578-17839-4)

Frances Pollock Pillow Talk is the composition that I wrote the morning after my wedding. It is dedicated to my wife, Emily Roller.

Jane Ira Bloom Blue Poles is a piece inspired by Jackson Pollock’s motion filled painting.

“Sometimes I throw sound around the band like paint and other times I play and feel as if I was carving silence like a sculptor.”

“Mind Gray River” is one movement of a larger work (Wild Lines) that I composed inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson: I felt a cleaving in my mind As if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before, But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon a floor.

“Singing the Triangle” is a trio composition that is also part of the Wild Lines project inspired by Dickinson: Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A circus passed the house – still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out.

Upcoming Events Mar 28 Preview Concert:

Music for Guitars

Yale in New York A program led by faculty guitarist Benjamin Verdery and featuring current students and alumni from the YSM guitar studio.

4:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free apr 5 Carolyn Kuan, guest conductor

Yale Philharmonia

Carolyn Kuan conducts the Yale Philharmonia in Copland’s suite from Appalachian Spring and more.

7:30 pm | Woolsey Hall Tickets start at $12, Yale faculty/ staff $8, students $5

$3 surcharge at the door apr 10 Lunchtime Chamber Music School of Music students perform a midday chamber music program.

12:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free

apr 16 A Far Cry

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

The chamber orchestra collective presents a program of music by Pärt, Xenakis, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Bartók.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $28, students $13 apr 17 Yale Cellos

YSM Ensembles

A concert celebrating Aldo

Parisot’s extraordinary life

and career, directed by faculty

cellist Ole Akahoshi.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $12, students $5 apr 18 Martin Bresnick, faculty composer

New Music New Haven

Music by faculty composer Martin Bresnick and works by YSM’s student composers.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free

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