José García-León, Dean
new music new haven
Aaron Jay Kernis, artistic director
New Music for Orchestra with Yale
Philharmonia
Stefano Boccacci and Ezra Calvino, conductors
Thursday, December 12, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Woolsey Hall
Program
Benjamin Webster
b. 1997
Diallo Banks
b. 2001
Emily Liushen
b. 1999
Zihan Wu
b. 2001
Lily Koslow
b. 2001
Brittney Benton
b. 1999
Kacper Madejek b. 1999
Two Chaconnes
I. Exuberant, pressing forward II. Slow and static, as if suspended in time
cuerpo
Dur
Through the Boundless Lycoris, I See My Voyage intermission
O lente, lente nuit... o mon fusil si lourd...
Bathed in Light
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Musica Umbra
Artist Profiles
Stefano Boccacci, conductor
Colombian-Italian conductor Stefano Boccacci is a versatile symphonic, opera, and ballet conductor. He has worked with professional orchestras and opera productions in Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. He has worked with the Welsh National Opera Orchestra, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and has assisted conductors Carlo Rizzi, Mark Wigglesworth, and Giancarlo Guerrero, among others.
Recent commitments include working as assistant conductor at the Immling Festival in Germany, the Welsh Ballet, Buxton International Opera Festival in the UK, and with the Ensemble Multilatérale in Paris (2022). He is a current conducting fellow at Yale University and assistant conductor of the Yale Philharmonia and conductor Peter Oundjian.
Boccacci is a conducting teacher at the University of Oxford (Hertford College), a visiting artist and orchestral tutor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has recently joined Yale’s Music in Schools Initiative as a conducting teacher. He has conducted and assisted opera productions in the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Brazil, and Colombia. His repertoire includes La bohème, Suor Angelica, Rigoletto, Turn of the Screw, Così fan tutte, Dido & Aeneas, and Carmen. He works as language coach in Italian, French, English, and Spanish. Boccacci has trained with Jac van Steen, Carlo Rizzi, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, John Fisher, Patrick Fournillier, and Johannes Wildner.
Ezra Calvino, conductor
Ezra Calvino has been recognized for their insight, clarity, and sensitivity as a conductor, violist, and chamber musician. Throughout their studies, they have sought to draw on diverse musical disciplines from baroque performance practice to modern popular music to develop a unique artistic perspective that is firmly grounded in the complexity of our present historical moment. Refusing to limit their musical thought to the traditional canon has allowed them to understand how a “classical” artistic practice can transcend mere aesthetic nicety and participate in holistic social healing.
Ezra is an alumnus of notable training programs including the National Orchestral Institute + Festival, the Eastern Music Festival, the International Conducting Workshop and Festival, and the Prague Summer Nights Young Artists Music Festival. Ezra is also a 2024 Conducting Fellow of the American Austrian Foundation, and spent the past summer working with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival.
Previously, Ezra taught as a visiting professor in conducting at Bowling Green State University and held the role of Associate Conductor to the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. They hold a Bachelors degree in viola performance from Arizona State University and a Masters degree in orchestral and opera conducting from Bowling Green State University, Ezra is currently continuing their conducting studies at the Yale School of Music under the instruction of Peter Oundjian.
Student Profiles
Benjamin Webster, ’29DMA Student of Katherine Balch benwebstermusic.com
Diallo Banks, ’25MM Student of Christopher Theofanidis diallobankscomposer.com
Emily Liushen, ’25MM Student of Christopher Theofanidis emilyliushen.com
Zihan Wu, ’25MM Student of Martin Bresnick zihanwumusic.com
Lily Koslow, ’25MM Student of Aaron Jay Kernis
Brittney Benton, ’25MM Student of Martin Bresnick brittneybentonmusic.wixsite.com
Kacper Madejek, ’25MM Student of Aaron Jay Kernis kacpermadejek.com
Program Notes
Two Chaconnes Benjamin weBster
Particularly popular during the Baroque period of Western Art Music, a chaconne is a dance form characterized by repeating harmonic progressions. My Two Chaconnes do not strictly follow the traditional form, and those familiar with famous examples in the repertoire (Couperin, Bach, and later Brahms come to mind) will note that these pieces sound nothing like the chaconnes of the past. Rather, they take inspiration from the form’s absolute devotion to harmony and repetition, investigating their own recurring harmonic patterns in a wide array of contrasting (and conflicting) emotions, styles, and orchestral colors.
cuerpo Diallo Banks cuerpo /'kwer.po/ [Spanish] “body”
This piece was conceived of as a meditation on the liminal space between pulses clicks, grains, a sustained sound and the tactility of that continuum. Our physical essence, the body, becomes a vessel for the sound, a canvas of sensation.
Dur emily liushen
When you wake up, a warm metallic wall pressed against your head, the world will have closed in on you. Forget about writing, reading, about concerts, theaters, work, classes, meetings, the time of day, the day of the week, the month of October, your five-year plan. You are in the doldrums now, and they give tranquilizers to stay there. Beyond the reach of your fingers, people come and go in a din and blur.
When you wake up, you may brush your teeth, or peel an orange, or slip outside to the quiet walkway behind your house. There, above the garbage bins, is the largest thing. Arcas and Orion are pinned on that hazy tapestry somewhere, and they were once like you, marking the world through palpable breaths and the tiny motions of their fingers. Today is Monday or Wednesday or Saturday. It is the day before tomorrow, and when of another boiled egg.
“Is there any true transcendence, or is this idea always a consoling dream projected by human need on to an empty sky?” What else can you think about? You dream of flocks and flutes surrounding you and Farmer Oak. You dream of metempsychosis, of IMAX, of brass chorales, of oceans and galaxies and rockets escaping the Earth. You dream that tomorrow, when you wake up, this myopic radius of sensations might have been transfigured into something “remarkably clear” and immeasurably large.
Through the Boundless Lycoris, I See My Voyage
Zihan wu
Lycoris is a flower that represents death, rebirth, and transformation in Chinese mythology. The flower blooms endlessly along the banks of the Wangchuan River, where souls cross the Bridge of Forgetfulness to transition to the afterlife. The piece follows the soul’s journey through fields of crimson Lycoris, each note unfolding like a petal, capturing the flower’s duality of sorrow and elegance. A spectral dance echoes through the underworld, with the flower’s pulse guiding the way, embodying the eternal cycle of life and death, separation and reunion, transformation and immortality.
O lente, lente nuit… o mon fusil si lourd… lily koslow
O lente, lente nuit… o mon fusil si lourd… (O slow, slow night… o my gun so heavy…) is a tone poem for orchestra. Embracing internal contradictions, the piece explores the cohabitation of diverse musical materials including prolonged and ever-shifting chromatic clusters, teeming nightscapes, and soaring melodies, among other sonic characters.
Staff
Bathed in Light
Brittney Benton
Slowly, the light emerges.
Musica Umbra k acper maDejek
Composed during late nights, Musica Umbra is a nocturne for orchestra, which takes the seminal piano miniatures of Frédéric Chopin as its conceptual point of departure, juxtaposing the serene lyricism of the moonlight with the ominous uncertainty of the shadows when we inevitably lose our bearings in the dark. The night is a flux-vessel for the apparent and the unseen. My work examines this interplay through areas and techniques of discernible modality and contrasting dodecaphony.
general manager
Jeffrey Mistri
proDuction coorDinator
& liBrarian
Marika Basagoitia
office assistant
Abby Smith
stage crew
Chad Bebee
Alex Felker
Nicolas Garrigues
Nikolas Hamblin
Josh Liu
Juan Pedro Espinosa
Monteros
Jude Morris
Joshua Rhodes
Will Rich
Oved Rico
Griffin Rupp
Han Xia
liBrary
Darius Farhoumand
Emma Fuller
Josh Liu
Abby Smith
Ben Smith
Maren Tonini
Roster
violin i
Nick Hammel
Caroline Durham
Benjamin Kremer
Haram Kim
Inhae Cho
Steven Song
Mercedes Cheung
Minji Lee
Gayoung Kim
Sofia Matthews
violin ii
Maya Ito Johnson
Oliver Leitner
Chaofan Wang
Jimin Lee
Dabin Yang
Albert Gang
Lingxiao Feng
Jimin Kim
viola
Julian Seney
Soyoung Cho
Abby Smith
Mathew Lee
Wanxinyi Huang
Andy Park
cello
Balder Hella Mikkelsen
Jakyoung Huh
Emily Mantone
Dylan Kinneavy
Austin Fisher
Jiyeon Kim
DouBle Bass
Julide San
Chelsea Strayer
Nicholas Boettcher
flute
Jillian Coscio
Jolie Fitch
oBoe
Gabriela Fry
Tina Shigeyama
clarinet
Nickolas Hamblin
Nicole Martin
Bassoon
Laressa Winters
Davey Hiester
horn
William Sands
Braydon Ross
Lily Judge
Oved Rico
Gretchen Berendt
Sam Hart
Dylan Kingdom
Cristina Vieytez
trumpet
Will Rich
Katie Hillstrom
Jonathan Hunda
tromBone
William Roberts
Jude Morris
Griffin Rupp
Naomi Wharry
Jeremy Mojado
tuBa
Junming Wen
timpani
Matt Boyle
percussion
Chad Beebe
Judy Hu
Jessie Chiang
harp
Subin Lee
Sebastian Gobbels
k
eyBoarD
Feiyi Liao
Jieun Park
Lyndon Ji
Upcoming Events at YSM
Dec 13 Yale Cellos
YSM Ensembles
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
Dec 15 Benjamin Verdery, guitar
Faculty Artist Series
3:00 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
jan 21 Takács Quartet
Oneppo Chamber Music Series
7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Single tickets start at $31, Yale faculty/staff start at $23, students $14
jan Peter Oundjian, principal conductor & Augustin Hadelich, violin 22 & 27 Yale Philharmonia & Yale in New York
7:30 p.m. | Woolsey Hall
Single tickets start at $13, Yale faculty/staff start at $9, students free
8:00 p.m. | Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, NYC
Tickets start at $29, carnegiehall.org
jan 26 Daniel S. Lee, baroque violin and Jeffrey Grossman, harpsichord
Faculty Artist Series
3:00 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall
Free admission
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