2011 Program Book by Skaneateles Festival

What comes to mind when you think of the Skaneateles Festival? The exquisite sounds of the Marcus Roberts Trio drifting across the lawn on a moonlit night at Brook Farm; the wonder on a child’s face as she experiences the fantastic rhythm of Sō Percussion up close for the first time at FamilyFest; the incredible sense of pride as one of our local composers hears his or her “Hyperscore” composition performed live and in public by the dynamic Chiara Quartet; student musicians of all ages working on their craft with master guest artists in our open workshops; performers from our own communities (pianist Andrew Russo, members of the former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, and Syracuse Vocal Ensemble) bringing to life the rousing and triumphant Beethoven Choral Fantasy; this year’s Robinson Award winner flutist Katherine Zhang sharing her talents with us and receiving her award from the Robinson family; members of the acclaimed East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) mixing it up in the sublime Brahms B-flat String Sextet; world-renowned clarinetist Alan Kay performing a short “Music Blast” in the Tops grocery store in Skaneateles (!)… The Festival is certainly all of this. But on a deeper level it is the community’s celebration and gift to itself. Festival experiences are sure to entertain us, but they also help to define who we are and to give voice to the feelings, experiences and delicate mystery of humanity. Thank you for your support and let the music play on!

Elinor Freer and David Ying Artistic Directors, Skaneateles Festival

Andrew Russo – pg. 16

FamilyFest! pg. 6

LAGQ – pg. 30

Jon Nakamatsu – pg. 52 Chiara Quaret – pg. 8

Sō Percussion – pg. 42

Skaneateles Festival

2011

Board of Directors

Advisory Council

Administration

Doug Sutherland, President Patti Carey, Vice President George Bain, Treasurer Susan Dailey and Koko Fuller, Co-Secretaries

Thomas Bersani Ellen Bifano Dave Birchenough Beth Boudreau Barb Connor Mary Cotter William Davis John DeFrancisco Michael P. Falcone Lindsay Groves Claire Howard Andy Latchem Linda Kenan Dan McCann Andrew Ramsgard David Robinson (1924-2006)

Susan Mark, Executive Director David Ying and Elinor Freer, Artistic Directors

Karin Blute David Duggan Colleen Fisher Steve Frackenpohl Joyce Jowaisas Jackie Keady Sharon Magee Bill Mahood Fred Marty Madonna Meyer

Margaret Murray Amy Neumann Greg Quick Louise Robinson Linda Roche Sharon Slater Carol Stokes-Cawley Karen Veverka Jo Werner Doug Whitehouse

Mary Bradly, Bookkeeper Ellen Meyer, Executive Assistant Maureen Meyer and Kathryn Magee, office Assistants Steve Frackenpohl, Stage Manager Eric Boyce and Sam Meyer, Stage Assistants Nancy Boyce, Graphic Designer Suzi Harriff, MediaMarCon, Media Consultant Sharon Terino, Ad Sales Keith Horner, Program Notes Writer Katherine Evans, Music Librarian

A Special Thank You to our 2010 Volunteers Diane Aberi Elizabeth Bagdovitz Carol Bentivegna Ellen Bifano and John Gazda Dave Birchenough and Carrie Lazarus Susie Birchenough Tom and Arlene Bloomer Alyssa Blount Mark Bostick Mary Bradly Carol Bryant Judy Bryant Betsy Burton Corinne and Bill Buterbaugh Patti and Bud Carey Maryellen Casey and Bruce Keplinger Alain Castel and Joelle Bollinger Stephanie Chow Joan Christy and Tom Bersani Vicky Clark Linda Cline Dottie Cogswell

Betty Congel Barb Connor Carol Ann Cook Susie Dailey Jeff and Cate Davis Janet and Ella DeFalco Evan and Liz Dreyfuss Kim and Charlie Driscoll Ian and Rita Edwards Peter Ely Linda Fentner Brenna and Kara Fiutak Paul and Erika Fiutak Abby Frackenpohl Steve and Sandi Frackenpohl Koko Fuller Judy Gelston Mary Gomoll-Granicz Jean and David Graham Carrie Hall Gay Hembach Donna Himelfarb Carrie Hinchman Cindy Hinman Sally Holben Rob and Claire Howard Ellie and Joe Hubbard

Don Hughes Elisabeth Hurley Janice Johnson Joyce and Robin Jowaisas Heather Kallas Steven Kern and Josephine Nieuwenhuis Mary Knepper Myron and Luba Kopchynsky Wendy and John Kopley Josephine Kress Maddie Legg Chris and Jeff Lego Lou and Merby Lego Joel and Terry Levine Craig Lindsey Andy and Ginny Longacre Marshall, Sharon, Kathryn and Grace Magee Wendy Mageria Bill and Miki Mahood John and Peggy Manring Mark Manring Fred and Ginny Marty

Fran and Kevin McCormack Cheryl McDonald Ellie McGaan Linda Meier Donna Merchant Madonna, Jeff and Sam Meyer Peter Moller Claire Motyl Clay Murray Corinne Murray Margaret Murray Richard Naughton Bob and Sally Jeff Paston Mimi Pierre Nina Pittard Mimi Purington Greg and Debbie Quick Lisa and Dan Riordan Louise Robinson Linda Roche Roz Schwartz Jean Shook David and Sharon Slater Mona Smalley Lynn and Corinne Smith

Margaret Sovik Stella Maris Jan Sterling Carol Stokes-Cawley Chacea and Don Sundman Peggy Surdam Doug Sutherland and Nancy Kramer Flo and Peter Swartz Mary Anne Trompeter Gustav Niebuhr and Margaret Usdansky Gail van der Linde Jack and Judy Varney Karen Veverka Connie Walters Suzanne Weitz Jo and Bob Werner Doug and Peg Whitehouse Tyler Wilcox Sarah Wiles Tina Williams Susan Wolstenholme Sheryl Woodmansee Jeff and Kate Youle

Acknowledgements

Louise Robinson, Brook Farm – Concert Location & Hospitality Maryellen Casey & Bruce Keplinger, “Cybersolvers” – Webmaster and Computer Coordinators Dave Birchenough & Carrie Lazarus, Liz & Evan Dreyfuss, Dan & Susan Hall, Don & Chacea Sundman – Musician Dinners Joan Christy – Musician Dinners & Guarantor Reception First Presbyterian Church – Concert Location Koko Fuller – Ticket Sales Rob Howard and Mark Manring – Photography Jim LaRonde – Recording Services ChaseDesign – Brochure & Program Cover

Greg and Debbie Quick – Southwest Feast Skaneateles High School – Music Stands & Percussion West Genesee High School – Percussion Arthur Nick Smith – Piano Tuning Many thanks to the generous Skaneateles residents who open their homes to the Festival’s visiting musicians. A special thanks to all the volunteers and cooks who made Summer Suite such a great success. © The Skaneateles Festival 2011

Returning in 2012

www.skanfest.org

DelmonIco Insurance agency Great Coverage, Personal Care. Since founding Delmonico Associates in 1983, the Delmonico family has always strived to provide the best customer service teamed with the finest competitive insurance packages the industry has to offer.

Business Insurance – Family Insurance – Life, Disability and Health Insurance Syracuse 315-472-4242

Skaneateles 315-685-8921

www.DelmonicoInsurance.com

Independent Insurance Agent

Thank you to all the Skaneateles Festival Donors! This list reflects gifts received as of July 28, 2011

Guarantor Society The Allyn Foundation Argosy Foundation Artist Pianos, Ltd. George S. Bain Dave Birchenough and Carrie Lazarus James and Karin Blute Rick and Ann Capozza Maryellen Casey and Bruce Keplinger ChaseDesign Joan Christy and Tom Bersani Central New York Community Foundation, Inc.

Benefactor Bill and Penny Allyn Henry and Helga Beck Mark and Lou Bitz Patti and Bud Carey Stephen and Linda Chow The CNY Business Journal Citadel Broadcasting

Gold Patron Roland and Tacie Anderson Susie Birchenough and Raz Rahman Judy Bryant Bill and Marcia Burrows Alan Coates Susan T. Dailey Guy and Nancy Easter

Patron

Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood E. Bain John and Kathy Baran Beth Boudreau Mary Bradly Louise Bristol Corinne and Bill Buterbaugh Elet and John Callahan Dr. and Mrs. Chung Taik Chung Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Clark Dr. and Mrs. George Collins Ed and Paula Conan Alan E. Curle and Andrew S. London Jim and Ceme Curley Myron and Barbara Egtvedt Hamilton and Fran Fish Bill and Sharon Fox

Barb Connor Donna and Bill Davis Gary and Linda Dower David Duggan and Lynn Cleary Michael and Noreen Falcone Michael P. Falcone Colleen and Dan Fisher The Fletcher Foundation Franklin Properties Koko Fuller John Gazda and Ellen Bifano The Gifford Foundation The Howard L. Green Foundation, Inc.

Green & Seifter CPAs, LLP Hiscock & Barclay, LLP The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Linda and Bruce Kenan Chris Lego and Jeff Shingleton John and Peggy Manring John and Candace Marsellus Bob and Sally Neumann New York State Council on the Arts Faye Panasci Past Presidents of the Festival Louise Robinson

Carl Schramm and Ellyn Brown Sherwood Inn Jary and Julie Shimer Peter and Elsa Soderberg Donald and Chacea Sundman Doug Sutherland and Nancy Kramer Sutton Real Estate Testone, Marshall & Discenza, CPAs Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga WCNY Classic FM Welch Allyn

The Columbian Foundation, Inc. Bob and Sue Congel Mr. and Mrs. Samuel T. Cornell The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Sid and Suzanne Devorsetz Evan and Liz Dreyfuss Donald and Jean Eygnor First Niagara Bank

Donna Graber, Planning Sense David Graham Dr. Robert Kiltz, CNY Fertility Andrea Latchem David and Anne Lee Sharon and Marshall Magee Fred and Ginny Marty Peter and Betsy McKinnell Dan and Kathleen Mezzalingua Amy and Chris Neumann

Linda and Dan Roche Dr. and Mrs. Ken Spitzer Jennifer Sutherland Salli and James Tuozzolo Jack and Judy Varney WAER WRVO WSYR WXXI

Ian and Rita Edwards Robert and Nicolena Errico Patricia Lynn-Ford and Steven Ford Dr. and Mrs. Gianfranco Frittelli Gilberti, Stinziano, Heintz & Smith, PC Dana and Susan Hall Joe and Mary Ellen Hennigan

George R. Iocolano Joyce and Robin Jowaisas Bill and Miki Mahood Susan Mark Realty USA Frank and Frances Revoir Foundation David Rubin and Tina Press Jack and Stephanie Rudnick Skaneateles Music Guild

Stardust Foundation of CNY Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Stokes III Dr. Sandra Sulik Peter and Florence Swartz Dale and Muffe Van Epps Bob and Jo Werner Doug and Peg Whitehouse Jeff and Kate Youle

Steven and Sandi Frackenpohl John V. Frank Mona and Coburn Freer Kenneth and Laurel Grant Louis Green and Nanette Sable Steve and Anne Hahn Bob and Peggy Hegel Sally Holben Claire and Rob Howard Louis and Mary Iannettoni Tom and Gretchen Jeffers Dr. Paul Karpinski Jackie Keady Alan Kimmey Mary Knepper Wendy and John Kopley Daniel and Grace Labeille Anthony and Sandra Lombardo

John MacAllister Madonna and Jeffrey Meyer Modern Kitchens of Syracuse Gary and Carolyn Mucci Martha Mulroy and David Manfredi Margaret and William Murray Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Potter Greg and Debbie Quick Dr. and Mrs. Robert Renner Terri and Mark Roney Nick and Linda Rossi Dr. Steven J. Scheinman Richard and Bonnie Scolaro Kendrick and Gracia Sears Lisa Seischab Jean Shook and Chris Johnson Sharon and David Slater Jason Slottje

Dr. Frank C. Smith Jan Sterling Judith Stoikov and Richard Miller Carol and William Stokes-Cawley John Sutter Frank and Rose Swiskey Paul and Mary Torrisi Cynthia Tracy Jaime Tuozzolo Margaret Usdansky and Gustav Niebuhr John and Jean Vincent Ben and Eleanor Ware Dr. and Mrs. David P.W. Ying David Ying and Elinor Freer John and Carol Young Bob and Jeanne Young

Contributor Eric Allyn and Meg O’Connell Scott and Laura Allyn Peter and Sharon Andrus William Baker Jackie Bays and Joseph McCaffrey Rudolf and Agnes Benfey Lynne and Richard Bennett Frank and Peggy Bersani John and Marsha Bisgrove Cindi Blume Larry and Lauri Bousquet Jack and Katherine Boyce Lila R. Brehm Edward and Gloria Brennan Hal and Peggy Brown Patricia M. Callahan Andres and Monique Cardenes Kathryn Carlson Children’s Health Specialists, P.C. Michael and Dottie Cogswell Goodwin and Barbara Cooke Paul and Gail Cowley Tim and Margie Creamer Charles and Margaret Crosman Michael and Elizabeth Daly

Member Mary Ann Baner and Mary Alley Matteo and Rose Bartolotta Bill Bell Lisa and Scott Blystone Dr. Donald Boudreau Barbara and Dennis Bowen Bernie and Ona Bregman Brian Brundage and Pam Foresman Robert and Mary Burdick Mildred Cefaratti Mary and Steven Ching James Clark Ransford and Janice Cooper Carol Delaney Thomas Eldred Margaret Ewing Dorothy Fagerstrom Shirley Feldmann Ingrid Gabrielli

Starke Donnally Marvin and Patricia Druger Anna and Ed Egert Mohsen Emami Peter and Linda Emerson Stuart and Barbara Evans Martha Farnsworth Riche Paul and Erika Fiutak Susan and Frank Freer Alex and Donna Giambartolomei Agnes E. Griffith, Ph.D. Heidi and Michael Gogins Mel and Dorothee Goldman Mr. and Mrs. Philip Grajko Bob and Val Gray Josephine M. Gregg Georgina Gregory Halo Branded Solutions Roger and Estelle Hahn Stewart and Ruth Hancock William and Karen Havens Jim and Pat Hertz Rich and Debbie Hole Jack and Ruth Howard Ellen Cook Jacobsen, MD Barbara Kay and George Bristol Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Kenney

Stephen and Terry Kline Richard and Mary Lee Kokosa Barbara Kotula Mr. and Mrs. Joseph A. Koziol Lin Kroeger and Alan Johnson Ted and Joan Kuck Jim LaRonde and Anne Hegel Daniel and Marianne Larson Lead to Success Marilyn Lerman William and Anne Lynn Guy and Dawn MacKenzie James and Patricia MacKillop Nancy and James Marquardt Susan Martineau Edward Mazur Linda Meier James Moore Eileen Murphy and CJ Ryan Nancy Oplinger and Richard Freeman JoDean and Timothy Orcutt W. Dennis Owen John and Sharon Paddock James Park Robert and Christine Pierce Dr. Fred Pestello, LeMoyne College Eleanor K. Peterson

Marc and Cristina Pietropaoli Arnold and Judith Poltenson Dick and Kim Poppa Carol Rowehl and John Kahler, Jr. Al and Vicky Sabin Milton Sack Herbert and Hillery Schneiderman Susan and Steven Shaw Dr. and Mrs. Michael Shende Wolfram Stahl David and Deirdre Stam Holly Strong Joan and Gene Tarolli Tranquility Salon Charles Tremper Linda Van Buskirk Ron and Jane Walsh Richard and Ann Wasiewicz Mark Watkins and Brenda Silverman John and Marcia Watt Charles and Nancy Williams Carol Wixson Mr. and Mrs. Bernhard Wolff Susan Wolstenholme Bob and Jeanne Young Cynthia Zacharek

Aubrey and Carol Garlington Marilyn Giancola Nancy Gillooly Gloria and Joshua Goldberg Michael and Kathy Gorr Susanne Guske and Lee Klosowski Suzi Harriff, MediaMarCon Mary Louise Hartenstein Bob Hiemenz Robert and Nancy Holcomb Bob and Barbara Holloway Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hubbard Megan and John Keady Thomas Kniesner and Deborah Freund Katherine Knoff Myron and Luba Kopchynsky Catherine Lathwell John D. Legg Edward and Karen Levene Rev. Frank Lioi Edward and Carol Lipson

Gard Lorey, DDS and Sean Smith, DDS, PC Cliff and Roberta Malzman Mr. and Mrs. James Marquardt Fran and Kevin McCormack Jean L. McRae Dr. and Mrs. James Megna Dr. and Mrs. Bert Mersereau David and Janet Muir Nancy Needham Micheal and Pam Odlum Bruce and Margaret Osborne Gary Paige Umesh and Viji Patil Elizabeth Patton Joel Potash and Sandra Hurd Christopher and Ann Rogers Anne Roth Bob and Lynne Scheer Vito and Janet Sciscioli Carol Sears Regina Setikas

Julie Sharpe Margaret Sovik Ruth Speiser Terrance and Mary Frances Squires Sal and Hope Strods Robert Sullivan Barbara Sutton and Elizabeth Kolodney Nancy E. Tiedemann Jeffrey and Julie Torrey Eric Vandewater and Rebecca Mays Margaret Vanek Vicki and James Viccaro Patty Weisse and George Thomas George and Nancy Wettlaufer Kendra and Don Witter Miryam Yardumian Laura Yelinek Joyce Zadzilka

MUSIC BLASTS are sponsored by The:

FREE

Fletcher Foundation

Educational & Community Events

FAMILYFEST and WORKSHOPS are sponsored by:

Free at the Festival

The Panasci Family

Music Blasts

NEW!

Monday-Friday, August 8-12 During the opening week of the Festival musicians will give surprise 10-15 minute Music Blast performances throughout the village. Who knows? You might hear the captivating Chiara Quartet (known for playing “chamber music in any chamber”) at the grocery store or renowned clarinetist Alan Kay at the post office! Each morning find the time & place for that day’s Music Blast by checking any of the following:

www.skanfest.org

Behind the Scenes Open Rehearsal • Wednesday, August 17, 2:00-3:00 PM First Presbyterian Church Open Rehearsal with the members of ECCO rehearsing music for Thursday’s concert.

Workshops For Music Students • Tuesday, August 23, 11:00 AM First Presbyterian Church Open to students of all ages and abilities.* Susie Park, violin; Conor Nelson, flute; Ayano Kataoka, percussion; Xak Bjerken, piano *Please Note: Pre-registration is required – students interested in participating can find the registration form online at www.skanfest.org or call 685-7418.

FamilyFest! Keeping Time with Sō Percussion Wednesday, August 24, 11:00 AM Skaneateles High School

Join this phenomenal quartet of percussionists (Adam, Eric, Jason, and Josh) as they introduce you to their amazing rhythm instruments. Called “brilliant” and “astonishing and entrancing” by the NYC press, these experimental music makers will set your toes a-tapping! Featuring: Sō Percussion – Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting 6

Ways to Support Your Skaneateles Festival D onate for Music Today Donate today and support the 2011 season. Your gift will be recognized in the next year’s program.

Sponsorship for 2012 Sponsor a concert or musician for the 2012 season. Your gift of $1,000 or more can sponsor a musician or an entire concert in 2012. Your gift will be recognized in next year’s program and you will be invited to “meet the musicians.”

Endowment Forever... Your gift can provide beautiful music forever… when you donate to the Festival endowment fund.

Yes, I want to help the Skaneateles Festival.

o Donate for music today o Sponsorship for 2012 Donate to the endowment fund o Please contact me to discuss my gift options. o Name_______________________________________ Address_____________________________________ City________________________________________ State_____________________ Zip_______________

I would like to make a tax-deductible gift to the Skaneateles Festival at the following level (all donations received this Summer are recognized in the following year’s program book): o Guarantor Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2000 and up o Benefactor Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1000-1999 o Gold Patron. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500-999 o Patron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $200-499 o Contributor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $100-199 o Member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $50-99

o Check enclosed. .Make checks payable to: Skaneateles Festival o Charge my: o Visa o Mastercard Card # �� Exp. Date ______ /_______

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Mail to: Skaneateles Festival, 97 E. Genesee Street, Skaneateles, NY 13152 For more information call 315-685-7418 Donate online at: www.skanfest.org

Wednesday, August 10 7:00 PM Behind the Scenes

Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

(for ticket holders only)

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Community

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Chiara Quartet is sponsored by George Bain Elinor Freer and David Ying are sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs Alan Kay is sponsored by WRVO

Behind the Scenes Meet composer Stacy Garrop and get an inside look at the Hyperscore II Project special event

Hyperscore II Community Celebration Mozart String Quartet in G Major, K. 387 I. Allegro vivace assai

Stacy Garrop

Chiara Quartet Rebecca Fischer, violin Julie Hye Yung Yoon, violin Jonah Sirota, viola Gregory Beaver, cello

String Quartet No. 2: “Demons and Angels” II. Song of the Angels

Chiara Quartet

Garrop “Little Bits” Sputter Crumbs Doubledare

Brahms

Alan Kay, clarinet Rebecca Fischer, violin David Ying, cello Elinor Freer, piano

String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51 IV. Allegro con brio

Chiara Quartet

intermission

Hyperscore compositions Zada Seitz Leah DeGraw Hannah Thurston Chris Herron Clara Liddell Leah Jones and Anita Yakobchuk Josh Prickel Megan Molnar Daniel Kringer Doug Whitehouse Stacy Garrop 8

Crazy Lines The Music Box Eerie Situation Dark Dreams Summer Storm Flipilicious

Chiara Quartet

Thanks for Everything Affruex Cadences Bounce Monster of My Dreams

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

From the Artistic Directors

Week at a Glance…

Community (k∂-myo−−o’nı̆-te−) n., pl.-ties: 1. A group or class having common interests 2. Society as a whole; the public

We open with a thrilling celebration of community. In addition to informal “Music Blasts” throughout the village every day this week, we’re presenting the culminating concert of our Hyperscore II community composition project. Then we’ll hear music written by two great composers for their own communities: Haydn’s string quartet, written for 18th-century musicians at the Austrian court of Esterházy, and Messiaen’s spectacular Quartet for the End of Time, written for himself and three fellow prisoners in a German prison camp in 1940. These will be paired with the gem-like Clarinet Sonata by Poulenc, written for his friend and fellow composer, Arthur Honegger, who was part of a small but noted group of French composers known as “Les Six” or “The Six.” On Friday we’ll be treated to an evening with one of Central New York’s own stars, pianist Andrew Russo, who will weave music with a political bent together with commentary about his own life and journey in politics. Then he’ll join members of the Chiara Quartet for a performance of Dvořák’s rousing Piano Quartet Op. 87, which displays the rhythms and melodies of the composer’s native Czech locale. Finally, the week concludes with a piece commissioned by local residents Jary and Julie Shimer to celebrate the Robinson family and their commitment to this community. Also on the program will be Beethoven’s rousing Choral Fantasy, showcasing Andrew Russo on piano and the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble, followed by Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, evoking the sights and sounds of the villages Mendelssohn visited during his travels.

75 YEARS OF PUTTING INK ON PAPER

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The Skaneateles Festival Hyperscore II Project brings together traditional art and cutting-edge technology in a way that all can enjoy.

Kids, Computers & Composing – what a perfect combination!

In April and May, composer Stacy Garrop was in residence, visiting local schools and teaching students what it takes to compose music. Stacy helped kids of all ages to discover the music within; participants ranged in age from 10 to adult and included students from A.J. Smith Elementary in Union Springs, West Genesee Middle School and Skaneateles High School, as well as employees of ChaseDesign.

Composers of All Ages

– hear their music performed alongside the works of the masters! With motivation and enlightenment from composer Stacy Garrop and Festival Co-Artistic Director David Ying, participants learned how to manipulate sound into coherent music by using Hyperscore technology. The composer visited each school twice, to listen to many works in progress and offer feedback and advice. The project culminates with the Hyperscore II Community Celebration. The award-winning Chiara Quartet will play some of the original music created by the participants, who will have the opportunity to hear their compositions performed live alongside the works of classic composers, including Mozart and Brahms.

Nathan McKay and Stacy Garrop

single coolest “the thing to happen to music ever. ”

What Exactly is Hyperscore? It’s a computer software program, developed at MIT, which allows even those with no musical background to quickly learn to compose music and immediately hear what they’ve created. When the Skaneateles Festival first presented the project in 2006, participant Thomas O’Hara, 12, of West Genesee Middle School, called it “the single coolest thing to happen to music ever.”

our thanks to the Skaneateles Music Guild for their support of this project.

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Thursday, August 11

Doug Sutherland & Nancy Kramer

7:00 PM Prelude Concert

Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

(for ticket holders only)

Community

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Chiara Quartet is sponsored by George Bain Elinor Freer and David Ying are sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs Alan Kay is sponsored by WRVO

Prelude Concert Featuring this year’s Robinson Award winner, flutist Katherine Zhang Henri Dutilleux Sonatine for Flute and Piano Paganini Caprice No. 24

Katherine Zhang, flute Sar Shalom-Strong, piano Katherine Zhang, flute

Weber Trio in G minor for Flute, Cello and Piano, Op. 63 Finale: Allegro

Katherine Zhang, flute David Ying, cello Elinor Freer, piano

Concert Poulenc

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano Allegro tristamente Romanza Allegro con fuoco

Alan Kay, clarinet Elinor Freer, piano

Haydn String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 54 (Hob.III:57) Vivace Adagio Menuetto: Allegretto Finale: Adagio – Presto – Adagio

Chiara Quartet Rebecca Fischer, violin Julie Hye Yung Yoon, violin Jonah Sirota, viola Gregory Beaver, cello

intermission

Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time 1. Crystal Liturgy – quartet Rebecca Fischer, violin 2. Vocalize, for the Angel who announces Alan Kay, clarinet the End of Time – quartet David Ying, cello 3. Abyss of the Birds – clarinet Elinor Freer, piano 4. Interlude – violin, cello, clarinet 5. Praise to the Eternity of Jesus – cello, piano 6. Dance of the Fury, for the Seven Trumpets – quartet 7. Tangle of Rainbows, for the Angel who announces the End of Time – quartet 8. Praise to the Immortality of Jesus – violin, piano 12

Please support our sponsors and advertisers.

The Robinson Award The Robinson Award is an annual scholarship prize awarded to a young musician who exemplifies the values cherished and embodied by David and Louise Robinson, Festival co-founders. Thirty-one years ago, David and Louise opened their hearts and their home to musicians, their families, and the audiences who come to hear them perform. Their lakeside home, Brook Farm, has been a gathering place and rehearsal space for musicians, and the performance venue for the Festival’s outdoor Saturday evening concerts, a tradition Louise has continued since David’s passing in 2006. Created in 2002, the award is given each year to a young musician whose character, musicianship, and community service reflect the values of David and Louise Robinson – enthusiasm and dedication to music of high quality.

2011 Winner Katherine Zhang Flutist Katherine Yuanqi Zhang graduated from Fayetteville-Manlius High School in June 2011. She began her studies with Sara Greene and has been studying with John Oberbrunner since ninth grade. A participant of All-County bands and orchestras since sixth grade, she joined the Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra (SSYO) in 2009, and was principal flute for the 2010–2011 season. Katherine was the winner of both the 2010 SSYO Concerto Competition and the 2011 Civic Morning Musicals/ Syracuse Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. She was a member of the prestigious 2010 National High School Honors Orchestra, performing in Santa Clara, California. Active in her school’s music program, she served as principal flute for the school’s Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Pit Orchestra, as well as at the New York State Summer School of Orchestral Studies. Recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award, the 2011 Edna B. Davis Music Scholarship Award and the Syracuse Symphony Association Sally Whittle Scholarship, Katherine will be attending the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance this fall. She will pursue a Bachelor of Music degree in flute performance with teacher certification.

our thanks to those who have contributed to the Robinson Award

Anonymous Brenton and Mary Bradly Barb Connor Fletcher Foundation David and Louise Robinson Skaneateles Area Council for the Arts

Frank and Jan Smith Karl and Peggy Smith Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth Spitzer Diane Walsh and Dick Pollak Suzanne Weitz Welch Allyn

If you would like to contribute to the Robinson Award Fund, please call 315-685-7418. 13

Program Notes

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1962) FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963) French composer Francis Poulenc wrote three sonatas for wind instruments at the end of his life and each has an elegiac quality. The Clarinet Sonata is the middle work of the three, dating from 1962. It is dedicated to Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, who was the first of that community of irreverent, anti-Establishment young French composers known as Les six to die. “I have always adored wind instruments, preferring them to strings,” Poulenc said at the time. The three sonatas were to be his final compositions. He died from a heart attack just months later, in January 1963. While composing the Clarinet Sonata, Poulenc said: “I’m completing the lament of a sonata for clarinet and piano dedicated to Arthur’s memory. I think it’s quite moving.” And certainly, in the benedictory central section of the opening movement, marked très calme, and in the haunting slow movement, Poulenc does drop the mask he habitually wears and speaks directly from the heart. Elsewhere, though, the music brims over with one wonderful melody after another, with abrupt changes of gear and a constant renewal of the energy level. Poulenc’s magpie-like appropriation of ideas and musical styles adds a mercurial quality to the music. Parody – often self parody of his own

trademark turns of a phrase – becomes a form of homage. As his longtime colleague, the baritone Pierre Bernac, put it: Poulenc’s music is “a mixture of triviality and nobility.” The Clarinet Sonata was given its first performance not long after Poulenc’s death, by Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein, at Carnegie Hall, on April 10, 1963.

String Quartet No. 2 in C Major, Op. 54 (Hob.III:57) (1788) JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809) Johann Tost was a violinist and something of an entrepreneur in the large community of musicians at the Esterházy palace where Haydn was employed. He helped the composer with his business dealings and ended up with 12 string quartets associated with his name. Op. 54 No. 2 is the finest of the Tost quartets; a work of great thoughtfulness and intensity. Haydn’s opening fanfare and dramatic harmonic shifts immediately command our attention. His vigorous and incisive music, in which the first violin soars to great heights, reveals qualities that Beethoven was soon to explore in his quartets. The brief slow movement opens with a verse of solemn, chorale-like chords which provide a foundation for a free improvisation in which the first violin weaves a poignant rhapsody. The music leads without pause into the minuet, where the tension is immediately released.

GREEN & SEIFTER CPAS THANKS SKANEATELES FESTIVAL FOR PROVIDING 32 YEARS OF WORLD CLASS MUSIC BY THE LAKE! Members of

110 West Fayette Street One Lincoln Center, Suite 900 Syracuse, New York 13202 315.422.1391 www.GreenSeifterCPAs.com

8/11 Program Notes (continued)

The minuet was so popular with the Esterházys that Prince Nicolaus had its main theme used as the tune of a musical clock in his summer palace. The surprises continue throughout the finale, which unfolds in an unexpected way with a magnificently noble melody. The solemn music is punctuated by a scurrying Presto section, a kind of frenzied echo of the opening movement’s main theme, before, in a gesture of the utmost confidence, Haydn brings back the glorious slow melody to conclude the quartet.

Quartet for the End of Time (1940-41) OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908-1992) “It’s like a detective story; only, it’s a true story,” said the cellist Etienne Pasquier, age 90, ten or so years ago, not long before his death. He was speaking of the 1941 premiere of French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Inside his pocket at the time of the interview he carried a faded card which read: “Stalag VIIIA, Görlitz. Premiere of the Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen. January 15, 1941. Performed by Olivier Messiaen, Etienne Pasquier, Jean le Boulaire, and Henri Akoka.” This is how one of the most seminal chamber works of the 20th century had its beginnings. In a German POW camp in 1941, four French prisoners of war gave 400 of their fellow prisoners and a number of their captors a glimpse of the apocalypse, making time stand still, temporarily liberating them from the horrors of war. The chillingly named Stalag VIIIA was a camp in Silesia, about 70 miles east of Dresden, for prisoners of war of enlisted rank. A series of extraordinary coincidences led to the creation of Messiaen’s powerful masterpiece. For a start, Messiaen, a prisoner since the summer of 1940, was not only allowed, but encouraged to compose music. A German officer named Karl-Albert Brüll gave him a regular supply of manuscript paper, pencils, erasers – and bread. Clarinetist Henri Akoka was Jewish but, in Stalag VIIIA, being a Western, not East European, Jew, he was incarcerated under the same terms as his non-Jewish fellow prisoners. Messiaen had already met Akoka, a clarinetist with the Orchestre National, and Pasquier, a professional cellist, in Verdun, where the French composer had been sent as a medical orderly. Messiaen and Pasquier would listen to the dawn chorus of birds on their morning watch. Messiaen would note down individual bird songs with a precision that would soon blossom into a skill unmatched by any composer. Using these notated birdsongs as inspiration, he began to write a piece for solo clarinet, calling it Abyss of the Birds. Then, his concept of the work grew when the trio met up with violinist Jean le Boulaire in the Görlitz camp. The work’s instrumentation was now for clarinet, violin, cello and piano and it was ground-breaking. Messiaen was to deal with the challenges of blend and balance throughout by subdividing the quartet and using the full potential of all four instruments sparingly.

Messiaen’s devout religious beliefs underpinned his work on the Quartet. He found hope in the vision of St. John, the angel crowned with a rainbow. “I finally wrote this quartet, dedicating it to this angel who declared the end of Time,” Messiaen said in one of many interviews after his liberation. As the details of the story became the stuff of legend over the years, the constant element remained Messiaen’s faith. “I love Time,” Messiaen wrote, “because it’s the starting point of all creation.” Temporal freedom defines Messiaen’s relationship with the divine and, in a preface to the quartet, he writes: “The special rhythms, independent of the meter, powerfully contribute to Quartet for the End of the effect of Time was first perbanishing the formed at the Festival in 1992, temporal.” The by Paul Hersh, Joe Genualdi, eight-movement, Pam Frame and Jean Kopperud. 50-minute structure of the piece also contributes to its feeling of endlessness and lack of sequential development. Its emotional trajectory is enormous, from the opening dawn chorus, with fragments of birdsong on violin and clarinet woven with revolving sequences on piano and cello, to the terrifying Dance of the Fury, with all four instruments pounding out a repeated melody devoid of harmony, for more than six minutes. The Quartet is anchored by two ecstatic paeans, the first for cello, and the second for violin, both with piano accompaniment. Their slow tempo and feeling of finality disorient our expectations of how a piece of chamber music should unfold. “This is the subject of the Quartet,” Messiaen’s second wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod, said after his death. “At the end of Time, when the universe is no more, it will drift into Eternity. And this is the riddle that fascinated my husband.”

Fun Fact…

No trip to Skaneateles is complete without a visit to

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Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Friday, August 12

Community

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

Andrew Russo is sponsored by Franklin Properties and Sutton Real Estate Members of the Chiara Quartet are sponsored by George Bain David Ying is sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs Alan Kay is sponsored by WRVO

From Piano to Politics An Evening with Andrew Russo and Friends Louis Moreau Gottschalk

’Union: paraphrase de concert on the L national airs Star-Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, and Hail Columbia, Op. 48 Andrew Russo, piano

Louis Andriessen

Worker’s Union Andrew Russo, piano Alan Kay, clarinet David Ying, cello Robert Bridge, percussion

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Nocturne in B-flat

Andrew Russo, piano

Shostakovich Prelude No. 24 in D minor, Op. 87 Andrew Russo, piano intermission

DvořÁk

Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 87

Allegro con fuoco Lento Allegro moderato grazioso Finale: Allegro ma non troppo

Julie Hye-Yung Yoon, violin Jonah Sirota, viola Gregory Beaver, cello Andrew Russo, piano

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Program Notes L’Union: paraphrase de concert on the national airs Star-Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle, and Hail Columbia Op.48, (1852–62) LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK (1829-1869)

Worker’s Union (1975) LOUIS ANDRIESSEN (b. 1939)

Nocturne in B-flat IGNAcy JAN PADEREWSKI (1860-1941)

Prelude No. 24 in D minor, Op. 87 (1951) DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Music and Politics: When he initially dedicated his Third Symphony to Napoleon, Beethoven was by no means the first Western classical composer to make the connection between music and politics. Admiration for a leader who seemed to epitomize his deeply held libertarian and republican ideals soon turned to disenchantment when Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor. The apparent political shift and the fury with which Beethoven deleted his dedication on the title page of the Eroica show that music and politics can make for uneasy bedfellows. In more recent times, Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean produced a firestorm of controversy when he filed for candidacy in the Haiti

presidential elections. A century earlier, however, another self-exiled musician – a high-living, widely respected Polish piano virtuoso with a gift for oratory – similarly began to speak out on behalf of his country. Paderewski’s international lobbying and fundraising eventually culminated in his appointment as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs at a time of vast change in his homeland. His idealism, however, made an uneasy match for the political chess game that resulted after World War I and Paderewski quickly assumed a more comfortable role of elder statesman. Whether navigating an individual path under the iron grip of a totalitarian state like the Russian Shostakovich or breaking out from the more reactionary music-making and the perceived commoditization of music of a more open society, like the Dutch Andriessen, musicians continue to connect the life they live with the society in which they function. In striving to make their music relevant to the world in which they live, artists constantly re-shape the connection among composer, performing musician and listener.

Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 87 (1889) ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) Chamber music was important to Dvořák and he left more than 30 chamber works. They include two piano quartets,

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8/12 Program Notes (continued)

written almost 15 years apart. The earliest of them dates from 1875, when Dvořák was still a relatively unknown composer. It found little favor with the public. Brahms, however, had enjoyed substantial success with his three piano quartets and sales had brought their publisher, Simrock, a good return. Hoping to repeat the success, Simrock now pressed Dvořák to honor a commitment he had made some time earlier to write a second piano quartet. After a tentative start, Dvořák found that the ideas flowed without difficulty. One month after he began the work, Dvořák was able to write to a friend: “I’ve now already finished three movements of a new piano quartet and the finale will be ready in a few days. As I expected, it came easily and the melodies just surged from me, thank God!” In all, the E-flat Piano Quartet took ten days from its earliest draft to completed score, August 19, 1889. Publication came the following year and the work was given its premiere in Frankfurt on October 17, 1890. At the time of its composition, Dvořák was at the height of his skill as a composer. Ahead of him lay his now famous trip to the United States. But he already enjoyed a high reputation throughout Europe. He had positioned himself as a Czech nationalist, though he was careful to use all the current musical techniques of the internationalist. The new Piano Quartet in E-flat is more confident than the earlier work and successfully marries form with content. There’s

a strong hint of folk music in its forthright opening on the strings. Then the piano has other ideas and asserts its independence. Some discussion follows. But it isn’t long before all four instruments join in a radiant statement of the opening theme. A second theme appears on the viola, Dvořák’s favorite instrument. After much sumptuous development, the opening theme finally appears as a ghostly echo of itself, with tremolo bow effects from violin and viola. The slow movement is scored in the warm, rather veiled key of G-flat major. Its five repeated melodies are closely related and grow out of a splendid melody introduced right away by the cello. The music moves through a wide range of moods. The third movement is rooted in the folk music that Dvořák so loved. It has the lightness and easy grace of a sentimental waltz, colored by exotic modal harmonies – with the occasional gypsy-like twist. When the theme appears for a third time, high in the piano, Dvořák’s music distinctly evokes the sound of a Hungarian cimbalom. The forthright opening of the finale, rather unusually for a major-key work, takes us straight into the minor. Each instrument is given a generous share of the melodic writing. There’s some lovely buoyant interplay among the four instruments and a brilliant conclusion ties a bow on one of the finest of Dvořák’s chamber works. — Notes © Keith Horner 2011. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

Wishing the Skaneateles Festival a successful 31 st season!

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Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Saturday, August 13 6:30 PM Prelude Concert

Tonight’s guest sponsorship:

(for ticket holders only)

7:30 PM Brook Farm

Community

Rain Location: Skaneateles High School

Robert Moody is sponsored by David Duggan & Lynn Cleary Andrew Russo is sponsored by Franklin Properties and Sutton Real Estate Syracuse Vocal Ensemble is sponsored by Hiscock & Barclay With additional support from the Argosy Foundation Tonight’s media sponsor is WSYR

Community Extravaganza at Brook Farm Brass Quintet Prelude Concert

Concert Skaneateles Festival Chamber Orchestra Robert Moody, conductor Lee Actor Divertimento for Small Orchestra (World Premiere) Commissioned by Jary and Julie Shimer in celebration of the Robinson Family and their outstanding commitment to the Skaneateles community.

Beethoven Fantasia in C minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra,

Op. 80 (‘Choral Fantasy’)

Andrew Russo, piano Joanna Manring, soprano Julie Grindle, alto Stephen Zumchak, tenor Robert Cowles, bass Sandra Murphy, 2nd soprano Brian Ackles, 2nd tenor Syracuse Vocal Ensemble

intermission

Mendelssohn Verleih’ uns Frieden (Grant Us Thy Peace) Syracuse Vocal Ensemble

Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, “Italian” Allegro vivace Andante con moto Con moto moderato Saltarello: Presto

Syracuse Vocal Ensemble Robert Cowles, Artistic Director Soprano Carole Brzozowski Sabine Krantz Andrea Love Joanna Manring Sandra Murphy Norma Tippett Mary Kate Walsh 20

Alto Elizabeth Frank Julie Grindle Martha V. Lyon Jane Ondich Nancy Pease Katharine Sanford Beth Spencer

Tenor Brian Ackles Bruce Keplinger Kenneth Pease Richard Pilgrim Thomas Sauvé Stephen Zumchak

Bass Josh Coles Robert Cowles Roderick Etzel Bruce Paulsen Bruce Ward Aaron Welcher Jeffrey Welcher

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

Program Notes Divertimento for Small Orchestra (2011) (World Premiere) LEE ACTOR (b. 1952) With advanced degrees in both composition and engineering, Lee Actor initially pursued a successful career developing software. A decade ago, he turned his attention exclusively to music, becoming assistant conductor of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2001 and composer-in-residence the following year. He has written primarily orchestral works, including two symphonies, several concertos and shorter works. His Divertimento for Small Orchestra, commissioned for the Skaneateles Festival, is receiving its premiere performance today. Lee Actor writes: “A divertimento – literally, ‘an amusement’ – is a piece, usually light-hearted in mood, written for a small ensemble. Divertimento for Small Orchestra is a single-movement work, of approximately 10 minutes duration, which for the most part fits that description. The instrumentation is similar in size to the late 18th century classical orchestra, the period of time during which the divertimento reached its peak of popularity. However, the musical style of my Divertimento is not a throwback to the past, but a fresh, modern re-imagining of the form that I believe will speak to contemporary audiences.

“The piece opens with a playful, repeated 16th-note figure in thirds in the upper strings. This recurring motif appears to go through several rapid transformations before returning to where it started, leading quickly to a second, contrasting section. Whereas the first section was rhythmically very regular, the second section contains a succession of beats grouped unpredictably into 2s and 3s, producing a pronounced ‘off-kilter’ and humorous effect. The thematic material in this section is likewise lighthearted and amusing. “Eventually the music works its way back to a muchabbreviated restatement of the opening material, though around a different key center. This quickly leads to the longest and least divertimento-like section of the piece, marked Tranquillo. The mood here is subdued, the tempo is noticeably slower, and the thematic material has a somewhat plaintive and even mournful quality. The music slowly works itself into a tremendous climax, the emotional center of the piece. The dénouement happens quickly, following which the music suddenly and mysteriously shifts gears, and somehow finds itself back in the material of the opening section, though not yet in the home key. After several unexpected harmonic twists and turns, the original key area is finally arrived at, and a short coda recalling the theme from the second section finishes with a flourish.

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8/13 Program Notes (continued)

Fantasia in C minor for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80 (‘Choral Fantasy’) (1808, rev.1809) LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) The concert that Beethoven organized in the unheated Theater an der Wien on a bitterly cold late December evening in 1808, was to run from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. At least two audience members, Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Prince Joseph Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven’s main sponsors, soon came to realize that – in Reichardt’s words – “one can easily have too much of a good thing.” That ‘too much’ included premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies, sight-read for the most part for lack of rehearsal time, the Fourth Piano Concerto, selections from the C minor Mass, the aria Ah! Perfido, a solo improvisation from Beethoven on piano and then the hastily composed ‘Choral Fantasy’ to cap off the evening. Beethoven attempted to pull everything together, but the pianist Ignaz Moscheles, who was also in the audience, felt that the grand finale was like a run-away carriage going downhill, about to overturn at any moment. Beethoven did, indeed, stop the performance part way through and began the whole piece from the beginning. The title of the Fantasia was not yet solidified when it was first performed. Beethoven listed it as ‘Improvisation for piano with gradual entrance of the orchestra and finally a choral section and finale.’ His ‘Improvisation’ was literally that – a free improvisation without any written music – so pressed for time was he, with such a monumental concert to coordinate. But the fiery, rhetorical opening that has come down to us in the published score gives a glimpse of Beethoven the renowned improviser at the keyboard, a musician who could hold an audience captivate for 30 minutes at a time. Then come a sequence of variations on a simple, direct melody that may sound familiar. Its origins lie in a song Gegenliebe (“Mutual Love”) that Beethoven had written several years earlier. But the melody continued to percolate in Beethoven’s mind and found its ultimate expression as the Ode to Joy in the Ninth Symphony. Here, the prototype Ode shows him successfully wrestling with the challenge of building a large musical structure on a simple melody. The exalted, idealistic text appears to have been written at the last minute. Beethoven always had a soft spot for the Fantasia, a work he did not worry over in countless sketchbook drafts, but a score which, nevertheless, maintains a freshness and clarity of thought and progression throughout.

Verleih’ uns Frieden (Grant Us Thy Peace) (1831) FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) As the prototype of the globe-trotting international musician of the century that followed, German composer Felix Mendelssohn felt at home in communities throughout Europe. Italy inspired him to pen not only what he called 22

‘the most cheerful piece I have ever Mendelssohn composed written’ (the many of his best-known symphony we’ll works before he was 20. be hearing shortly) but also this brief, contemplative hymn for chorus and orchestra. His friend Robert Schumann held the hymn in particular esteem: “Madonnas by Raphael and Murillo cannot remain long from view,” he wrote in appreciation after hearing it sung. Mendelssohn wrote the setting while in Rome on his grand tour, drawing the text from a copy of a Lutheran hymn book that had been sent to him. His original intention was to set it in a contrapuntal manner, with cello and bass accompaniment. This evolved into a solemn, direct opening supplication for men’s voices and lower strings, followed by a second, as the women join in, together with the brighter textures of the woodwinds and violins. Finally, the full ensemble offers a third, increasingly intense prayer for peace.

Fun Fact…

Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 “Italian” (1833 rev.) FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Mendelssohn said that his Italian symphony reflected not only his impressions of the art and landscape he saw during his extended visit to this country, 1830-31, but also the

8/13 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

vivacity of its people. The score was quickly completed over a three-month period, thanks to a generous commission from the Philharmonic Society in London – which had immediately recognized the genius of the 23-year-old composer during his earlier visit to the British capital. The composer himself conducted the highly acclaimed first performance, May 13, 1833. Mendelssohn was the only one not content with the work. He continued to revise the piece, never conducted it again and would not publish it, much to the concern of family and friends. He said it cost him “some of the bitterest moments I have ever endured.” But the work is now universally admired as the smoothest and most transparent of Mendelssohn’s symphonies. Its opening movement,

classically proportioned though with several unusual twists, exudes energy like an uncoiling spring, its violin melody unwinding over pulsing woodwind chords. The slow movement is one of those processionals so beloved of romantic composers (Berlioz was soon to write one in his Harold in Italy). Here, Felix-in-Italy leads the way with a solemn, minor key march. The third movement is an elegant minuet with a rustic trio cut from the same cloth as the Midsummer Night’s Dream music. The Saltarello finale returns to the rhythmic vivacity of the opening movement. Mendelssohn’s take on this popular Roman jump-dance sustains great momentum to the end. Curiously for a symphony otherwise in the major key, this exuberant music remains firmly in the minor key from beginning to end. — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

Text & Translations Fantasia Schmeichelnd hold und lieblich klingen Unsers Lebens Harmonien, Und dem Schönheitssinn entschwingen Blumen sich, die ewig blühn. Fried und Freude gleiten freundlich, Wie der Wellen Wechselspiel. Was sich drängte rauh und feindlich, ordnet sich zu Hochgefühl. Wenn der Töne Zauber walten Und des Wortes Weihe spricht, Muß sich Herrliches gestalten, Nacht und Stürme werden Licht. Äuß’re Ruhe, inn’re Wonne Herrschen für den Glücklichen, Doch der Künste Frühlingssonne Läßt aus Leiden Licht entstehn. Großes, das ins Herz gedrungen, Blüht dann neu und schön empor, Hat ein Geist sich aufgeschwungen, Hallt ihm stets ein Geisterchor. Nehmt denn hin, ihr schönen Seelen, Froh die Gaben schöner Kunst! Wenn sich Lieb’ und Kraft vermählen, Lohnt dem Menschen Götter Gunst.

‘Choral Fantasy’ Beguiling, lovely and fair are the sounds of our life’s harmonies, and from our sense of beauty there arise flowers that blossom eternally. Peace and joy glide by amiably like the alternating play of the waves; forces that pressed on us roughly and hostilely reform themselves into feelings of exaltation. Whenever the magic charms of music hold sway and the consecration of words is uttered, splendid things take shape of necessity, night and storms turn into light. Outward repose, inward rapture prevail for the fortunate man. But the springtime sun of the arts makes light emanate from both. Then great things that have entered one’s heart blossom out in fresh beauty; When a spirit has worked its way aloft, a spirit choir constantly sings to it. And so, noble souls, accept gladly the gifts of beautiful art. When love and strength are wedded, the favor of the gods rewards mankind. — Christoph Kuffner

Verleih’ uns Frieden Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich, Herr Gott, zu unserm Zeiten! Es ist doch ja kein Andrer nicht, Das für uns könnte streiten, Denn du, unser Gott, alleine.

Grant us thy peace Grant us thy peace mercifully, Lord God, throughout our times! For there is indeed no other that for us can fight, but you, our God, alone. — Martin Luther

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Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

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8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Tonight’s guest sponsorship:

String

ECCO is sponsored by Sally & Bob Neumann and Amy & Chris Neumann

Members of ECCO Handel Passacaglia in G minor for Violin and Viola Daniel Chong, violin Jessica Bodner, viola

arr. Johan Halvorsen

Arensky Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35 Moderato Variations on a theme of Tchaikovsky: Moderato Finale: Andante sostenuto – Allegro

Michi Wiancko, violin Maurycy Banaszek, viola Denise Djokic, cello Na-Young Baek, cello

intermission

Brahms String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 Allegro ma non troppo Andante, ma moderato Scherzo: Allegro molto Rondo: Poco Allegretto e grazioso

Susie Park, violin J Freivogel, violin Dov Scheindlin, viola Jessica Bodner, viola Na-Young Baek, cello Daniel McDonough, cello

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

From the Artistic Directors

Week at a Glance…

String (strı̆ng) n.

1. A cord stretched across the sounding board of an instrument that is struck, plucked or bowed to produce tones 2. A series of related acts, events or items arranged or falling in a line

Superb players from the conductorless East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) mix it up in different combinations for an evening of masterpieces, starting with a string duo (Handel-Halvorsen), moving through a quartet that features an unusual combination of instruments (Arensky), and finally capped off by Brahms’ sublime B-flat Major String Sextet. Then we’ll hear another approach to strings: the sounds of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, which brings a new energy to concert stages worldwide with their eclectic blend of styles. The complete ECCO closes out our week with a varied program of string music under the stars at Brook Farm. Performing together since 2001, this group is comprised of some of the hottest young stars in classical music today: alumni of the famed Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and members of the Borromeo, Daedalus and Jupiter string quartets, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Many of them have appeared at Skaneateles Festival under different guises, and we are thrilled to welcome them back!

Program Notes Passacaglia in G minor for Violin and Viola (1894) GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759) arr. Johan Halvorsen (1864–1935)

When the violinist and composer Johann Halvorsen was at the peak of his career, composing music and directing the orchestra at the National Theater in Oslo (then Christiania), he was spoken of as one of the ‘Big Four’ of Norwegian musical life, alongside Grieg, Johann Svendsen and Christian Sinding. Earlier in his career, as a violinist, Halvorsen turned to a movement from a keyboard suite by Handel as the basis for a short, virtuoso work for violin and viola, his best-known work, together with the orchestral March of the Boyars. The Passacaglia is built over a recurring bass line (hence the title). At first, it follows Handel’s original 66-measure keyboard piece. But then, Halvorsen gets to work, adding fireworks to Handel’s stately tune. In fact, more than half of this highly effective piece, ‘freely arranged after Handel,’ is his own work. It builds and builds, like a steam train gathering momentum, then arriving in the station with a satisfying final puff of steam.

led to galloping consumption,” Rimsky Korsakov sniffed, when Arensky eventually succumbed in Finland. “He will be quickly forgotten.” But Rimsky-Korsakov did not get it right. Even in his lifetime, Arensky found himself with several hits on his hands. The A minor Quartet of 1894 is scored for the unusual but wonderfully resonant combination of one violin, one viola and two cellos. Arensky navigates carefully around the potentially bottom-heavy texture. With a simple but somber theme evoking a male-voice psalm of the Russian Orthodox church, the opening movement resonates darkly, with richly colored sonorities. The music is somewhat funereal in atmosphere and pays homage to the memory of Tchaikovsky, his friend and mentor, who died the previous year. The evocative theme lends itself to a wide range of emotions, alternately nostalgic, passionate,

Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35 (1894) ANTON ARENSKY (1861-1906) On the surface, Arensky led a brilliant life as an accomplished composer, virtuoso pianist, gifted conductor, and distinguished teacher – with Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Glière as pupils. But his early death at 45 from tuberculosis suggests a darker side. From the beginning, Arensky was addicted to drinking and gambling. When composing, he tended to burn the candle at both ends. His father was a doctor, but little of his father’s medical expertise was passed on to the son. Rimsky Korsakov, one of Arensky’s teachers and early champions, had no time for what he called the ‘dissolute course’ of Arensky’s life. “Revels and card-playing

Sharon and Marshall Magee, Dan Labeille, Dan Fisher and Patti Carey enjoy the "Musical Happy Hour" at Anyela's Vineyards.

8/18 Program Notes (continued)

tender and ardent – but always technically challenging for the players. The second movement is a set of variations on Tchaikovsky’s tenderly melancholy song When Jesus Christ Was but a Child. Arensky’s music is something that Tchaikovsky himself might have written and it ends with a ghostly reappearance of the theme from the first movement, with which it is then combined. The finale is the most progressive movement of all and the shortest. It opens with solemn music from a Russian Requiem Mass which gives way to a folk-song celebrating the coronation and majesty of the Tsar. Mussorgsky included its melody in the Coronation scene of his opera Boris Godunov and Beethoven incorporated the same folk-tune in the second of his Rasumovsky quartets. Treated fugally by Arensky, it propels the quartet to a radiant, sonorous conclusion – and leaves the question behind as to why more composers have not written for this satisfying combination of instruments.

String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 (1859-60) JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)

DS O N E RI

BER MUS M IC HA

ul y r t a celest seas

SY R A CU SE

This is the first of Brahms’ chamber works without piano and his first published work for strings. Although he was just 27 when he completed it in 1860, the polished, carefully crafted structure reflects the thorough grounding he

had given himself. Brahms had already written several string quartets, a musical form he – and the 19th century in general – regarded as the pinnacle of chamber music for strings. But he had found none of them worthy of publishing. In fact, the hyper-critical Brahms is known to have destroyed 20 quartets before arriving at the one we now know as his first. The B-flat sextet, for two violins, two violas and two cellos, was one of the steps along the journey he took to arrive at a solution to the challenge of the string quartet. Free from what he referred to as “the tramp of giants,” he wrote the B-flat Sextet after the two Serenades of the late 1850s. All these works share an optimism of outlook, an expansiveness of scale and a generally joyful spirit. The first movement opens with a glorious melody from the first cello and its effect on the listener is not unlike the effect of taking a warm bath in the dead of winter. But, like many apparently spontaneous gestures throughout the work, this striking opening was not arrived at easily – the first 10 bars of the piece were actually added after the premiere of the work. Throughout the sextet, the first cello frequently takes the lead while the second cello provides the bass line. Together, they help emphasize the mellow, tenor register of the overall ensemble. This is just one point of similarity with the great C major String Quintet of Schubert, to which work the B-flat Sextet is, in many ways, a key successor.

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8/18 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

Throughout his life, Brahms continued to make a deep study of counterpoint and Baroque techniques and it informed virtually every piece he wrote. In the slow movement of the sextet this takes the form of a sequence of variations on a favorite theme from the Baroque, known as La folia, (the same theme, in fact, that will be heard again at the end of Saturday evening’s concert). There are three variations in the minor key, two in the major and then an extended coda, throughout recreating the spirit of many an 18th century set of variations in Brahms’ 19th century clothes. The discipline and rigor of the writing shows that Bach’s Chaconne was never very far from Brahms’ mind when composing the movement. The Scherzo, with its exuberant trio, has the character of a rustic dance. It contrasts with the easy-going, expansive finale, which, in the first of several parallels with the first movement, opens with a resonant cello melody. It concludes with a spirited coda. The premiere of the B-flat Sextet was given in Brahms’ home town of Hanover by the augmented Joachim Quartet, with the composer present. Within the next few decades, Dvořák, Rimsky-Korsakov, Raff, Gade, Schoenberg and Tchaikovsky were each to write a sextet to build on the tradition initiated by Brahms’ gloriously sonorous string work. — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

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Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Friday, August 19 8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Tonight’s guest sponsorship:

Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is sponsored by Joan Christy & Tom Bersani

String

With additional support from MediaMarCon

Los Angeles Guitar Quartet William Kanengiser ~ John Dearman ~ Scott Tennant ~ Matthew Greif BOCCHERINI

arr. J. Sparks

PETER WARLOCK

arr. W. Kanengiser

Introduction and Fandango Capriol Suite (composed 1926)

Basse-Danse Bransles Pavane Pieds en L’Air Tordion Mattachins

BIZET

arr. W. Kanengiser

“Carmen” Suite Aragonaise Habanera Seguidilla

Toreadors Entr’acte Gypsy Dance

intermission

“Beyond Bop” – Three Post-bop Classics arr. M. Greif JOHN COLTRANE Giant Steps MILES DAVIS Blue in Green So What DEBUSSY

La Soirée dans Grenade

arr. J. Smith

DE FALLA

El Amor Brujo

Introducción y escena En la cueva – La noche Canción del amor dolido El aparecido – Danza del terror El círculo mágico A media noche

Danza ritual del fuego (arr. I. Krouse) Escena Canción del fuego fatuo (arr. S. Tennant) Pantomima Danza del juego del amor Las campanas del amanecer

Visit LAGQ online at lagq.com • LAGQ records for Telarc International • LAGQ uses Neumann microphones Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is managed by Frank Salomon Associates. 121 W. 27th Street, Suite 703, New York, NY 10001-6262. www.franksalomon.com Managing Associate: Barrie Steinberg

Program is subject to change.

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

Program Notes Introduction and Fandango Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) arr. J. Sparks

Italian composer and cellist Boccherini is known particularly for his chamber music. Having served as court composer in Madrid, he experienced Spanish culture first hand, which is perhaps what gives his Introduction and Fandango its air of authenticity. Originally in the final movement of his String Quintet, Op. 40, No.2, the Introduction and Fandango was arranged by Boccherini himself for guitar and string quartet. A short introduction (Grave assai) prepares the way for a lively fandango, filled with colorful harmonies and rhythmic vitality. Popular in both the Castilian and Andalusian regions, the fandango is a courtship dance in three-quarter time and moderately fast tempo. It reached the height of its popularity in the late 18th century, even finding its way into the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy and bringing renewed respectability to the guitar. Authorities trace its origins to Ibero Moorish, West Indian or Latin American roots. It appears in stylized versions in Gluck’s ballet “Don Juan”, Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and even in Beethoven’s sketchbook of 1810.

Capriol Suite (1926) PETER WARLOCK (1894-1930) arr. W. Kanengiser

Fascinated with the music and culture of the Renaissance, Warlock based it on dances from the Arbeau’s 1598 treatise “Orchésographie”. Although written for string orchestra, the piece retains much of its color and charm in this The 2010 Robinson Award winner Alicia Friedrichs (second from left) with David Ying, Elinor Freer, Alina Ying, Tyler Wilcox and Louise Robinson.

setting for guitar quartet. As in Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella,” the settings begin in a straightforward way, with only small hints that it was in fact written in the 20th century. It begins with the playful Basse-Danse, followed by the haunting Pavane. The jaunty Tordion gives way to a frantic and capricious Bransles, which sets up the achingly lovely Pieds en L’Air. The suite concludes with the sword– dance Mattachins, where Warlock’s strikingly modern harmonies assure us that we are back in the present day.

“Carmen” Suite GEORGES BIZET (1838-1875) arr. W. Kanengiser

The oft-repeated commentary that “the best Spanish music was written by Frenchmen” could certainly find its detractors, but justification for such a stance does gain some credence in light of the authentic Iberian character of Georges Bizet’s Carmen. In addition to being one of the most beloved and enduring operas of all time, this work has found a home on the symphonic stage, most notably with an orchestral suite of some of its most popular excerpts. In this arrangement of six movements from Carmen for guitar quartet, a special emphasis was put on retaining the distinctly Spanish sound of the music, which finds a natural home on the guitar. The current suite begins with the Aragonaise, with strumming fanfares and imitations of castanets. Next is the timeless Habanera, a sensual aria based on a melody by Iradier that explores the lyric possibilities of a single line melody on the guitar. It is followed by the flamenco-inspired Seguidilla, which explores a wide range of articulations and colors available on guitar quartet. The ever-popular Toreadors features boisterous strummed chords and extended trills, while the delicate Entr’Acte is a gradually-unfolding masterwork of lyric counterpoint. The

8/19 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

final Gypsy Dance creates a slowly building tension with repeated staccato figures, finally erupting in the famous and furious coda.

“Beyond Bop” – Three Post-bop Classics arr. M. GREIF

Giant Steps JOHN COLTRANE (1926-1967)

Blue in Green So What MILES DAVIS (1926-1991) These arrangements celebrate a generally lesser-known form of jazz: Post-bop. Jazz is most often associated with the popular Big Band and Bebop eras of the ’30s and ’40s. But jazz evolution continued throughout the 20th century and indeed continues today. Starting especially in the late 1950’s, jazz began assimilating myriad disparate influences. In addition to swing rhythms, African, Cuban, Brazilian, and later, Rock rhythms became part of the language. In addition to familiar diatonic chord progressions, the harmonic experience broadened to range from wild chromaticism to simple modal harmony (or maybe even no harmony, as in the case of Free Jazz). So What (1959), by Miles Davis is one of the first modal jazz tunes. It was recorded on the immensely popular album, Kind of Blue. The entire chord progression consists of only two

alternating tonalities: D dorian and Eb dorian. The uptempo LAGQ arrangement starts with an introduction in which the four guitarists trade ideas, creating a kind of pointillistic texture. Eventually, the familiar melodic riff is presented, followed by a series of solos. A kind of Minimalistic jam section ensues which eventually carries us to the restatement of the original melodic material. Blue in Green (1959), from the same Davis recording, was originally a moody ballad, featuring Bill Evans’s rich John Coltrane joined pianistic touches. the Navy in 1945 and In the quartet played saxophone in the dance arrangement, band, The Melody Masters. a Minimalistic intro sets up a gently percolating straight-eighth pulse. We then hear the melody, followed by solos, each featuring a different mood or voice. The arrangement winds down with a freer, almost choral-like presentation of the chord progression, an homage to the original Bill Evans outro. Giant Steps (1960), by John Coltrane, was a turning point in modern jazz. Never had a jazz tune moved so quickly through such disparate keys at such virtuosic speeds. The tune continues to this day to be a rite of passage for any serious jazz player. The LAGQ arrangement begins with, as so many jazz performances do, one instrument cryptically, sparsely announcing the changes. One by one, the others join in, picking up on melodic suggestions and passing these ideas

Fun Fact…

8/20 Program Notes (continued)

around. The tune builds chorus by chorus, and not until the end (in somewhat of a Coltrane tradition) is the melody is finally stated.

La Soirée dans Grenade (arr. J. Smith) CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) This piece was written for solo piano in 1903, part of a three-movement work entitled Estampes. Richly evocative of a visit to this historic Andalusian city, it is one of a number of Debussy pieces that reflect Spanish themes. La Soirée could be fairly described as a “fantasy in the form of a habanera”; using the familiar dotted rhythm as an ostinato, the work deftly recreates the atmosphere of an evening stroll under the moon-lit shadow of the Alhambra Castle. References to Spain’s Moorish past interrupt the texture, and a distant flamenco guitar is fleetingly glimpsed. This piece carries extra resonance with guitarists, as it was quoted by the great Spanish composer Manuel de Falla in his only composition for guitar, “Homenaje pour Le Tombeau de Debussy”, written as an elegy to the fallen French master.

El Amor Brujo MANUEL DE FALLA (1876 – 1946) Manuel de Falla was one of the greatest Spanish composers of the 20th century, and despite the fact that he only wrote one very brief piece for guitar, arrangements of his music

have become a staple of the guitarist’s repertoire. Some of the most popular are individual movements from his ballet El Amor Brujo, scored originally for full orchestra and mezzo-soprano. About twenty years ago, I decided to attempt to arrange the entire ballet for four guitars. What is lost in orchestral color is perhaps gained in the authentic gypsy sonority of the guitar, which de Falla in some way was trying to convey in his original. Set in a gypsy camp, the story deals with Candelas, a beautiful young girl, who is being courted by Carmelo. Complicating matters, the spirit of her former lover, a soldier killed in battle, haunts her and the gypsies. The piece opens with a strong theme that represents the jealousy of the ghost. Later, we find ourselves “In the Cave” with a brooding mystery. In “The Song of Sorrowful Love,” Candelas sings of the pain of an unattainable Love. The ghost then flies into the cave and the gypsies launch into “The Dance of Terror.” Striving to rid themselves of the apparition, they join hands around the Fire, and have a séance in the gentle “Magic Circle”. They then try to exorcise the ghost in the furious “Ritual Fire Dance” which ends with insistent chords as they try to stamp the spirit out into the fire. Magic, it seems, cannot break the spell, as the ghost reappears, and Candelas sings of the fleeting nature of Love in “the Song of the Will o’ the Wisp.” It is then that she decides to use love instead of sorcery, and she persuades her friend Lucia to dance a seductive Tango (in 7/8 time) to lure the ghost way. At the end of this “Pantomime” movement, the opening theme of the ghost is just a whisper. This leaves Candelas and Carmelo free to exchange the kiss that will break the spell, as they dance a bulerías in “The Dance of the Game of Love.” In the “Finale” Candelas sings to the ghost: “I am the fire in which you are consumed; I am the sea in which you drown!” As the “Bells of Dawn” peal triumphantly, we find that love, not witchcraft, is the most powerful sorcerer.

Special thanks to the

First Presbyterian Church for their generous hospitality

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Michael & Noreen Falcone

Saturday, August 20 7:30 PM Brook Farm

String

Rain Location: Skaneateles High School

Tonight’s guest sponsorship:

ECCO is sponsored by Sally & Bob Neumann and Amy & Chris Neumann

ECCO – East Coast Chamber Orchestra Mozart Divertimento in F Major, K. 138 Allegro Andante Presto

Elgar Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20 Allegro piacevole Larghetto Allegretto

Jennifer Higdon String from Concerto for Orchestra

intermission

Bartók Divertimento for String Orchestra, Sz. 113, BB. 118 Allegro non troppo Molto adagio Allegro assai

Geminiani/wiancko La Follia Variations East Coast Chamber Orchestra Violin Dan Chong J. Freivogel Meg Freivogel Nelson Lee Ayano Ninomiya Susie Park Michi Wiancko

Viola Maurycy Banaszek Jessica Bodner Dov Scheindlin

Cello Na-Young Baek Denise Djokic Dan McDonough

Double Bass Nate Farrington

For more information about ECCO, please visit www.eastcoastchamberorchestra.com Connect with ECCO on Facebook & YouTube ECCO is managed by: Frank Salomon Associates. 121 West 27th Street, Suite 703, New York, NY 10001-6262. 212-581-5197. info@franksalomon.com www.franksalomon.com

Program is subject to change. 34

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Program Notes Divertimento in F Major, K. 138 (1772) WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) By the age of 16, when he wrote this divertimento, Mozart had already spent over two years away from his home town of Salzburg. He had lived in London and Paris and traveled throughout Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy. In addition to giving concerts at court in order to fill his family’s pockets with gold rings, snuffboxes and watches, he met many of the famous musicians of the time and had opportunities to study and hear their music. Musical styles and traditions were different in every country and Mozart’s early compositions are often case-studies of where his travels had most recently taken him. He wrote the three Divertimentos, K. 136-8 in Salzburg, after the second of three extended trips to Italy. A final trip to Italy was already in the planning and the Italian influence on Mozart’s writing is strong. We’re not sure whether he wrote them for a specific occasion. Even the title Divertimento was added by another hand, probably by his father, Leopold. Despite the fact that the three divertimentos are published in the complete Mozart Edition as a sort of appendage to the string quartets, their performance by larger string ensembles is altogether appropriate. One-on-a-part chamber music was relatively rare in the Salzburg archdiocese in the 1760s and 1770s and there is little evidence that string

quartets, for example, were performed either within the court or in private homes. The Italianate Sinfonia form lies behind the music. And, indeed, K.138, with its lyrically expressive first movement violin line, its graceful, sustained slow movement and playful finale, is sometimes referred to – without firm evidence – as one of Mozart’s three “Salzburg symphonies.”

Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20 (1892) EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934) “I like ’em, the first things I ever did,” Elgar said of three pieces for string orchestra he wrote in 1888. Four years later, he reworked the pieces into the attractive, gentle Serenade for Strings. It was the earliest of his works to become widely known and remains the earliest of his music in today’s repertoire. Its success was not accidental. Elgar was a violinist of some skill and knew string instruments from the inside. When he wrote concertos for violin and cello, and a sonata for violin, they were among the most

Fun Fact… There are at least 65 roads named after Elgar in the UK, including six in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

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8/21 Program Notes (continued)

Higdon said, “like a scherzo in character, written in a jaunty Jennifer Higdon has rhythm and tempo composed pieces for that celebrates the Festival favorites Tf3, Hilary joyous sound of Hahn and the Ying Quartet. strings. The movement begins with everyone playing pizzicato and then slowly integrates a bowed sound, first through soloists, and then with all of the players. It continues to romp through to the end, where a snap pizzicato closes out the movement.”

Fun Fact…

personal and idiomatic of his works. Even after these later successes, beginning with the Enigma Variations in 1899, the Serenade was to remain Elgar’s favorite work. He conducted it in his last recording sessions the year before he died. The opening movement is bound together by the bouncy rhythmic figure heard at the beginning, on the violas. Over it, Elgar builds beautifully arching melodies underpinned by a distinctive melancholy. The slow movement is a noble elegy and the heart of the Serenade. Perfectly realized in shape, it anticipates the Nimrod movement in the Enigma Variations and the slow movements of the symphonies. The finale eloquently brings back themes from the opening movement.

String from Concerto for Orchestra (2002) JENNIFER HIGDON (b. 1962) “The Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections, and the entire orchestra,” says Philadelphia-based composer Jennifer Higdon. Written for the centenary of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2002, the piece was an immediate success for the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. Its second movement was inspired by the string sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The four-minute movement is,

Divertimento for String Orchestra, Sz. 113, BB. 118 (1939) BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945) When Bartók wrote this most immediately attractive of his orchestral works, he was already planning to leave Hungary. It was August 1939. Europe was in turmoil. Two weeks after he finished its final pages, the German invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II. But in early August, Bartók was in Switzerland, in the small town of Saanen in an alpine chalet belonging to the wealthy Swiss conductor Paul Sacher. Finding himself isolated from the world’s events, enjoying the patronage of a wealthy sponsor, he began to feel “like a musician from olden times” and commenced work on “some kind of a concerto grosso.”

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8/21 Program Notes (continued)

The result, just 15 days later, was the Divertimento, a title drawn from those “olden times” of outdoor serenades and court music-making. In it, Bartók weaves a highly developed contrapuntal style, including a baroque-like interplay between solo quartet and full strings, together with fragments and glimpses of the Hungarian folk music with which his composition was by now so richly influenced. Although extroverted and outgoing, the opening movement has an undercurrent of anxiety. The ‘night music’ of the slow movement is deeply troubled, colored by dark mysterious shadows, sharp stabs from the violins, sobs from the violas and shuddering tremolandos. An exuberant rondo finale brings a return to the earthy, good humor of the

opening movement. But not far from the folk dancing looms a tragedy that was about to unfold.

La Follia Variations (2006) MICHI WIANCKO (b. 1987) after ARCANGELO CORELLI (1653-1713) arr. Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762) La Follia is one of the most ancient European melodies, believed to be of Portuguese origin. Innumerable composers have used the dance theme as a basis of compositions, from Bach to Vangelis. In 1700, Arcangelo Corelli wrote a set of variations as the last movement of his Sonata in D minor for violin, Op. 5 No. 12. Three decades later, another Italian violin virtuoso, Francesco Geminiani paid homage to the widely respected Corelli and arranged his entire Op. 3 collection of sonatas as concerti grossi. Michi Wiancko, in turn, has used Geminiani’s version of Corelli’s follia variations as the basis of her own arrangement for ECCO. “Although I’ve kept the structure of the piece intact, I stray from Geminiani’s path here and there,” she says. “Percussive elements have been added, as well as drastic fluctuations in tempi, dynamics and textures – not to mention a couple of ‘home-made’ variations! I wanted to highlight some of the things we have in common with the music made 300 years ago: improvisation, drama, joy, and the occasional moments of irreverence.” — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

Today’s event is sponsored by:

Wednesday, August 24 5:30 PM Anyela’s Vineyards

Rhythm

2433 West Lake Rd. Skaneateles

James & Karin Blute and Barb Connor Today’s guest sponsorships:

Ayano Kataoka is sponsored by Koko Fuller Conor Nelson is sponsored by Planning Sense

S pecial E vent

Musical Happy Hour A free Community Event at

Featuring

The Kataoka/Nelson Duo Ayano Kataoka, marimba Conor Nelson, flute Stop by after work for a sampling of world class music. Enjoy great music with breathtaking views of the lake at this free event.

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

find us on –

“Sometimes we musicians joke that we just come back for the food.” – Michelle LaCourse, viola

FANFARE ON SALE NOW! This beautiful 3-ring binder book with stand is just $20. Get one for yourself and one for a friend. They make great gifts! Available to buy tonight at the concessions table, at the establishments listed, or online at skanfest.org

Today’s activities are sponsored by:

Thursday, August 25 Not open to the general public.

John & Candace Marsellus and The Gifford Foundation With additional support from the Frank and Frances Revoir Foundation Todayt’s guest sponsorship:

Rhythm

Marcus Roberts Trio is sponsored by Testone, Marshall & Discenza, CPAs

A Day in the City with the Marcus Roberts Trio Marcus Roberts, piano • Rodney Jordan, bass • Jason Marsalis, drums “The goal of the Trio is to help to expose as many young people as possible to jazz music.”

Part 1 Everson Museum The Trio gives a special performance for students from City of Syracuse schools. The concert will be followed by an interactive program designed specifically for the event by the Everson’s Curator of Education Programs.

Part 2 Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital The Trio will present an interactive program for the patients and their families, in the hospital’s Performance Center. Patients who are unable to leave their rooms will still be able to experience the music; the performance will be broadcast to their rooms on closed-circuit TV.

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

Here’s To THe skaneaTeles FesTival & 32 Years oF World Class PerFormanCes

Preservation sPecialists since 1975 •• Paintings • Frames • murals textiles Works oF art on PaPer PhotograPhic materials •• ProTeCTing TomorroW’s Treasures TodaY

skaneateles • 685-8534 www.westlakeconservators.com

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Thursday, August 25 8:00 PM Skaneateles High School

Michael P. Falcone and Dave Birchenough & Carrie Lazarus Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

Sō Percussion is sponsored by WCNY Classic FM

Rhythm

Tonight’s media sponsor is Citadel Broadcasting

Sō Percussion Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting

David Lang

The So-Called Laws of Nature

Part 2 from Imaginary City Agreements Extremes

Sō Percussion

from Amid the Noise June Life Is Blank

Jason Treuting

Dan Deacon from Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler Metals Steve Reich

Drumming

Part 1

intermission

Paul Lansky

Threads

For more information visit: www.sopercussion.com So Percussion is managed by Alliance Artists Management info@allianceartistmanagement.com

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

From the Artistic Directors

Week at a Glance… Rhythm (k∂-(rı̆ th’ ∂m) n.

1. A regular pattern formed by a series of notes of differing duration and stress. 2. A group of instruments in a band supplying the rhythm

SkanFest kicks it up a notch with a week exploring rhythm. Called an “experimental powerhouse” by the Village Voice and “astonishing and entrancing” by Billboard Magazine, the Sō Percussion quartet brings their edgy yet ancient breed of music to Skaneateles for the first time. Friday night brings another new musical experience to the Festival: a mélange of musical styles as Mozart, Bach, and contemporary masters Sebastian Currier, Michael Daugherty and others all riff off the idea of rhythm. This unusually presented performance (we’re calling it “Not your mother’s chamber music concert!”) is sure to entertain and stimulate. Elegant percussionist and marimbist Ayano Kataoka returns to the Festival, fresh from performances at Lincoln Center and in Tokyo. She joins other fantastic Festival musicians including legendary jazz pianist Marcus Roberts in this unique collaboration. Closing out the week, Marcus Roberts takes center stage with his trio at Brook Farm, treating us to an evening of jazz standards and Roberts’ own piece “From Rags to Rhythm.”

Program Notes © Sō Percussion, 2011

The So-called Laws of Nature (2002)

I went to college to study science. I was expected to become a doctor, or at the very least a medical researcher, and I spent very much of my undergraduate years studying math and chemistry and physics, hanging out with future scientists, going to their parties, sharing their apartments, eavesdropping on their conversations. I remember a particularly heated discussion about a quote from Wittgenstein: “At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the socalled laws of nature are the explanation of natural phenomena.” This quote rankled all us future scientists, as it implied that science can’t explain the universe but can only offer mere descriptions of things observed. Over the years it occurred to me that this could be rephrased as a musical problem. Because music is made of proportions and numbers and formulas and patterns I always wonder what these numbers actually mean. Do the numbers themselves generate a certain structure, creating the context and the meaning and the form, or are they just the incidental byproducts of other, deeper, more

8/25 Program Notes (continued)

mysterious processes? My piece The So-called Laws of Nature tries to explore the “meaning” of various processes and formulas. The individual parts are virtually identical. The percussionists play identical patterns throughout, playing unison rhythms on subtly different instruments. Most of these instruments the performers are required to build themselves. Some of the patterns between the players are displaced in time. Some are on instruments which have a kind of incoherence built into their sound. Does the music come out of the patterns or in spite of them? I am not sure which, but I know that this piece is as close to becoming a scientist as I will ever get.

virtuosity that S ō Percussion has become known for, and also moments of pathos and nostalgia, we simultaneously invite and challenge the audience to enter a unique world. –S ō Percussion

Amid the Noise Amid the Noise is a set of short pieces exploring many forms of noise framed by drones and consistent yet subtly changing harmonies. They were conceived as small soundtracks for everyday moments in everyday life. It was written and recorded in 2006, but has been growing and changing ever since. –Jason Treuting

– David Lang

Drumming

Imaginary City

Steve ReiCh

For Sō Percussion, Imaginary City represents both our continued work with original music and film begun with Amid the Noise, and the expanding dimensions of what we do on stage. For years we have been evolving towards concerts that utilize lighting, staging, and other visual elements to complement music. Percussion playing is naturally interesting to watch: sometimes for its raw physicality, other times for delicacy and control. Bringing an accomplished director to this project (Rinde Eckert) gave us new inspiration when we consider those elements. Through deeper explorations of musical processes, a

For Reich, Drumming was both a refinement of past techniques and a departure for new ones. Most importantly, he wanted audiences to hear all of the processes that make the music what it is. One rhythm permeates the entire

For S ō Percussion, the reasons to play Steve Reich’s Drumming are simple: it is exhilarating to perform, it is elemental yet intelligent, and it is fun to share with audiences. The other story, however, is a revolutionary approach to musical composition. Although every note of Drumming rocks, its existence is due to the composer’s tireless search for new modes of musical expression.

8/25 Program Notes (continued)

Once this rhythm builds up, one player starts moving slightly faster than the other. The result sounds at first like a musical train wreck, but gradually a new rhythm emerges, which is really the same rhythm set in different places. Other musicians then begin picking out patterns from this grid. These patterns move through three different instrument families (drums, marimbas, glockenspiels), and gradually up four octaves over the course of an hour. Reich’s study in Africa enabled him to write music that had to be percussion music. Its ecstatic grooves communicate directly, without pretense. Drumming captures the immediacy of that experience, and gives us a reference point for work still to come. –S ō Percussion

Threads Paul Lansky Threads, written for S ō Percussion in 2005, is a half-hour long ‘cantata’ for percussion quartet in ten short movements. There are three ‘threads’ that are interwoven in the

Photo by Mark Manring

piece. At the beginning, two players dramatically build that rhythm up one note at a time. This is a bold statement: Many other composers of Reich’s generation worked very hard to construct layers of mind-boggling complexity in their music.

Another busy night at the concession table for faithful Festival volunteer Elisabeth Hurley (left). piece: Arias and Preludes that focus on the metallic pitched sounds of vibraphones, glockenspiel and pipes; Choruses in which drumming predominates; and Recitatives made largely from Cage-like noise instruments, bottles, flower pots, crotales, etc. The aim of the different threads is to highlight the wide range of qualities that percussion instruments are capable of, from lyrical and tender to forceful and aggressive, and weave them into one continuous ‘thread’. The movements are performed without interruption. -Paul Lansky

Retina-Vitreous Surgeons of CNY, PC proudly supports

The Skaneateles Festival

Our Retinal Specialty Group Practice serves Central New York for patients with diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, retinal detachment and other retinal-related diseases and injuries. G. Robert Hampton, M.D.; Sam C. Spalding, III, M.D. Bryan K. Rutledge, M.D.; Jamin S. Brown, M.D. Paul F. Torrisi, M.D. Watertown Office

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Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Mark & Lou Bitz and Dan & Colleen Fisher

Friday, August 26

Rhythm

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

Ayano Kataoka is sponsored by Koko Fuller Conor Nelson is sponsored by Planning Sense Susie Park is sponsored by Stephen & Linda Chow Marcus Roberts is sponsored by Testone, Marshall & Discenza, CPAs David Ying is sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs Phillip Ying is sponsored by Chris Lego & Jeff Shingleton

Not Your Mother’s Chamber Music Concert! Bach selections from Partita No. 3 in E, BWV 1006

arr. Ayano Kataoka

Preludio Loure Gavotte en rondeau Gigue

Ayano Kataoka, marimba

Sebastian Currier Whispers Conor Nelson, flute David Ying, cello Xak Bjerken, piano Ayano Kataoka, percussion

Piazzolla L’Histoire du Tango Night-Club 1960 Concert of Our Own Times

Conor Nelson, flute Ayano Kataoka, marimba

intermission

Michael Daugherty Diamond in the Rough Magic Fifty-five minutes past midnight Wig dance

Susie Park, violin Phillip Ying, viola Ayano Kataoka, marimba

Mozart Allegro from Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 Susie Park, violin Phillip Ying, viola David Ying, cello Xak Bjerken, piano

Gershwin “I Got Rhythm” and other selections for solo piano

arr. Marcus Roberts

Marcus Roberts, piano

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

Program Notes selections from

Partita No. 3 in E, BWV 1006 (completed by 1720)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750) arr. Ayano Kataoka

Bach’s six Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin have risen a good deal in the public’s estimation since George Bernard Shaw declared that grating a nutmeg on the sole of a boot would produce more musical results than the scraping of a solo violin in Bach. The six sonorous masterpieces for just a single instrument without accompaniment are widely viewed as the peak of Baroque polyphonic writing for strings. The music adapts well to the sonorities of other instruments and has provided valuable repertoire for marimba players.

studied violin, and for a period there, I wanted to be a rock musician. . . We had a house full of records, and I was soon drawn to classical music – Beethoven more than most. At home, my father would stage informal string quartet readings, Haydn and Mozart, and I’d come downstairs and join in and involve myself in great music. Things like that in one’s youth have real significance.“

The Third Partita begins with a favorite Preludio, elegantly drawn yet exuberant. Then comes a stately dance movement resembling a slow gigue, known as the Loure, of which Bach wrote only three examples. Next is the longest of the more than two dozen minuets that Bach wrote when this graceful dance was at its most popular. The suite ends with a joyous Gigue.

A little over three decades later, members of the Berlin Philharmonic dedicated a full evening to Currier’s extensive chamber music. He received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 2007. And Anne-Sophie Mutter commissioned and gave the premiere of a violin concerto titled Time Machines earlier this summer with the New York Philharmonic. Whispers dates from 1996. Currier wrote the 13-minute piece for the flute, violin, piano and percussion of the Mosaic Ensemble. “Whispers is the musical equivalent of tones of voice;” he says, “a lively conversation with a friend in an environment—a library, say—where you must refrain from raising your voice… Quick accented whispers dominate the central section, Repressed Intensity, which has the performers playing with great vitality, but pianissimo. A generally reposeful quietude frames this sense of repressed urgency.”

Whispers (1996)

L’Histoire du Tango (1986)

SEBASTIAN CURRIER (b. 1959) “I come from a family of musicians,” American composer Sebastian Currier said. “Both my mother and brother are composers. My father’s a violinist. I was fortunate to grow up in a rather special environment. Both my brother and I

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) The nuevo tango of Argentinian composer and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla revolutionized tango as an art form and moved it from the dance floor to the concert hall. It represents a powerful fusion of dark, urban color and universal human feeling. Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango explores the history of the dance from its earliest times – around the same time that ragtime began to evolve north of the border – to the more recent. Originally written for flute and guitar, this suite of four movements also exists in a variety of arrangements. Tonight you’ll first hear the third movement of this suite, Night-Club 1960, in which the tango becomes cross-bred with the bossa nova from Brazil and, with it, the beginnings of the nuevo tango. The last movement, Concert of Our Own Times, follows the tango into the concert hall, weaving a path through Bartók and Stravinsky towards the tango of tomorrow.

Diamond in the Rough (2006) MICHAEL DAUGHERTY (b. 1954) Like Sebastian Currier, Iowa-born Michael Daugherty comes from a musical family. He is the son of a dance-band drummer and the oldest of five brothers, all professional musicians. Daugherty first came to international attention in the 1990s with a series of witty, dark-humored, brilliantly scored pieces inspired by 20th century pop-culture phenomena. Now he’s one of the most performed American composers of his generation A young artist presents her painting inspired by Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

piano trade ad to come

“I Got Rhythm”

8/27 Program Notes (continued)

Diamond in the Rough was first performed on January 27, 2006 by members of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, exactly 250 years to the day after the birth of Mozart. Like Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante, the nine-minute piece features violin and viola, but with percussion rather than orchestra – one player on glockenspiel, tambourine, triangle, metal wind chimes, and two tuned crystal glasses filled with water. Daugherty says that the piece is “inspired by the multifaceted music of Mozart, a composer whose life, like a diamond, reflects and refracts many stories and myths. In the first movement, Magic, complex rhythms and unusual orchestrations create different angles on Papageno’s glockenspiel heard in The Magic Flute. Crystal glasses resonate in the second movement, Fifty-five minutes past midnight, echoing the exact time of Mozart’s mysterious death on December 5, 1791. The last movement, Wig Dance, mirrors the image of Mozart as an avid partygoer who is said to have once remarked that he preferred the art of dancing to that of music.”

Allegro from Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 (1785) WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)

GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) In 1998, more than 60 years after his death, George Gershwin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music – for “distinguished and enduring contributions to American music.” Gershwin honed his keyboard skills playing and improvising for singers looking for new songs while working for a music publishing business on Tin Pan Alley. By 1915, George Gershwin just 17 years old, he suffered partial hearing cut his first piano loss after a poppy seed became roll for the Welte lodged in his ear canal. By the Mignon Company. time it was removed, it had A decade later, he begun to sprout. had cut more than 100. He made his own piano arrangement of I Got Rhythm for a 1934 concert tour with the 32-piece Leo Reisman Orchestra, the last concert work that he wrote and orchestrated before his early death at 38, from a brain tumor.

Fun Fact…

In his late music, Mozart the freelance composer was aiming to balance the needs of the marketplace with his own inward needs as a musician. And, for a few years after relocating to Vienna, it worked and he became the toast of the town. With the G minor Piano Quartet of 1785, however, Mozart’s plan to write three piano quartets hit a brick wall. “Write in a more popular manner, or else I can neither print nor pay for any more of your music,” his publisher told him before withdrawing from the project. K. 478, the first of two piano quartets that Mozart wrote for Viennese music lovers, is now universally recognized as a work of genius, clearly written from inner need as much as from outer pressure. Its opening movement shares the disquiet and unease of Mozart’s two other masterpieces in the same key: the G minor Symphony (No. 40) and the G minor String Quintet. The urgent rhythm at the very beginning is shared by all the instruments in unison and quite dominates the dark and dramatic first movement.

Providing the Albert Weber semi-concert grand piano

Saturday, August 27 7:30 PM Brook Farm

Rain Location: Skaneateles High School

TonighT’s concerT is presenTed in memory of Jean graham and is sponsored by:

The Skaneateles Festival Board, Past Presidents and friends TonighT’s guesT sponsorship:

Rhythm

Marcus Roberts Trio is sponsored by WiTh addiTional supporT from James & Salli Tuozzolo TonighT’s media sponsor is WAER

An Evening of Jazz with the

Marcus Roberts Trio Marcus Roberts, piano Rodney Jordan, bass Jason Marsalis, drums

The Festival welcomes jazz pianist Marcus Roberts and his Trio to Skaneateles for their Festival debut. Don’t miss the hottest ticket in town!

Program to include jazz standards as well as Roberts’ own composition, “From Rags to Rhythm”

Lynn L. Moore, Manager; Marcus Roberts Enterprises, Inc. www.marcusroberts.com Contact: Lynn@marcusroberts.com

Please support our sponsors and advertisers.

in memoriam

Jean Graham

I miss Jean Graham. She was one of those difficult-toforget people. The inflections in her voice invited listeners in, as if a quiet, homey space waited just beyond those tones. She was kind and so caring. At the same time, she was an extremely busy woman. She must have had some miraculous way of putting things in perspective, because somehow, she managed to at least seem calm every time I saw her. And Jean’s stories! Of places she and Dave and their friends visited, of her childhood, of exotic experiences and funny things closer to home. She shared so much, with her students, with the community, with me. I feel like when she passed, I lost a family member, and I know that many folks in Skaneateles and beyond feel the same way. What plays over and over again in my mind? Her, “oh, dear” and the pitch of her voice, her gentle chuckle, her enthusiastic explanations, and her graceful but breezy way of moving around, especially in the kitchen, where I probably spent the most time with her. I see her out in the garden tending to plants – or indoors running after one Corgi or another, scolding Hans or Willie or Jo, one extended index finger pointing the errant pup in the right direction. I see her in her classroom with her third graders and also working behind the scenes for her students: tending cages of Monarch butterflies in various stages of life, nursing ailing guinea pigs back to health, and arranging a picnic around a special occasion. I remember late nights during the final week of the Festival, Jean at the table under what looked like a spotlight, polishing lesson plans for the coming schoolyear.

The inflections in her voice invited listeners in, as if a quiet, homey space waited just beyond those tones.

She enjoyed speaking about her daughters Wendy and Ginger, her son-in-law Scott, and her grandchildren Parker and Eliza, as well as the rest of her family. I remember when Eliza was born. Now Eliza is nearly full grown. Where has all of that time gone? I hope that everyone who didn’t know Jean meets someone like her at some point in his or her life. She was a true class act. For those of us who knew her, I hope that we each learned something from her that we can incorporate into our daily lives. I don’t know if she herself realized what a role model she was, but I think it’s fair to say that everyone around her did. Hilary Hahn

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Jary & Julie Shimer

Wednesday, August 31

Masterpiece

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

Tonight’s guest sponsorship:

Jon Nakamatsu is sponsored by Don & Chacea Sundman

S pecial E vent

A solo piano recital with

Jon Nakamatsu Rameau Gavotte and Doubles Liszt Dante Sonata (Fantasia quasi sonata)

intermission

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 2 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, “Moonlight” Adagio sostenuto – Allegretto Presto agitato

Chopin Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise in E-flat Major, Op. 22

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

From the Artistic Directors

Week at a Glance…

Masterpiece (măs’t∂r-pēs´) n.

1. An outstanding work of art or craft. 2. Something superlative

The Skaneateles Festival, at its core, is known for presenting some of the greatest music ever written performed by today’s leading musicians. Our final week celebrates this special experience. Stellar musicians pianist Jon Nakamatsu (Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medalist), soprano Sari Gruber (Naumburg Competition winner), violinist Steven Copes (St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concertmaster), and others close this year’s festival with a week of timeless masterpieces. For ethereal beauty, we’ll hear Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock; for melancholy and soul, the Brahms Clarinet Quintet; for exuberant folk music, Dvořák’s Dumky Trio; for stunning melodic beauty, the Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5. And the list goes on! Each historic piece this week stands the test of time because of the universal human qualities it conveys. It’s the kind of music we live for.

Program Notes Gavotte and Doubles (c. 1729/30) JEAN-PHILLIPE RAMEAU (1683-1764) Renowned as a music theoretician and opera composer, with a reputation, too, as an organist, Rameau did not endear himself to his colleagues in 18th century France. He was “lean and scraggy, with more the air of a ghost than a man,” by one account; “like a long organ pipe with the blower away” by another. His prickly character and keen intellect frequently provoked argument. Remarkably, he was 50 before his first stage work, Hippolyte et Aricie, was publicly performed. It began a new era in French opera. Throughout his career, Rameau wrote short harpsichord pieces which he grouped into suites – though he did not use the term. For many years after his death, performances of these 50 or so keyboard works were chiefly responsible for keeping his name alive. The Gavotte and six doubles, or variations, has been claimed as Rameau’s homage to Handel, whose Air with five doubles in the Third keyboard Suite it closely resembles. There again, it reminds another well-known performer of one of the Goldberg variations that Bach was to write more than a decade in the future. Either way, by exploring many aspects of keyboard technique, Rameau delivers a virtuoso vehicle of great exuberance.

Dante Sonata (Fantasia quasi sonata) (1838-61) FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886) Hell is a more interesting place to visit than Heaven in Liszt’s formidable Dante Sonata. Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, the music vividly evokes the Inferno and Paradise. The freedom of its fantasia form stimulated Liszt to compose one of his most challenging works, depicting Dante’s world of “strange tongues, horrible cries, words of pain, tones of anger, voices deep and hoarse.” The Dante Sonata is the final piece of seven in the second volume of Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”). The title of the single-movement piece, “After

a reading of Dante,” is consciously imprecise, leaving the listener’s imagination free to associate the music with whatever passages seem appropriate. The introduction opens with a sinister portrayal of Hell (“Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” it seems to say). The music then depicts the agony of Hell in which Dante’s “strange tongues, horrible cries, words of pain, tones of anger and voices deep and hoarse” are whipped up into something non-too-pretty. As the temperature subsides, the same theme is radiantly transformed into a chorale-like melody, with the accompaniment of a harp. The accompaniment soon turns to plunging octaves as the tempo again increases, whipped up into what is believed to be a musical depiction of Lucifer, the “creature eminent in beauty once.” The Inferno gives way to the scene where Dante gazes up to Heaven and contemplates the beauties of Paradise. The chorale theme is again transformed, this time to a shimmering depiction of Heaven.

Piano Sonata No. 2 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, “Moonlight” (1801) LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) It is evening. A natural landscape; picturesque. The Beethoven dedicated shores of Lake “Moonlight” Sonata to Lucerne are lit by his 17-year-old pupil, Countess moonlight. A boat Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom takes the traveler he was, or had been, in love. across the lake. Imagine yourself in this scene as you listen to the first movement of this sonata. If you do, you will be in the same frame of mind as was the 19th century German romantic poet and critic Ludwig Rellstab (whose verses Schubert set in 1828, as the opening seven numbers of his Schwanengesang). When Rellstab first heard Beethoven’s C sharp minor Sonata, he gave the work a title which has stuck ever since – the Moonlight.

Fun Fact…

8/31 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise in E-flat Major, Op. 22 (1830-35)

Beethoven, however, was not thinking of a moonlit Swiss lake when he wrote his 14th piano sonata. Like its companion in E flat, Op. 27 No. 1, Beethoven called it Sonata quasi una fantasia – a sonata that is almost a fantasia – which can be taken as a way of saying that something unusual is about to happen in the music.

FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849)

The opening movement makes its impact almost entirely through restraint. Most unusually for a piano sonata, it is slow. Berlioz described it as “one of those poems that human language does not know how to qualify.” In it, the left hand softly displays what Berlioz described as “large chords of a solemn, sad character, the length of which allows the vibrations of the piano to extend gradually over each one of them.” Played throughout, as Beethoven directs, with ‘the greatest delicacy and with pedal,’ the right-hand triplet accompaniment builds on the slight augmentation of sound produced by the resonating strings and continues hypnotically until the end. Structurally, the movement gives the impression of a free improvisation, but it is disciplined by sonata form. The second movement is gentle, even wistful, although it is possible to hear an element of unease in its syncopated rhythm. Then the finale is one of Beethoven’s most turbulent outpourings, a passionate foreshadowing of the Appassionata sonata of three years later, and a terrible storm on Rellstab’s idyllic lake.

concert & restaurant specials

Don’t miss the terriﬁc Dinner & Concert Packages offered by your favorite Skaneateles restaurants. Why not make Saturday “Date Night” at Brook Farm – with their gourmet Take-Out options! Check out all the options at

www.skanfest.org

Poland, the homeland he left at the age of 20, was never far from the thoughts or the music of Frederic Chopin. The spirit of its dances, melodies, rhythms and harmonies permeates his music; its political aspirations and deep longing for independence nurture his nationalist spirit. Chopin never returned to his country. In the hands of Frederic Chopin, the polonaise blossomed from a popular and colorful folk dance with distinctive Polish rhythms into a proud, powerful, frequently dramatic composition. Chopin’s polonaises seem to embody the spirit of Polish resistance to oppression; they combine a sorrowful brooding on defeat with a defiant striving for independence. His Grande Polonaise for piano and orchestra was the last of his six works for piano and orchestra. It was also the first part of the Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise, op. 22 to be written. Chopin began it in Warsaw and completed it in 1830-1, when staying in Vienna, trying, without much success, to build a career. News of the fall of Warsaw made him leave Vienna and head for Paris. After playing the Grande Polonaise with great success for several years, Chopin added the opening Andante spianato for solo piano (‘spianato’ meaning calm or smoothed – just like the music itself). The Andante spianato is a mature work, designed to showcase Chopin’s singing (cantabile) playing, and it contrasts noticeably with the youthful,

8/31 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

exuberant polonaise. Chopin first performed it at a longdelayed concert at the Paris Conservatoire on April 26, 1835. After this concert, he withdrew from public concertgiving and retired to the more intimate setting of the salon. The work now exists in a number of versions. In 1836, Chopin arranged it for piano quartet; two years later, he arranged the entire piece for solo piano. As the orchestral contribution is modest, the piece is usually played in its solo version today. — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

All proceeds from intermission sales of cookies and drinks will benefit the Skaneateles Music Boosters.

Photo by WEnDy MagiEra

Support Music in our Schools! Sandi Frackenpohl joins Bill & Carol Stokes-Cawley at last year's "Summer Suite" event.

Today’s concerT is sponsored by:

Thursday, September 1

Masterpiece

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

WOLF

Today’s guesT sponsorships:

Steven Copes is sponsored by CNY Business Journal Sari Gruber is sponsored by David & Ann Lee Jon Manasse is sponsored by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Jon Nakamatsu is sponsored by Don & Chacea Sundman David Ying is sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs

Italian Serenade Steven Copes, violin Janet Ying, violin Carol Rodland, viola David Ying, cello

SCHUBERT

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock), D. 965 Sari Gruber, soprano Jon Manasse, clarinet Jon Nakamatsu, piano

DEBUSSY

Première Rhapsodie Jon Manasse, clarinet Jon Nakamatsu, piano

inTermission

BRAHMS

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in B minor, Op. 115 Allegro Adagio Andantino – Presto non assai, ma con sentimento Con moto – un poco meno mosso

Jon Manasse, clarinet Steven Copes, violin Janet Ying, violin Carol Rodland, viola David Ying, cello

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible in part by funding from Trust for Cultural Resources for the County of Onondaga.

Program Notes Italian Serenade (1887) HUGO WOLF (1860-1903) The sunny, jaunty nature of this one-movement Serenade by the Austrian composer Hugo Wolf certainly seems to speak with an Italian accent. But the title by which we know it – Italian Serenade – was only adopted by the composer five years after he wrote his Serenade in G in just three days, in 1887. Its original scoring for string quartet (Wolf also made an arrangement for small orchestra) suggests that he is casting a glance backward towards the serenades of a bygone era. But Wolf had no time for nostalgia or for composers who courted commercial success by writing what the public wanted. In the Italian Serenade he finds a way of detaching himself from his subject in a way that is quite alien to composers of 18th century serenades. There’s an ambivalence of mood, tongue-incheek humor and even irony in the piece. Take the case of the cello, frequently cast as a lover pleading his case to a loved one. In one passage, love is professedthree times, in increasingly florid declarations. Each time, these protestations are mocked by the other strings. Wolf’s idiom in this music is clearly not sentimental or nostalgic for innocent times long since past. There’s an edge and a detachment to his music, more in tune with the approaching, increasingly complex 20th century than with the traditional world of the serenade.

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, (The Shepherd on the Rock), D. 965 (1828) FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Simultaneously looking back to his youth and pointing ahead to the future, Schubert’s The Shepherd on the Rock dates from October 1828, one month before his death. It is the last of Schubert’s more than 600 songs. He wrote it for Anna Milder-Hauptmann, a prima donna with whom he had a good rapport. She was looking for an extended concert piece with a brilliant ending and contrasted sections so that, she requested, “several emotions could be represented.” Milder may have assembled the text herself from poems by Wilhelm Müller, the author of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise and Helmina von Chézy, librettist of Schubert’s Rosamunde. It was to be three years before Schubert wrote his masterpiece, which is more like a dramatic scene – a vocal scena – than strophic song. Its calm opening immediately evokes an outdoor atmosphere to which the clarinet soon adds a suggestion of alpine yodeling through an upward leap. Schubert weaves some imaginative, often brilliant, interplay between voice and clarinet, capitalizing on the clarinet’s wide range and the varying color of its different registers. The clarinet adds an echo, as the voice of the poet’s alpine shepherd resounds through the deep valley. The verses are punctuated by short

9/1 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

interludes from clarinet and piano that appear to have the freedom of a rhapsody yet all the while contribute to the musical unity of the piece. A minor-key episode reflects deep sorrow and loneliness at the lover’s absence and, with it, some poignant modulations. But for the requested “brilliant ending,” Schubert magically turns the mood around to optimism for the coming spring.

Première Rhapsodie (1909-10) CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Debussy wrote two Rhapsodies for solo instrument and piano. The first was a commission for saxophone solo and orchestra from Elise Hall – “the saxophone lady,” as Debussy referred to this official with the Orchestral Club in Boston. He never really completed the commission, leaving the music unorchestrated, despite many pleas from Boston. The Clarinet Rhapsody, on the other hand, is true Debussy, full of romantic lyricism and virtuosity. Its origins were as a test piece, a morceau de concours, for the Paris onservatoire. But Debussy’s heart was in the project and its inspiration is genuine. In February 1909, Debussy was appointed member of the Supreme Council of the Music Section of the Paris

Conservatoire – an establishment job for a composer who was temperamentally at odds with an establishment of any kind. Still, it did bring him into direct contact with a new generation of music students. Their performances of the imposed pieces in the annual competition pleased him sufficiently to agree to write both the Rapsodie and a sight-reading test piece, titled Petit Pièce, which he later orchestrated, for the clarinet students in the 1910 competition. Debussy himself was on the jury. He said at the time that the Première Rapsodie (he never completed a second) was “one of the most pleasing pieces I have ever written.”

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in B minor, Op. 115 (1891) JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) “The clarinet cannot be blown more beautifully than by this Mühlfeld,” the 57-year-old Brahms said in his customary terse manner. “Mühlfeld” was Richard Mühlfeld, a musician well established at the Meiningen court in central Germany, initially as a violinist, later as a selftaught clarinetist. Mühlfeld’s refined sound and elegant phrasing had impressed Brahms. He thought that it might provide a key that would unlock the flagging creativity he feared in the twilight years of his life. In 1891, Brahms was at the very peak of his considerable powers of thematic development. Many of the basic themes of the entire

Text & Translations Der Hirt auf dem Felsen Wenn auf dem höchsten Fels ich steh’, In’s tiefe Tal hernieder seh’, Und singe. Fern aus dem tiefen dunkeln Tal Schwingt sich empor der Widerhall Der Klüfte. Je weiter meine Stimme dringt, Je heller sie mir wieder klingt Von unten. Mein Liebchen wohnt so weit von mir, Drum sehn’ ich mich so heiß nach ihr Hinüber. In tiefem Gram verzehr’ ich mich, Mir ist die Freude hin, Auf Erden mir die Hoffnung wich, Ich hier so einsam bin. So sehnend klang im Wald das Lied, So sehnend klang es durch die Nacht, Die Herzen es zum Himmel zieht Mit wunderbarer Macht. Der Frühling will kommen, Der Frühling meine Freud’, Nun mach ich mich fertig Zum Wandern bereit. 58

The Shepherd on the Rock When on the highest cliff I stand, gaze down into the deep valley and sing, the echo from the ravines floats upwards from the dark valley far away. The further my voice travels, the clearer it returns to me from below. So far from me does my love dwell that I yearn for her more ardently over there. With deep grief I am consumed, my joy is at an end; all hope on earth has left me; I am so lonely here, So longingly sounded the song in the wood, so longingly it sounded through the night, drawing hearts heavenwards with wondrous power. Spring is coming, Spring, my joy; now I will make ready to go journeying. — Text after poetry by Wilhelm Müller and verses of Wilhelmina Christiane von Chézy

9/1 Program Notes (continued)

quintet are heard in the first few bars of the opening movement, played by the strings, before the clarinet appears. These thematic fragments gradually evolve into a gently nostalgic, warmly inviting melody that represents Brahms at his most reflective. Each time the melody reappears, its fluidity allows it to constantly evolve and develop. From its first appearance, the main theme sets the mood and tone for the entire Quintet. There is little conflict in the music; Brahms favors resolution, even resignation at times. The theme also establishes the tonality as a mellow B minor, oscillating round a brighter B major and related D major. This deliberately restrained tonal palette colors the entire quintet, adding to its sweet sadness, its rhapsodic freedom and autumnal quality. Yet

Brahms avoids the deep slumber of indulgence by keeping the thematic underpinning of his music alive. As the music develops, its themes reveal a more emphatic character. They are beautifully transformed, radiant and mellow, in the dotted rhythms of the Quasi sostenuto section before being gloriously revisited in the final section of the opening movement. There is another darkly assertive passage, with an improvisational, Hungarian flavor in the central section of the slow movement. Its energy, however, remains essentially reflective rather than confrontational. The music is based on a dramatic variant of the first movement’s opening, giving the clarinet opportunity for wild, gypsy-like spontaneity and freedom, as the muted strings imitate a cimbalom. The third movement brings a change of pace as Brahms skillfully transforms one of the opening ideas of the first movement into a serenade. It seems to inhabit more of the present, as it were, before he renews his reflection on times past. The finale brings to the forefront the quintet’s fundamental idea of evolving, movement by movement, through variations on a set of initial ideas. It presents a series of five variations that sum up and reflect on all the ideas we have heard so far. The music alludes to all three previous movements, bringing the journey full circle and giving a remarkable feeling of unity to the entire Clarinet Quintet – a cornerstone of the chamber music repertoire. — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

Today’s concert is sponsored by:

Friday, September 2

Masterpiece

8:00 PM First Presbyterian Church

The Howard L. Green Foundation, Inc. and the Columbian Foundation, Inc. Today’s guest sponsorships:

Steven Copes is sponsored by CNY Business Journal Elinor Freer and David Ying are sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs Sari Gruber is sponsored by David & Ann Lee Jon Manasse is sponsored by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Jon Nakamatsu is sponsored by Don & Chacea Sundman

André Previn Four Songs for Soprano, Cello, and Piano Mercy (Slowly) Stones (Bright and sassy) Shelter (Gently) The Lacemaker (Slowly)

Sari Gruber, soprano David Ying, cello Elinor Freer, piano

Brahms Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 120 Allegro amabile Allegro appassionato Andante con moto

Jon Manasse, clarinet Jon Nakamatsu, piano

intermission

DvořÁk Piano Trio in E minor, B. 166, Op. 90, “Dumky” Lento maestoso – Allegro vivace Poco adagio – Vivace non troppo Andante – Vivace non troppo Andante moderato – Allegretto scherzando Allegro – Meno Mosso Lento maestoso – Vivace

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Steven Copes, violin David Ying, cello Elinor Freer, piano

Program Notes

Four Songs for Soprano, Cello, and Piano (1994) ANDRÉ PREVIN (b. 1929) Duke Ellington liked to bestow the phrase “Beyond category” on musicians he particularly admired. André Previn was one such musician. Previn, still busily productive, with world-wide 80th birthday celebrations long since past, is widely known as a versatile conductor and awardwinning composer of orchestral, chamber, stage and film scores – with 13 Academy Award nominations and four Oscars (Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Duce, My Fair Lady) to his credit. In addition, he has parallel and equally versatile and busy careers as pianist in jazz and chamber music, as a prolific recording artist with 10 Grammy awards, and as author and television host. The last two decades have seen Previn composing more concert music than in previous decades combined: a violin concerto and double concerto for Anne-Sophie Mutter, orchestral works for Boston, Leipzig, Pittsburgh, Salzburg and Vienna, together with his first opera, A Streetcar Named Desire, which he conducted in 1998 with the San Francisco Opera, and a second, Brief Encounter, for Houston Opera two seasons ago.

Morrison. Previn and Morrison had recently collaborated on the song cycle Honey and Rue and these four new poems were written at Previn’s request. Throughout, piano and cello both accompany and offer commentary on the sung words, probing Morrison’s subtle layers of meaning. “Toni’s words are not exactly simple, and their meanings are often veiled,” Previn writes, in the only comments he has offered on the piece. The opening song, Mercy, is framed by a haunting, melancholy lament for cello and piano, suggesting the wished-for mercy. The angularity and syncopation of the instruments in Stones, marked “bright and sassy” in the score complement the assertion and defiance of the singer’s words. The prevailing atmosphere of the third song, Shelter, suggests comfort and reassurance. Brief interjections from cello and piano give a glimpse of distant mountains waiting to be scaled and rivers sailed. The Lacemaker explores resignation and unfulfilled aspirations in a life lived in stark contrast to that of someone privileged to wear lace.

His Four Songs were written in 1994 to poems by the Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning novelist and poet Toni

Mercy I could watch Heads Turn from the traveler’s look The camera’s probe Bear the purity of their Shame Hear mute desolation in syllables Ancient as Death. I could do these things If Only if only I knew that when ilk Spills And hearts stop Underheel Some small thing gone Chill Is right To warm toward a touch because Mercy Lies in wait Like a shore. Mercy Mercy Mercy Like a shore.

Fun Fact… Andre Previn has won 10 Grammy Awards and 4 Oscars.

Stones I don’t need no man Telling me I ain’t one. My trigger finger strong As his on a shot gun. Buttercake and roses smooth Stones in my bed. Handmade quilts cover Stones in my bed. I don’t need no man Telling me I ain’t one. My backbone ain’t like his But at least I got one. High-heeled skippers break Stones in my bed. Games played at night trick Stones in my bed. Stones in my bed. Stones. I don’t need no man telling me Shelter In this soft place Under your wings I will find shelter From ordinary things. Here are the mountains

I want to scale Amazon rivers I’m dying to sail. Here the eyes of the forest I can hold in a stare And smile at the movement Of Medusa’s green hair. In this soft place Under your wings I will find shelter From ordinary things The Lacemaker I am as you see What most becomes me: Miles skipped Cancelled trips Masters yet unmet. Lace alone is loyal, sacred, royal, in control Of crimes stopped By patterns of blood bred to best behavior. As you see I am What has become of me. — Toni Morrison

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Sonata in No. 2 E-flat Major, Op. 120 (1894) JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) By today’s standards, thoughts of retirement came relatively early to Brahms. He was just 57 when his friend the surgeon Theodor Billroth reported: “He rejects the idea that he is composing or will ever compose again.” Musicians, however, were eager to hear more from the composer whose musical bloodlines reached back through German romanticism and the three great Viennese classical composers to Bach, almost a century and a half earlier. But honorary degrees, medals and elegies to the dead provided no incentive for Brahms to create more. Then, in 1891, on a visit to Meiningen to hear the orchestra, Brahms discovered something new and stimulating in the playing of the court clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. He was taken by the beauty of Mühlfeld’s sound and eager to discuss technique with the younger musician.Mühlfeld was then in his mid-30s and at the peak of his career, playing principal clarinet in both Meiningen and Bayreuth. Brahms wrote the beautiful, autumnal Clarinet Quintet played last night and the Clarinet Trio for him during the summer of 1891. Then, three years later, Brahms again heard Mühlfeld. This time the musical fallout was a pair of sonatas that provided clarinetists with two of the finest works in the repertoire – and which also double as viola sonatas, giving viola players the first substantial works for their instrument.

The two sonatas are strongly contrasted. Like Beethoven before him, Brahms had made a practice of working on two contrasted compositions simultaneously. The music flows seamlessly in the opening movement of the E flat Sonata, the more relaxed of the two sonatas, with a good deal of lightly-worn technical craft masking the seams in this sonata-form movement. The middle movement is Brahms’ final scherzo and is, curiously, written in the same key and tempo as his first, over four decades earlier. There’s no slow movement as such, since the finale is a set of variations on a slow, noble theme. Four variations lead to a tempestuous fifth, which takes on the character of the traditional finale.

Piano Trio in E minor, B. 166, Op. 90, “Dumky” (1890-91) ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904) The dumka and its cousin the furiant are the two most distinctive folk-like elements in Dvořák’s music. He first used the first of the terms in his Dumka for piano, Op. 35 of 1876, distilling its contrasting moods of sadness and joy from the dumka’s origin two or three centuries earlier in epic Ukrainian and later Slavonic folk music. Thereafter, he continued to use the idea in his Slavonic Dances, in three of his chamber works and, most radically of all, in the last of his four surviving piano trios, the one we know by the plural form of the word, Dumky. “At the moment, I am working on something very small, indeed very small,” Dvořák wrote to his friend Alois Göbl in November 1890,

9/3 Program Notes (CoNTINuED)

quite minimizing the fundamental way he was re-thinking the structure of the piano trio. “These are little pieces for violin, cello and piano. The work will be both happy and sad! In some places, like a meditative song, in others like a joyful dance.” Dvořák’s ‘Dumkas for Piano Trio’ include no less than six movements – six successive dumky, each with the characteristic happy-sad contrast that Dvořák wished to introduce to the traditional sonata structure. The first three lead from one to another, linked to some extent by their key relationships, pacing and by the shared emotional swing. To this extent, they can be viewed as

corresponding to the first movement of the traditional piano trio – although, in doing so, we tend to underestimate the originality of Dvořák’s concept Both the fourth and the fifth dumky tend to focus on a single mood: the fourth, with its rather somber, arch-like theme, being the slow movement and the exuberant fifth, the scherzo. The finale swings back and forth between melancholy and extreme exultation. Indeed, these carefully calculated contrasts throughout the trio help give the music the logic and consistency that brought immediate success with both performers and audiences. Dvořák himself gave the first performance with the violinist Ferdinand Lachner and the cellist Hanus Wihan, for whom he was later to write the Cello Concerto. The occasion was an 1891 concert at which Dvořák, now a fully mature and recognized composer, was to receive an honorary degree from Charles University in Prague. The success of the work led the musicians to perform the work on a 40-concert tour of Bohemia and Moravia immediately before Dvořák left his homeland to take up a two-year appointment in New York. — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

THE SKANEATELES FESTIVAL RECOGNIZES THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THE

Thank you for our P.A.C.E. funding. P.A.C.E. Program for Arts Capacity & Excellence is designed to encourage arts organizations to work on strategic organizational issues and build long-term sustainability. 63

Tonight’s concert is sponsored by:

Peter & Elsa Soderberg

Saturday, September 3

with additional support from: Sid & Suzanne Devorsetz

7:30 PM Brook Farm

Tonight’s guest sponsorships:

Masterpiece

Rain Location: Skaneateles High School

Peter Bay is sponsored by Bill & Donna Davis Sari Gruber is sponsored by David & Ann Lee David Ying is sponsored by Green & Seifter, CPAs

Festival Grand Finale Skaneateles Festival Chamber Orchestra Peter Bay, conductor

Overture to Il Signor Bruschino Rossini Britten Simple Symphony, Op. 4 Boisterous Bourrée Playful Pizzicato Sentimental Saraband Frolicsome Finale

Mozart Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia, K. 582 (1789)

Vado, ma dove, K. 583 (1789) Sari Gruber, soprano

Villa-lobos

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for Soprano and 8 Cellos Aria (Cantilena) Adagio Dansa (Martelo) Allegretto

intermission

Sari Gruber, soprano cellos: Jamie Clark, Katlyn Degraw, Lindsay Groves, Mimi Hwang, Hyeok Kim, Nathaniel Ortega, Seth Russell, David Ying

Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 Molto Allegro Andante Menuetto: Allegretto Allegro assai

The Skaneateles Festival is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

Program Notes

Overture to Il Signor Bruschino (1812) GIOACHINO ROSSINI (1792-1868) “Wait until the eve of the performance” was Rossini’s recipe for writing a successful opera overture. And the recipe worked well for Rossini, a renowned gourmand. Thirty-nine operas in 19 years. Not bad, particularly when you count the masterpieces and tally the relatively few failures. Il Signor Bruschino, a one-act farsa, was one of those failures, however, at its premiere in Venice in 1813. Rossini was barely 21. But, more than four decades later, he could look back on the occasion with a wry smile. “I am happy about having committed this youthful folly,” he said, knowing that the production was followed by a successful Tancredi and L’Italiana in Algeri within six months. Not far into the delightful, sparkling overture, Rossini asks for a novel effect from the second violins, requiring them to tap the metal part of their stands with their bows. Once he gets hold of the idea, the young Rossini never lets go. This proved to be over the top for the audience in Venice and resulted in “bursts of laughter, whistling, and all kind of interruptions,” according to Rossini’s friend and biographer Alexis Azevedo.

Simple Symphony, Op. 4 (1933-4) BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976) English composer Benjamin Britten started to write music before he could write words. He looked back on some of his early music, composed between the ages of 9 and 12, when writing his Simple Symphony. He did this not as a mature composer casting a sentimental glance back at the works of his youth but at the age of 20, in 1934. The alliterative

titles of the movements reflect the mood of the symphony. Boisterous Bourrée is based on Britten’s first Suite for piano (1926) with a song of 1923 as second subject. Playful Pizzicato is a scherzo and trio with tarantella rhythms and is based on similar sources. Sentimental Saraband uses a melody from the third Suite (1925) with a piano waltz of two years earlier for its middle section. The Frolicsome Finale incorporates the Ninth piano sonata (1926) and a song from the previous year. The composer clearly felt that his early music had intrinsic merit and deserved a life out of the bottom drawer: “This Simple Symphony is entirely based on material from works which the composer wrote between the ages of 9 and 12,” he noted in the score. “Although the development of these themes is in many places quite new, there are large stretches of the work which are taken bodily from early pieces – save for the re-scoring for strings.”

Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia, K. 582 (1789) Vado, ma dove, K. 583 (1789) WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) “I like an aria to fit a singer as perfectly as a well-made suit of clothes,” Mozart wrote to his father in 1778. Indeed, it wasn’t uncommon for 18th century composers to liken their craft to that of a tailor. Mozart worked closely with several singers, tailoring his melodies to fit their range, vocal quality and ability. In addition to arias in his operas, he wrote concert arias, generally for a handful of close friends and pupils, and “insertion” arias for a wider group of singers. He wrote today’s arias for the Italian soprano Louise Villeneuve who was shortly to become the first Dorabella in his 1790 opera Cosi fan tutte. In October of the previous

Text & Translations Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia l’affanno del mio bene, se sdegno, gelosia, timor, sospetto, amor. Voi che sapete, o Dei, I puri affetti miei, Voi questo dubbio amaro Toglietemi dal cor.

Who knows what troubles my beloved Who knows what it is that troubles my beloved. Is it anger, jealousy, fear, suspicion or love? You, oh gods, who know the purity of my love, take this bitter uncertainty from my heart.

Vado, ma dove? Vado, ma dove? Oh Dei! Se de’ tormenti suoi, se de’ sospiri miei non sente il ciel pietà! Tu che mi parli al core, Guida i miei passi, amore; Tu quel ritegno or togli Che dubitar mi fa.

I go, but where to? I go, but where to, Oh gods!? For his torment, for my torment does heaven not feel pity? You who speak to my heart guide my footsteps, O Cupid! Remove now that obstacle that makes me doubt. 65

9/3 Program Notes (continued)

year, she was in Vienna appearing in a revival of Il burbero di buon cuore (“The good-hearted churl”) by the Spanish composer Martín y Soler and it’s in this opera that Mozart’s arias, to texts by da Ponte, were designed to be inserted. In the aria Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia (“Who knows what troubles my beloved”), the heroine, Madame Lucilla questions the surliness of her suitor, who is up to his ears in debt. Despite her underlying unease, Mozart’s music, with its prominent writing for clarinets, is buoyant and increasingly brilliant. Vado, ma dove? (“I go, but where to?”) is more agitated at the outset before love transforms the music into something as tender and lyrical as Mozart ever wrote.

Bachianas Brasileiras, No. 5 for Soprano and 8 Cellos (1938-45) HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959) In 1930, Villa-Lobos began to write a cycle of nine works that were to fuse his interest in Brazilian music with a love of the music of Bach. Two decades earlier, he had already transcribed a Bach fugue for his own instrument, the cello, with piano. Later he would arrange several of the Preludes and Fugues from the ‘48’ for an orchestra of cellos, his own distinctive creation. The nine Bachianas Brasileiras (‘Brazilian Bach-style pieces’) grew over a 15-year period. While the instrumental and vocal groupings of the nine pieces are varied, each combines a title from the baroque (prelude, fugue, toccata and so on) with that of a Brazilian folk form. Bachianas No. 5 has remained Villa-Lobos’s best-known piece. Scored for soprano with an ensemble of ‘at least eight’ cellos, the piece is a sonorous exploration of the meeting ground between the cello and the human voice.

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (1788) WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) Of all Mozart’s symphonies, the G minor was the one most admired by the Romantics. For them, the work helped bridge the gap between the classical and the emerging romantic idiom; certainly the seminal work was much imitated. Its impact partly derives from Mozart’s choice of key. Some of his most urgent instrumental music is written

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in the dark, driving key of G minor, traditionally with a relaxing of the tension as the music turns to the major toward its conclusion. Here, though, Mozart offers little release through the four movements. He makes strikingly expressive use of chromatic harmony together with the resulting discords. He presents an urgent message without preliminaries or formalities. His yearning opening theme, generated as one note repeatedly leans into another, is to become a generating motif throughout the first movement – and beyond. Even the more cheerful second theme is steered to the minor key when it reappears. There’s a slight chromatic bump as early as the second bar of the slow movement. It hints at the tortured tension between major and minor keys that Mozart is to exploit as the movement progresses. The somber minuet is driven by contrapuntal writing in the strings, though a central trio section offers an untroubled moment. The finale extends the dark contrapuntal drive of the minuet as the music returns to the tension of the opening movement. The drama is at its most telling in the central development where Mozart’s rigorous mind drives the contours of the main theme to present all 12 notes of the scale, through a series of diminished sevenths. Here Mozart pushes the conventions of his day to the limit, and in the provocative words of H.C. Robbins Landon: “Mozart peers ahead a century and a half by flirting with the Grim Reaper.” — Notes © 2011 Keith Horner. Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca

Text & Translations 1. Aria (Cantilena) Tarde uma nuvem rósea lenta e transparente. Sobre o espaço, sonhadora e bela! Surge no infinito a lua docemente, Enfeitando a tarde, qual meiga donzela Que se apresta e a linda sonhadoramente, Em anseios d’alma para ficar bela Grita ao céu e a terra toda a Natureza! Cala a passarada aos seus tristes queixumes E reflete o mar toda a Sua riqueza... Suave a luz da lua desperta agora A cruel saudade que ri e chora! Tarde uma nuvem rósea lenta e transparente Sobre o espaço, sonhadora e bela! 2. Dansa (Martelo) Irere, meu passarinho do Sertao do Cariri, Irere, meu companheiro, Cade viola? Cade meu bem? Cade Maria? Ai triste sorte a do violeiro cantado! Ah! Sem a viola em que cantava o seu amo, Ah! Seu assobio e tua flauta de irere: Que tua flauta do Sertao quando assobia, Ah! A gente sofre sem quere! Ah! Teu canto chega la do fundo do sertao, ah! Como ua bris amolecen do o coracao, ah! ah! Irere, Solta teu canto! Canta mais! Canta mais! Pra alembra o Carri! Canta, cambaxirra! Santa, juriti! Canta Irere! Canta, canta sofre Pa tativa! Bemtevil! Maria acorda que e dia Cantem todos voces Passarinhos do ser tao! Bemtevi! Eh! Sabia! La! lia! lia! lia! lia! lia! Eh! Sabia da mata cantado! Lia! lia! lia! lia! La! lia! lia! lia! lia! lia! Eh! Sabia da mata sofredo! 0 vosso canto vem do fundo do sertao Como uma brisa amolecendo o coracao. Irere, meu passa rinho do Sertao do Cariri, Irere, meu companheiro, Cade viola? Cade meu bem? Cade Maria? ai triste sorte a do violeiro cantado! Ah! Sem a viola em que cantava o seu amo, Ah! Seu assobio e tua flauta de irere: Que tua flauta do Sertao quando assobia, Ah! A gente sofre sem quere! Ah! Teu canto chega la do fundo do Sertao, ah! Como ua brisa a molecendo o coracao, ah! ah! Irere, Solta teu canto! Canta mais! Canta mais! Pra alembra o Cariri! ai!

Evening, a rosy, slow and transparent cloud Over the space dreamy and beautiful The Moon sweetly appears in the horizon, Decorating the afternoon like a nice damsel Who rushes and dreamy adorns herself With an anxious soul to become beautiful Shout all Nature to the Sky and to the Earth! All birds become silent to the Moon’s complaints And the Sea reflects its great splendor. Softly, the shining Moon just awakes The cruel missing that laughs and cries. Evening, a rosy, slow and transparent cloud Over the space dreamy and beautiful... 2. Dansa (Martelo) Irere, my little nestling from the wilds of Cariri, Irere, my loved companion, my singing sweetheart! Where goes my dear? Where goes Maria? Ah, sorry is the lot of him who fain would sing! Ah! without his lute on song of gladness can he bring, Ah! his whistle shrill must be his flute for Irere. But yours the flute that once in forest wilds was sounding, Ah! with its message of grief and woe. Ah! your song came forth from out the depths of forest wilds, Ah, like summer winds that comfort ev’ry mournful heart, Ah, Ah! Irere, Sing and enchant me! Sing once more, sing once more! Bring me songs of Carri! Sing; my lovely songbird, sing your song again, sing; my Irere: sing of pain and sorrow, As the birds of morning wake Maria in the dawning. Sing with all your voices, Birds of the woods and the wilds, Sing your songs! ye forest Birds! La! lia! lia! lia! lia! lia! Ye nestlings of the singing forest wilds. Lia! lia! lia! lia! La! lia! lia! lia! lia! lia! Ye nestlings of the mornful forest Oh, yours the song that comes from the depths of forest wilds like summer winds that comfort ev’ry mournful heart. Irere, my little nestling from the wilds of Cariri, Irere, my loved companion, my singing sweetheart, where goes my dear? Where goes Maria? Ah, sorry is the lot of him who fain would sing! Ah! without his lute no song of gladness can he bring, Ah! his whistle shrill must be his flute for Irere, but yours the flute that once in forest wilds was sounding, Ah! with its message of grief and woe. Ah! your song came forth from out the depths of forest wilds! Ah! like summer winds that comfort ev’ry mournful heart, Ah! Ah! Irere, Sing and enchant me! Sing once more, sing once more! Bring me songs of Cariri! ai! — Ruth Valadares Corrêa

Musician Profiles Lee Actor, composer Composer and conductor Lee Actor (b. 1952) has won a number of awards for his compositions, most recently the 2009 Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra Fanfare Competition and the First Prize in the 2007 International Horn Society Composition Contest. A former violinist with the Albany (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, Actor has advanced degrees in both engineering and music composition. Actor was named Composer-in-Residence of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2002, following his appointment as Assistant Conductor in 2001, and was Assistant Conductor of the Nova Vista Symphony from 2008-2010. Actor has received commissions from the Palo Alto Philharmonic, the Redwood Symphony, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, the Silicon Valley Symphony, the Saratoga Symphony, the University of South Dakota, and the Skaneateles Festival. Peter Bay, conductor Before assuming his present position with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Peter was Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic and was Principal Guest Conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic, an orchestra with which he had held earlier positions including Assistant Conductor, Conductor-in-Residence, and Music Advisor. In addition,

he served as the RPO’s Artistic Director of Educational Programming for three years. During his tenure in Rochester, he conducted over 300 performances with the orchestra, among which was the world premiere of Aaron Copland’s suite from the film The Heiress and the United States premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Concerto Movement for Clarinet and Orchestra. His recording Voices features the percussion ensemble NEXUS with the RPO and is available on the Nexus label. Robert Bridge, percussion Robert is a Professor of Music at Onondaga Community College where he was recently honored with the State University of New York’s "Chancellor’s Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities." In the fall of 2010 he performed a solo recital and taught at the Shenyang International Percussion Festival in Shenyang, China. Robert holds degrees from the University of North Texas (B.M.E.), Southern Methodist University (M.M.), and the Eastman School of Music (D. M. A.) and he was awarded the Eastman School’s Performer’s Certificate. He has performed concertos with the Eastman Kilbourn Orchestra, the Southern Methodist University Symphony Orchestra and the Onondaga Civic Orchestra.

Photo by WEnDy MagiEra

Summer Suite 2010.

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Musician Profiles Xak Bjerken, piano Xak studied at the University of California at Los Angeles and received his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Peabody Institute. He has given solo and chamber music recitals in Europe and throughout the United States, appearing with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall. For the past ten years, he has been a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet. He has held chamber music residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival and Olympic Music Festival, and served on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival. Xak is an Associate Professor of Music at Cornell University. Chiara Quartet Rebecca Fischer, violin; Julie Hye Yung Yoon, violin; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello The Chiara (key-ARE-uh, an Italian word meaning “clear, pure or light”) Quartet has established itself as among America’s most respected ensembles. Awarded the Guarneri Quartet Residency Award for artistic excellence by Chamber Music America, the Chiara’s other honors include a top prize at the Paolo Borciani International Competition, winning the Astral Artistic Services National Audition, and winning First Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The Chiara Quartet performs in major concert halls, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and Philadelphia’s

Kimmel Center, as well as non-classical venues including (le) Poisson Rouge and Galapagos Art Space in New York, The Tractor Tavern in Seattle, and the Hideout in Chicago, among many others. Recent collaborators include Joel Krosnick, Todd Palmer, Simone Dinnerstein, Norman Fischer, and Paul Katz, as well as members of the Orion, Ying, Cavani, and Pacifica Quartets. The Chiara trained and taught at The Juilliard School, mentoring for two years with the Juilliard Quartet. They currently serve as Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University. Steven Copes, violin Steven leads a diverse and enthusiastic musical life as soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. An avid chamber musician, Steven has performed at festivals and concert series such as Aspen, Boston Chamber Music Society, Caramoor, Chamber Music Northwest, El Paso Pro Musica, Four Seasons, La Jolla Summerfest, Mainly Mozart Spotlight Series, Marlboro, Music in the Vineyards, Norfolk, Piccolo Spoleto and Seattle Chamber Music Society. He co-founded the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado as well as Accordo, a new chamber group now in its second season at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. He recently performed John Novacek’s Four Rags with the composer on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. A native of Los Angeles, he holds degrees from The Curtis Institute and Juilliard.

Another magical evening at Brook Farm.

Musician Profiles

Young composers learn from Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec. East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) A group of some of today’s most exciting young string players envisioned the creation of a conductor-less chamber orchestra, based upon democratic principles, whose focus is purely on music-making. This organic approach, their passion, and commitment resulted in the creation of ECCO. The members of ECCO are accomplished musicians who have soloed with such great orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Chicago Symphony. Members of ECCO may also be seen performing with various chamber ensembles, including the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, Time for Three, Jupiter String Quartet, Silk Road Ensemble and Enso String Quartet. The ensemble members are graduates of some of the top conservatories including Curtis, Juilliard, Cleveland Institute, New England Conservatory, and Peabody.

Elinor Freer, Co-Artistic Director and piano Elinor Freer has performed as soloist and chamber musician across the United States, Europe, Mexico, and China, including appearances in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Bonn, Prague, Moscow, Beijing, and many other cities. Ms. Freer has been featured as soloist with numerous orchestras and at festivals including Summer Music in Harrisburg, PA, the Festival de Música de Cámera in Mexico, the Bowdoin Music Festival, the Lake Winnipesaukee Music Festival, and Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley. A laureate and prizewinner in such competitions as the Joanna Hodges International Competition and the American Pianists Association, she has held piano fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute. Committed to bringing classical music to new audiences, she has been awarded multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for various school

residencies and outreach performances. Ms. Freer serves on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music and has recorded for Cedille Records. Stacy Garrop, composer Stacy’s works have been performed by orchestras throughout the country, including the Albany, Charleston, Detroit, Omaha and Illinois symphonies, as well as the National Repertory Orchestra, New England Philharmonic and an array of chamber ensembles: the Artaria String Quartet, Enso Quartet, Lincoln Trio, Orion Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Seattle New Music Ensemble and the Society for New Music. Stacy has received multiple awards and grants from the San Francisco Song Festival; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble; Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New England Philharmonic. During the 2009-2010 Season she was in residence with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Stacy earned degrees in music composition at the University of Michigan, University of Chicago and Indiana University. She is an Associate Professor in Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University.

Musician Profiles Sari Gruber, soprano Hailed as “nothing short of sensational” by Opera magazine, soprano Sari Gruber’s exciting and moving interpretations have established her as one of today’s most sought-after artists. Sari’s 2010-11 season includes Musetta in La bohème with Opera Colorado; Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; a return to New York Festival of Song. Sari is equally in demand on the concert stage and has performed with Boston Baroque

Anyela’s V I N E Y A R D S

and Portland Baroque, and the Caramoor Festival, as well as the orchestras of Columbus, North Carolina, Houston, Cincinnati, San Jose, and Jacksonville. Winner of the 2005 Naumburg Competition, Sari has appeared in recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, the 92nd Street Y, Miller Theater, and several appearances with the New York Festival of Song. Ayano Kataoka, percussion and marimba Ayano is known for her brilliant and dynamic technique, as well as the unique elegance and artistry she brings to her performances. Last season, together with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, she gave a world premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Self Comes to Mind. She has also appeared with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, performed Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion with Emanuel Ax and his wife Yoko Nozaki at Alice Tully Hall. Ayano is the first percussionist to be chosen for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two program. A native of Japan, she is a graduate of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, with a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory and Artist Diploma degree from the Yale School of Music.

A Unique Finger Lakes Winery Sample the exceptional wines of Anyela’s Vineyards, the first commercial winery situated in the rolling hills overlooking beautiful and pure Skaneateles Lake.

2433 West Lake Rd. Skaneateles, NY 13152 315.685.3797 anyelasvineyards.com

Photo by Mark Manring

Anyela’s Vineyards selects vinifera grape varieties that are perfectly suited to our fertile soil, higher elevation, and cooler climate patterns not found on neighboring Finger Lakes. To protect our vines after fall harvest, we carefully remove them from the trellises and bury them in the rich earth to insolate the sensitive primary buds, which will become the fruit. In spring, we re-trellis them for maximum sun exposure and control our grape yield to cultivate the ripest, most flavorful fruit. Our location, along with three generations of viticulture experience, ensures that the fruits of our labor produce an array of unique quality wines that will delight enthusiasts and connoisseurs alike.

Festival T-shirt... a must have!

Musician Profiles

Photo by Mark Manring

eclectic programs and dynamic musical interplay. With over a dozen recordings over the past two decades, they have established themselves as masters of the classics, as well as the creators of the unique syntheses of world-music and contemporary styles that have made the “LAGQ-sound” a favorite around the world. Their first recording for Telarc International, “LAGQ: Latin,” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Recording in 2003, while the second, LAGQ’s “Guitar Heroes,” won a Grammy in this category in 2005.

The Festival Orchestra performs with Hilary Hahn. Alan Kay, clarinet A member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and currently its program coordinator, Alan Kay received a Presidential Scholars Teacher Award in June of 2003. He is principal clarinet of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and a member of the ensembles Windscape and Hexagon. Artistic director of the New York Chamber Ensemble, he has also produced thematic programs for the Cape May Music Festival. He performs regularly at the Yellow Barn Summer Festival and School and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. His acclaimed performance of Weber’s Concerto at the 2005 Windham Chamber Festival was heard repeatedly through the U.S. on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.” Alan serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, the Hartt Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School.

Jon Manasse, clarinet An avid chamber musician, Jon Manasse has been featured in programs with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theatre (on Lincoln Center’s “Great Performers Series”), and Merkin Concert Hall. Other recent appearances include the Aspen, Caramoor, Colorado Springs, Newport and Sarasota Music Festivals. Jon’s current season was highlighted by a return performance with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and his debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He is Associate Professor of Clarinet at the Eastman School of Music and in the fall of 2007 joined the faculty of his alma mater, The Juilliard School. Jon and his Duo partner, pianist Jon Nakamatsu, serve as Artistic Directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival.

Los Angeles Guitar Quartet John Dearman, Matthew Greif, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant Celebrating 30 years on the concert stage, the members of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet continue to set the standard for expression and virtuosity among guitar ensembles.

Recognized as one of America’s premier instrumental ensembles, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is one of the most charismatic and versatile groups performing today. Popularly known as the LAGQ, these four dynamic virtuosi bring a new energy to the concert stage with their

Longtime Festival supporters Henry & Helga Beck and Dan & Colleen Fisher enjoy the “Musical Happy Hour.”

Musician Profiles Robert Moody, conductor Robert Moody returns to the Festival podium for the fourth consecutive season. He currently serves as Music Director for the Winston-Salem Symphony, Artistic Director for Arizona Musicfest and Music Director for the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Robert holds a Master of Music degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music and his guest conducting appearances include the orchestras of Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Seattle, Memphis, Virginia, San Antonio, Buffalo, Charleston and Naples. Summer festival appearances include Santa Fe Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Brevard Music Center, and the Eastern Music Festival. Jon Nakamatsu, piano Jon last appeared at the Festival in 2004. He is a frequent concerto soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and solo recitalist throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Jon gained global attention in 1997 when he was named Gold Medalist of the Tenth Van Cliburn Piano Competition and “Debut Artist of the Year” (1998) by NPR’s “Performance Today.” He has been profiled by “CBS Sunday Morning” and Reader’s Digest magazine, and is featured in “Playing with Fire,” a documentary on

the Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, aired nationwide on PBS. Jon’s festival appearances include Tanglewood, Bravo! Vail Valley, Colorado, Santa Fe and Florida’s Brevard and Sanibel Music Festivals. He and his duo-partner, clarinetist Jon Manasse, serve as Artistic Directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival. Conor Nelson, flute Canadian flutist Conor Nelson gave his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and has since appeared frequently as soloist and recitalist throughout the United States and abroad. Conor has appeared at the OK Mozart, Yellow Barn, Look and Listen (NYC), Norfolk, Chesapeake, Aspen, Banff and Okemo Mountain festivals. He performs regularly with marimbist/percussionist Ayano Kataoka as part of the Conor and Ayano Duo. He is currently Assistant Professor of Flute at Oklahoma State University, and has served as guest faculty at the International Flute Institute at the New York Summer Music Festival. Susie Park, violin Violinist Susie Park is a member of the Eroica Trio and has appeared as soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony

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Musician Profiles Orchestra, Memphis Symphony and Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Susie was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two from 2006-2009 and has participated in numerous tours with Musicians from Marlboro. She is also a founding member of ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra). In December 2009, Susie performed with trumpeter Chris Botti in 41 consecutive shows at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. Her numerous festival appearances include Music from Angelfire in New Mexico, the Ravinia Festival and Aspen Music Festival. A native of Sydney, Australia, she earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and an Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory. Marcus Roberts, piano Pianist Marcus Roberts, blind since age 5, made a name for himself when at age 21 he joined Wynton Marsalis’ group and toured and recorded with the trumpeter for six years. A gifted musician, he has continued to steadily build upon his stellar reputation, carving a niche for himself in jazz history and releasing more than a dozen albums. He has the distinction of being the first jazz musician to have his first three recordings reach number one on Billboard’s traditional jazz chart. In addition to recording his original Anyela’s Vineyards hosts the popular “Musical Happy Hour.”

solo and band material, Roberts has also explored the American solo piano tradition with his versions of classics by Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk and Jelly Roll Morton. Roberts and his trio regularly provide master classes, workshops, school shows, and residency programs all over the world. Their goal is to help to expose as many young people as possible to jazz music. Marcus Roberts Trio Marcus Roberts, piano; Rodney Jordan, bass; Jason Marsalis, drums The Trio was founded in 1993 when Roberts began to study the lineage of great jazz trios, including those of Nat Cole, Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, and Ahmad Jamal. Roberts first met young drummer Jason Marsalis during his own days in the Wynton Marsalis Septet in the 1980s. Jason was just 10 years old at that time. With the founding of the Marcus Roberts Trio, Roberts had the goal of creating a whole new style of jazz trio playing. After trying a series of drummers and bassists over a two-year period, Roberts in late 1994 asked Marsalis, then only 17 years, to join his band. A few months later, in early 1995, Roland Guerin played with Roberts for the first time and from the begin-

Musician Profiles ning, he made the trio sound complete. The philosophy and style of trio has steadily evolved from that point. Carol Rodland, viola Carol made her solo debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 17 and subsequently won first prizes at the Washington International Competition, the Artists’ International Auditions, and the Juilliard Concerto Competition. She is an artist-faculty member of the Bowdoin International Music Festival and a member of Vermont’s Craftsbury Chamber Players. Her recently released solo album has received excellent reviews and Fanfare Magazine praises her for her “tone [which] is larger than life, sweetly in tune, and infinitely variegated.” Carol holds degrees from the Juilliard School and is currently a tenured professor at the Eastman School of Music, as well as a guest faculty member at the Juilliard School.

Check it out!

Artist CDs available at the concession table.

Andrew Russo, piano Andy is a Syracuse native known for the diversity of his interests and experiences. His musical life began with piano lessons at the age of five. His first solo performance with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra came at the age of twelve, as winner of the Civic Morning Musicals Youth Concerto Competition. A Fayetteville-Manlius graduate, he went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, followed by post-graduate study in France and Germany. While spending his twenties living in Europe and traveling internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, Andrew created Music Journeys Inc., a non-profit youth educational foundation serving students in Syracuse. During this period, he also represented the U.S. as a finalist in the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Andrew has 11 commercial recordings to his credit, including the 2007 Grammy-nominated Black Box Records release of music by John Corigliano. He spent several years as a college educator, holding positions as Professor of Piano at Butler University and Artist-in-Residence at Le Moyne College. Andrew was the 2010 Republican and Conservative Party nominee for New York State Senate in the 49th District, and continues his active involvement in the Central New York community as Chairman of

Music patron Maria Sanches died in 1984. On Friday night, she’ll present a program of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. A lifelong music lover, Maria never missed a classical concert. The works of the old masters made her heart soar. Other hearts will soar because Maria included a bequest to the symphony in her will. Thanks to Maria, her beloved orchestra won’t miss a beat. Include your favorite cause in your will or estate plan. Contact a charitable organization, attorney, financial advisor or local LEAVE A LEGACY® program to learn how.

Skaneateles Festival

315-685-7418 • www.skanfest.org

Musician Profiles Onondaga County’s Cultural Resources Trust and as a board member of several area non-profit organizations. He lives in Jamesville with his wife Natalia and two children – Andrei and Mila. Sō Percussion Eric Beach – Josh Quillen – Adam Sliwinski – Jason Treuting Since coming together at the Yale School of Music, Sō Percussion has been creating music that is at turns raucous and touching, barbarous and heartfelt. Called “astonishing and entrancing” by Billboard Magazine and “brilliant” by the New York Times, the Brooklyn-based quartet’s innovative work has quickly helped them forge a unique and diverse career. Their music runs the gamut from percussion classics (Steve Reich’s Drumming), to new commissions (David Lang’s the so-called laws of nature), to original music (group member Jason Treuting’s Amid the Noise). Sō Percussion has performed all over the United States, with concerts at the Lincoln Center Festival, Carnegie Hall, Stanford Lively Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and many others. In addition, recent tours to Russia, Australia, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Ukraine have brought them international acclaim. Sō would like to thank Pearl/

The Skaneateles Festival recognizes the generous support of the

Thank you for the new office furnishings!

Adams Instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth drumsticks, Remo drumheads, and Estey organs for their sponsorship. Syracuse Vocal Ensemble Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Cowles, the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble has garnered a reputation for innovative programming and superb choral artistry. Established in 1973, the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble has collaborated with The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Open Hand

Please consider the Skaneteles Festival in your Planned Giving.

Musician Profiles Theatre, Society for New Music, Syracuse Chorale, and the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. On two occasions the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble singers participated in a concert tour of the Baltic region, including performing in the famed Estonian Song Festival. Following a highly successful community mentoring program, Syracuse Vocal Ensemble is now venturing into the planning of a multi-grade level education initiative. David Ying, Co-Artistic Director and cello In addition to his more familiar role as cellist of the Ying Quartet, David Ying also performs solo concerts and serves as Co-Artistic Director of the Skaneateles Festival. He has appeared as soloist with such orchestras as the Oakland East-Bay Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the String Orchestra of the Rockies, and the Rochester Chamber Orchestra. His awards as a solo cellist include prizes in the Naumburg International Cello Competition and in the Washington International Competition. A dedicated and active teacher, he has taught at Interlochen, the Brevard Music Center, Harvard University, and Northwestern University and is presently on the chamber music and cello faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Festival Fare Don’t let the season end without getting your memorabilia, on sale at the Concession Table!

Janet Ying, violin Janet has enjoyed a wide-ranging career as the second violinist of the Ying Quartet. She has performed across the country in such diverse venues as Weill Recital Hall in New York and a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Iowa, and abroad, in tours to Sweden, Japan, and Australia. She is currently on the faculty at the Eastman School of Music, where she teaches chamber music. In her spare time, Janet likes to read, especially about food, and practice taiji. Phillip Ying, viola As violist of the Ying Quartet, Phillip performs regularly across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent appearances include engagements in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C., Australia, France, Mexico, and Taiwan. He has performed at the Marlboro, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Norfolk, Aspen, Colorado, Bowdoin, and Steamboat Springs music festivals. A recipient of the Naumburg Award for chamber music, Phillip chairs the Chamber Music Department at the Eastman School of Music, where he is also assistant professor of viola and associate professor of chamber music. He has served as president of Chamber Music America.

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A Christmas Suite

Concert Information All concerts are held in Skaneateles, August 10 – September 3, 2011. Tickets can be ordered at www.skanfest.org or by calling (315) 685-7418. Saturday concerts at Brook Farm are held at 7:30 pm outdoors. Patrons may arrive as early as 6:00 pm and picnic on the lawn. Call (315) 685-7418 (or check skanfest.org) after 3:00 pm on Saturdays for rain location announcements. Rain Location: Skaneateles High School auditorium, 49 East Elizabeth Street Suggested items to bring: Lawn chairs, blankets & flashlights (chairs are provided in A seating only). Ticket exchanges may be made up to 24 hours prior to concerts. Unused tickets returned less than 24 hours before the performance will be acknowledged as a contribution to the Skaneateles Festival. Any unused ticket may be exchanged for a ½ price ticket to a Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music concert during their 20112012 Season (subject to availability). Doors open for all concerts 30 minutes prior to concerts. Cameras & recording equipment may only be used with the permission of the Skaneateles Festival. Photographers & videographers will be present throughout the Festival. Please remember to silence cell phones. Skaneateles Festival 97 East Genesee Street Skaneateles, NY 13162 (315) 685-7418 • www.skanfest.org

SAVE THE DATE

Saturday, December 10, 2011 A collection of Christmas Stories and Music Reservations will be taken starting November 1st Hosted by

The Falcone Family

Presented by the

Skaneateles Festival

A Christmas Suite Contributors – 2010

Laura Allyn Aurora Inn Henry and Helga Beck Jim and Karin Blute Bill and Marcia Burrows Rick and Ann Capozza Joan Christy and Tom Bersani Barb Connor Alan Curle and Andrew London Bill and Donna Davis Evan and Liz Dreyfuss Dan McCann, Five Seasons George Iocolano

Dr. Robert Kiltz Dan and Grace Labeille Bob and Sally Neumann Marc & Cristina Pietropaoli Pascale’s Liquor Square Realty USA Sherwood Inn Don and Chacea Sundman Doug Sutherland and Nancy Kramer Dale and Muffe VanEpps Wells Fargo, the Coates Group: Jeff and Kate Youle