Symposium of Contemporary Music, 2001

eJUinois OOesieyan 'fl;/nive'lSity p'lesents SYMPOSIUM OF

Guest Artists:

OOitiiam e7Jotcom composer

@joan (3lUot:t:ls mezzo-soprano

Sponsors:

School of Music Office of the President Delta Omicron Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Sigma Alpha Iota

ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

February 28 & March 1, 2001

Westbrook Auditorium

Q1jittiam @!JJotcom "One reason I'm involved with American popular song is that it exists close to the real choices that make us who we are .... I do realize one has to be what one is. In order to be universal, you have to be particular. Maybe there's a little nationalism in that." The scope of Bolcom's catalogue includes everything from ragtime, cabaret songs, theater scores to chamber and sym­ phonic works. Perhaps his most striking achievement has been the resurrec­ tion of 19rn- and early 20rn-century American popular forms, particularly ragtime. With his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, he has produced con­ certs and recordings of American parlour and vaudeville music as well as classics of America popular songs and music theater. As a piano soloist, accompanist (primarily to Ms. Joan Morris), and composer, Dr. Bolcom has recorded for Nonesuch, Deutsche Gramophone, RCA, CBS, MHS, Arabesque, Cala, Phillips, amongst many others.

Dr. Bolcom is the recipient of the 1988 Pulitzer prize in music. He has been commissioned by such organizations as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Bolcom's 1992 opera McTeague was the Lyric Opera of Chicago's first commission by an American composer. A View from the Bridge, a setting of Arthur Miller's famous play, is Bolcom's sec­ ond Chicago Lyric Opera commission - in a series of four - which pre­ miered in October 1999. Bolcom's most important work to date is his mon­ umental setting of the 46 poems in William Blake's Songs 0/Innocence and Experience. Taking twenty-five years to write, it is a work that concentrates most of Bolcom's Jesthetic and spiritual concerns, and has been performed both in Europe and the United States.

As a writer on musical subjects, Dr. Bolcom has published a number of articles in music magazines as well as The New Grove Dictionary 0/Music, a book about pianist/composer Eubie Blake, and an edition of essays by George Rochberg, The Aesthetics o/Survival: a Composer's View 0/20m-Century Music (University of Michigan Press). Dr. Bolcom has been admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and holds honorary doctorates from the San Francisco Conservatory and Albion College. He is currently the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Music at the University of Michigan.

@!Joan �O'l'li.s "Yes, she has that wonderful voice, clear as water; she has the diction that is

immaculate as it is pointed - but what makes her singing work is the way the clear stream of her voice throws back reflections of every gradation of human feeling; she comes at a song from within and thereby proves its worth ...." (The Boston Globe). Vocal coach and specialist in musical the­ ater, Joan Morris is one of the country's premiere performers of American popular song. With her accompanist husband, William Bolcom, she has recorded for numerous labels, including RCA, Columbia, Nonesuch, Omega, Albany, and Arabesque. Their latest CD, Moonlight Bay, features early 20TH-century songs. Other work features the music of Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Eubie Blake, George and Ira Gershwin, and Vincent Youmans, to name a few. Morris is also soloist on the New World recording of Bolcom's Fourth Symphony with the St. Louis Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

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With Bolcom, Ms. Morris has concertized throughout the United States, as well as in Florence, Lisbon, Istanbul, Cairo, and Moscow. Nominee for a Grammy Award for Best Vocal Soloist Performance on a Classical Performance, Morris has made numerous television appearances, including a Boston Pops concert, "The Dick Cavett Show," and "CBS Sunday Morning." Recent appearances include return engagements for Bolcom and Morris at Alice Tully/Lincoln Center, the Terrace Theater/Kennedy Center and Grace Rai Rodgers Hall/Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Bolcom and Morris have been in residence at Aspen, Tanglewood, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and Spoleto U.S.A. The summer of2000 marked their 27TH year of concertizing together.

Q4J.

0f)'lanktin �'lo.s.s

Franklin Gross is winner of Illinois Wesleyan University's first annual

High School Composer's Contest, which was held in celebration ofIWU's Sesquicentenial. He is a senior at Alexander Dreyfoos, Jr., School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, and has received four years of piano instruction privately from Harold Brown. In addition to his comprehensive studies with Mr. Brown he has traveled with him to New York and Europe for private instruction with Joseph Raieff of J�illiard, Vlado Perlemuter (Maurice Ravel's last living pupil), and Edith Pitcht-Axenfeld O.S. Bach

expert). He was honored to perform, privately, for Ivonne Loriod-Messiaen, wife of deceased composer Olivier Messiaen.

Mr. Gross' first place awards in composition include the Florida Federation of Music Clubs and the Florida State Music Teacher Association.

As a pianist he has recently performed at the Miami Festival of Discovery Exceptional Student Recital and with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony Orchestra.

� note 'b1:om the �1jmpo.sium crJo-�irecto1:.s Each year, as the part ofthe process of deciding on how to invite

a guest artist for the Symposium of Contemporary Music, all of the students and faculty of the School of Music have an opportunity to vote for their prefer. ences. It has been an exciting time for us as we again have been able to secure our first choice. William Bolcom is not only one of the most distin­ guished composers of our time, but a performer and intellectual as well.

Along with his wife, Joan Morris, he is known for his concertizing featuring the works of early American popular composers. His broad palette of com­ positional styles, ranging from the ragtime piano piece Ghost Rag to the large-scale symphonic work Songs ofInnocence and Experience, demonstrates his accessibility to the academy and the general public alike. It is a luxury and a privilege for our students and faculty to be able to interact with Prof.

Bolcom in an intimate and face-to-face setting. It is an opportunity which we invite the larger community to share. as

-Serra Hwang

While pursuing my doctorate at the University of Michigan, I spent a semester as a teaching assistant in William Bolcom's introductory composi­ tion course.' I will never forget the morning when the professor walked into class and talked to us about the Pulitzer Prize he had just been awarded; all of us felt that we were a part of history.

Studying with Bill affected me profoundly. He has an uncanny ability to detect formal or expressive imbalances in a piece of music and to suggest practical remedies. His fondness for popular as well as concert music, and his conviction that each of these two musical worlds benefits greatly from "talking to" the other, reinforced my own growing musical values and gave me a model to look up to. I also have many fond memories of Bill at parties,

entertaining us with stories or sitting down at the piano to play his own piano rags or the charming Brazilian parlor dances of Ernesto Nazareth.

Once at the graduate composition seminar, my fellow students and I had the rare treat of observing Bill, his mezzo-soprano wife Joan Morris, and lyricist Arnold Weinstein work together on refining several of Bill's Cabaret Songs; this was a rare window into creative collaboration among three world­ class artists. I admired Ms. Morris' lovely tone and highly-developed sense of pitch, and was completely blown away by the clarity of her diction, the finest of any vocalist I have ever heard. Years later I was to enjoy a Bolcom and Morris concert at the University of Illinois and a performance by the Seattle Symphony which featured Joan singing the solo part in Bill's Fourth Symphony. Like her husband, Ms. Morris is equally at home in concert and popular music. Both personally and artistically they are-a match made in heaven, and it is a privilege and a pleasure to welcome them to campus this week.

-DavidVayo

Wednesday, February 28, 7:30

PM

PANEL DISCUSSION

Q1)oc(),s an() (§lJtu,sic:

THE COMPOSER'S ApPROACH TO TEXT SETTING Willliam Bolcom Robert Bray, R. Forest Colwell Professor of English Jared Brown, Professor of Theatre Arts Joy Calico, Assistant Professor of Music Hallie Coppedge, Adjunct Instructor of Music DavidVayo, Professor of Music, moderator

�ollowing the panel discussion, the audience is invited to a reception in the Presser Hall reception room, sponsored by Delta Omicron.

Thursday, March

1,

4:00

PM

�oice (§lJtastec crgta,s,s: FEATURING JOAN MORRIS

Lerner & Loewe from Camelot Where are the Simple Joys of Maidenhood Julie Morrison; Marcia Hishman, piano

from He Loves Me Ice Cream

Bock & Harnick

Penny Hansen; Maxie Scifres, piano Irvin Berlin

Harlem on my mind

Kristin Stewart; Marcia Hishman, piano from Camelot If Ever I would Leave You Scott Moreau; Maxie Scifres, piano More than you know

Julie Peterson; Maxie Scifres, piano

Lerner & Loewe

Vincent Youmans

Thursday, March

1,

7:30

PM

�usic 06 Q1Jittiam e7Jotcom Raggin' Rudy ( 1972) The Graceful Ghost ( 1970)

Prof. Todd Tucker, piano Comments by Dr. Bolcom

from Cabaret Songs (1984) At the Last Moments of Love Vaslav's Song ( 199 1)

Natalie Berg, mezzo-soprano Prof. Abram Plum, piano from Book VI of 12 New Etudes for Piano ( 1986) Ver Ie silence Anthony Brent, Piano from Book VI of 12 New Etudes for Piano Hi-jinks Sara Hoffee, Piano from Cabaret ( 1978) Song of Black Max (As Told by the de Kooning Boys) Prof. Robert Mangialardi, baritone Prof. Abram Plum, piano Dream Music No 2 ( 1966)

Prof. Shawn Neely, percussion Jimi Tarnowski, percussion Michael Hart, Percussion Steve Kallstrom, Harpsichord

pause

-

-

Nocturnes of Yo uth

(2000)

Franklin Gro ss

Andante con moto Cantabile Semplice Pastorale and Fantasy Ostinato

(2000)

Franklin Gro ss

W. Franklin Gross, piano

Winner of the Illnois Wesleyan University Higli School Composer's Contest 2000 from Cabaret So ngs ( 1978) Waitin Rodney Arnett, baritone Sean Parsons, piano from Cabaret So ngs ( 1984) Miracle Song Nathan Bramsted, baritone Maxie Scifres, piano Broadside for Band ( 198 1)

I. II. III. IV.

Ceremonial March The Tall Ships (Sea Chantey) Holiday Afternoon Fireworks

Illinois Wesleyan Wind Ensemble Prof. Steve W. Eggleston, conductor

0!fj:ollowing the concert, the audience is invited to a reception in the Presser Hall reception room, sponsored by

lp

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Phi Mu A ha and Sigma A ha Iota.

At The Last Lousy Moments of Love

At the last lousy moments of love he wanted to tell me the truth. At the last writhing rotten moments of love he wanted to tell me the truth about me, of course. Thanks, I'll need this. At the last lousy moments of love, he wanted to tell me that I wasn't doing too well. I was eating and drinking and talking too much. He wanted to tell me as a friend at the end, of those last lousy moments of love. He wanted to tell me he was leaving, he'd waited too long to tell me that I was self-righteous even when I wasn't wrong, and spoke about friendship, 'till our friends gave me up as a friend for the season, for which reason he wanted to tell me this truth. He wanted to tell me these things, as a friend, he wanted to tell me, but he didn't in the end. At those last lousy moments of love he said it all, with his body to my best friend.

- Arnold Weinstein Miracle Song

This is a miracle not the miracle of birth but the miracle of death neglecting to remind us the yonder, the nearby yonder. So many deaths come across the desk fret and weep, weep and fret and yet forget. Death in the paper, death on the phone, death across a crowded closet, death on the street every third friend you meet: "Hello, so what else is dead?"

My idea of a miracle is not getting into it, death, obituaries lapped up with the morning coffee.

Death in the evening song.

Game show Death! And the question "why wuz you born?" We wuz born to die!

Right again! And every breath a pack with death, hal A miracle! A fact. The news of the day.

- Arnold Weinstein Song of Black Max (As Told by the de Kooning Boys)

He was always dressed in black, long black jacket, broad black hat, sometimes a cape, and as thin, and as thin as rubber tape: Black Max. He would raise that big black hat to the big shots of the town who raised their hats right back, never knew they were bowing to Black Max. I'm talking about night in Rotterdam when the right night people of all

the town would find what they could in the night neighborhood of Black Max. They were women in windows with bodies for sale, dressed in curls like little girls in little dollhouse jails. When the women walked the street with the beds up on their backs, who was lifting up his brim to them? Black Max! And there were looks for sale, the air of the smile, only certain people walked that mystery mile: artists, charlatans, vaude­ villians, men of mathematics, acrobatics and civilians. There was knit­ ting needle music from a lady organ grinder with all her sons behind her, Marco, V ito, Benno (Was he strong! though he walked like a woman) and Carlo, who was five. He must be still alive! Ah poor Marco had the syph, and if you didn't take the terrible cure those days you went crazy and died and he did. And at the coffin before they closed the lid, who raised his lid? Black Max. I was climbing on the train one day going far away to the good old U.S.A. when I heard some music under­ neath the tracks. Standing there beneath the bridge, long black jacket, broad black hat, playing the harmonica, one hand free to lift that hat to me: Black Max, Black Max, Black Max. - Arnold Weinstein Waitin

Waitin waitin I've been waitin waitin waitin all my life. That light keeps on hiding from me, but it some-day jut might bless my sight. Waitin Waitin Waitin.

- Arnold Weinstein Vaslav's Song

Dasvedanya, Mama my lover and my friend. I'll cherish your sweet memory until I reach the end of this strange life I'm leading I know I've been a beast but when I'm gone it's famine, and when I'm here it's feast (ha-ha). You nursed me as a baby, you cursed me as a child. Now I'm grown up no more a pup ...so of course I turned out wild. Dasvedanya, Mama, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. If by accident I think of you, well maybe then I'll cry (ha-ha). Dasvedanya, Mama.

---' Ethyl Eichelberger

OtJinfJ @nsemole SPRING

2001

Steven W Eggleston, Director FLUTE/PICCOLO

HORN

Kate Rogers

Laura Wsol*

Kate Weber

Betsy Frick

Laura Flannery

Alexis Webb

Jenny Jobb

Cameron Sullivan

Allison Harris-piccolo OBOE/ENGLISH HORN

TRUMPET

Fernando Carrillo*

Amy McCabe*

Julia Horeled

Brett Dean Jonathan Pfeiffer

BASSOON

REN MATHEW

Ryan Caldwell*

Jenny Olson

.

Dianna Hammer TROMBONE CLARINET

J ENNIFER TUTTLE*

Sara Evans

Shannon White

Jen Marshall

Christopher Davis-bass

Katie Pilson Nazli Yetgen

EUPHONIUM

Laura Wieland

Lisa Morgan*

Kim Workman TUBA BASS CLARINET

J USTIN BOLLER*

Maury Beelman

Paul Nesper

SAXOPHONE

PERCUSSION

Andrew Stott*-alto Amanda Raber-alto Mike Walton-tenor Chris Calvert-baritone

Michael Hart* Brendan McCormick Jimi Tarnowski Katie Wehr Kris Goergen

*

DENOTES PRINCIPAL

eymposium 06 �ontemp01;a1:y &lUusic Guest Composers

•

Performers

•

Scholars

1954-2001 1954:

Normand Lockwood, Robert Palmer

1955: Wallingford Riegger, Peter Mennin 1956:

Hunter Johnson, Ulysses Kay

1957:

Ernst Krenek, William Bergsma

1958: Aaron Copland 1959:

Paul Pisk, George Rochberg

1960:

Roy Harris

1962:

Robert Erickson, George Rochberg, Glenn Glasow

1963: 1964:

1966:

1967:

Robert Wykes, Alabama String Quartet Robert Wykes, E. J. Ulrich, Salvatore Martirano, Herbert Brlin, Ben Johnston Louis Coyner, Edwin Harkins, Philip Winsor, Edwin London Frederick Tillis, George Crumb

1974:

Scott Huston

1975:

David Ward-Steinman

1976:

Donald Erb

1977:

Lou Harrison, Ezra Sims

1978:

M. William Karlins

1979:

Leonard B. Meyer

1981:

Walter S. Hartley

1982:

David Ward-Steinman

1983:

George Crumb Concert

1984:

Robert Bankert, Abram M. Plum, R. Bedford Watkins

1985:

Michael Schelle

1986:

Jean Eichelberger lvey

1987:

Jan Bach

1988:

John Beall

1989:

Hale Smith

1990:

Karel Husa

1991:

Alice Parker

1993:

(Spring) Alexander Aslamazov (Fall) Leslie Bassett,

1993:

John Crawford (Society of Composers, Inc. Region 5 Conference) 1995:

David Diamond

1996:

Morton Gould Memorial Concert Joseph Schwantner

1968:

lain Hamilton

1969:

The Loop Group, DePaul University

1997:

1970:

Halim El-Dabh, Oily Wilson

1998:

Arvo Part

1999:

John Corigliano

1971 :

Edward J. Miller

1972:

Stravinsky Memorial Concert

1973:

Courtney Cox, Phil Wilson

2000:

Libby Larsen

2001:

William Bolcom, Joan Morris