CVCMF 2012 Festival Program

Cedar Valley Chamber Music Festival 2012

Cedar Falls Community Theatre Presents:

Neil Simon’s Chapter Two Directed by Joe Frenna CEdar Falls Playhouse

August 10, 11 & 18, 19 2012 Sponsored by Sandees

Neil Simon’s semi-biographical Chapter Two hilariously addresses starting over in romance. Not-so-young lovers, George and Jennie, attempt to overcome hesitation on the rebound and emotional neediness. You’ll laugh ‘til it hurts with this touching, funny Broadway smash.

“A sure smash!” – Variety “Touching and always funny...most of the time downright hilarious.”

– New York Post

(319) 277-5283 RE MO

WT IM E

www.osterregent.org TH A

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Sponsored by: Marketing Media Websites

Welcome The CVCMF “Blues” Zone Project !

There has been a great deal of community enthusiasm for the Iowa Blue Zones project initiated by Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Iowa. Everyone can get behind an initiative that encourages community participation in events and ideas that better impact you and those around you. BCBS approaches this from a mainly physical “healthy living” standpoint. Take a moment to consider what an interesting world it would be if a large organization would do something similar with the arts/culture. Can you imagine? Millions of dollars in funds goes to a community that can show the greatest support for cultural enrichment? Making pledges to visit a museum, art gallery, or attend a lecture once a month? !

CVCMF isn’t a large organization, or a rich one, but we are enthusiastic about our mission to reach new audiences. We love those of you who come year after year, but we also strive to bring in first-time listeners to our organization. So my welcome letter is going to ask you to look at the lineup we are presenting this season and make a personal pledge to call a friend or neighbor that you think might really enjoy the kind of intimate, dynamic experience CVCMF offers. I call it the CVCMF “Blues Zone” Project (hoping I don’t get sued).

Because just like our city parks, farmer’s markets, and bike trails, community participation in great music positively enriches you and those around you.

WELCOME

C V C M F BOARD

CVCMF Board President

Stephen Gaies This week is the culmination of many months of planning on the part of our Artistic Director, Hunter Capoccioni, to create another edition of one of our area’s most distinctive classical musical initiatives. A very talented and dedicated group of performers with Iowa roots, or with other connections to our state, come here from all over North America—from Newfoundland, from California and from lots of other places in between--to share their musical gifts with our community. You’d be hard pressed to find another event where you can hear so much wonderful music, have so many opportunities meet and interact with performers, and feel your musical horizons expanding over the course of a week.

Bringing chamber music to new and diverse audiences has always been a part of the Festival, but this year the Festival’s outreach programming has increased significantly, as our Festival musicians bring music to many different venues in our community. The Festival has truly made our entire community its concert stage this year, and that is a good way to cultivate interest in chamber music—indeed in all classical music.

All of us on the Cedar Valley Chamber Music Festival Board are proud to be part of this event. If you enjoy the concerts you attend—as I’m sure you will—get your friends and neighbors to come to the next concert. Think about getting involved in our organization and, if you can, making a contribution to keep the Festival vibrant and growing.

2012 CVCMF Board of Directors Stephen Gaies - President Hunter Capoccioni- Artistic Director Wes Heitzman - Past President Lucinda Lear - Secretary Chelsea Cheville - Treasurer Catherine Howland Jo Capoccioni Henry Edsill Dave Buck

STAFF Brittney Gish Jessica Schick

Special Thanks The Oster Regent Theatre South Waterloo Church of the Brethren First Presbyterian Church UNI Department of Residence Dean Joel Haack Dr. John Vallentine West Music Company Friendship Village Staff Robert Hill

Proud to support the arts

SINCE 1941

Our 14 South Dubuque Street location in Iowa City, Iowa

Cedar Falls | 6322 University Avenue | 319-277-1000 www.westmusic .com | facebook.com/WestMusicCedarFalls

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Michelle Cheramy, flute! !

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Jennifer Stevenson, clarinet!

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Réne Lecuona, Lee Schmitz, piano!

Nathan Cook, Alan Henson, cello !

Hunter Capoccioni, double bass Jonathan Glawe, educational coordinator

Frederick Halgedahl, Rebecca Hunter, Emily Osinski, violin ! !

Julia Bullard, viola

July 21, 2012 Silver Sounds of the Silent Screen George Gershwin (arr. Azarkin) Rhapsody in Blue (1924) Hunter Capoccioni, Réne Lecuona

Maurice Saylor Harry Langdon in Fiddlesticks (1927) Sponsored by Lincoln Savings Bank

Hunter Capoccioni, Réne Lecuona

Intermission Franklin Stover Buster Keaton in The Cameraman (1928)

Jennifer Stevenson, Frederick Halgedahl, Hunter Capoccioni, Lee Schmitz

July 22, 2012 An American Mosaic Antonin Dvořák String Quartet, Op. 96 “American” (1893) I. Allegro ma non troppo II. Lento III. Molto Vivace IV. Finale: vivace ma non troppo

Rebecca Hunter, Frederick Halgedahl, Julia Bullard, Alan Henson

George Gershwin Lullaby for String Quartet (1919) Rebecca Hunter, Frederick Halgedahl, Julia Bullard, Alan Henson

Intermission

Walter Piston Quintet for Flute and String Quartet (1942) I. Allegro moderato grazioso II. Andantino con espressione III. Vivace e leggiero IV. Allegro non troppo

Michelle Cheramy, Emily Osinski, Rebecca Hunter, Julia Bullard, Nathan Cook

Henry Martin Mosaic (2009) Michelle Cheramy, Emily Osinski, Rebecca Hunter, Julia Bullard, Nathan Cook

This concert was made possible by the generous financial support of Kent and Barb Opheim and Julia Bullard

July 26, 2012 A Sentimental Journey Aaron Copland Duo for Flute and Piano (1971) I. Flowing II. Poetic, somewhat mournful III. Lively, with bounce

Michelle Cheramy, Lee Schmitz

William Bolcom Afternoon Cakewalk (1979) I. Easy Winner (Scott Joplin) II. Heliotrope Bouquet (Chauvin/Joplin) III. Ethiopia Rag (Joseph Lamb) IV.

Frog Legs Rag (James Scott)

V. Graceful Chost (Bolcom) Sponsored By

VI. Finale: Incineratorag (Bolcom)

Regions Bank

Rebecca Hunter, Jennifer Stevenson, Réne Lecuona

Intermission Fred Bretschger Fantasy Duo for Cello and Double Bass (2006) Nathan Cook, Hunter Capoccioni

John Harbison Songs America Love to Sing (2004) I. Solo: Amazing Grace II. Canon: Careless Love III. Solo: Will the Circle be Unbroken?

IV. Canon: Aura Lee V. Solo: What a Friend We Have in Jesus VI. Canon: St. Louis Blues VII. Canon: We Shall Overcome VIII. Solo: Ain’t Goin’ Study War No More Michelle Cheramy, Jennifer Stevenson, Emily Osinski, Nathan Cook, Lee Schmitz

Expect more imagination.

Every musician begins with a creative spark. That’s one of the main reasons Regions is so committed to supporting the arts in our communities. It’s also why we focus on making banking so easy. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice the fun and excitement of your dreams just to make them come true. So we put our imaginations to work each day, finding the best ways to help you reach your goals.

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DEPARTMENTS Art | Biology | Chemistry & Biochemistry Communication Sciences & Disorders Communication Studies Computer Science | Earth Science Technology | Languages & Literatures Mathematics | School of Music Philosophy & World Religions Physics | Theatre

The College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences (CHAS) at the University of Northern Iowa offers dynamic majors in the arts, humanities, mathematics, sciences and technology. CHAS majors at UNI enjoy the best of two worlds: the advantages of a large university — a variety of programs and the latest technology — with the benefits of a private college — small classes and close connections to faculty.

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July 29, 2012 American Dreams Peter Schickele Serenade for Three (1992) I. Dances II. Songs III. Variations

Emily Osinski, Jennifer Stevenson, Réne Lecuona

Norman Dello Joio Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano Michelle Cheramy, Nathan Cook, Lee Schmitz

Intermission

Peter Schickele String Quartet no. 1 “American Dreams” (1983) I. Opening Diptych II. Four Studies III. Music at Dawn IV. Dace Music V. Closing Diptych

Frederick Halgedahl, Rebecca Hunter, Julia Bullard, Nathan Cook

Stephen Prutsman I’ve Got Rhythm... NOT! (1994) Jennifer Stevenson, Emily Osinski, Nathan Cook, Réne Lecuona

Concert and Reception Sponsored by

Program Notes !

There really seems no better piece than Dvorak’s Quartet, Op. 96 to open an American themed chamber music festival. This work is the starting point for this season’s exploration of American music.

During Dvorak’s American sojourn between 1892-1895, he heard our musical melting pot in full force as our continent was in a period of celebrating our 400th anniversary of “discovery” by Columbus. What makes this quartet, and Dvorak’s time here, remarkable was how quickly he was able to synthesize all the musics he heard into his own mature compositional style. Dvorak talked at some length about the beauties of AfricanAmerican, Native American, and Euro-American folk styles, but trying to identify any one style in this work (or his Ninth Symphony) really misses the larger artistic genius that is Dvorak. It is truly the American color and character that permeates the Op. 96 quartet. Like Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the F major key center evokes a pastoral/folk-like character as well as a stress on pentatonic melodies which are so universal in folk songs of all cultures. The work doesn’t illicit the furled brow pictures of late Romanticism but has at its heart the youthful anticipation of a young nation, the feeling of possibility that many of our immigrant ancestors must have felt when they first arrived on American soil. !

George Gershwin’s Lullaby for String Quartet was composed just over twenty-five years after Dvorak’s op. 96 quartet. Gershwin is also one step removed from Dvorak as an immigrant, he was the son of Russian Jews who moved to the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City to start a new life. Many great 20th century musicians that shaped classical music in this country were born out of this particular cultural immigrant group. The Lullaby is a youthful work, composed as an assignment for Gershwin in harmony and counterpoint while studying with Edward Kilenyi, Sr. In its sweet and lazy habanera/swing-like rhythms, and its two infectious and utterly unpretentious themes, one can hear a real glow in this work that emerges from the almost hidden inner voices running underneath the melodies. Although Gershwin adopted Lullaby into a song in a new show Blue Monday (which flopped), the famous jazz band leader Paul Whiteman heard in it Gershwin’s talent, and commissioned him to write a new piece, which turned out to be Rhapsody in Blue. !

Walter Piston continues the established generational lineage of this evening’s program. Actually born four years before Gershwin in 1894, Piston considerably outlived Gershwin. Piston wasn’t born into an immigrant neighborhood as Gershwin, rather he was born in the New England life of Maine. Piston was a self-taught violinist, pianist and saxophonist earning a living in his youth by playing in dance halls, hotels and restaurants of the Northeast. He was twenty-six before he began to study composition, eventually moving to Paris as a pupil of Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. He then joining the music department at Harvard, a position he held until his retirement in 1960. His Quintet for Flute and Strings combines two seemingly opposing musical ideas with masterful skill: Chromaticism and Neoclassicism. The classical feeling of the work can be found in the lightness and elegance of the texture and melodic content while Piston’s use of chromaticism expands the formal phrase boundaries by blurring cadences and harmonic resolutions until key points in each movement. !

The final work on tonight’s program is entitled Mosaic and was written by Henry Martin, Professor of Composition at Rutgers University. Another native New Englander, Martin’s work was written for a special concert honoring the 30th anniversary of the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. The concert was organized to feature music with ties to the visual arts, and so it included music

by Hindemith, Varèse, Gershwin, and Schoenberg, all of whom had connections to painting, etc. Martin states of the piece that, “For my contribution, I came up with the idea of creating a musical mosaic, rather like standard mosaics in which little pieces are combined into recognizable larger forms. To create my musical parallel to the visual process, I took a group of well-known melodies and broke them down into smaller fragments—fragments too small to recognize—and recombined them into my own themes. My style in general combines features of jazz and popular music with classical forms, and indeed I’d describe Mosaic as “light with jazz undertones.” The work also continues my association with mixtures of artistic media. For example, I’ve written numerous musical compositions with connections to literature and am currently working on a series of symphonies inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Mosaic, however, is the first time he I’ve written a composition with a direct connection to visual art.”

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Aaron Copland’s background overlaps in several ways with the composers heard on the first series concert. Like Gershwin, he was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and, like Water Piston, he spent time in France studying with Nadia Boulanger. One might even compare him to Dvorak in this ability to synthesize a style that seemingly taps into a universal folk music that is then incorporated into an distinct but approachable musical language. The Duo for Flute and Piano is one of a series of three chamber works for flute and various other instruments that marked a return to this approachability after two post-war decades of writing in a twelvetone compositional style. Composed in 1971, the piece opens with a typical Copland gesture, a slow, serene movement that sounds as if it was crafted from American folk music. The second movement is more melancholic, but the third snaps us out of this mood, opening with the most rhythmically defined music of the duo and closing with a virtuosic coda. !

Composer William Bolcom could arguably be called one of America's most eclectic composers.

Everything from avant-garde more atonal to direct tonal populism fills his compositional oeuvre. He is the composer of cabaret songs such as Lime Jello Cottage Cheese Surprise and academic serious works such as his Black Host for organ. Afternoon Cakewalk falls on the former side of the fence and comes out of a period in Bolcom’s career where “ragtime” was making a resurgence in the American soundscape. Composers such as Scott Joplin were relatively unknown until the opera Treemonisha was revived in the late 1960s by Norman Lloyd of the Rockefeller Foundation. From there pianists, such as Joshua Rifkin, began exploring the ragtime repertoire and composers such as Bolcom began their fascination with their lively syncopations and charming melodies. This work is a suite of arrangements of Joplin and other early 20th century rag composers mixed with Bolcom’s own original compositions in the ragtime style. The premiere of the work in 1979 was written as the basis for a ballet with the Murray Lewis Dance Company in New York. !

Fred Bretschger, composer of the Fantasy Duo you will hear tonight, has this to say about the composition: “Fantasy Duo was born from jam sessions mixing classical string technique with blues riffs and spontaneous improvisation. As it took shape I became excited with the idea of a companion piece to the famous Duetto by Rossini. The piece soon became a collision between well established baroque and classical forms, 20th century harmony and rock and roll.” Bretschger goes on to instruct the performers that, “The piece requires lots of energy, spirit and chops - so eat your Wheaties and have fun...”. You’re about to find out why... !

In Songs America Loves to Sing, composer John Harbison asks us to imagine, “a distant, quaint vision: the family around the piano singing familiar songs, a Currier and Ives print, an album of sepia photographs. But I remember it well (or did I imagine it?). The album which our family sometimes used may have been called Songs America Loves to Sing. Ideally, many of the tunes will still be recognizable. In the chorale preludes of the German baroque common melodies are embedded in the composer's invention (strict against free); if we know the tunes, our enjoyment of the pieces is enhanced. It is my hope that choosing well-known musical material will make these settings transparent.”

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Ames native Peter Schickele is known not only for his talents as a composer, but also as a writer, radio personality, and satirist. He is also familiar to many local residents as the 2003-2004 composer in residence with the WCFSO. John Rockwell of The New York Times calls Schickele a “composer who unselfconsciously blends all levels of American music.” He has received five grammies for his music and has written both serious and comical works for almost every ensemble imaginable. Commissioned in 1992 by the Verdehr Trio, the Serenade for Three straddles the serious/comical fence. It exemplifies the tuneful, lighthearted though still complex and subtle quality of much of Schickele's instrumental music.

While not quite as overtly "off the wall" as the works of the infamous P.D.Q. Bach, the Serenade cannot be accused of being overly serious. The first movement contains jazz-like rhythms and blues scales; the second is a gentle song; the last movement combines bluegrass violin licks with a piano solo à la Jerry Lee Lewis with a main theme taken from one of his more famous P. D. Q. Bach works, his operatic masterpiece “Oedipus Tex.” !

Norman Dello Joio may be an unfamiliar name to many concert goers. In the second half of the 20th century post-Webernian serialists, Cagian chance composers, and minimalist composers seemed to overshadow the more traditional voice of Dello Joio. Tonight’s Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano is an early work, following Dello Joio’s time studying with Paul Hindemith. The solid counterpoint and structural clarity of the first two movements, along with the strong pull of jazz undercurrents, display Hindemith’s influence in many sections of the work. Conversely the final “Allegro Spirito” shows how in tune the young Dello Joio was to the works of Walter Piston and Aaron Copland from the 1940s. There impact seems to be longer lasting as Dello Joio shapes his musical language into so many wonderful works that are often neglected by mainstream classical music performers and labels.

The subtitle to Peter Schickele’s String Quartet no. 1 “American Dreams” refers to two characteristics of this work: on the one hand, much of the musical material is obviously influenced by various American folk and popular music styles, but on the other hand this material is often presented in a fragmented, layered or “remembered” fashion, giving it the surreal feeling of dreams. Most of the melodic material is original, colored by Schickele’s love for jazz, blues and Appalachian folk music. But one movement quotes several Irish/American fiddle tunes and a Navajo song, and, like Dvorak’s Op. 96 Quartet, Schickele also uses an extensive bird song that he heard one summer morning in the Catskills.

The quartet is a rather large work, lasting almost half an hour, but it is made up of short sections - a series of fantasies, one might call it, on various aspects of American musical life. Composed in 1983, the String Quartet No. 1 was commissioned by the Audubon Quartet; their recording of the piece is due to be released in the spring of 1987 on the RCA Red Seal label.

As with every season, CVCMF likes to go out with a bang. Composer Stephen Prutsman is better known as a world-class pianist who medaled at the 1990 Tchaikovsky competition. Since that time he has become a champion of chamber music, performing working with many of America’s leading groups such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Kronos Quartet, YoYo Ma, and Dawn Upshaw among many others.

He has also composed several works for chamber ensembles and scores for film. “I’ve got Rhythm...

Not!” was written for a group of Prutsman’s friends and colleagues at the Spoletto Music Festival as an encore work. The original offbeat concept of original Gershwin tune is greatly amplified in this work through a variety of complex and ever shifting meters. The work truly shows of the virtuosity (an rhythmic integrity) of all performers involved and even gives each member of the ensemble a chance to “take a solo” before bringing back the main theme in a fashion truly worthy of the work’s title.

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2012-13 Artist Series

Tickets on sale August 1

Ballet Folklorico de Mexico October 11 Vince Gill October 12 Capitol Steps October 14 Imani Winds October 28 Shrek The Musical November 7-8 Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires November 17 Conrad Tao November 18 Cherish the Ladies December 9 Miracle on 34th Street December 21 STOMP January 19-20

Cinderella - Russian National Ballet Theatre January 26 West Side Story February 8-10 Opera Gala with UNI School of Music February 23

Imani Winds

Circus Oz February 26-27 Justin Hines March 8 Gabriel Iglesias March 9 Dreamgirls March 16 The True Story of the Three Little Pigs March 24 American Idiot March 27-28 Robert Robinson & TCC Gospel Choir March 30 2CELLOS April 9 The Secret Life of Bees April 13

Brentano String Quartet Conrad Tao

Brentano String Quartet April 14 Crème de la Crème 13 May 10

104 Brookeridge Dr. #187, Waterloo Iowa 50702 (319)-481-8590 www.cvcmf.com