11/12/2021 Geneva Lewis, violin, Schwartz Artist in Residence

2021-2022

DONNA AND MARVIN

SCHWARTZ ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

GENEVA LEWIS, violin Friday, November 12 at 8 p.m.

This concert is presented by the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.

This concert will also be available as a livestream performance for ticket holders.

404.727.5050 | schwartz.emory.edu | boxoffice@emory.edu

Audience Information In Consideration Please turn off all electronic devices.

Face masks covering the nose and mouth are required at all times in the Schwartz Center.

Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result is required for all patrons attending this event. Full details are available at schwartz.emory.edu/FAQ

Photographs and Recordings Digital capture or recording of this concert is not permitted.

Ushers The Schwartz Center welcomes a volunteer usher corps of approximately 60 members each year. Visit schwartz.emory.edu/volunteer or call 404.727.6640 for ushering opportunities.

Accessibility The Schwartz Center is committed to providing performances and facilities accessible to all. Please direct accommodation requests to the Schwartz Center Box Office at 404.727.5050, or by email at boxoffice@emory.edu.

Design and Photography Credits Cover Design: Nick Surbey | Program Design: Lisa Baron Geneva Lewis Photos: Donald van Hasselt Back Cover Photo: Mark Teague

Acknowledgment The Schwartz Center gratefully acknowledges the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.

2021–2022

DONNA AND MARVIN

SCHWARTZ ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Homage to the Blues Geneva Lewis, violin Chenny Gan, piano Friday, November 12, 2021, 8:00 p.m.

Emerson Concert Hall Schwartz Center for Performing Arts

Program Blues (Deliver My Soul) David N. Baker (1931–2016) Lenox Avenue: The Blues William Grant Still (1895–1978) Violin Sonata I. Allegro vivo II. Intermède: fantasque et léger III. Finale: trè animé

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

—Intermission— Porgy and Bess Suite I. Summertime–A Woman is a Sometime Thing II. My Man’s Gone Now III. It Ain’t Necessarily So IV. Bess You is My Woman Now V. Tempo di Blues

George Gershwin (1898–1937) arr. Jascha Heifetz

Violin Sonata in G Major, M 77 I. Allegretto II. Blues (Moderato) III. Perpetuum mobile (Allegro)

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

Program subject to change.

As part of the Schwartz Artist-in Residence Program, Geneva Lewis is conducting a master class with Emory music students on Friday, November 12 at 12:30 p.m. in Emerson Concert Hall, Schwartz Center. The general public is invited to attend.

Geneva Lewis is represented by Concert Artists Guild. concertartists.org | 212.333.5200

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Program Notes This program celebrates the blues through the lenses of very differing composers, all of whom express themselves in a unique way through the shared genre. The music presented here is incredibly rich and inventive, with exciting uses of rhythm and harmony that are outside the norm of what is usually heard in a traditional violin recital. These pieces explore a wide range of emotions, characteristics, and styles, coming together to create a whole that is soulful, energetic, and fun.

Blues (Deliver My Soul) David Nathaniel Baker was originally a jazz trombonist and recording artist, but an injury prompted his switch to the cello and the move toward composition and education. One of the earliest jazz theorists, Baker was a pillar of the jazz studies department at Indiana University.

Often considered a “Third Stream” composer who mixed jazz and classical music, Baker is more accurately described as an artist who could move seamlessly through all music styles from improvisation through the symphony. Adapting Deliver My Soul for violin and piano from his Psalm 22 for chorus, Baker created a gospel-blues hybrid, deeply rooted in the blues form and style. The virtuosic opening cadenza introduces a rich, full-chorded gospel-tinged melody that grows into an ecstatic, accelerating shout, recalling the power of an African American church service. Harmonically, Baker adapts classic 12-bar blues harmonies into a three-part, 24-bar structure in triple meter. The work closes with a reprise of the opening theme plus a bluesy coda.

Lenox Avenue: The Blues New York City’s Lenox Avenue runs from the north gate of Central Park up to 149th Street in Manhattan. In the 1930s, especially, the heartbeat of African American culture pulsed through Lenox Avenue. The street served as the social and cultural artery of Harlem and its artistic renaissance.

Commissioned by CBS Radio in 1936, William Grant Still’s Lenox Avenue is a 25-minute radio show (and later a ballet) with a scenario by Verna Arvey, scored for narrator, chorus, piano, and orchestra. It tells the story of a visitor to the neighborhood with a dollar to spend in sampling the avenue’s many sounds and ideas. The visitor is paralyzed by Harlem’s many choices of musical delights. He wanders between Club Creole (jazz), the Haven of Rest Mission (spirituals), and an apartment house (blues). It is here that the strains of a languid piano blues melody in 12/8 5

time escape a rent party. The visitor is seduced by the music and tempted to enter by the flirtations of a sensuous solo dancer seen at a window. The Blues from Lenox Avenue for violin and piano is an almost note-for-note transcription of this rent-party music, arranged by the composer’s friend Louis Kaufman—the violinist for whom Still wrote his 1943 Suite for Violin and Piano.

—Program note by Mark Clauge

Violin Sonata in G Minor Towards the end of his life, while gravely ill, Claude Debussy set out to write a group of six sonatas for different instruments. He lived to complete only three. The Cello Sonata, the first, was written in 1915, followed by the Sonata for flute, viola, and harp, and the Violin Sonata, completed in April 1917. In fact, he made his last public appearance as the pianist in the world premiere of this work given on May 5, 1917, as part of a fundraising concert for French soldiers, as Debussy was distraught by the war. Despite the circumstances of war and illness, this work has many passages of virtuosity, sensuality, beauty, and light (alongside the moments of darkness), suggestive of his contemporaries among French painters. The piece’s three movements also reveal distinct cultural influences of Spain, Hungary, and Italy.

Porgy and Bess Suite In 1923, American bandleader Paul Whiteman, who was known for his attempts to make jazz more symphonic and “respectable,” heard George Gershwin play piano arrangements of a few of his songs. Whiteman commissioned Gershwin to write an extended jazz composition, the result of which was Rhapsody in Blue. Its performance in 1924 made

“Listening to [Geneva Lewis] play, you’re struck by the sense of a highly individual musician with a lively but respectful personality who makes interesting and imaginative choices.”

—Clive Paget, Musical America

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history. Although the critics—true to form—mostly panned it, the audience loved it. Gershwin himself played the piano part and became an instant celebrity.

Teaming up with his brother Ira as lyricist, Gershwin transformed this fame into a string of immensely successful musicals, becoming one of the most successful song and musical comedy writers on Broadway.

From Lady be Good in December 1924 to Let ‘em Eat Cake in October 1933, the opening night of a George Gershwin musical comedy was a social and media event with Gershwin himself usually leading the orchestra.

Gershwin’s ambition to write an opera culminated in 1935 in Porgy and Bess, a blending of spirituals, jazz, and blues, that is probably his most enduring stage work. Its gritty story of life and death in Catfish Row, one of the poor Black tenements of Charleston, South Carolina, reflected Gershwin’s identification with the poor and oppressed.

Jascha Heifetz arranged a selection of songs from the opera for violin and piano.

Violin Sonata in G Major, M 77 Maurice Ravel’s second sonata for violin and piano took four years to compose, the longest of any of his works. Ravel’s music was characterized by its adventurous harmonic style and inventive exploration of instrumental timbres. When he began composing this work in 1923, he found himself intrigued by the different characteristics of the violin and piano. Rather than blending the two instruments, in this piece they are separate, yet collaborative, reacting to one another while maintaining their individual identities. The instrumental style clearly displays the independence of the parts. Ravel himself played the piano part at the first performance of the sonata in 1927, along with a fellow former student of Gabriel Fauré, violinist George Enescu.

The French composer found inspiration in the American music genres of jazz and blues. The second movement of this piece uses jazzy rhythms and pizzicatos, as well as a blues singing style. The sonata’s integration of jazz into European culture was pioneering and innovative. Despite this sonata’s strong American influence, this piece remains French at the core; the sound quality, extreme textures, and colors throughout the piece are truly representative of French music.

—Program notes by Debra Joyal, unless otherwise indicated

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Geneva Lewis, violin New Zealand-born violinist Geneva Lewis has forged a reputation as a musician of consummate artistry whose performances speak from and to the heart. Hailed by conductor Nic McGegan as “a name to watch,” Lewis is the recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Other recent accolades include Kronberg Academy’s Prince of Hesse Prize and being named a finalist at the 2018 Naumburg Competition, a Performance Today Young Artist in Residence, and Musical America’s New Artist of the Month.

After Lewis’s solo debut at age 11 with the Pasadena Symphony, she has gone on to perform with orchestras around the world, including recent and forthcoming appearances with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Sarasota Orchestra, Pensacola Symphony, Augusta Symphony, and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with a number of notable conductors, including Nic McGegan, Edwin Outwater, and Michael Feinstein, and she looks forward to collaborations with Giordano Bellincampi, Sameer Patel, Peter Rubardt, and Dirk Meyer. In recital, recent and upcoming highlights include performances at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, Tippet Rise, Purdue Convocations, Kravis Center, and Myra Hess, among others.

While Lewis’s claim to chamber music fame came early on as a member of the renowned Lewis Family Trio with her siblings Nathan (piano) and Rochelle (cello), she has since established the Callisto Trio, artist in residence at the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles. Callisto received the Bronze Medal at the Fischoff Competition as the youngest group to ever compete in the senior division finals. It was recently invited on the Masters on Tour series of the International Holland Music Sessions and performed at the celebrated Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

Deeply passionate about collaboration, Lewis has had the pleasure of performing with such prominent musicians as Atar Arad, Efe 8

Baltacigil, Glenn Dicterow, Miriam Fried, Ilya Kaler, Michael Kannen, Kim Kashkashian, Ida Kavafian, Marcy Rosen, Mitsuko Uchida, and the Borromeo String Quartet, among others.

An advocate of community engagement and music education, Lewis was selected for the New England Conservatory’s Community Performances and Partnerships Program’s Ensemble Fellowship, through which her string quartet created interactive educational programs for audiences throughout Boston. Her quartet was also chosen for the Virginia Arts Festival Residency, during which they performed and presented master classes in elementary, middle, and high schools.

Lewis is currently in the artist diploma program as the recipient of the Charlotte F. Rabb Presidential Scholarship at the New England Conservatory studying with Miriam Fried. Past summers have taken her to the Marlboro Music Festival, Ravinia Steans Institute, Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Workshop, International Holland Music Sessions, Taos School of Music, and the Heifetz International Music Institute.

Geneva Lewis is performing on a violin by Zosimo Bergonzi of Cremona, c. 1770 courtesy of Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins, Chicago.

Chenny Q. Gan, piano An internationally active performer and teacher, Chenny Gan’s professional engagements have brought her to eleven countries on three continents, with diverse assignments that span from the inner-city neighborhoods of Los Angeles to New York’s iconic Carnegie Hall. As a scholar, she has presented and published research for the College Music Society, the Harvard East Asian Studies Conference, and the Society for Ethnomusicology, among others. In 2015, Gan was selected by NerdScholar.com in the “40 Under 40” list of the best young professors in the United States. In 2017, she was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award by the United Methodist Board of Education. Gan speaks fluent English, Mandarin, and German.

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Gan’s areas of interest and expertise include ergonomic piano technique, vocal and instrumental accompanying, improvisation, fusion, and the role of music in society and community.

“I want to help my students become technically adept musicians, but also well-rounded individuals and productive world citizens through the study of music. I teach them to use the piano as a means to interact and communicate effectively in the context of their career and avocational goals.”

Schwartz Center Staff Rachael Brightwell, Managing Director Terry Adams, Box Office Coordinator Lisa Baron, Communications Specialist Carrie Christie, Program Coordinator Kathryn Colegrove, Associate Director for Programming and Outreach Lewis Fuller, Associate Director for Production and Operations Jennifer Kimball, Assistant Stage Manager Jeff Lenhard, Operations Assistant Alan Strange, Box Office Manager Nicholas Surbey, Senior Graphic Designer Mark Teague, Stage Manager Nina Vestal, House Manager Matt Williamson, Multimedia Specialist The Schwartz Center gratefully acknowledges the generous ongoing support of Donna and Marvin Schwartz.

To support this program, visit schwartz.emory.edu/give.

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WELCOME BACK to the SCHWARTZ CENTER! More Schwartz Artists in Residence Coming Soon schwartz.emory.edu Raul Midón, guitar Part of JAZZ FEST 2022

Friday, February 4 at 8 p.m.

Dubbed “an eclectic adventurist” by People magazine, Raul Midón has released 10 studio albums as a solo artist and collaborated with such heroes as Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, and Bill Withers.

Flow State, featuring Timuçin Şahin, composer

CompFest 2022, February 11-12 Timuçin Şahin is recognized as a truly rare voice of contemporary jazz music.

His unique sound on fretless electric guitar and emotive compositions have made his music non-comparable and almost impossible to categorize. During CompFest, Şahin will work directly with Emory music students on improvisation, electronic music, and composition.

2022 Guest Composer TBA

With the Emory University Symphony Orchestra, April 22–23 As the EUSO prepares for its centennial anniversary in 2023, the Schwartz-Artistin-Residence program is helping support a guest composer commissioning program. The artist will be chosen from an international pool of accomplished composers and selected by a jury of Emory faculty and guest adjudicators.

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Schwartz Artists in Residence

The Donna and Marvin Schwartz Foundation Artist-inResidence program at Emory seeks to increase substantially the depth, diversity, and profile of performing arts education in the community by providing engagement opportunities with artists, composers, and art scholars from throughout the world. Artists whose work reflects international and diverse cultural dimensions reside on campus for extended periods of time during which they provide Emory and Atlanta-area students with teaching, master classes, demonstrations, and lectures alongside public performances of their work.