Constellation Men’s Ensemble Tour 2024

NOVA IV: house & home Sunday, June 20, 2021 5 p.m. CST If home is where the heart is, what becomes of heart without a home?

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PROGRAM please hold applause until the marked program breaks

cardinal directions I. north

Alex Berko (b. 1995)

Song of Sea & Sky: A Song of Realization I. At Every Instant

Paul John Rudoi (b. 1985)

II.

south

Berko

II. III.

The Infinite Dwelling Two Falling Stars

Rudoi

III.

east

Berko

IV.

As One Sky

Rudoi

IV.

west

Berko _____________

The Smell of Matches ** I. Spiritual II. You Round the Bend III. Talking to the Family IV. Seeing Double After Eye Surgery V. Losing a Voice in Summer VI. The Girl in the Hall VII. Autopsy in the Form of an Elegy

Adam B. Silverman (b. 1973)

INTERMISSION **denotes world premiere

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Man Up / Man Down

Robert Maggio (b. 1964)

I.

Skate Park Guy 1

II.

All the Silences

III.

Interlude I: Manhood in the 21st Century

IV.

Skate Park Guy 2

V.

Jet

VI.

Interlude II: Refrains and Misconceptions

VII.

Skate Park Guy 3

VIII.

Flower Beds

IX.

Interlude III: A Life Just Life Their Fathers

X.

Skate Park Guy 4

XI.

West Point

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ARTISTS Russell Pinzino James Judd Ryan Townsend Strand Matthew Cummings Pete Wesoloski Matthew Cramer Ian Prichard

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TEXTS north - Rūta Kuzmickas one nation, fatherland, semi-visible, mythology and artifice for all At every instant - Rumi At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love: We are going to sky, who wants to come with us?

We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels, And now we will go back there, for there is our country.

We are higher than heaven, more noble than the angels: Why not go beyond them? Our goal is the Supreme Majesty.

What has the fine pearl to do with the world of dust?

Why have you come down here? Take your baggage back. What is this place? Luck is with us, to us is the sacrifice!

Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean - the ocean of the soul. Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean - the ocean of the soul. How could this bird, born of that sea, make his dwelling here?

No, we are the pearls from the bosom of the sea, it is there that we dwell: Otherwise how could the wave succeed to the wave that comes from the soul? south - Rūta Kuzmickas lone star, would I were steadfast as a merle of sleepless birds amassing on the power lines above west alabama street and flocking, with eternal beaks ajar, shepherds for floods to allocate us temporary shores.

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The infinite dwelling - Kabir The infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in earth, water, sky, and air.

Two falling stars - Hafiz Let us be like Two falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty As we hold hands with God And burn Into a sacred existence that defies - That surpasses Every description of ecstasy And love. east - Rūta Kuzmickas while we slept, the sea resumed its melancholy drone, and wept; sisters of phaethon; tarrying vour amber tears to posit in the dusk like resin amulets of grief laid out to mend my hyperborean blue heart As One Sky: text from “the inward and the outward” - Kabir Oh my heart! Wake, oh wake!

The moon is within me, and so is the sun.

The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite and the finite are united.

The hills and the sea and the earth.

The days and the nights.

The rising and the set-ting of the sun.

The oceans and the unnumbered stars.

The limit and the limitless.

The body and the mind.

The beginning, the middle, and the end.

The conscious and the unconscious.

Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has the mind made a swing: constellationensemble.org

Thereon hang all beings and all worlds, and that swing never ceases its sway. Millions of beings are there: The sun and the moon in their courses are there. Millions of ages pass, and the swing goes on.

All swing! The sky and the earth and the air and the water.

O brother! He who has seen that radiance of love, he is saved: There the sky is filled with music.

Day and night, the chorus of music fills the heavens: The light of the sun, the moon, and the stars shines bright. The melody of love swells forth.

west - Rūta Kuzmickas this land was made for golden spines of sandstone, every water drop a talisman, each curve of wind a chisel sent to document the hours thirst prolonged, the fractured earth unpolished vagrant dust set out to calcify a home within the knuckles of my hands

Spiritual Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land.

Tell old Pharoah: Let my people go.

Before the defibrillator Before lidocaine monitors before intensive care

My father used to sing that refrain in the shower.

nurses.

They put him in an oxygen tent

in Jackson Mississippi in 1954.

They made the diagnosis just for show They hoped the best for him.

The year he finally got out of Egypt he was 45 years old.

We let him go.

He died before coronary care constellationensemble.org

You Round the Bend You round the bend of the expressway just at dusk there is something in the road as you hurtle toward it all you know is that you want it not to be something that ever had the possibility of loving because whatever it is it's dead And it's unavoidably under your wheels It's a rolled-up carpet, just

Talking to the Family My white coat waits in the corner like a father.

I will wear it to meet the sister in her white shoes and organza dress in the live of winter, the milkless husband holding the baby.

I will tell them.

They will put it together and take it apart.

Their voices will buzz.

The cut ends of their nerves will curl.

I will take off the coat, drive home. and replace the light bulb in the hall.

a carpet, old and worn You drive on, taking in and letting out a sigh because you know that such a circumstance can be complicated and you are glad this once that it isn't.

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Seeing Double After Eye Surgery Neither eye nor brain is fooled by ruses

almost hear it

Such is their love their work together

as if you had let it go out of the corner of your mouth like a ventriloquist without a dummy.

that what is false is false to both

I have no recording

Until they move in perfect tether

otherwise I would play you in the shower, repeat you off the porch

they act upon a common oath:

from the cat-walk of the glass factory have you sing Go Down Moses over and over and

In their art they are the Muses by which our vision, should it not fuse.

tonight with the reluctant sentence deep in my head at the hoarsest hour, dumb and laryngitic and alone

chooses.

Losing a Voice in Summer How many parts rumble it was how much gravel dark, light I don't remember

I first understood how completely I have lost your voice, father, along with my own.

and it won't echo for me from the shower stall though sometimes off the porch calling my own sons for supper I can almost

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The Girl in the Hall with the Mickey Mouse watch tells me the time

He clutches the giant hands Like Harold Lloyd holding on At half past five While the cars line up below him.

without knowing that have come us the stairs from a crushed leg scared eyes

The expressway roars outside

and the stump blood bandages

She has her clocks.

He, his.

I, mine.

She asks.

I saw I’m fine.

the bones of the stretcher he is gradually getting used to the fact of no leg below the knee no toes to wiggle though they move still in his mind's foot

Autopsy in the Form of an Elegy In the chest in the heart was the vessel was the pulse was the art. was the love

with remembers now only the crane coming down on it.

She glances at her wrist.

In his head's watch In the middle of morphine

was the clot small and slow and the scar that could not know the rest of you was very nearly perfect.

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Man Up / Man Down 1. Skate Park Guy 1 (Michael Kimmel) Imagine a skate park in Long Beach, and it's about seven at night, it's just getting dark and everybody's gone home except this one lone guy wearing a flannel shirt tied around his waist, kind of stringy, oily hair and acne, he's about fifteen.

He's the kid that gets bullied in school, he has no friends, he's gonna go home, have a quick dinner, and then go down to the basement and play video games all night, blowing up the rest of the world That's his daily routine.

2. All the Silences (Rachel Girty) Sad preacher, cowboy with a frozen look.

I remember a professor nostalgic for the days of high camp and the closet.

I think of my ancestors, of the word inheritance.

I think of masculinity and go back to my Catholic school Latin class.

Virtue. Honor.

I think of video game heroes, how silent, how impossible they are.

I think of Humphrey Bogart's stare.

A terrible power, a terrible responsibility, but only in the movies do these little moments make sense All the silences.

How it feels to be shaped by hardness, to have to grow to fit its shape 3. Interlude I: Manhood in the 21st Century (Various) I should use my platform as the dominant gender to uplift and support the movements of marginalized groups: constellationensemble.org

feminism, Black Lives Matter, anti-racism I am confident in myself and my sexuality.

I am emotionally mature.

I respect boundaries.

I challenge gender roles I am authentically myself.

I am allowed to cry.

I can be a caretaker.

I can be a homemaker.

I can be a high-heeled, tattooed, glitter bombed, wig wearing, defiance of Dads gone-by.

4. Skate Park Guy 2 (Kimmel) And into the skater park come these guys who are like awesome and scary.

And they start talking to him, "Hey, how you doing, what's up?"

And by the end of the conversation they say, "You should hang with us.

You're really cool.

You should hang with us.

We have awesome parties.

You should hang with us.

Everybody gets really drunk, It's really fun, and there's girls, and then, after everybody's drunk and stuff, we all take painkillers and we go out in the streets and we look for immigrant groups and we have fights with them.

It's fantastic.

Dude, you should definitely come with us."

5. Jet (Tony Hoagland) Sometimes I wish I were still out on the back porch, drinking jet fuel with the boys, getting louder and louder as the empty cans drop out of our paws like booster rockets falling back to Earth constellationensemble.org

and we soar up into the summer stars.

Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead, bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish and old space suits with skeletons inside.

On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness, and it is good, a way of letting life out of the box, uncapping the bottle to let the effervescence gush through the narrow, usually constricted neck.

And now the crickets plug in their appliances in unison, and then the fireflies flash dots and dashes in the grass, like punctuation for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex someone is telling in the dark, though no one really hears. We gaze into the night as if remembering the bright unbroken planet we once came from, to which we will never be permitted to return.

We are amazed how hurt we are.

We would give anything for what we have.

6. Interlude I: Refrains & Misconceptions (Various) I should man up.

I should be stoic.

I should be strong.

I should be a protector.

I should be big and brave.

I should be competent.

I should have it all together.

I should pretend I don't need any help.

I should be able to do it on my own.

I should be able to deal with everything on my own.

I should be able to handle anything.

I should be a great lover.

I shouldn't express affection.

I should have an insatiable appetite for sex.

I shouldn't be emotional. constellationensemble.org

I should have sex, money and power.

I shouldn't be weak.

I shouldn't break down.

I shouldn't cry.

Emotions are scary, weak, and problematic.

I am ashamed about being seen doing therapy.

The thought of going to therapy and crying with another person is scary.

I am going to try other solutions first: isolation, substance use, aggression.

We all cheat.

We all want sex.

We are only nice to you so we can sleep with you.

We can't express our feelings.

We have no feelings.

We are the opposite of women.

We cannot handle successful women.

We are mama's boys.

We have it easy.

We don't experience pressure.

We love fixing things.

We are sloppy.

We live for sports.

We like violence.

7. Skate Park Guy 3 (Kimmel) So he goes with them, he goes to parties, they go fight, they do all these things, and they're telling him, "'You're one of us, you're a pal, you're a comrade."

And so what he gets, at that moment, has nothing to do with ideology.

They haven't even talked about it yet.

They talk about how he's a cool dude, how he hangs out with the guys, how he's one of them, he's part of the family, constellationensemble.org

he feels completely a sense of connection, community, camaraderie 8. Flower Beds (Jericho Brown) I come from a family where generation after generation, we, for the sake of beauty, tended our houses, our land, our lawns, our flower beds. There were gardens in the backyard where you grew greens, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes, but in the front yard, you had a flower bed for no reason other than the fact that it was beautiful. Those are the kinds of things we don’t know or see about each other, particularly when we think about Black men.

That’s who my dad was. He was also a lot of awful, but I have to remember that he taught me that. I can share that feeling with him now because I have a yard; I didn’t understand it before. I remember turning the corner to our house when I was a kid, entering the driveway, and hearing him say, “Ooh that’s pretty.” I got to see something in him that isn’t what people automatically think about him when they simply think of his image.

This is why I’m interested in this thing called masculinity. I’m interested in the fact that it could exist, but in our minds, in our perceptions, we keep leaving stuff out of it. People have to fall in love. People have to take care of their kids. I want to make sure men know it’s possible for them to have feelings and that those feelings are okay to have. I think our world would have us believe they’re not okay to have.

9. Interlude lIl: A life just like their fathers' (Kimmel) "I will work my ass off at a job that I hate for a boss that I hate, who's an idiot, but I will work hard, I will pay my taxes.

And in return for that, like my daddy before me and my grandfather before him, I will be able to support a family by myself, and I will be able to buy a house by myself."

So this is the bargain they feel like they wanted, and it's gone; they can't do it. constellationensemble.org

And they feel like they've been betrayed.

And now they have to talk about gender-neutral bathrooms?

And now they have to talk about same-sex marriage?

Their heads are exploding.

It's not that they're against these reforms; they're completely bewildered.

They don't know what to do I think we do ourselves a great disservice if we don't pay attention, not to the opposition but to the anguish that comes from being so bewildered by the extent and the rapidity of this change.

If we don't pay attention to that, we will lose them.

10. Skate Park Guy 4 (Kimmel) And they say, "You're a real man, you're awesome.

And then, and only then, do they start saying, "You have a sacred mission.

You have to preserve the white race.

You, as a man, have to do this.

You have to preserve the white race.

We have to do this together.

You're one of us, you're a pal, you're a comrade."

11. West Point (Kimmel) (Hail, Alma Mater, dear!

To us be ever near…)

I was at West Point, an auditorium full of cadets, (Help us thy motto bear, Thru all the years.) and I asked them, "What does it mean to be a good man? constellationensemble.org

(Let Duty be well performed.

Honor be e'er untarn'd.)

You wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror, and you say to yourself, 'You're a good man.

(Country be ever armed, West Point, by thee!)

You're a good man.

What does that mean?"

Here's what they said (now this is West Point): "Honor, duty, integrity, sacrifice, do the right thing, stand up for the little guy, be a provider, be a protector. l asked, "Where did you learn that?"

And they said, "Well, it's everywhere.

It's our culture, it's Homeric, it's Shakespearean, it's the Judeo-Christian heritage.

"So, that's what it means to be a good man. tell me if those show up for you when I say this: 'Man up, be a real man.'"

"Oh no, that's completely different.

And they said, "Tough, strong, never show weakness, win at all costs, suck it up, play through pain, be competitive, get rich, get laid.

I said. "Where did you learn that?"

And they said, in order, "My father, my coach, my guy friends, my older brother."

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BIOS Alex Berko ​

Fascinated by the art of storytelling and capturing human expression, the music of American composer/pianist Alex Berko (b. 1995) has been performed by Monterey Symphony, Cape Symphony, Bloomington Symphony, The Crossing, NOTUS Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, and the Boston New Music Initiative among many others.

His music has received national recognition from ASCAP/SCI, ACDA, The American Prize, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. Berko is a recent graduate of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, holding a BM in composition with an outside concentration in piano and a certificate in entrepreneurship. Primary teachers included David Dzubay, Claude Baker, Keith Fitch, Aaron Travers, Don Freund (composition) and Jean-Louis Haguenauer, Edmund Battersby, and Sandra Shapiro (piano).

Berko is now pursuing his MM in composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, studying with Karim Al-Zand. He is a member of ASCAP. alexberko.com

Robert Maggio ​

Passionate, versatile, and engaging, composer Robert Maggio embraces the collaborative and deeply communicative act of making music. Maggio is equally comfortable composing for a string quartet, chorus, wind ensemble or an orchestra, as he is collaborating on a new musical, a modern ballet, or songs and incidental music for a play.

Hailed as a composer of music that is smart, vital, and inventive* Maggio has created an unusually diverse and substantial body of work. Each project creates a unique connection between Maggio’s wondrously eclectic vocabulary** and a wide array of commissions, artist residencies and interdisciplinary collaborations. Lyrical, passionate, melodic, and rhythmically charged***, Maggio’s music has been performed on concert

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stages, in orchestra pits, in school auditoriums, and at arts festivals around the world.

With a firm belief that new music thrives when it takes root in an audience of passionate listeners, Maggio has been an artist in residence for school districts, arts councils, dance companies, community choirs and bands, and professional ensembles. Communities from Long Beach, California to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, have commissioned Maggio to create new compositions that reflect their history, culture and hopes for the future.

A long-time member of the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City, Maggio is currently collaborating on several new musicals, including projects with writers Michael Hollinger, Matthew Hardy, Justin Warner, Kristin Maloney, and Amy Buchwald. He has composed songs and incidental music for numerous professional theaters, including productions at Yale Repertory Theater, Philadelphia Theater Company, Peoples Light and Theater Company, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz. His music for theater has received several Barrymore Award nominations in Philadelphia, including his scores for The Laramie Project, The Merchant of Venice, M Butterfly, and The Outgoing Tide.

Dance companies across the United States have commissioned Maggio for new scores, including collaborations with Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet X, 10 Hairy Legs, Roxey Ballet, Stephen Pelton Dance Theater, Randy James Dance Works, and Leah Stein and Dancers. He was selected to participate in the month-long Young Choreographers and Composers Program at the American Dance Festival, which resulted in the creation and premiere of Barcarole with choreographer Stephen Pelton.

Orchestras have performed Maggio’s orchestral music across North America, including the Boston Pops, Atlanta Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Dallas/Fort Worth Symphony, Riverside Symphonia, New York Youth Symphony, Tampa Bay Youth Orchestra, and numerous university orchestras. His chamber and vocal/choral music has been performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York Festival of Song, constellationensemble.org

Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival, Borromeo String Quartet, Corigliano Quartet, American Brass Quintet, Serafin String Quartet, Colorado Quartet, baritone Sanford Sylvan, Detroit Chamber Winds, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Composers Inc., Network for New Music, Orchestra 2001 and the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia.

Maggio is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the American Composers Forum, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, ASCAP, BMI, New Music USA and Meet the Composer.

Published by Theodore Presser Company, Hickman Music Editions and Yelton Rhodes, Maggio’s music is recorded on the Summit, Albany and New World/CRI labels.

A graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Maggio lives with his family in Lambertville, New Jersey. He is a Professor in the Department of Music Theory, History and Composition at West Chester University’s Wells School of Music. robertmaggio.com

Paul John Rudoi ​

Paul John Rudoi is an award-winning musician, entrepreneur, and advocate for the arts.

Deemed “indisputably unique, confident, and innovative,” Paul’s compositions are commissioned and performed worldwide. As a tenor vocalist, Paul performs with professional ensembles nationwide including Seraphic Fire, True Concord, The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and Cantus.

Paul is the co-founder of “Consortio,” an online consortium building platform with tools, services, and a marketplace to help musicians connect and facilitate new music commissions. Most recently, Paul served as Artistic Director of the St. John’s Boys’ Choir, a staple of Central Minnesota’s arts community, during their 40th Anniversary Season.

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Paul holds degrees from the Hartt School and the University of Oregon.

His teachers include Dr. Sharon Paul, Robert Kyr, and Dr. Edward Bolkovac.

Visit his website for more information and for a complete catalog of works. pauljohnrudoi.com

Adam Silverman ​

Professor of music composition and theory at West Chester University, Adam Silverman (b. 1973, Atlanta, GA) is a composer of music for concert performance. Many of his works have entered the standard canon of percussion ensemble literature, including the quartets “Quick Blood,” “The Cruel Waters” and “Spiderweb Lead,” the octet “Sparklefrog,” and sextet “Naked And On Fire.” In the past decade, his work composing for wind symphony has produced several works for percussion soli with wind ensembles, starting with the widely-performed marimba concerto “Carbon Paper and Nitrogen Ink” and including works with drum kit soloist (“Zipzap”), a double concerto for two percussionists (“The Rule of Five”) and “Speaking Truth To Power, 2018” for four percussionists and wind band. His other works for winds include “Alien Robots Unite!,” “Raining Bricks,” “Hard Knocks,” and the saxophone concerto “Alternating Current,” which was premiered with Timothy McAllister as soloist. In addition to these works for percussion and wind ensemble, Silverman’s catalog also includes works for chamber ensemble, orchestra, and opera, and have been performed worldwide by such ensembles as The New York City Opera, The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, The Opera Company of Brooklyn, Eighth Blackbird, The Corigliano Quartet, and The Prism Quartet. He also composed the score for “Little Fiel,” which blends stop-motion animation with filmed documentary; in 2018, this film had 50 screenings in 15 countries, winning many awards including Best Original Music at the Oregon Documentary Film Festival.

Four full-CD recordings of Silverman’s music are available and individual compositions of his have also appeared on CDs by the Temple University Wind Symphony, Prism Saxophone Quartet, cellist Amy Sue Barston, Trio Kavak, The Florida State University Percussion Ensemble, and others, all of which are widely available online.

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Educated at Yale (Doctor of Musical Arts, 2003), The Vienna Musikhochschule (1994-1995), The University of Miami (Bachelor of Music, 1995) and in private study with microtonal composer Ben Johnston, Silverman is now an Old-Time music enthusiast, performing as an amateur on banjo, fiddle and mandolin. adambsilverman.com

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SPECIAL THANKS Annie Mitran Brennan Tom Cummings & Mary Lang Kyle & Kateri Gormley-Sackett Alex Neubert & Jay Sackett P.J. Strand-Prewit Rebecca & David Thornburgh Constellation Men’s Ensemble Board of Directors Downtown United Presbyterian Church Epiphany Center for the Arts Episcopal Church of the Atonement Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Sixth Presbyterian Church West Chester University

CME Board of Directors Ryan Townsend Strand, executive director Matthew Cummings, treasurer Matthew Brennan, board member Chelsea Lyons, board member Denny Roberts, board member

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