Aaron Jay Kernis & David Lang, faculty composers, November 7, 2019

Robert Blocker, Dean

new music new haven Aaron Jay Kernis, artistic director Featuring music by

Aaron Jay Kernis & David Lang and Yale School of Music graduate-student composers Thursday, November 7, 2019 | 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Anteo Fabris b. 1991

Magnetic Processes in Turbulent Space Elena Kawazu, violin Amelia Merriman, oboe Bel Ben Mamoun, bass recorder

Miles Walter b. 1994

Still Life (or, Still Life with Reflecting Mirror) Beatrice Hsieh, violin Cameron Daly, violin Arjun Ganguly, viola Jihyun Hwang, cello

Soomin Kim b. 1996

Griffin Botts, horn Arlo Shultis, percussion Nate Huvard, guitar

Brendan Dooley, flute Ziqi Yue, clarinet Zach Gutierrez, percussion Russell Fisher, percussion Miles Walter, conductor

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today Minkyoung Lee, viola Ross Wightman, double bass Frances Pollock, soprano

Program, cont.

Paul Mortilla b. 1995

[s t r o k e] Erin White, violin Claudia Ng, clarinet Shenae Anderson, violin Tamara Snyder, bassoon Alex McLaughlin, viola Connor Jenkinson, trumpet Miriam Liske-Doorandish, cello Danny Alford, trombone Ziying Hu, double bass Shiqi Zhong, percussion Brendan Dooley, flute Stephanie Tang, prepared piano Soo Min Ha, oboe Paul Mortilla, conductor KOKOFREAKBEAN, projection designer

intermission

David Lang b. 1957

string of pearls Adam Sliwinski, marimba

Peter Shin b. 1991

dogwhistling Ariel Horowitz, violin Yoon Be Kim, violin Minji Kim, viola Harry Doernberg, cello Ying-Yin Chia, double bass David Lassila, flute Laurel Wellman, oboe CĂŠsar Palacio, clarinet Richard Adger, clarinet

Philip McNaughton, bassoon Olivia Martinez, horn Kenny Chauby, trumpet Ryan Murray, trombone Arlo Shultis, percussion Zach Gutierrez, percussion Peng Lin, piano Ryan Tani, conductor

Aaron Jay Kernis b. 1960

Legacy Introduction – Echoes of...

1. Will – Intenso, Allegro 2. Divided – Adagio 3. ...Grace Scott Leger, horn Beatrice Hsieh, violin 1 Xiaoxuan Shi, violin 1 James Poe, violin 1 Yoon Be Kim, violin 2 Cameron Daly, violin 2 Minji Kim, viola Bethany Hargreaves, viola Harry Doernberg, cello

Hye In Lee, cello Ying-Yin Chia, double bass Seojin Kim, double bass Arlo Shultis, timpani Russell Fisher, percussion Shiqi Shong, percussion Kevin Zetina, percussion Héloïse Carlean Jones, harp Ryan Tani, conductor

We would like to thank Camilla Tassi for her work in designing and operating the visual projections featured on tonight’s performance.

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.

Faculty Profiles

Student Profiles

Aaron Jay Kernis, composer

Anteo Fabris ’19MM ’20MMA Student of David Lang » anteofabris.com

Aaron Jay Kernis won the coveted 2012 Nemmers Prize and the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition and is one of the youngest composers ever awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is Professor (adjunct) of Composition at the Yale School of Music.

Kernis has received the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rome Prize, and he received Grammy nominations for Air and his Second Symphony. In 2011 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

David Lang, composer The music of David Lang has been performed by major musical, dance, and theatrical organizations throughout the world and in the most renowned concert halls and festivals in the United States and Europe. Lang is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of New York’s legendary music festival Bang on a Can. Lang was Musical America’s Composer of the Year for 2013 and held Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Chair in Composition for the 2013–2014 season. He holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of Iowa and in 1989 received a doctor of musical arts degree from the Yale School of Music, where he has been on faculty since 2008.

Miles Walter ’20MM Student of Martin Bresnick Soomin Kim ’21MM Student of Hannah Lash » soominkimcomposer.com Paul Mortilla ’20MM Student of David Lang Peter Shin ’21MMA Student of Christopher Theofanidis » peter-shin.com

Staff Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Music Librarian Samuel Bobinski Conducting Fellow Ryan Tani office assistant Andrew Sledge

Program Notes by the composers Miles Walter

Paul Mortilla

This piece is about the end of the world, which, as always, is reliably imminent.

Things you might want to know: it’s written in a specially-designed microtonal language carved within 36-tone equal temperament, and there’s lots of speaking. Text sources include: the Book of Daniel, House Res. 109 (116th Congress of the U.S.A.), oral eyewitness accounts of Cyclone Idai, Zimbabwe, March 2019 (provided by Sam Brakarsh), poems by Griffin Brown, a poem by Sam Brakarsh, seven Wikipedia articles (to date as of spring 2019), the Book of Genesis, an essay by John Kersey, and a poem by Mathilde Handelsman.

Language is ambiguous more often than not; words are much like paint brushes we use to stroke the canvas of the mind. The duality of the word “stroke” itself is a fascinating example: on one hand it represents a subtle action. The stroke of a paint brush or to stroke the hair of a loved one. On the other hand, it represents a nearly fatal experience that can leave one paralyzed and mentally dissociated.

Soomin Kim Text written by Emily Jungmin Yoon: I read a Korean poem with the line “Today you are the youngest you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest I have been. Today we drink buckwheat tea. Today I have heat in my apartment. Today I think about the word chada in Korean.

It means cold. It means to be filled with.

It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.

Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.

My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said winter has broken his windows. The heat inside and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.

Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today it fills with you. The window in my room is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say.

It’s tea.

We drink. It is cold outside.

Peter Shin This is the score to militiachildren, a film in the works by Scott Lyman based on the 2017 white nationalist uprising in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. I was particularly moved by video footage of a group of interfaith leaders linked arm to arm singing “This Little Light o’ Mine” which—for a brief moment of peaceful counter-protest—drowned out the hateful speech of the alt-right.

Recording: Lomax, John A, Ruby T Lomax, and Doris McMurray. “This Little Light o’ Mine,” near Huntsville, Texas, 1939. Audio.

Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

David Lang string of pearls evolved out of a commission from a consortium of amazing percussionists, most of whom I have had the honor of working with closely over the years. I had the idea to make this piece out of a series of little bursts of energy, with tiny pauses in between, accumulating in power and density. After I finished the music I realized

Program Notes, cont. that the form of the piece resembled a string of pearls – short, exciting, shiny moments strung together in a continuous line.

When I started composing string of pearls I struggled for a while with the question of how to leave enough room for each of these players to make the piece his own. My solution was to give very little instruction on how to shape the performance – all the notes and rhythms are written down quite specifically but there are no dynamic markings, no accents, no crescendi, etc., and the players are instructed to shape each phrase ad lib. One performance may be all loud, or all quiet, or everything in between. It is my hope that by being vague with the performance instructions each of these incredible performers will find his own, unique version of the piece. string of pearls was commissioned through consortium by Thomas Burritt and the University of Texas Percussion Program, Michael Burritt, David Cossin, Joseph Gramley, Eduardo Leandro, Todd Meehan, William Moersch, Doug Perkins, Steven Schick, Adam Sliwinski, and Robert Van Sice. Special thanks go to Adam Sliwinski, who helped me edit it. string of pearls is dedicated, in love and friendship, to Martin Bresnick, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

Aaron Jay Kernis When I was commissioned by the Grant Park (Chicago) and Liverpool (UK) orchestras for a horn concerto in 2017, President Obama’s farewell speech at that very park

in Chicago and his singing of Amazing Grace shortly before the end of his term lingered in my thoughts – particularly in the aftermath of the 2016 election and since. The sound of the solo horn has an eloquence that felt appropriate for a work with such reminiscences in mind. I chose to develop a structure and musical characters that present the horn and frequently the timpani in central roles. Amazing Grace appears in various guises to tie the entire work together.

The original horn soloists were Jon Boen and Timothy Jackson.

New Music New Haven

2019-2020 Season dec 12

New Music for Orchestra* A program of new orchestral music by the School’s student composers performed by the Yale Philharmonia in Woolsey Hall

feb 6

Frederic Rzewski, guest composer “Thought-provoking, heartwrenching music” — The New York Times

mar 5

John Zorn, guest composer “Sensational and evocative” — The New York Times

apr 16

Tania Leon, guest composer “Fueled by a humanist curiosity” — NBC News Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.

Morse Recital Hall free unless otherwise indicated

Upcoming Events Bernarda Fink, mezzo-soprano YSM Special Events “A master of the disarming, deceptive simplicity of the song recital.” – The New York Times Songs by Schubert, Dvořák, Hugo Wolf, Joaquin Rodrigo, and Carlos Guastavino.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $12, students $5 nov 8

nov 10 Wendy Sharp & Friends

Faculty Artist Series World premiere of faculty composer Hannah Lash’s 2 Songs, with faculty mezzosoprano Janna Baty, and more.

3:00 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

free nov 12 Polonsky-Shifrin-Wiley Trio

Oneppo Chamber Music Series A performance of Beethoven’s “Gassenhauer” Trio, Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano, and Brahms’ Clarinet Trio in A minor 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $28, students $13

nov 13 Ettore Causa, viola &

Boris Berman, piano

Faculty Artist Series Faculty violist Ettore Causa and faculty pianist Boris Berman perform Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, Chopin’s Cello Sonata in G minor (arranged for viola), and more.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

free nov 14 Benjamin Hoffman, violin

DMA Recitals Music by Bach, Webern, Schubert, and Schumann.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

free nov 15 Louis Hayes

Ellington Jazz Series “Throughout his career he’s solidified a place as one of jazz’s most soulfully swinging drummers.” –JazzTimes 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $22, students $10

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