PROGRAM NOTES
Di Camera (2010)
Beth Wiemann
Beth Wiemann, 1959, was raised in Burlington, VT, studied composition and clarinet at Oberlin College and received her PhD in composition from Princeton University. Her works have been performed nationally and internationally by the ensembles Continuum, Transient Canvas, Earplay, Guerilla Opera, and others. Her compositions have won awards from the Orvis Foundation, Copland House, the Colorado New Music Festival, New York Treble Singers, and regional arts councils. She teaches clarinet, composition, and music theory at the University of Maine.
Di Camera was written in 2010 for her colleagues at UMaine, Jack Burt and Marisa Solomon, who also premiered the work. The movements of this piece depict four elements of camera work, Focus, Steady, Jitter, and Circling. Focus refers to the process of adjusting the lens to achieve optimal sharpness and clarity for the desired subject or area within the scene. This movement features sharp grace-note figures from the trumpet and cello with fast, rhythmic interludes from the piano. The second movement, Steady, introduces a slower melody which can highlight the nature of steadying a camera. Jitter, defined as the shaking of an image, brings the music to a more unstable sense of time featuring syncopation from all three musicians. Circling returns the music to a slower melody featuring segments from each movement.
Tááʼtsʼáadah (2018)
Raven Chacon
Raven Chacon, 1977, is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, Chacon has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at LACMA, The Renaissance Society, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, and Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York. As a member of Postcommodity from 2009-2018, he co-created artworks presented at the Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, Carnegie International 57, as well as the 2-mile-long land art installation Repellent Fence.
A recording artist over the span of 24 years, Chacon has appeared on more than eighty releases on various national and international labels. In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass. His 2020 Manifest Destiny opera Sweet Land, co-composed with Du Yun, received critical acclaim from The LA Times, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and was named 2021 Opera of the Year by the Music Critics Association of North America.
Since 2004, he has mentored over 300 high school Native composers in the writing of new string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). Chacon is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition, the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2022), the Pew Fellow-inResidence (2022), and is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.
His solo artworks are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Museum of the American Indian, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and various private collections.
Tááʼtsʼáadah was commissioned in 2018 by Delbert Anderson, a Diné jazz trumpet artist, composer, and educator.
Silent Ocean (2005) Karen Tanaka
Karen Tanaka, 1961, is an exceptionally versatile composer and pianist. She was born in Tokyo where she started piano and composition lessons as a child. After studying composition with Akira Miyoshi at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she moved to Paris in 1986 to study composition with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM as an intern.
In 1987, she was awarded the Gaudeamus Prize at the International Music Week in Amsterdam. She studied with Luciano Berio in Florence in 1990-91 with funds from the Nadia Boulanger Foundation and a Japanese Government Scholarship. In 2005 she was awarded the Bekku Prize.
Tanaka's love of nature and concern for the environment has influenced many of her works, including Frozen Horizon, Water and Stone, Dreamscape, Ocean, Silent Ocean, Tales of Trees, Children of Light and the electronic piece Questions of Nature. Her works have been performed by distinguished ensembles and orchestras worldwide, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Various dance companies, including the Nederlands Dans Theater, have also featured her music.
Tanaka mentions the following regarding the work:
“The title Silent Ocean suggests the serenity of the ocean, images of a pale blue and orange color sky blending the sound of the trumpet. It consists of three pieces. The first piece weaves the texture of sounds like waves with combinations of 7/8 and 5/8 rhythms. The second, subtitled Love Song, symbolizes motherhood of the ocean. The final piece suggests reflection of light on waves by the repetitive piano texture while the trumpet sustains long tones and creates various colors using enharmonics ”
Sonhos reconstruídos (2020)
Ivette Herryman Rodríguez
Ivette Herryman Rodríguez, 1982, was born in the Island of Youth, Cuba. As a composer, Ivette is interested in writing soulful music inspired by her Cuban roots, and that combines elements from different musical traditions. Her music has been described as “absolutely exquisite” and “breathtakingly beautiful” by conductor Kevin Noe. She is the composer of a bestseller piece for women’s choir, and the winner, among other awards, of a 2023 Fromm Foundation Commissioning Grant, the 2023 President’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities at SUNY Potsdam, a Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Grant (2021), the Illinois State Music Teachers Association Composer Commissioning program (2019), a Brandon Fradd Fellowship in Music Composition (2015), and a Cubadisco Special Award (2010). Ivette feels fortunate to receive commissions regularly by distinguished performers, ensembles, and institutions of higher education in the U.S., and to have her music performed frequently, both nationally and internationally, by highly esteemed performers, including the LA Philharmonic and conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Her music has been featured in commercial CDs and DVDs released by Neuma Records, Colibrí Productions, Mark Records, and MSR Classics. She is passionate about composing, and music from Cuba and Latin America. She finds great reward in helping her students thrive, and a big part of her time is spent teaching composition, theory, aural skills, and Latin music at the Crane School of Music. She enjoys watching movies based on real life stories and strongly believes in always treating others with kindness. Currently, she is a Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater as part of their Composer Librettist Development Program. She is also a composition fellow in the 2023-2024 Composing Earth program from the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music.
Herryman Rodríguez says the following about the work:
“I wrote this piece as a gift for two of my friends. They are a couple. He has a doctorate in trumpet performance, and she has a dual master in viola and violin. I decided to write this piece to help my friends deal with a season of difficulties for them. I tried to acknowledge the sadness they were feeling while also writing music that looked ahead with hope. Structurally, the piece opens and closes with music that looks inwards; the middle section has rhythms reminiscent of Cuban music to help bring an uplifting feeling. There are moments in which both the trumpet and the viola have cadenzas, which gives each performer the opportunity to be heard by themselves; symbolically, this represents resilience. A final element present in the music is an indication for the viola to play inside the piano at the beginning and end of the piece. This represents me as I am a pianist. In a way, I am actively participating in this music along with the viola and trumpet, which represent my friends. The title of the piece is in Portuguese because both of my friends are from Brazil. It means dreams rebuilt. The title is also part of the message I wanted to convey to my friends. I had hope for them that life would get easier, and it eventually did.”
Rise, Resurge, and Rest (2025)
Sofia Galadriel
Sofia Galadriel is a media composer, percussionist, and vocalist with a wide range of conceptual designs through her musical soundscapes. Known for her lush harmony and percussive undertones, Sofia thrives on exploring multiple musical genres and styles. In addition to scoring media, Galadriel's music has also been performed on the concert stage, including an orchestral commission from The Crane School of Music for the Equity and Equality concert in 2021.
Rise, Resurge, and Rest was commissioned by Christopher Keach in 2024. This piece was created to combine the dark tone of the flugelhorn and the rich, mellow, resonance of the marimba; this work blends the timbres of these instruments in a beautiful song. Rise, Resurge, and Rest showcases the depth of style attainable by these instruments. Opening with a slow Rise, the music features marimba rolls and a beautiful lyrical melody in the flugelhorn. This melody shifts into a fast, vivacious, resurgence with extended arpeggios on the flugelhorn and a strong rhythmic pulse from the marimba. The piece ends with the settling down of this theme to end with a concluding section of Rest.
This is the world premiere of Rise, Resurge, and Rest.
When There Are Nine (2020) Amy Dunker
Amy Dunker, 1964, is an American trumpeter, educator and composer. Dr. Dunker received her bachelor’s degree from Morningside College, a master’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of South Dakota, a master’s degree in composition from Butler University and a doctorate in composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Major influences in her musical education include Stanley DeRusha, Chen Yi, James Mobberley, and Michael Schelle. Her music delves deeply into the nature of human experience. Her works have been performed throughout North America, South America, Asia and Europe.
Dunker writes the following about the work:
“When There Are Nine is a fanfare of hope for the kind of equality that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg worked so diligently towards.
‘When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.’”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg”
unfurling (2024) Hannah Boissonneault
Hannah Jane Boissonneault, 1998, is a composer-performer currently based in Austin, Texas. Incorporating her experiences in writing and performing progressive metal, rock, indie, and folk, she seeks to connect various musical communities through her compositions. Hannah has been commissioned as a composer by the alumni support initiative through the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, the Detroit Composers' Project, the Steven R. Gerber Trust as a part of the Fresh Inc. Festival, and various instrumentalists.
Boissonneault says the following about the work:
“unfurling was written to explore the push and pull of ambience and the elasticity of time. It is a work that can be played in an infinite number of ways depending on the personal preference of the performer. It is intended to be a piece that can both be played through from start to finish and has space for optional improvisation. It is intended to be free, meditative, flowing, and resonant.”
unfurling was commissioned by Connor Johnson alongside 25 consortium members, including Christopher Keach.
Three Avian Meditations (2022) Tyler Mazone
Tyler Mazone, 1998, is a deaf and neurodivergent bass clarinetist and composer from Michigan. He is working towards a Doctorate in Composition at Michigan State University and is a graduate of there and the Crane School of Music. Tyler writes mainly chamber, solo, and large ensemble music. His music has been performed and commissioned by: professional ensembles such as The _____ Experiment, The US Air Force Band, The Reverón Trio, Imani Winds, various collegiate ensembles such as the Michigan State University Bands and Orchestras, Yale Concert Band, University of Illinois Bands, the Crane Wind Ensemble; and by individuals/organizations such as Andrew Hosler, Jennifer Oliverio, Diversify the Stand, Royal Irish Academy of Music, and Christopher Keach. Tyler is also self-published through his website and Randall Standridge Music. His main goal with these musical endeavors is to advocate for accessibility and to reach a wider range of audiences and performers by improving upon the framework of inclusive practices in music.
Three Avian Meditations, by Tyler Mazone, was commissioned by Christopher Keach and Margaret Hopkins in 2022. The idea for the work stemmed from an overnight hiking trip outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. On this trip Margaret and Christopher heard the calls of the Song Sparrow and began to hum, whistle, and sing melodies using their song as a guide. The calls were recorded and shared with Mazone and started as the basis for the piece.
Mazone writes the following about the work:
“Each movement begins with a statement of the exact bird call by the first trumpet, or flugelhorn in the 2nd movement’s case, and the music that follows every time is a fantasy or meditation on that bird call. The Song Sparrow and Mourning Dove have very distinct melodic calls that one would commonly hear in a calmer setting, such as in a garden or in the woods. Black Capped-Chickadee is a direct contrast to the first two
movements in which I expanded the bird’s famous ‘hey, sweetie’ call into a driving groove that takes up the entire movement with finesse and flare!”
This is the world premiere of Three Avian Meditations
