program
Sixth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman Joan Tower
Brio Augusta Read Thomas
Ethiopia’s Shadow in America Florence Price I. The Arrival of the Negro in America when first brought here as a slave – (Introduction and Allegretto) II. His Resignation and Faith – (Andante) III. His Adaptation – (Allegro) – A fusion of his native and acquired impulses
Intermission
Symphony No. 3 in c minor, Op. 78 Camille Saint-Saëns I. Adagio – Allegro moderato – Poco adagio II. Allegro moderato – Presto – Maestoso – Allegro
{Please silence all portable electronic devices}
about the artists William Boughton, Conductor Born into a musical family - his grandfather (Rutland Boughton) was a composer, his father a professional viola player and his mother a singer. After studies, at New England Conservatory (Boston), Guildhall School of Music (London) and Prague Academy as a cellist, he entered the profession in London playing with the Royal Philharmonic, BBC and London Sinfonietta Orchestras. The experience of playing in orchestras led to a passion to pursue a career in conducting studying with George Hurst and then Sir Colin Davis. In 1980 he formed the English String Orchestra initially focusing on early 20th Century English repertoire but developing it into late 20th and 21st Century Contemporary music commissioning over 20 works from composers such Peter Sculthorpe, John Joubert, Anthony Powers, Michael Berkeley, John Metcalf, Stephen Roberts and Adrian Williams. The depth of his partnership with the ESO was epitomised in 1985 when, as Artistic Director of the Malvern Festival, he collaborated with Sir Michael Tippett to present a musical celebration of the composer’s eightieth birthday which was the subject of a BBC “Omnibus” documentary. With the ESO he built a significant discography of internationally acclaimed recordings with Nimbus Records - predominantly of English music, a number of which reached the Top Ten in the US Billboard charts. Between 1986–93 he was also Artistic & Music Director of the Jyvaskyla Sinfonia in Finland and guest conducted with numerous orchestras including the London Symphony, Philharmonia, San Francisco, Royal Philharmonic, Finnish Radio, Mittel Deutsch Radio, working with artists such as Nigel Kennedy, Leonidas Kavakos, Emmanuel Ax, Radu Lupu and Viktoria Mullova. In October 1993, William Boughton was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Coventry University in recognition of his expertise in British music. In November 1995, he and the ESO presented a weekend of music celebrating the 60th birthday of English composer Nicholas Maw, marking another milestone in his championship of contemporary English music. In
1996 William Boughton commenced a second term as Artistic Director of the Malvern Festival. The 2005/6 Season was his final year with the ESO in which they celebrated the Orchestra’s 25th Anniversary performing a ‘Complete Beethoven Symphony Cycle’, and created a new series of pre-concert performances of British contemporary music, including works by Birtwistle, Knussen. Watkins, Woolrich, Holloway and Turnage. In July 2007 he became the 10th Music Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO), with whom he instituted a ‘Composer in Residence’ Scheme (Augusta Read Thomas, Christopher Theofanidis, Hannah Lash) and started a major Walton Project with concerts, lectures/talks and recordings on the Nimbus Label. With the NHSO he has received two ASCAP Awards (2011 & 2014) for Adventurous Programming and received critical acclaim for the Walton Project, with Gramophones Edward Greenfield nominating it for ‘Record of the Year’ (2010). In October 2014 two new recordings were released with the New Haven Symphony of William Walton and Augusta Read Thomas. His commitment and dedication to the younger generation is epitomized through his teaching – creating a cello studio in one of the poorest areas of New Haven, building the NHSO’s Education Dept, working with the State and Regional Youth Orchestras and teaching at the Yale School of Music. In May 2016 he visited Central China University for Conducting Masterclasses and conducted the Hubei Symphony. He regularly records for both Nimbus and Lyrita Labels and guest conducts in the USA.
notes on the program Sixth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman Joan Tower Across her enduring and celebrated career, Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman has become something of a calling card for composer Joan Tower. The fanfare is actually a series of five fanfares written between 1986 and 1993 that Tower revised and collected into a single piece in 1997. Each of her fanfares, which playfully riff on the name of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, are dedicated to noteworthy women who are “risk-takers and adventurers.” The fanfares are something of a calling card both because they have been critically embraced and also because many feel that the title is more than fitting for a composer who has broken a few glass ceilings in her time. Marin Alsop — to whom the first fanfare is dedicated and who recorded all five of Tower’s fanfares while with the Colorado Symphony — called her “one of America’s preeminent composers.” More than two decades after her fifth fanfare was completed, Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman #6 for orchestra was given its world premiere in 2016 by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Alsop’s baton. Tower said she never had any reservations about adding onto a series of works that at least to some observers might have seemed completed. “It was never really [a fixed thing],” Tower said. “It was always open-ended.” For women composers, there’s sometimes some hesitation to affixing the gender adjective to their identity. They are, after all, first and foremost composers who approach their craft with the same artistry and intention as anyone in their field. The label “women composers” can sometimes feel limiting, as if it restricts their work to be considered in a small pond rather than its rightful place in a storied and vast classical music ocean. Tower is often hailed as a trailblazer for women composers as an artist who started her career during the 1960s during an era when female names were not found as readily in the concert program. Along with composers like Ellen Zwilich, Tower is seen by many as part of a generation of composers who helped open up the symphonic world for more women who followed them, and Tower said she’s proud to be given that label. “I’m happy to be called a pioneer [for women composers],” Tower said. Part of why she embraces the label is because of a chance encounter with musicologist Nancy B. Reich at Bard College, who Tower said changed her life by giving her a better understanding of where she fit into a long and often difficult history of women in classical music.
“She taught a course called Women in Music. I’m not a big fan of musicology classes because they kind of bore me, having taken too many of them at Columbia University,” she said. “So I thought I’d show up once in a while and try to learn something. I not only went to every class, but my hand was up in the air half the time because I was so fascinated by [the story] she was telling of women from the past in music.” That class grew into a partnership between Reich and Tower, and the two worked to put on three festivals featuring music by some of the often-ignored women composers taught in the class. “It was a real eye-opener for me,” Tower said. “Knowing that history was important to me because it showed me where I was along that line [of women in classical music] and that some of my problems might not necessarily be personal but historical.” Since writing her first fanfare, the pieces have been performed by more than 500 ensembles worldwide. They regularly are featured at inaugurations or events paying tribute to women in some way. “These fanfares have had quite an interesting life,” Tower said. “I like being helpful in that respect. That’s why I continue with the title.” Ricky O’Bannon, written for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Brio Augusta Read Thomas Brio for Orchestra, a “Music from the Heartland” commission by the Des Moines Symphony, Joseph Giunta, Music Director and Conductor, is dedicated to Carolyn (Kay) Bucksbaum — arts devotee, innovator, philanthropist and dear friend — and was commissioned as a gift from her son and daughter, John Bucksbaum and Ann Bucksbaum Friedman. Kay Bucksbaum is radiant, elegant, brilliant, expressive, graceful, fun, beautiful, generous, sophisticated, and positive. I am humbled by this opportunity to compose an orchestral work in her honor for its world premiere on Maestro Giunta’s “Apotheosis of the Dance” concert. The Webster’s Dictionary definition of the noun brio reads in part: “Let’s give this celebration the brio it deserves! — vigor, vivacity, gusto, verve, zest, enthusiasm, vitality, dynamism, animation, spirit, energy; informal pep, vim, get-up-and-go.” The title Brio hopefully captures the spirit of Kay’s magnificence, twinkle, and positive energy. I care about craft, clarity, and passion. My works are organic and, at every
level, concerned with transformations and connections. The carefully sculpted musical materials of Brio are agile and energized, and their flexibility allows a way to braid harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal elements that are constantly transformed — at times whimsical and light, at times jazzy, at times layered and reverberating. Across Brio’s 11-minute duration, it unfolds a labyrinth of musical interrelationships and connections that showcase the musicians of the Des Moines Symphony in a virtuosic display of rhythmic agility, counterpoint, skill, energy, dynamic range, clarity, and majesty. Throughout the kaleidoscopic journey, the work passes through many lively and colorful episodes and, via an extended, gradual crescendo, reaches a full-throttle, sparkling intensity — imagine a coiled spring releasing its energy to continuously propel the musical discourse. Vivid, clangorous, brassy, and blazing, Brio culminates in music of enthusiastic, intrepid (almost Stravinsky-like) spirits while never losing its sense of dance, caprice, and effervescence. Music’s eternal quality is its capacity for change, transformation and renewal. No one composer, musical style, school of thought, technical practice, or historical period can claim a monopoly on music’s truths. Commissioning new art is leap-of-faith! The commissioner does not know what they will receive. I feel profoundly fortunate for the investments made by Ann, John, Joe, and the orchestra’s musicians in my work, and I devoted my strongest, most focused efforts to composing Brio in honor of Kay. Augusta Read Thomas
Ethiopia’s Shadow in America Florence Price From the dark somber soulful cries of the captured slave, portrayed by the solo clarinet, the listener is transported into a world of pain and suffering, the shackled feet and heavy footsteps all depict a lost soul crying for their loved ones and their homeland. Written in a kind of nationalist neo-romantic style, Florence Price brilliantly imposes the sound worlds of the African-American spiritual, gospel and dance rhythms into the work. Following the opening section is a reflective reminder of happier times, listen for the woodblock, a simple but poignant theme on unison violins, both plucked and bowed basses and a side drum played with brushes. The second movement interrupts the first movement with - a violin solo then cello solo in a duet that makes me think of a couple trying to console each other, before everyone joins in the lament. The finale is,
slightly, more joyful with the slaves acceptance of his fate but there are always dark clouds hanging overhead. Florence Price was born on April 9th, 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas and died on June 3rd, 1953 aged 66 in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of a mixed-race marriage – her father was a dentist, who had to learn his craft as an apprentice as no School of Dentistry would accept a Black student, her mother was a music-teacher. As a valedictorian in High School she won a place at New England Conservatory of Music, where she identified as Mexican due to the racial tensions between Whites and African Americans. She graduated in 1906 with Honors as an Organist and Teacher. Despite performances of her works by the Chicago Symphony and many notable soloists of the day her compositions are only now beginning to get the recognition they deserve. The Afro-American pioneers WillIam Grant Still, Nathaniel Nett, William Dawson, Florence Price all had a major influence on the composers that followed. William Boughton
Symphony No. 3 in c minor, Op. 78 Camille Saint-Saëns Despite his entire output of hundreds of compositions, the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns is primarily remembered today for a small number of works, the opera Samson et Dalila, the symphonic poem Danse Macabre, Le Carnival des Animaux (The Carnival of the Animals), the concertos and the Third Symphony. His long life spanned virtually the entire period of the Romantic era and he began it viewed as a modernist who championed the works of Liszt and Wagner over the norms then of Beethoven and Mozart but ended it viewed as an ultraconservatist fighting the influences of Debussy and Richard Strauss. An amazingly precocious musician, he allegedly offered to play any of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas from memory at his first public recital at the age of 15. Success came early to him and his music was almost immediately accepted and his genius recognized. Awed by his skill at orchestration upon the publication of his First Symphony (actually the second one he wrote), his good friend Hector Berlioz commented “Il sait tout, mais il manque d’inexpérience” (“He knows everything, but he lacks inexperience”). His music is characterized by genuine wit and elegance, never losing its sense of refinement, whilst downplaying excessive emotional expression, which he considered distasteful. Commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society of London, the Third Sym-
phony saw its first performance on 19 May 1886 in London, with Saint-Saëns himself as conductor. It was received respectfully by the English press who noted its inventiveness and swiftly established itself in English and French repertoires though recognition in Germany took longer given some anti-Wagner remarks he had made earlier. This was actually Saint-Saëns’ fifth attempt at writing at a symphony as two earlier ones were only published posthumously. On the work, Saint-Saëns commented that he had “given everything to it I was able to give” and pronounced himself satisfied with the final result, noting that the “coda of the finale is really extraordinary”. The Third Symphony is also significant for being the first notable one written by a French composer. Even the symphonies written by Berlioz are not true symphonies in the true sense. Though Saint-Saëns’ student Faure had actually written a symphony a year earlier, he proved so dissatisfied by the result that he had the composition destroyed. Saint-Saëns is thus credited for introducing symphonic music into the mainstream of French music life. Indeed, the Third Symphony is credited with influencing the next breakthrough symphony by a French composer, that of Franck’s Symphony in D Minor. The work gets its nickname “Organ” from the important part given to the instrument by Saint-Saëns, considered by many at that time to be the greatest organist alive. He had held the eminent position of organist at the Église de la Madeleine for 20 years prior and had wowed the Paris public with his weekly improvisations. The use of the piano, written for both two hands and four hands, is also a feature of this work, and Saint-Saëns was also considered a virtuoso on the instrument. Dedicated to Saint-Saëns’ close friend Liszt, who died before the work was premiered, the Third Symphony borrows the Lisztian idea of theme-transformation. A basic theme, namely the repeated, agitated sixteenth notes in the strings after the slow introduction, is used throughout the entire work, appearing in various forms including a sonorous brass chorale. Saint-Saëns departs from traditional symphonic form by having only two movements in the work though each of these movements is actually a pair of connected movements by itself. The organ only comes in at the beginning of the ‘second’ movement (Poco adagio), finally presenting a contrast to the repeated thematic material. A sparkling piano duet opens the ‘third’ movement/second movement proper, before the organ returns in its full glory for the finale, bringing an appropriate end to Saint-Saëns’s display of consummate craftsmanship. Wen Yu Ho ’10
Yale Symphony Orchestra William Boughton, Conductor Brian Robinson, Managing Director Henry Shapard, Student Conductor President Epongue Ekille Librarians Vivian Mayers, Head Librarian Jisoo Choi Ben Tillinger Publicity Jason Campe Phoebe Liu Social Alma Bitran Sonali Durham Jacob Miller Stage Crew Eli Mennerick, Head Alma Bitran Gregory Llewellyn Sam Panner Ryan Zhou Graphic Design George Corsillo, Design Monsters
First Violin Vivian Mayers ’21, Leader Alex Goldberg ’22, Sub-Leader Serena Shapard ’20, Principal Oliver Leitner ’22 Sophie Luyten ’21 Allen Chun ’23 Julia de los Reyes ’23 Rina Kubota ’23 Nanki Chugh ’22 Julia Wang ’23 Samhitha Josyula ’23 Janet Hsu ’22 Jocelyn Ra ’22 Juwon Lee ’20 Adam Zhang ’23 Second Violin Aditya Chander GRD ’25, Principal Phoebe Liu ’22, Principal Soyoung Cho ’23 Jun-Davinci Choi ’23 Allison Chun ’21 Inés Chung-Halpern ’23 Formosa Deppman ’21 Epongue Ekille ’21 Dylan Fernandez de Lara ’23 Ava Gehlen-Williams ’23 Albert Gong ’23 Lea Kim ’23 Emma Mueller ’21 Sam Panner ’21 Christine Ramirez ’23 Stella Vujic ’22
Viola Brian Isaacs ’22, Principal Ryan Zhou ’22 Sub-Principal Lili Cerise ’22 Daniel Chabeda ’22 Jisoo Choi ’22 Sonali Durham ’20 Doyoung Jeong ’22 Sophia Lee ’23 Jacob Miller ’21 Gabrielle Sevillano ’22 Timothy White ’20 Grant Young ’20 Violoncello Henry Shapard ’20, Principal Alma Bitran ’21, Sub-Principal Jason Campe ’22 Anastasia Dalianis ’22 Francis Fedora ’23 Giacomo Glotzer ’22 Julia Hu ’22 Emery Kerekes ’21 Gregory Llewellyn ’23 Sungho Moon ’23 Daniel Yoo ’23
Contrabass Alice Zhao ’21, Principal Antonis Christou ’23 Sub-Principal Archer Frodyma ’22 Aedan Lombardo ’20 Spencer Parish ’20 Flute and Piccolo Jeremy Goldwasser ’21 Supriya Weiss ’23 Annie Zhao ’22 Oboe and English Horn Alec Chai ’22 Miranda Margulis-Ohnuma ’23 Laura Michael ’20 Clarinet Allison Chu ’23 Daniel Kim ’22 Richard Zhou ’22 Bassoon Dawson Thomas ’23 Maddy Tung ’21 Kenny Wang ’20
French Horn Mary Martin ’20, Co-Principal Benjamin Beckman ’23 Co-Principal Olivia Martinez MUS ’21 Kyle Thompson MUS ’21 Trumpet Ryan Petersberg GRD ’21, Co-Principal Aria Harris ’23, Co Principal James Brandfonbrener ’21 Daniel Chenevert ’21 Trombone Eli Mennerick ’21 J.T. Mullins ’23 Fernando Trejos Suarez ’22 Tuba Geo Barrios ’22 Harp Charlotte Murphy ’23 Annette Lee ’23 Piano Max Hammond ’23 George Hua ’22 Organ Max Salata ’23 Timpani and Percussion Alvin Chung ’21, Principal Nevin George ’23 Angelica Lorenzo ’23 Tristan Weaver ’22
About the Orchestra The Yale Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1965 by a group of students who saw the growing potential for a large orchestral ensemble to thrive on campus. The YSO provides a means for students to perform orchestral music at the conservatory level while taking advantage of all that Yale, a liberal-arts institution, has to offer. The YSO boasts an impressive number of alumni who have gone on to successful musical careers with: New York Philharmonic (Sharon Yamada, 1st violin), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Haldan Martinson, principal 2nd violin, and Owen Young, cello), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (David Howard, clarinet), the San Francisco Symphony (the late William Bennett, oboe), Philadelphia Orchestra (Jonathan Beiler, violin), Toronto Symphony (Harry Sargous, oboe, ret.) and the Israel Philharmonic (Miriam Hartman, viola); as well as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop; National Public Radio commentator Miles Hoffman; composers Michael Gore, Robert Beaser, Conrad Cummings, Stephen Paul Hartke, Robert Kyr, and more. Throughout its history the YSO has been committed to commissioning and performing new music. Notably, the YSO presented the European premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass in 1973, the world premiere of the definitive restoration of Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England, the U.S. premiere of Debussy’s Khamma, and the East Coast premiere of Benjamin Britten’s The Building of the House. The YSO programs orchestral works written by new and emerging composers, as well as lesserheard works by established and obscure composers. The full list of YSO
Photo by Karissa Van Tassel
premieres can be seen at https://yso.yalecollege.yale.edu/give-yso/premieres. The YSO has performed with internationally recognized soloists; including Yo-Yo Ma, Frederica von Stade, Emmanuel Ax, David Shifrin, Thomas Murray, and Idil Biret. Each year the YSO is proud to perform major solo concerti played by the student winners of the William Waite Concerto Competition. The YSO has performed at New York City’s Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In the past ten years, the YSO has toured domestically and internationally, including a 2010 tour of Turkey with acclaimed pianist Idil Biret. Ms. Biret rejoined the orchestra for a recording of Paul Hindemith’s piano concerti, which were released in 2013 on the Naxos label. Past tours have brought the orchestra to Portugal, Korea, Central Europe, Italy, and Brazil. The YSO completed its first tour of Russia in May of 2017. The full list of YSO tours can be seen at https://yso.yalecollege.yale.edu/history/touring. The YSO is famous for its legendary Halloween Show, a student-directed and -produced silent movie, performed around midnight in full costume. Long a Yale tradition, the Halloween Show sells out Woolsey Hall days in advance, and the production details and storyline remain closely guarded secrets until the night of performance. Recent cameo film appearances include James Franco, Woody Allen, Alanis Morisette, Rosa DeLauro, Jodie Foster and Jimmy Kimmel. The YSO music directors include Richmond Browne, John Mauceri, C. William Harwood, Robert Kapilow, Leif Bjaland, Alasdair Neale, David Stern, James Ross, James Sinclair, Shinik Hahm, George Rothman, and Toshiyuki Shimada. This year is William Boughton’s first year as Director, after serving as Interim Conductor for our 2018-19 season.
The Yale Symphony Orchestra would like to thank the following for their support: $5,000 or more The William Bray Fund for Music Yale Symphony Orchestra Director’s Resource Fund Dr. David Lobdell Wendy Sharp ’82 and Dean Takahashi ’80, ’83 SOM
$1,000—4,999 Anonymous Nancy Gutman Dr. Elizabeth Petri Henske ’81 B.A. Mr. Robert C. Henske ’81 B.S. Mr. Kenneth Richard Kato ’11 B.A. Dr. Robert L. Perkel, M.D. ’72 Mr. Feng Wang Mr. Ling Zhu
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Yichun Chung Prof. Lori Fisler Damrosch ’73 B.A., ’76 J.D. Mr. Thomas C. Duffy Prof. Edwin M. Duval ’71 M.Phil., ’73 Ph.D. Mr. Charles D. Ellis ’59 B.A., ’97 M.A.H. Mr. Phillip H. Falk ’10 B.A. Ms. Mayumi Fukui ’77 B.A., ’83 M.B.A. Mr. Paul J. Gacek ’67 B.A., ’70 Mus Ms. Pamela J. Gray ’74 B.A. Mr. Richard W. Hadsell, Ph.D ’71 M.Phil., ’75 Ph.D. Michel Jackson Mr. John W. Karrel ’75 Mr. Kevin G. Lawrence Jonathan Lewis Mr. Philip Henry Lima ’83 Mr. Daniel Lombardo Mrs. Maryanne Lombardo Ms. Linda Koch Lorimer ’77 J.D. Mr. Patrick P. McCreless ’98 M.A.H. Mr. Benjamin I. Nathans ’84 B.A. Ms. Isabel Padien O’Meara ’99 B.A. Carolee Rainey Donald Redmond Mr. Charles Michael Sharzer ’12 B.S. Mr. Justin Daniel Stilwell ’09 B.S. Mr. William McHenry Strom ’05 B.A. Ms. Victoria Yu-Than Su ’96 B.A. Ms. Meghan K. Titzer ’06 Vendini Mr. George Vosburgh Dr. Wenbin Xu Lawrence Young
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