eighth blackbird February 7, 2015
Studio Event February 7, 2015
eighth blackbird
Thanks to the following contributors for their support of the 2014-15 Season
Bryce Dessner: Murder Ballades 1. Omie Wise—Young Emily 2. Wave the Sea—Brushy Fork
Lisa Kaplan: whirligig 1. off-kilter 2. merry-go-round 3. boogie-woogie
Various: Songs of love and loss Peg & Rick Young Foundation
1. Richard Parry: Duo for Heart and Breath (2012)— 2. Claudio Monteverdi: Lamento della ninfa (1638, arr. Tim Munro)— 3. Carlo Gesualdo: Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (1611, arr. Tim Munro)— 4. Bon Iver: Babys (2009, arr. Lisa Kaplan)
Intermission Gabriella Smith: Number Nine Tom Johnson: Counting Duets and György Ligeti: Études 1. Counting Duet No. 1 — Étude No. 4: Fanfares (arr. Kaplan) 2. Counting Duet No. 2 — Étude No. 11: En Suspens (arr. Munro) 206-543-4880 uwworldseries.org
3. Counting Duet No. 3 — Étude No. 12: Entrelacs (arr. Kaplan) 4. Counting Duet No. 4 — Étude No. 6: Automne à Varsovie (arr. Munro) encore artsseattle.com A-3
About the Program Murder Ballades (2013) Bryce Dessner The composer writes: When eighth blackbird asked me for a piece, I immediately knew what to do: let great American folk music inspire a great American new music ensemble. The "murder ballad" has its roots in a European tradition, in which grisly details of bloody homicides are recounted through song. When this tradition came to America, it developed its own vernacular, with stories and songs being told and re-told over the generations. In Murder Ballades I re-examine several of these old songs, allowing them to inspire my own music. Omie Wise and Young Emily are classic murder ballads, tales of romanticallycharged killings that are based on real events. Brushy Fork is a Civil War era murder ballad/ fiddle tune, and Wave the Sea is an original composition woven out of the depths of the many months I spent inhabiting the seductive music and violent stories of these murder ballads. Murder Ballades was commissioned by eighth blackbird and Lunapark and funded by The Doelen Concert Hall, Rotterdam, Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, and Muziekgebouw Frits Philips, Eindhoven, with the A-4 UW WORLD SERIES
financial support of The Van Beinum Foundation, The Netherlands, with additional support from Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. whirligig (2013) Lisa Kaplan whirligig noun 1 a toy that spins around, for example, a top or a pinwheel. Another term for merry-go-round 2 a thing regarded as hectic or constantly changing : the whirligig of time. 3 a small black predatory beetle that swims rapidly in circles on the surface of still or slow-moving water and dives when alarmed. The composer writes: I only like to play four hands piano with people I really like. This genre, with two players at one keyboard, should make you laugh and curse, and delight in invading each other’s space. (Otherwise, what's the point? You might as well be playing on two separate instruments!) Composer/performer Nico Muhly and I wanted a fourhands piece to play together and, rather than find an existing work, he dared me to write something. That dare was an inspiration. whirligig is all about getting up in each other’s business and relishing it. The first movement, off-kilter, is my tribute to Nico and his spunky, vibrant and amazingly animated personality.
merry-go-round is both silly wordplay and a homage to one of my favorite people. The third movement is an odd-metered boogie-woogie that was stuck in my head the whole time I was writing whirligig, and I thought it would be great fun to play. Songs of love and loss Various The wild vagaries of the heart unite these four Songs of love and loss. Richard Parry (of indie band Arcade Fire) connects the rhythms of the physical body to the rhythms of the musical performance in Duo for Heart and Breath. Musicians wear stethoscopes, which enable them to play in synch with their own heartbeats. At other times, players are in synch with their own individual breathing. According to the composer, "The idea is less about 'performing' and more about directly translating into music the subtle, naturally varying internal rhythms of the individual players." Two italian madrigalists sing keening laments of love and loss. Claudio Monteverdi's Lamento della ninfa sighs in waves of resignation, anger and hope: "I want him back, just as he was, if not, then kill me...love mixes fire and ice," sings the solo soprano (re-cast as viola) while three tenors (flute, clarinet, cello) rock her to sleep: "poor woman, poor woman." Carlo Gesualdo's lament, Moro, lasso (originally written for small vocal ensemble), is altogether darker, bleaker, as a lover sinks into the dissonant, chromatic mire: "I die in my
suffering, and she who could give me life allows me to die." Bon Iver's anthem, Babys, shines welcome light: Summer comes to multiply, and I'm the carnival of peace I'll probably start a fleet with no apologies And the carnival of scenes, it grows more and more appealing But my woman and I know what we're for. Number Nine (2013) Gabriella Smith The composer writes: Number Nine is inspired by the Beatles’ "Revolution 9," their collage-like, musique-concrèteinspired, aural depiction of a revolution, positioned at the climactic point of The White Album. Inspired by the looped phrase “number nine,” “number nine,” “number nine,” etc. at the beginning of the Beatles’ song, I began my Number Nine with an instrumental version of that repeated phrase, and the rest of the piece evolves from its rhythmic and pitch contour. I also incorporated many other Revolution 9 references, weaving their collage fragments into Number Nine’s continuously evolving arc. Number Nine was commissioned by percussionist Ted Babcock for his program Machine in the Garden and premiered in January 2014 at the Curtis Institute of Music.
Gabriella Smith (b. 1991) is a composer from the San Francisco Bay Area who currently attends Princeton University where she is a Naumberg and Roger Sessions doctoral fellow. Her current commissions include new works for the 2014 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the New York Virtuoso Singers, and Gabriel Cabezas. Gabriella’s music has been performed throughout the United States and internationally (in China, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey) by PRISM Quartet, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Azure Ensemble, Berkeley Symphony, Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Classical Revolution, Contemporaneous, Dinosaur Annex, Ensemble39, Friction Quartet, Monadnock Music, and Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. She received her B.M. from The Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with David Ludwig, Jennifer Higdon, and Richard Danielpour.
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Welcoming Cyndia Sieden to the UW Music faculty
UW Chamber Orchestra with Cyndia Sieden, soprano
Works by Mozart (Stephen Stubbs, conductor) and Haydn (David Alexander Rahbee, conductor) 7:30 pm Meany Theater
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Faculty Concert: Marc Seales
The pianist and guests play American music—jazz blues, gospel, and more 7:30 pm Meany Theater
Before beginning her studies at Curtis, Gabriella performed as a violinist in the Superdelegates (an improv avantgarde classical/blues string quartet), the Formerly Known as Classical new music ensemble, and the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra. She currently sings in the Princeton University Georgian Choir. When she is not making music, she enjoys backpacking, birding, homebrewing, dancing Argentine tango, and working on her backyard farm in Northern California with her six chickens.
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Welcoming Cristina Valdés to the UW Music faculty
Music of Today
Robert Platz: Branenwelten 6, for piano and electronics (Cristina Valdés, piano); New work by UW student composer Marcin Pączkowski; Improv Orchestra (Greg Sinibaldi, conductor) 7:30 pm Meany Theater
MOre At: www.MusIc.wAshIngtOn.edu Artsuw tIcket OffIce: 206.543.4880
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Counting Duets (1982) Tom Johnson and Études (1985-94) György Ligeti Tom Johnson's (b. 1939, Colorado) obsessions are with simple forms, limited scales and reduced materials, but this dry and dour-sounding list doesn't capture the light, satirical nature of many of his best-known works. Narayana's Cows is a musical translation of the work of a 14th century Indian mathematician, Narayana. The text begins, "A cow produces one calf every year. Beginning in its fourth year, each calf produces one calf at the beginning of each year. How many cows and calves are there altogether after 20 years?" Failing: a very difficult piece for solo string bass challenges a bassist to give live commentary on the difficulties of playing this "very difficult piece." Johnson writes: "Soldiers count the cadence as they march; agricultural surveyors count blades of grass; farmers count sheep; astronomers counts galaxies; lab technicians counts red blood cells; we all count money. The formalistic, religious, arithmetic, psychological, linguistic, and musical implications of counting interest me a great deal, and since I have a special love for patterns and numbers anyway, I have focussed much of my work in this direction. There must be countless ways of counting. And come to think of it, "countlessness" is another fascinating subject. Or is it the same subject?" Born in Romania and trained in Hungary, György Ligeti (1923-2006) A-6 UW WORLD SERIES
fled post-war communism at the age of 30. Ligeti's solo piano Études reflect the radically varied musical passions of the composer's later years: the music of sub-Saharan African cultures; the complex wildness of Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano; the harmonic freedom of Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans; and the keyboard music of Scarlatti, Chopin, Schumann and Debussy. Fanfares spins wildly around the instruments, flinging scale-like patterns (derived from Middle Eastern music) against irregular, fanfare-like flourishes. Two musical worlds float simultaneously through the calm skies of En Suspens ("suspended"): a soft, nostalgic waltz, and a darker, more impersonal tolling bell. Entrelacs, named for an intricate Celtic decorative pattern, spins layer upon layer upon layer of interlaced, complex musical ribbon around the listener. Automne à Varsovie ("Autumn in Warsaw") sings an anxious, uncomfortable, rage-filled lament for the people of Poland, who suffered under the brutally oppressive communist regime of the 1980s. About the Artists eighth blackbird slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.) 1. verb. to act with commitment and virtuosity; to zap, zip, sock. 2. adjective. having fearless (yet irreverent) qualities. 3. noun. a flock of songbirds, common in urban areas since 1996.
Tim Munro, flutes Michael J. Maccaferri, clarinets Yvonne Lam, violin & viola Nicholas Photinos, cello Doug Perkins, percussion Lisa Kaplan, piano eighth blackbird combines the finesse of a string quartet, the energy of a rock band and the audacity of a storefront theater company. The Chicago-based, three-time Grammy-winning “supermusicians” (LA Times) entertain and provoke audiences across the country and around the world. Colombine’s Paradise Theatre is eighth blackbird’s new staged, memorized production hailed as a “tour de force” by The Washington Post. Composer Amy Beth Kirsten challenges the sextet to play, speak, sing, whisper, growl and mime, breathing life into this tale of dream and delusion. The season kicks off with a performance at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art followed by a season-opening performance at The Miller Theater in New York. The 2014-15 season’s acoustic program, "Still in Motion," features new works by The National’s Bryce Dessner (the folkinspired Murder Ballades), Lee Hyla, Sean Griffin and rising star Gabriella Smith. eighth blackbird brings this show to Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, Washington, and sunny Hawaii. Other highlights include the premiere of Hand Eye, a new work for eighth blackbird by the superstar composer collective Sleeping Giant, our debut at Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with LA Dance Project,
and a New Orleans-inspired romp with special guest singer-songwriteraccordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman at Symphony Space in New York. To top it off, the group will conduct guest residencies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and a multi-visit residency at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. eighth blackbird holds ongoing Ensemble in Residence positions at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Richmond, and University of Chicago. A decade-long relationship with Chicago’s Cedille Records has produced six acclaimed recordings. The ensemble has won three Grammy Awards, for the recordings strange imaginary animals, Lonely Motel: Music from Slide and Meanwhile. eighth blackbird’s members hail from America’s Great Lakes, Keystone, Golden and Bay states, and Australia’s Sunshine State. There are four foodies, three beer snobs and one exercise junkie. The name “eighth blackbird” derives from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens’s evocative, aphoristic poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1917). eighth blackbird is managed by David Lieberman Artists. eighth blackbird is ensemble in residence with Contempo. Michael Maccaferri is a Rico Performing Artist and Clinician. Doug Perkins endorses Black Swamp Percussion, Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments, Vic Firth Sitcks and Mallets, and Zildjian Cymbals. Lisa Kaplan is a Steinway Artist. www.eighthblackbird.org
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ROBIN McCABE AROUND ROBIN
Pianist Robin McCabe performs Ravel’s Miroirs, then is joined by students from her UW studio for arrangements of Bizet’s Carmen Fantasy and John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, among other works arranged for eight hands, two pianos.
Mon. Mar. 2, 2015 7:30 pm Meany Theater $20 ($12 students/seniors)
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