Program: New York City Sendoff Concert & Koyaanisqatsi in Concert
CLASSICS 2025/26
NEW YORK CITY TOUR SENDOFF CONCERT
PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor
YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin
CLAUDE SIM, violin
KATE ARNDT, violin
Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 7:00pm
Boettcher Concert Hall
ADAMS Frenzy: A Short Symphony
DVOŘÁK Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F minor, Op. 11 (B. 39)
Performed by Yumi Hwang-Williams
KREISLER Schön Rosmarin
Performed by Kate Arndt
KREISLER Liebesfreud
Performed by Kate Arndt
KREISLER Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3
Performed by Kate Arndt
WILLIAMS Theme from Schindler’s List
Performed by Claude Sim
GARDEL Tango (Por Una Cabeza) arr. Williams
Performed by Claude Sim — INTERMISSION —
CLASSICS 2025/26
MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition
arr. RAVEL
Promenade – The Gnome
Promenade – The Old Castle
Promenade – Tuileries
Bydlo
Promenade – Ballet of Chicks in Their Shells
Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
The marketplace at Limoges –Catacombs, Roman Tombs –Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua
The Hut on Fowl’s Legs –
The Great Gate of Kiev
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 27 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
BIOGRAPHIES
PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor
Peter Oundjian is a dynamic presence in the conducting world with an international career leading preeminent orchestras in many of the world’s major musical centers, from New York and Seattle to Amsterdam and Berlin.
He is currently Music Director of the Colorado Symphony, where he served previously as Principal Conductor. He is also Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival (CMF), where he has continued to program and conduct concerts that delight audiences with beloved masterpieces alongside music written by living composers. Over the course of his 14-year tenure as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which concluded in 2018, he reinvigorated the orchestra with acclaimed innovative programming, artistic collaborations, extensive audience growth, national and international tours and several outstanding recordings, including Vaughan Williams’ Orchestral Works, which garnered a Grammy nomination and a Juno Award. Under his leadership, the Symphony underwent a transformation that significantly strengthened its presence in the world.
From 2012-2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, where he led the RSNO on several international tours, including North America, China, and a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival, the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and others. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.
Oundjian was Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 2005 to 2008 and Artistic Director of the Caramoor International Music Festival in New York from 1997 to 2007. He was also the Music Director of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta from 1998-2002. Throughout his conducting career, Oundjian has appeared as guest conductor with the country’s leading orchestras, including Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and San Francisco Symphonies, among others.
In addition to his conducting duties in Colorado, during the 2024/25 season Oundjian leads subscription weeks with the Sarasota Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and has received honorary doctorates from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
YUMI HWANG-WILLIAMS, violin
Yumi Hwang-Williams, Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony since 2000, is an American violinist of exceptional musicianship who is recognized both for her stylish performances of the classics and her commitment to the works of present-day composers.
Strings magazine calls her “a modern Prometheus” who has “emerged as a fiery champion of contemporary classical music.” Her interpretations of concertos by Thomas Adès, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Daugherty, and Christopher Rouse have earned critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic approval from the composers. She has collaborated with the Joffrey Ballet (Chicago) in a world premiere of Bold Moves, with ten performances of Adès’ Concentric Paths for violin and orchestra choreographed by Ashley Page. The Colorado Symphony presented the world premiere of Rising Phoenix, violin concerto written for Yumi by Daniel Kellogg in 2016. In 2018, PENTATONE label released 2 disc centennial celebration of Isang Yun’s music with Yumi, Dennis Russel Davies, and The Bruckner Orchestra Linz (Austria) of the Violin Concerto No. 1, solo piece, and work with piano — a culmination of a decade-long project of Korea’s most controversial composer.
Yumi is frequently heard as soloist in her capacity as Concertmaster with the Colorado Symphony and occasionally has stepped in as last minute replacement, with Sibelius Concerto in 2017, and recently with Bach Double Violin Concerto featuring Chris Thile on mandolin. She has appeared with other major orchestras both in the U.S. and abroad, including the London Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel (Switzerland), and the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Austria), Brno Philharmonic (Czech Republic) with conductors Marin Alsop, Dennis Russell Davies, Hans Graf, Paavo Järvi, Peter Oundjian, Markus Stenz, among others. Prior to joining the Colorado Symphony, Yumi served as Principal Second Violin for the Cincinnati Symphony. In addition, she previously served as Concertmaster of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra for 13 summers, has performed as Guest Concertmaster for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, at the invitation of Music Director Pinchas Zukerman and has been Guest Concertmaster with The Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She continues to play Guest First Violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom she has a long standing association.
Yumi began violin studies at the age of 10 in Philadelphia at the Girard Academic Music Program (GAMP), a public music magnet school, one year after emigrating from South Korea. She was a soloist with Philadelphia Orchestra at age 13 and was accepted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree. Currently, she is Adjunct Violin Professor at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music, and is actively involved in advancing the arts in the community through numerous local concerts, chamber music collaborations, and supporting the symphony. In 2021 during the heart of the COVID lockdown, Yumi and Michelle DeYoung, world class singer, co-founded ENSEMBLE CHARITÉ which donates all proceeds from concerts to the partnering charity organization.
Yumi performs on a violin made by G. B. Guadagnini in Piacenza, Italy circa 1748.
CLAUDE SIM, violin
Claude Sim enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician, orchestral leader, soloist, and multi-genre performing artist. He studied violin performance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM ’99) with Greg Fulkerson, Almita Vamos, and viola with Roland Vamos. At age 21, he was appointed Associate Concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony under music director Marin Alsop. As frequent soloist with the orchestra, he has earned praise for his ‘lustrous tone and poise’ by the Rocky Mountain News and was dubbed ‘Denver’s Musical Adventurer’ by the Denver Post. Formerly Associate Principal Second of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Sim has served in guest capacity as Concertmaster of the Kansas City Symphony, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Boulder Philharmonic, as Principal Second of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, and first violin with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Sim has been a grand prizewinner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and has served as guest first violin and viola on concert tours with the critically acclaimed Miró and Pacifica Quartets. He has collaborated in chamber music performance with pianists Christopher O’Riley, Jeffrey Kahane, and members of the Vermeer and Tokyo String Quartets.
As solo violinist of the tango ensemble Extasis, Sim has recorded a studio album. The quartet’s arrangements of Golden Age tango by D’Arienzo, Troilo and Pugliese through the nuevo tango of Rovira and Piazzolla serve as foundations of their wide-ranging repertoire. Extasis performance tours and community engagements have reached audiences across the United States and Europe.
Known for his multi-genre interests, Sim’s jazz violin album Time With You presents a collection of standards from the American Songbook. Trumpeter Greg Gisbert (Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry sideman) is a featured artist on the record. Sim has performed with Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. and Odom’s jazz combo as guest soloist. He has shared the stage with Irish American fiddler Eileen Ivers, Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule), rock band Guster, and with iconic Denver rock band Devotchka, both live and on the album 100 Lovers. In 2014, he performed as a duo with Grammy award-winning artist and banjo master Béla Fleck on a Colorado tour, culminating at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
Sim’s interest in exploring original and standard gypsy jazz has led to collaborations with today’s elite string jazz artists including live radio broadcasts and a tour with German guitarist Joscho Stephan.
Claude Sim’s performing career and concurrent teaching mission focus on developing true artistic versatility while building connections across musical genres and communities. His previous teaching appointments include University of Colorado Denver and Colorado State University. From 2019-2022, he served as Assistant Professor of Violin at CU Boulder College of Music.
KATE ARNDT, violin
Violinist Kate Arndt, from Boston, Massachusetts is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Yale University under Ani Kavafian. Kate holds Masters degrees from Yale University in both Music and Musical Arts and completed her undergraduate studies at New England Conservatory of Music under Miriam Fried. Kate has performed as a featured soloist with several orchestras, at venues such as Boston’s Symphony Hall, Fordham University and New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. In recent years, Kate has been active in Europe, including participation in the Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland, the Kronberg Masterclasses and Concerts in Germany and the IMS Prussia Cove Masterclasses in Cornwall, UK. In the US, Kate has attended several prestigious summer programs, including Music@Menlo, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Taos School of Music, the Perlman Music Program, and the Sarasota Music Festival, where she was featured in 2019 as a guest soloist with the festival orchestra. In 2021, Kate received first prize at the CSU Bakersfield Competition for her recording of Michael Friedmann’s Fantasy for Solo Violin.
Kate has performed extensively with several prominent orchestras in the Northeast US, including with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as a guest musician, Symphony in C as Principal Second Violin, and as a member of the New York Classical Players. For the past two summers she has performed at the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado as a part of the orchestra.
A passionate chamber musician, Kate has performed with a number of ensembles at venues such as Carnegie Hall, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of New Orleans with her former group, the Vera Quartet. As a recurring artist in the Mellon Music Festival, Kate regularly performs in Davis, CA. Kate also attended the Four Seasons Winter Workshop at East Carolina University, where she collaborated with artists such as Robert McDonald, Ida Kavafian, Colin Carr, Misha Amory, Hye- Jin Kim and Ara Gregorian. Her former group, the Isolde Quartet, received an honorable mention at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Kate has collaborated with several existing chamber ensembles, including the Calidore, Callisto and Kodak String Quartets, and as winner of several chamber competitions, she was selected to perform as a guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet and with the Boston Trio.
Kate’s academic interests focus on studying the contributions of women in classical music, an area she hopes to expand through featuring works by female composers in future performances.
Where Dreams Live
JOHN ADAMS (B. 1947) Frenzy:
A Short Symphony
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
John Adams was born on February 15, 1947 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Frenzy: A Short Symphony was composed in 2023, and premiered on March 3, 2024 at the Barbican in London by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCE:
This is the premiere performance by the orchestra.
INSTRUMENTATION:
The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps and strings.
DURATION:
About 18 minutes.
John Adams is one of today’s most acclaimed composers. Audiences have responded enthusiastically to his music, and he enjoys a success not seen by an American composer since the zenith of Aaron Copland’s career: a recent survey of major orchestras conducted by the League of American Orchestras found John Adams to be the most frequently performed living American composer; he won five Grammy Awards between 1989 and 2004; he received the University of Louisville’s prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 1995 for his Violin Concerto; in 1997, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and named “Composer of the Year” by Musical America magazine; he was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture; in 2003, he received the Pulitzer Prize for On the Transmigration of Souls, written for the New York Philharmonic in commemoration of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks; from 2003 to 2007, Adams held the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, and since 2009 has he been Creative Chair with the LA Philharmonic; in 2004, he was awarded the Centennial Medal of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences “for contributions to society,” and in 2019 became the first American composer to receive the Erasmus Prize “for notable contributions to European culture, society and social science”; he has been granted honorary doctorates from the Royal Academy of Music (London), Juilliard School, and Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and Northwestern universities, honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and the California Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts; in June 2023, the Library of Congress announced that it was acquiring Adams’ manuscripts and papers for its Music Division, which also holds the papers of Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, George and Ira Gershwin, Martha Graham, Charles Mingus, Neil Simon and other distinguished American artists. Adams wrote that Frenzy: A Short Symphony, premiered on March 3, 2024 by the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle, to whom the score is dedicated, is “a one-movement symphony that, in the course of its twenty minutes, encompasses a variegated yet unified symphonic structure. Its title notwithstanding, the piece is generally buoyant and extrovert and postpones its real frenetic energy to the concluding moments. “What makes Frenzy unique in comparison to my other works is its focus, almost to the point of obsession, on the development and transformation of small, vivid motives that continue to resurface in various guises throughout the piece. This kind of classic development treatment of motivic ideas differs from the gradual ‘change-via-repetition’ technique in my earlier, minimalist-influenced works. In fact, once completed, Frenzy revealed itself, much to the surprise of its composer, as a melding of the two approaches toward musical form. On the one hand, its rhythmic event horizon is still essentially
PROGRAM NOTES
pulse-driven while on the other its melodic world is about shapeshifting and the ‘spinning out’ of ideas.
“The opening bars present two contrasting gestures: a punctuated tattoo in the winds and brass and an urgent, muscular theme in the upper strings. Both these ideas reappear throughout the piece, always transformed in one way or another and yet always identifiable. “In place of a ‘slow movement,’ the music’s surface simply quiets down; density and forcefulness yield to feelings of lightness and transparency. The pulse is still there, now carried along by a congenial interplay among the two harps and celesta while the strings limn a lyrical melody that floats above them.
“The final section is indeed frenetic, with hard-driven, choppy string figures, tsunami-like waves of brass and madly scurrying woodwinds, all of which come together to earn the piece its title.”
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F minor, Op. 11
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
Antonín Dvořák was born September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, and died May 1, 1904 in Prague. The Romance for Violin was arranged in 1879 from the F minor String Quartet of 1873.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCE: February 3-5, 2006 with Christoph Camperstrini conducting and Yumi Hwang-Williams on violin.
INSTRUMENTATION:
The score calls for pairs of woodwinds, two horns and strings.
DURATION:
About 13 minutes.
Early in 1873, the 32-year-old Antonín Dvořák had his opera King and Charcoal Burner accepted for performance by Prague’s Provisional Theater. After a few rehearsals, however, the Theater’s staff reconsidered its decision, and returned the score to the young composer as “unperformable.” (Dvořák later gave tacit agreement to this judgment by extensively revising the heavily Wagner-influenced score in 1881 and again in 1887.) The Provisional Theater’s rejection tempered the delight Dvořák had gained from the successful premiere of his cantata Hymnus during the spring, and caused him to undertake a wholesale reevaluation of his existing works. So extensive was his 1873 pruning of his juvenilia that he later kidded about “always having enough paper to build a fire.” Some of his frustration of those months following the rejection of King and Charcoal Burner was poured into a String Quartet in F minor that was apparently intended to have an autobiographical significance, similar to that of Smetana’s Quartet No. 1 in E minor, “From My Life,” composed three years later. Indeed, Dvořák may have conceived his piece for a chamber music society founded in Prague the preceding spring whose pianist was Smetana himself. Unfortunately, the society did not care for the Quartet, and the score lay in the composer’s desk unpublished and unperformed for six years.
In 1879, after Dvořák had become associated with the Berlin publisher Simrock through the advocacy of Brahms and the critic Eduard Hanslick, he returned to the early F minor Quartet and adapted from its slow movement the Romance for Solo Violin and Small Orchestra. Simrock
PROGRAM NOTES
issued the piece that same year as Dvořák’s Opus 11. (The complete Quartet was not published until 1929.) The Romance is a sweetly melancholy nocturne, filled with tender emotions. Following an ethereal introduction high in the strings, the solo violin sings the work’s soulful principal melody above a simple, rocking background. The center of the piece comprises a soaring violin theme, a gently swaying motive for the woodwinds in waltz rhythm, and a strongly marked section for the string choir. The soloist recalls the thoughtful mood of the opening before turning from the expressive key of F minor to the brighter tonality of F major to bring the Romance to a contented close.
FRITZ KREISLER (1875-1962)
Three Selections for Violin and Orchestra
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
Fritz Kreisler was born on February 2, 1875, in Vienna, and died on January 29, 1962, in New York.
Schön Rosmarin (“Beautiful Rosemary”), Liebesfreud (“Love’s Joy”) and Tambourin Chinois (“Chinese Drum”) were published in 1910.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCES:
Schön Rosmarin - December 31, 2008 with Scott O’Neil conducting and Claude Sim on violin
Liebesfreud - February 25-27/2005 with Peter Oundjian conducting and Yumi Hwang-Williams on violin Tambourin chinois - February 25-27, 2005 with Peter Oundjian conducting and Yumi Hwang-Williams on violin
DURATION:
About 12 minutes.
Fritz Kreisler — “unanimously considered among his colleagues to be the greatest violinist of the 20th century,” wrote critic Harold Schonberg in The New York Times on January 30, 1962, the day after Kreisler died — was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory when he was seven, gave his first performance at nine, and won a Gold Medal when he was ten. He then transferred to the Paris Conservatoire, where, at age twelve, he won the school’s Gold Medal over forty other competitors, all of whom were at least ten years his senior. In 1888-1889, Kreisler successfully toured the United States but then virtually abandoned music for several years, studying medicine in Vienna and art in Rome and Paris, and serving as an officer in the Austrian army. He again took up the violin in 1896 and failed to win an audition to become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic, but quickly established himself as a soloist, making his formal reappearance in Berlin in March 1899. He returned to America in 1900 and gave his London debut in 1901, creating a sensation at every performance. At the outbreak of World War I, Kreisler rejoined his former regiment but he was wounded soon thereafter and discharged from service. In November 1914, he moved to the United States, where he had been appearing regularly for a decade. He gave concerts in America to raise funds for Austrian war relief, but anti-German sentiment ran so high after America’s entry into the war that he had to temporarily withdraw from public life. He resumed his concert career in New York in October 1919, then returned to Europe. In 1938, following the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Kreisler settled in the United States for good; he became an American citizen in 1943. Despite being injured in a traffic accident in 1941, he continued concertizing to immense acclaim through the 1949-1950 season. He died in New York in 1962.
In addition to being one of the 20th-century’s undisputed masters of the violin, Fritz Kreisler also composed a string quartet, a violin concerto and two operettas (Apple Blossoms and Sissy), but he is most fondly remembered for his many short compositions and arrangements for violin, many of which bear the endearing stamp of the Gemütlichkeit of his native Vienna. Schön Rosmarin (“Beautiful Rosemary”) and Liebesfreud (“Love’s Joy”) are waltzes in the traditional manner. In contrast, the virtuosic Tambourin Chinois (“Chinese Drum”), with its pentatonic main theme and its lilting middle section that sounds like nothing so much as a Cuban tango, evokes a most pleasing exoticism.
JOHN WILLIAMS (B. 1932)
Theme from Schindler’s List
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
John Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in Flushing, New York. He composed the soundtrack for Schindler’s List in 1993.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCE:
June 29, 2025, with Chris Dragon conducting and Claude Sim on violin
INSTRUMENTATION:
The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, oboe, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, horn, percussion, harp, celesta and strings.
DURATION: About 4 minutes.
John Williams, perhaps the most successful and widely known of all Hollywood composers, has written the music and served as music director for well over a hundred films, including Star Wars, Jaws, E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial), Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The River, The Witches of Eastwick, Home Alone and Schindler’s List He has 52 Academy Award nominations (the most of any living person and second only to Walt Disney) and won five Oscars, 25 Grammys, four Golden Globes and three Emmys, as well as numerous gold and platinum records. In 1993, Williams composed the score for Steven Spielberg’s searing screen drama Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes. The film, the most acclaimed movie of the year, won for Williams an Oscar for his music and for Spielberg his first Academy Award as director. The composer wrote, “The film’s ennobling story, set in the midst of the great tragedy of the Holocaust, offered an opportunity to create not only dramatic music, but also themes that reflected the more tender and nostalgic aspects of Jewish life during those turbulent years.
CARLOS GARDEL (1890-1935)
Tango, Por una Cabeza (“By a Head”)
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
Carlos Gardel was born on December 11, 1890 in Toulouse, France, and died on June 24, 1935 in Medellín, Colombia. Por una Cabeza was composed in 1935.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCE:
Octobe 11, 2025, with Wilbur Lin conducting and John Hilton on violin
INSTRUMENTATION:
The score calls for three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps and strings.
DURATION: About 4 minutes.
Carlos Gardel helped bring the Argentine tango to the world. Gardel may have been born in Uruguay or in France, in 1890; his mother was from Toulouse, and his father might have been a Uruguayan army colonel. Whatever his background, Gardel had arrived in Buenos Aires by 1893, and he emerged as a popular café and carnival singer while still a teenager. He went on to record nearly 900 songs, many of them his own, create sensations in Paris, Madrid and Barcelona, and appear in some twenty films during the 1930s, including Hollywood’s Tango Bar and The Big Broadcast of 1936. His popularity in Argentina was unprecedented, and his funeral in Buenos Aires after he was killed in a plane accident on the way to perform in Medellín, Colombia in June 1935 was the biggest that city had ever seen. The title of Gardel’s Por una Cabeza (1935), with lyrics by Alfredo Le Pera about a compulsive gambler comparing his addiction to the race-track and his irresistible attraction to woman, refers to winning a race “by a head.”
MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881)
Pictures at an Exhibition TRANSCRIBED FOR ORCHESTRA BY MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937)
COMPOSITION & PREMIERE OF WORK:
Modest Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Pskov District, Russia, and died on March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg. Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, France, and died on December 28, 1937 in Paris. Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition for solo piano in June 1874. Ravel transcribed the work for orchestra early in 1923 on a commission from the conductor Sergei Koussevitzky, who premiered the work in Paris on May 3, 1923.
CSA LAST PERFORMANCE:
September 17-19, 2021 with Peter Oundjian conducting.
INSTRUMENTATION:
The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, E-flat alto saxophone, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, celesta, two harps and strings.
DURATION:
About 36 minutes.
In the years around 1850, with the spirit of nationalism sweeping through Europe, several young Russian artists banded together to rid their native art of foreign influences in order to establish a distinctive character for their works. At the front of this movement was a group of composers known as “The Five” (and in Russia as “The Mighty Handful”), whose members
included Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, César Cui and Mily Balakirev. Among the allies The Five found in other fields was the artist and architect Victor Hartmann, with whom Mussorgsky became close personal friends. Hartmann’s premature death at 39 stunned the composer and the entire Russian artistic community. The noted critic Vladimir Stassov organized a memorial exhibit of Hartmann’s work in February 1874, and it was under the inspiration of that showing of his late friend’s works that Mussorgsky conceived his Pictures at an Exhibition for piano. Maurice Ravel made his masterful orchestration of the score for Sergei Koussevitzky’s Paris concerts in 1923.
Promenade. According to Stassov, this recurring section depicts Mussorgsky “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly, and, at times sadly, thinking of his friend.” The Gnome. Hartmann’s drawing is for a fantastic wooden nutcracker representing a gnome who gives off savage shrieks while he waddles about. Promenade — The Old Castle. A troubadour sings a doleful lament before a foreboding, ruined ancient fortress. Promenade — Tuileries. Hartmann’s picture shows a corner of the famous Parisian garden filled with nursemaids and their youthful charges. Bydlo. Hartmann’s painting depicts a rugged wagon drawn by oxen. The peasant driver sings a plaintive melody (solo tuba) heard first from afar, then close-by, before the cart passes away into the distance. Promenade — Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells. Hartmann’s costume design for the 1871 fantasy ballet Trilby shows dancers enclosed in enormous egg shells. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle was inspired by a pair of pictures depicting two residents of the Warsaw ghetto, one rich and pompous (a weighty unison for strings and winds), the other poor and complaining (muted trumpet). Mussorgsky based both themes on incantations he had heard on visits to Jewish synagogues. The Marketplace at Limoges. A lively sketch of a bustling market. Catacombs, Roman Tombs. Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua. Hartmann’s drawing shows him being led by a guide with a lantern through cavernous underground tombs. The movement’s second section, titled “With the Dead in a Dead Language,” is a mysterious transformation of the Promenade theme. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs. Hartmann’s sketch is a design for an elaborate clock suggested by Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch of Russian folklore who flies through the air. Mussorgsky’s music suggests a wild, midnight ride. The Great Gate of Kiev was inspired by Hartmann’s plan for a gateway for the city of Kiev in the massive old Russian style crowned with a cupola in the shape of a Slavic warrior’s helmet. The majestic music suggests both the imposing bulk of the edifice (never built, incidentally) and a brilliant procession passing through its arches.
The Philip Glass Ensemble performs Philip Glass’s soundtrack with the Godfrey Reggio film Koyaanisqatsi. Reggio’s pioneering art film, without dialogue or narrative structure, is a unique and intense look at the super-structure of modern life, integrating images, music and ideas contrasting scenes from America’s natural and urban landscapes. Koyaanisqatsi lets audiences experience the acceleration and density of modern society in a new way. It invites them to consider technology and the notion of progress in the world we live in. A world out of balance.
TRANSLATIONS: Ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil. 3. Life disintegrating. 4. Life out of balance. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.
Koyaanisqatsi
Directed and produced by Godfrey Reggio
Music by Philip Glass
Cinematography by Ron Fricke
Edited by Ron Fricke and Alton Walpole
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
1. Koyaanisqatsi
2. Organic
3. Clouds
4. Resource
5. Vessels
6. Pruitt-Igoe
7. Slo-Mo People
8. The Grid
9. Microchip-Prophecies
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 24 MINUTES WITH NO INTERMISSION
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
PHILIP GLASS, composer
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and supported himself by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation, an experience that deeply influenced his compositional voice. By 1974, Glass had developed a substantial body of work for the Philip Glass Ensemble and the Mabou Mines Theater Company, culminating in Music in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, created in collaboration with Robert Wilson.
Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his output to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His film scores have earned Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Major recent works include the opera The Perfect American, the revised Appomattox, and symphonies inspired by David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy.
Glass celebrated his 80th birthday in 2017 with the premiere of Symphony No. 11 at Carnegie Hall. His honors include the U.S. National Medal of Arts, the Glenn Gould Prize, and the Kennedy Center Honors. He continues to perform worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician.
“The PGE represents the most authentic performance practice of my music in our time. I am looking forward to championing them as they carry it forward and bring its unique repertoire to new generations.” – Philip Glass
The Philip Glass Ensemble is the exclusive performer of its repertoire. Please note that Philip Glass will not be performing as part of this concert. By special arrangement with Philip Glass and Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc. The Philip Glass Ensemble is represented by Devi Reddy of Park Avenue Artists.
THE PHILIP GLASS ENSEMBLE
The Philip Glass Ensemble (PGE) comprises the principal performers of the music of Philip Glass. In 1968, Glass founded the PGE in New York City as a laboratory for his music. Its purpose was to develop a performance practice to meet the unprecedented technical and artistic demands of his compositions. In pioneering this approach, the PGE became a creative wellspring for Glass, and its members remain inimitable interpreters of his work.
The artists of the PGE recognize their unique position in the history of music of the past halfcentury, and passing on that legacy is part of their practice. A deep dedication to educating the next generation of musicians is integral to the PGE’s work, both on tour and as the Ensemble-inResidence at The Philip Glass Institute at The New School.
The PGE debuted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969, and in its early years performed primarily in the galleries, artist lofts, and museums of SoHo’s then-thriving artistic community. In the five decades since, the PGE has performed in world-renowned music festivals
and concert halls across five continents, and has made records with Sony, Nonesuch, and Orange Mountain Music.
Many of Philip Glass’s most celebrated works were expressly composed for the PGE: its core concert pieces Music in Twelve Parts, Music in Similar Motion, and Music with Changing Parts; the opera and musical theater projects Einstein on the Beach, Hydrogen Jukebox, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, Monsters of Grace; and the full-length dance works Dance (Lucinda Childs) and A Descent Into the Maelström (Australian Dance Theater). The PGE is most widely acclaimed for its soundtracks to Godfrey Reggio’s trilogy of wordless films: Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi. It is also featured in Glass’s operas La Belle et la Bête and The Photographer. For more information, visit
MICHAEL RIESMAN, music director, conductor, keyboardist
Michael Riesman is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, record producer, and is the Music Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble, which he joined in 1974. He has conducted and performed on many recordings of works by Glass, including most of his film soundtracks. He has recorded five albums of piano arrangements of Glass film music: The Hours, Dracula, Philip Glass Soundtracks, Beauty and the Beast, and Philip Glass Soundtracks Vol. 2 , He has conducted major ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Toronto, Sydney, and BBC Symphony Orchestras, and has appeared as a piano soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Milwaukee Symphony. He has conducted and performed on albums by Paul Simon (Hearts and Bones) and David Bowie (BlackTie/White Noise). Mr. Riesman’s work Formal Abandon, a commission by choreographer Lucinda Childs, is available on iTunes. Visit michaelriesman.com for more information.
LISA BIELAWA, vocals, piano
Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner who takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. She has received awards and fellowships from the Koussevitzky Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Letters, OPERA America, and American Antiquarian Society, Loghaven Artist Residency, and was part of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. She received a Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser. Her music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO, Louisville Orchestra, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Radio France, Yerevan Concert Hall in Armenia, the Venice Architectural Biennale, American Music Week in Salzburg, the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and more. Bielawa consistently incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the pandemic, Bielawa cultivated a virtual
BIOGRAPHIES
community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress. Bielawa has been the vocalist in the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1992. For more information, please visit www. lisabielawa.net.
MICK ROSSI, piano
Mick Rossi’s career has long been defined by the inability to comfortably define him or his work, revealing a commitment to a strong classical foundation and rigorous approach to improvisation. Rooted in the New York Downtown scene, Rossi is celebrated as “one of the most lucid, original and creative minds of the New York scene,” “an exemplar of the cross-fertilization between jazz and classical music worlds,” and “Bartokian and energetic” (AAJ / NY Times). He is simultaneously a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble and the Paul Simon Band as pianist and percussionist, showcasing not only technical proficiency but capable of divergent idiomatic disciplines.
He is currently in-residence at The New School and the Philip Glass Institute. Rossi can be heard on eleven recordings with Glass, and eight with Simon including Koyaanisqatsi Live with the NY Philharmonic, Einstein On The Beach and Austin City Limits respectively. Rossi has conducted for Mr. Glass, including Book of Longing (Sydney Opera House) and Dracula.
New releases include Drive, Live At Barbes, Cut The Red Wire, Variant (film score), Songs From The Broken Land (“virtuosic, intense and humorous - a master improviser is at work” - AAJ), and his thirteenth solo album “160” (“A masterpiece difficult to label” - AAJ). Recent features include The Sydney Morning Herald (“A prodigiously gifted musician and composer”) and Keyboard Magazine (“Pyrotechnics with Paul Simon”).
ANDREW STERMAN, flute, piccolo
Multi-instrumentalist Andrew Sterman (NYTimes: “beautiful, sensitive, and high-energy playing”) has been a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1992, touring and recording extensively with the Ensemble. A recipient of a commission from the NEA, Sterman has presented two solo concerts at MoMA, performed with the NY Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, and numerous orchestras in Europe. From 2012 through 2014 he was featured in the world tour of Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, including the only improvising role in the work (Of Sterman’s ‘Einstein’ performance: Wall Street Journal: “Powerful, standout moment”; National Post Canada: “Searing”; London Observer: “Virtuosic”). He has also performed and recorded with major jazz and pop artists including Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin, Fred Hersch, Rashied Ali, Buddy Rich, Kelly Clarkson, Tony Bennett, and countless recordings, theater and concert performances in NYC. His 2007 CD The Path To Peace was called “A major conceptual work, whose exquisite ebb and flow merits listening by a worldwide audience (All About Jazz: New York). Sterman’s third solo CD, Wet Paint, was praised as “Questing, devoid of self-indulgence, emotionally flexible…” (Jazz Times), “...emotive lyricism, inventively architected, superb compositional pen…” (JazzReview.com).
Andrew plays a collection of rare flutes and saxophones, the earliest dating back to 1875. Of these, some quite rare, Sterman says, “They’re not really a collection, they’re just the instruments
I play…each one is like a person, complex and sometimes mysterious. Over the years, a family of them developed.”
Sterman is a practitioner/teacher of tai chi, qigong and Chinese dietary medicine, currently completing a book on the energetics of food. He has taught on diet and music in America, Europe, Asia and Australia. andrewsterman.com
SAM SADIGURSKY, saxophone, flute
Since moving to New York in 2002, multi-reedist Sam Sadigursky continues to make a mark as both a leader and sideman across a broad spectrum of musical landscapes. His series of four albums of original music based on poetry and text for New Amsterdam Records, entitled The Words Project, have been acclaimed internationally. Following the 2015 release of his album Follow the Stick, he was named a rising star on clarinet in the Downbeat Magazine Critic’s Poll, on which he has continued to appear annually. His latest work, a three album set with accordionist Nathan Koci called The Solomon Diaries, was released in early 2022 on Adhyaropa Records, along with a set of original music for piano released later that year entitled Figures/ Broken Pieces.
A member of the Philip Glass Ensemble since 2020, Sam has also toured and recorded with artists as diverse as Brad Mehldau, Fred Hersch, Lucia Pulido, Gabriel Kahane, Tom Jones, Edmar Castaneda, Katrina Lenk, Linda Oh, The Mingus Orchestra, Rufus Reid, Jamie Baum Septet+, David Yazbek, Ljova, Pablo Mayor’s Folklore Urbano, La Cumbiamba eNeYe, and is featured on three Grammy-nominated albums with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society as well as Taylor Eigsti’s Grammy winning album A Tree Falls. He appears on over fifty albums as a sideman, and from 2017-2019 was the onstage clarinetist for the Grammy, Tony and Emmy Award winning show The Band’s Visit on Broadway.
PETER HESS, saxophone
Peter Hess is, in addition to the PGE, a member of Slavic Soul Party, Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra, and Barbez, and was a part of Balkan Beat Box for a decade. He appears on over 100 recordings and can often be heard coming out of your television. He performs all over the world, in concert halls, festivals, prisons, and dives. He’s appeared and/or recorded with David Sanborn, Alarm Will Sound, David Byrne, Big Lazy, Guignol, Tony Visconti, Songs:Ohia, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Tim Berne, Jabbo Ware, Jack McDuff, Dirty Projectors, Darcy Argue’s Secret Society, Devotchka, TV on the Radio, Spiritualized, Wu Tang Clan, ICE, the Hold Steady, Son Volt, AntiSocial Music, and dozens more.
He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and his work composing and arranging for winds and strings can be heard on many records, as well as HBO’s Bored to Death, PBS’s Make ‘em Laugh, the feature documentaries Art and Craft and Maineland: much of that arranging and studio work goes on in his own little studio Fort Saint Marks. He holds a deep love of the music of the Balkans, which he has researched and studied in Roma villages in southern Serbia. His own records can be found at diskonife.com, the imprint he co-runs.
RYAN KELLY, sound engineer
After graduating from Full Sail University Ryan began his career at the renowned Legacy Recording Studios in New York City. Since then he has worked on live performances across five continents alongside artists including Paul Simon, Philip Glass Ensemble, Solange, Eighth Blackbird, Nico Muhly, yMusic and Son Lux. He began working with the Philip Glass Ensemble for the revival of Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach and joined the Ensemble in 2014. Recent studio work has seen him has producing film scores and recording albums with Beyoncé, Roomful of Teeth, Marc Ribot, and Booker T Jones ft. The Roots. His sound design credits include multiple shows with the Steven Petronio Company, Dream’d in a Dream with the Sean Curran Company, and The Dorothy K with Saint Genet ft Zac Pennington & Brian Lawlor.
DAN BORA, sound designer
Dan Bora is a producer, engineer, and sound designer of albums, film scores, and live sound. Dan has worked with Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Anohni, Howard Shore, The Magnetic Fields, Nico Mühly, Michael Nyman, Sufjan Stevens and many others. His credits include Academy Award winning Fog of War, the Academy Award nominated The Illusionist, as well as the revival of Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, and the Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. Dan’s live work has been praised as “deft”, “provocative and even poignant…” (New York Times).
His visual work, which was closely related to his work in music, manifests itself in various media, including drawings, videos, books and prints— and has been exhibited in solo and group exhibits worldwide.
TIMO ANDRES, keyboard
Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and is based in Brooklyn, New York. His work bridges contemporary classical music, collaboration, and re-imagined performance traditions. Recent seasons include an ongoing collaboration with pianist Aaron Diehl, with two-piano performances at Carnegie Hall and Howland Chamber Music, and performances of Andres’s 2024 concerto Made of Tunes with the Minnesota and Cleveland Orchestras. Andres also performs his third piano concerto, The Blind Banister, with the Maryland Symphony.
In recent years, Andres made his sold-out solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall, received a Tony nomination for his orchestrations of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise, and served as editor of a 2023 edition of the Philip Glass Etudes. His music has been performed internationally at Lincoln Center, the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Elbphilharmonie, and the Philharmonie Berlin. Notable works include Everything Happens So Much for the Boston Symphony and Strong Language for the Takács Quartet. A Nonesuch Records artist, Andres has released multiple acclaimed albums, including The Blind Banister (2024). A graduate of Yale School of Music, he is on faculty at Mannes School of Music and is the recipient of the 2025 Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
NELSON PADGETT, KEYBOARD
Nelson Padgett is a pianist known for his poetic and sensitive musicianship, with a multifaceted career as a soloist and chamber music collaborator. He has appeared with the Houston Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, and the North Carolina Symphony. A native of North Carolina, Padgett studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts, working with distinguished teachers including Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, György Sebők, Lee Luvisi, and Anne Epperson.
Padgett has received numerous honors, including a Silver Medal at the William Kapell International Piano Competition and the Kapell Award for Best Performance of a Commissioned Work, as well as a Beethoven Fellowship from the American Pianists Association. He has performed worldwide with the Philip Glass Ensemble since 1988 and has also collaborated with Steve Reich and Musicians, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Newband. His recordings appear on Harmonia Mundi, EMI Classics, and Orange Mountain Music, as well as in film and television soundtracks. Padgett has performed with leading violinists including Pinchas Zukerman, Pamela Frank, and Elmar Oliveira, and serves as an official pianist for the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Based in New York City since 1987, he is active as a chamber musician and educator.
MICHAEL AMACIO, production manager
Born in New York City, Michael Amacio, tour/production manager, is known as a composer, live audio engineer and event producer. Mentored by keyboardist Jimmy Destri, a founding member of the band Blondie, Amacio was introduced to the audio engineering world working as Destri’s assistant. This unique experience became an indispensable part of his growing career as he went on to receive his Bachelor’s Degree in Audio Production at the State University of New York, Purchase College. Since then he has worked for some of the world’s most important art institutions such MoMA PS1, MoMA (Museum of Modern Art- NYC), renown dance music club Output, along with serving as Production Manager for the NYC event space Knockdown Center, and as a touring live sound engineer for The Magnetic Fields & Sevdaliza. As Production Manager for Quo Vadis, a production company dedicated to exposing experimental music with domestic and international artists, his role varies with his main responsibility focusing on ensuring the highest quality of events in New York City.
