Student Recital Series 2024 – 2025 Season
Sara M. Snell Music Theater Saturday, April 12th at 12 PM
Adam Beiter, composition
Berkshire Rhapsody (2025)
Mariana Morales, oboe
Jessica Schaller, clarinet
Maia Regan, violin
Lola Gehman, viola
Lilith Schatz, double bass
Three Klezmer Dances (2024)
I. Dobriden
II. Zay gezunt!
III. Dobranotsh
Charli Deixler, clarinet
Adam Beiter, accordion
Andrew Sennoga-Kimuli, double bass
Songs of a Wallflower (2024-2025)
I. Silent Child
II. Alone
III. Let my voice resound!
Text by Alyssa Bonfardeci
Alyssa Bonfardeci, soprano
Hannah Tufano, violoncello
Adam Beiter (b. 2003)
Adam Beiter
Adam Beiter
A Spot of Incandescence
(2023-2025)
I. Plain
II. Last Impression
Jag (2024)
Text by Annabelle Kahle
Annabelle Kahle, soprano
Melissa Mitchell, bassoon
Adam Beiter, piano
Adam Beiter
Adam Beiter
Text by Edith Södergran (1892-1923)
Kaitlyn Cavallo, conductor
Hannah Tufano, nyckelharpa
Alyssa Bonfardeci, Annabelle Kahle, Anya Speranza, Emily Buliung, Katherine
Keegan, Maria Tartaglia, Vanessa Aagaard, sopranos
Abby Garrison, Lindsay Hebert, Maddie D’Arco, Rebecca Gatto, Rebekah Lucia, Samantha Mondi, altos
Adam Beiter, Finn Taich, Hannah Sywulski, Manny Coleman, Matthew Reed, tenors
Ian Porteus, Nate Yauchzee, TaeJean LaCroix, Tommy Murdock, basses
Golden Brown Grilled Cheese Sandwich (2022)
Lindsay Hebert, voice
Ryan Dunia, alto saxophone
Kennedy Royal, alto saxophone
Kayla Sumberg, tenor saxophone
Jonathan Smith, trumpet
Adam Beiter, piano
Andrew Sennoga-Kimuli, double bass
Jared Emerson, drum set
Adam Beiter is from the studio of Dr. Jerod Sommerfeldt.
Adam Beiter
PROGRAM NOTES
“Berkshire Rhapsody” was composed for the Bridge Music Collective, an exciting new chamber group based in San Francisco. Its members were brought together during a one-time performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Quintet in G Minor, Op. 39, one of the first works ever composed for the unique combination of oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass. They enjoyed their collaboration so much that they decided to continue their work together by developing the repertoire for their instrumentation with several score calls. For my contribution to this project, I crafted a piece inspired by my first time driving through the Berkshire mountain ranges of western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Learning to drive was a difficult journey for me at first, but the freedom that has come with being able to explore some of this region’s most beautiful areas on my own has been more than worth it, and I ultimately finalized the piece as a celebration of that freedom and a way to honor the beauty that exists here in our own corner of the world. I was honored to have this work featured in their concert on March 1, 2025, at San Francisco’s legendary Center for New Music, alongside works by seven other young composers including Chawin Temsittichok, Jonny Incipido, and Naci Konar-Steenberg.
“Three Klezmer Dances” was composed for Abby Rodriguez’s senior clarinet recital on April 21, 2024. I had the pleasure of getting to know Abby and her partner Jordon Gyarmathy through my time as president and secretary of the SUNY Potsdam chapter of Hillel International, an organization dedicated to providing space for Jews of all backgrounds on college campuses. The three of us began to play music together for local synagogue events in various configurations, including a klezmer-style accordion trio. I had begun learning accordion in October of 2023 under the tutelage of Dr. Jeffrey Francom, Crane’s former Associate Professor at Choral Conducting, for a Concert Choir program of Argentine folk music, Andes to the Adirondacks. Later, while borrowing Jordon’s accordion for these synagogue events, I found that learning the instrument brought me closer to not only my Jewish heritage, but also my childhood experience of performing with the klezmer “folk fusion” band Zetz at the 2014 Syracuse Jewish Music and Cultural Festival. I’m proud to call the keyboardist from this band, Marty Kerker, a good friend of mine and one of my musical heroes; his creative settings of classic liturgical texts like “Hamavdil” and “Kol Y’Me Chayeicha” are some of my most cherished melodic memories.
When writing this piece, I found I was able to craft an enjoyable blend of classic klezmer dance forms with some of the Argentine dance traditions we explored in our choral curriculum, particularly chacareras and zambas, and their creative harmonies and unorthodox phrase lengths. From a historical perspective, I drew on oral history interviews conducted in 1981 with my great-grandmother’s cousin Kurt Kupferberg, a Holocaust survivor. Kurt, who was born in Berlin to parents of Galician Jewish origin, explained the unique daily roles and functions that Jewish folk music played in his hometown: a dobriden (“good morning”) melody was played at the opening of day as people traveled to work, and a zay gezunt (“be in good health”) toast style dance was played at occasions like weddings, bar mitzvahs, and even casual after-work gatherings. I was incredibly honored to play accordion in the premiere of this piece on Abby’s recital, which also featured two other works composed specifically for the occasion by my good friends David Bobowski and Cole Fortier, and I’m now honored to get to play a second performance with the amazing performers Charli Deixler and Andrew Sennoga-Kimuli.
“Songs of a Wallflower” was one of several pieces I composed specifically for this composition recital. I have had the pleasure of collaborating with my incredible friend Alyssa Bonfardeci for several years now, and I could not be more proud of her as she enters the prestigious master’s program in vocal pedagogy at Shenandoah University this fall. In addition to her remarkable voice artistry, Alyssa also writes captivating and striking poetry, including her short poetic cycle “Songs of a Wallflower”, which examines the feeling of wanting to speak but being silenced by forces around the narrator. The poetry also relates strongly to the lived experience of neurodivergent and disabled artists who have so much to offer the world but are consistently cast aside by society. I chose three of these poems to set for soprano and violoncello, focusing on the throughline of “her mind” as a pivotal point of change: endless fulfillment exists within the framework of the internally constructed world, and yet due to persistent trauma and unfortunate repression, these brilliant ideas cannot emerge into the external world of human interaction.
“A Spot of Incandescence” is a song cycle that has been several years in the making. It originated with a setting of “Plain”, a poem by my immensely talented friend Annabelle Kahle, for the unconventional combination of soprano, bassoon, and piano, written for a composer forum concert on October 17, 2023. After being sidelined by other projects for quite some time, I was thankful to have the chance to revisit this original piece in order to develop an additional setting of her poem “Last Impression”, which carries many related themes. Both poems are inspired by the gradual disconnection of a close relationship, and the grief associated with drifting apart from those we once held dear. Drawing inspiration from the sparse and hushed patterns of dissonance found in works by Lili Boulanger and Béla Bartók, as well as the fascinating song structures of modern progressive folk songwriter Joanna Newsom, I sought to juxtapose the comforting memories of tenderness with the fast-paced waves of frustration and grief.
“Jag” was one of my most exciting projects here at Crane. I have had the good fortune of collaborating with my amazing friend Kaitlyn Cavallo, who I served alongside on the executive board of the Crane chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, and with supremely talented multiinstrumentalist Hannah Tufano for several years now. It was both Hannah’s experience with the nyckelharpa, a keyed fiddle of Swedish origin, and Hosmer Choir’s upcoming “Outcast” project which strove to center a concert program on both underappreciated instruments and marginalized perspectives, that inspired me to write a poem using the poetry of Edith Södergran, a Swedish-language poet who was born and raised in disputed territory between Finland and Russia during a time of political turmoil. I consulted several prominent scholars who have devoted much of their research to analyzing Södergran’s short but influential life, including Ursula Lindqvist, who focuses on the political implications of Södergran’s longing for a home, and Benjamin Mier-Cruz, who has developed authentic and respectful genderqueer readings of her work. After Kaitlyn successfully applied to conduct the piece, it premiered on April 22, 2024. I am very thankful to have so many of the members of Hosmer Choir from that semester reappear in the choir we have put together for this recital.
“Golden Brown Grilled Cheese Sandwich” began as a simple exercise in writing a song based on a prompt given in a distinctive songwriting forum, encouraging writers to express the value of comfort food in a song. During my first year at Crane, I was encouraged to join the February Album Writing Month challenge by my colleague in the composition program, Amanda Rizzo, and found a wonderful online network full of supportive friends. I wrote the song in imitation of the pop and jazz standards of Duke Ellington, Carole
King, and Labi Siffre. After I performed it at a few casual events, my inimitable friend Lindsay Hebert mentioned wanting to perform it. We performed it as a piano and voice duet on her jury and in voice studio with the encouragement of our wonderful voice teacher, Dr. Colleen Skull, and ultimately decided to rework the song with a chart arrangement for a full jazz combo for this composition recital. My heart is so full of gratitude for my amazing band Red Rooks, who have joined me as the rhythm section for this arrangement, and for Lindsay for giving this song - and my entire time here at Crane - the vitality and purpose it needed.
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Songs of a Wallflower Text by Alyssa
Bonfardeci
I. Silent Child
Her mind is an enigma.
So bright, so wise.
Bursting with life, full of surprise. Hiding away.
Hiding away.
Share no thoughts. Shed no light.
Hiding away from the world. She never speaks to the world. A world that will not listen. Listen to her.
Appreciate her. Notice her. She steals away to her mind. Safe in her thoughts. In a new world.
A quiet observer looking on. The world doesn’t see her light. Will anyone ever see her light?
II. Alone
She is alone. Fighting alone. Living alone.
Existing alone.
Except for her mind. The beauty of her mind. Stories and pictures. Tales and songs.
Images racing. Does she belong? An isolating life. An isolating life. Desolate and dark on the outside. She escapes to her mind.
To her thoughts.
To the paradise of her soul.
Fleeing the world. The world where she is alone. Misunderstood. Different.
She is surrounded by constant activity. Yet, she is Alone.
III. Let my voice resound!
Let my voice sing! Let me resound!
I yearn to shout and scream. But I can’t.
I can never make a sound. In my mind there lives a world. So serene, yet full of life. A voice that yearns to speak! Let it be heard! Let me be heard!
A Spot of Incandescence
Text by Annabelle Kahle
I. Plain
I had a dream
Or was it a dream?
We fell apart at the seams
Tell me it was only a dream! That things aren't as unsteady as they seem That in the wings of this tragic scene
There's laughter
From the actors
At the idea of our unhappily ever after
Oh, tell me it's only a dream! That you can hear my screams, That I've no need to be green, Blue or red or anything in between When all I want is to be seen.
Heard, valued, prioritized; I don't want your filthy butterflies I've sat so long I've crystallized And still no answers realized.
Speak plain.
Are my letters in vain?
Our past a mere wine-stain? From your words I will abstain Until your truest thoughts are made plain.
II. Last Impression
And I miss you
So much more than I could ever say But I know you wouldn't listen If I said that anyway.
A year is not that long. To forget the way your laugh sounds And I didn't think I'd forget you Unless you don't want me around.
In my life you were integral You shaped my adolescence And you were everything to me In my memory, a spot of incandescence.
Now it grows dark.
As our threads fall apart. And I've always wanted to learn to weave, Anything to stop you taking your leave.
Like you've taken my years and you've taken my tears; Given the best to my fears As I gave my best to be here.
I'll wear my favorite dress. For you I'd look my very best. Perhaps last impressions are everything Before in your memory I fade into nothing.
Text by Edith Södergran
Swedish:
Jag är främmande i detta land, som ligger djupt under det tryckande havet, solen blickar in med ringlande strålar och luften flyter mellan mina händer.
Man sade mig att jag är född i fångenskaphär är intet ansikte som vore mig bekant.
Var jag en sten, den man kastat hit på bottnen? Var jag en frukt, som var för tung för sin gren?
Här ligger jag på lur vid det susande trädets fot, hur skall jag komma upp för de hala stammarna?
Däruppe mötas de raglande kronorna, där vill jag sitta och speja ut efter röken ur mitt hemlands skorstenar…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
English translation:
I am a stranger in this land which lies deep under the pressing sea, the sun peeks in with wandering rays and the air flows between my hands.
They tell me that I was born in captivitythere are no faces here that I would know. Was I a stone, the one thrown here to the bottom? Was I a fruit that was too heavy for its branch? Here I wait at the foot of the rustling tree, how will I climb up the slippery trunks?
Up there I'll find the ragged crown, up there I want to sit and look out over the smoke of my homeland’s chimneys…
Thank you to Dr. Douglas McKinnie, Jorge Hernandez, and the entire Crane technical support staff and stage crew for their unparalleled dedication and expertise. Special thanks to Joshua Barkley for generously allowing me to use his accordion for “Three Klezmer Dances”.
Thank you to Drs. Jerod Sommerfeldt, Timothy Sullivan, Ivette Herryman Rodríguez, Phil Salathé, Chelsea Loew, Colleen Skull, Jeffrey Francom, Nils Klykken, Meagan Dissinger, Prof. Julie Miller, and countless other faculty mentors and guides who have gone above and beyond to provide a space for me to grow, experiment, change, and succeed. I owe so much of who I am today to you.
Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time and energy to perform in this recital. I’ve so enjoyed working with each and every one of you, and I can’t thank you enough for all the care and enthusiasm you’ve put toward this project!
Thank you to my housemates past and present - Alex Schulz, Lindsay Hebert, Alyssa Bonfardeci, Hannah Sywulski, Sarah Wake, Johanna Saint-Vil, Emma Fusco, Abby Garrison, and Annabelle Kahle. You all easily rank among the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and I’m so grateful I had the chance to share this wild ride of being a college student with you.
Thank you to so many other friends whose presence in my life has made it exponentially better - too many to list here, but I certainly hope I’ve made my appreciation known through other channels!
Thank you to Mom, Dad, Noah, and my whole family for being such beautiful people - for setting the precedent that quirky is okay and kindness is a necessity.
Golden Brown Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Text by Adam Beiter
Well, I know it’s been a long, hard day for you, and it’s shaping up to be a longer night. But I’ll make you a golden brown grilled cheese sandwich and hopefully that’ll make you feel alright.
Well, I can’t get you everything that a person should have, and I can’t offer you no paradise. But I’ll make you a golden brown grilled cheese sandwich and make the world taste sweet and nice, so sweet and nice.
Lay down in the living room and rest for a while. I’ll cook you something that’ll surely make you smile.
Yeah, warm hugs and words of comfort are superb and swell, but I just can’t explain why this particular trick always works so well.
And if ever there should come a day Where I would have to say goodbye and go away I can’t promise you anything or make any guarantees, but I can leave you all my favorite recipes.
So let me take care of you when you’re down and blue, let me dry away every last tear. Let me make you a golden brown grilled cheese sandwich, and stay with you as long as you want to stay here.
