2019 Summerfest Concerts Program

SUMMERFEST CONCERTS 2 9 T H S E A S O N | J U LY 2 019 S H O R T S TO R I E S A N D N OV E L E T T E S

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TABLE OF CONTENTS WELCOME

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ABOUT US

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WEEK ONE: JULY 06 & 07

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WEEK TWO: JULY 13 & 14

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WEEK THREE: JULY 20 & 21

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WEEK FOUR: JULY 27 & 28

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MUSICIAN BIOS

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DONORS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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WELCOME On behalf of the Summerfest Board of Directors and musicians, we welcome you to our 29th season of wonderful chamber music.

Our theme this year is “Short Stories and Novele9es”. Our ar;s;c directors have put together a most interes;ng set of programs, and each piece represents a story. We may not always realize it but EVERY piece of music we hear tells us a story. An unfamiliar piece tells us a new story. A familiar piece triggers a memory of the past, and we become a part of the story. We sincerely hope you can find new stories and familiar memories during this season.

We hope you can come every week! Bring your friends! We appreciate your presence because our audience is what makes us successful.

We ask for your financial support and for you to be advocates for us. The Missouri Arts Council is one of our major supporters. There are many voices asking for government dollars and the arts are oDen the first to be cut. Missourians, please contact your state senators and representa;ves, and thank them for designa;ng money for arts organiza;ons.

Thank you for a9ending. We trust you will enjoy every concert and that each piece will add to your personal story.

Warm regards, Mary L. Redmon President, Summerfest Board of Directors

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ABOUT US MISSION: Summerfest, a professional chamber music ensemble, enriches the cultural life of Kansas City through the performance of a variety of music in a seFng that fosters interac;on between musicians and audience members.

PROGRAMS: Our chamber music fes;val, presented on weekends in July, features excep;onally talented professional musicians, an eclec;c mix of tradi;onal and non-tradi;onal repertoire, and consistent concert experiences where audiences can expect the unexpected in chamber music.

OUR HISTORY: In 1990, contempla;ng the year ahead, Lamar Hunt Jr. no;ced that art enthusiasts and musicians had limited or no op;ons for live classical music during the summer. The following year, aDer much planning and prepara;on, Lamar and four of his colleagues set forth the tradi;on of the Summerfest concert series. Equipped with their superior talent, excitement for chamber music, and energy to create, this group did a casual series of concerts in suburban Kansas City area churches. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Over the last 28 years, though leadership and personnel have changed, Summerfest has never lost sight of its original inten;ons; providing a rare and unique opportunity for high quality, ďŹ ne arts experiences in Kansas City during July. We con;nue to program innova;ve and unique concerts in which our patrons can be both challenged and entertained. We remain focused on making music accessible to all through our outreach eorts with youth and seniors. And we remain commi9ed to enriching this great Kansas City arts community.

To our loyal patrons, thank you for your con;nued support and enthusiasm for what we do. To those of you new to our concerts, we welcome you enthusias;cally and look forward to sharing our classical chamber music experience with you.

PO Box 22697 | Kansas City MO 64113 816.895.2920 info@summerfestkc.org

www.summerfestkc.org Facebook and Twi9er (@summerfestkc), Instagram (@summerfestconcerts) 4

J U LY 6 & 7

Short Stories and Novelettes: Week One SATURDAY, JULY 6 | 7:30PM | WHITE RECITAL HALL SUNDAY, JULY 7 | 3:00PM | ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH Diver;mento in C Major, (Perger 98), (ca. 1758-1770) I. Allegro (molto) II. Menuet & Trio III. Aria. Adagio IV. Menue9o & Trio V. Andante- Theme & Varia;ons VI. Presto

Michael Haydn (1737-1806)

Celeste Johnson, oboe; Ma hew Sinno, viola; Richard Ryan, bass; Charles Metz, harpsichord

Short Stories (version 2015) I. Leonardo Rebus II. Biamon; 738 III. Allegro Troppo IV. Leonardo Rebus V. ScarlaF Cut

Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962)

Michael Gordon, flute; Maria Crosby, cello; Nina Ferrigno, piano

Trio Sonata, in D minor Wq. 145 (1731) I. Allegre9o II. Largo III. Allegro

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788)

Michael Gordon, flute; Celeste Johnson, oboe; Maria Crosby, cello; Charles Metz, harpsichord

Quintet, Op. 39 (1924) I. Tema con variazioni II. Andante energico III. Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio IV. Adagio pesante V. Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto VI. Andan;no

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Celeste Johnson, oboe; Jane Carl, clarinet; Anne-Marie Brown, violin; Ma hew Sinno, viola; Richard Ryan, bass 5

Michael Haydn, Diver mento in C Major Let’s be honest with each other: when you glanced over this program, your mind subs;tuted the name “Michael” with the name “Joseph.” It’s nothing to be ashamed of – in graduate school a colleague was working on Michael Haydn’s symphonies, and for a year I believed he was wri;ng about Haydn’s famous older brother. But during his life;me, Michael Haydn was well known and respected as a sacred music composer thanks to his prominent posi;on at the Archbishop’s court in Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg was also home to Mozart, who was seven years old when Michael Haydn arrived, and young Mozart recognized Haydn’s abili;es, assiduously copying down the elder composer’s works to study them, much to his father’s chagrin. In fact, there was somewhat of a rivalry between Mozart’s father and Haydn, with Papa Mozart sending le9ers to court authori;es that “aDer every Litany he swills a quart of wine and sends Lipp, who is also a ;ppler, to do the other services.” The reason for this animosity? Both men were aDer the posi;on of Kapellmeister, though neither earned it.

In addi;on to his sacred music, Haydn composed instrumental music for all occasions in Salzburg, adroitly adjus;ng his style to match the changing tastes of the archbishops under whom he served. Archbishop Hieronymous Colloredo, who ruled at the ;me of Haydn’s Diver;mento you’ll hear today, desired works that matched the simple, direct, and elegant music fashionable in Vienna. Haydn responded with a composi;on that was designed for entertainment, not for the musical development found in sonatas, and that could func;on as background music at the court. He used the oboe as the main melodic instrument because of its growing popularity, par;cularly in combina;on with strings. Cast in six movements, this Diver;mento in C Major shows elements of the older, Baroque style in which Haydn composed when he first went to Salzburg in its con;nuo-like use of the string bass to establish the work’s harmonic founda;on. But listen to the interplay between the oboe and viola, which trade the melody and execute virtuosic runs that threaten to overshadow the balanced, perfectly phrased melodies. Haydn’s exquisite control of ;mbre is specifically evident in the fiDh and longest movement, the theme and varia;ons. Here the oboe and viola at ;mes seem of one accord as they effortlessly blend, especially in the first varia;on, showing us that perhaps Michael should not always be thought of as the lesser Haydn brother.

Giovanni Sollima, “Short Stories” Giovanni Sollima is one of a new breed of Classical music performers who appeared on the scene around twenty years ago: he defies the stuffy image the music once cul;vated by posing provoca;vely in casual clothes and releasing press no;ces that claim he is the “Jimi Hendrix of the cello.” Even Yo-Yo Ma has go9en in on the mythmaking for Sollima, sta;ng in an interview ahead of performing a double concerto Sollima wrote for the two of them, “He’s a supervirtuoso of the cello. He studied with Antonio Janigro but plays like a jazz musician and is part performance ar;st. He has no fear, and that’s unusual in the classical world – we’re all terrified of wrong notes.” Yet, as Ma hints, Sollima has an impeccable background and training, having been born into a family of musicians and having worked with ar;sts from Claudio Abbado to Martha Argerich, Riccardo Mu;, Philip Glass, and Peter Greenaway.

Short Stories demonstrates the postminimalist approach most of his music takes. Minimalism is a style that features endless repe;;ons with small changes that gradually take you into a new place. Sollima takes that paradigm and reinvents it by building off of repe;;ve structures but never foregrounding repe;;on for repe;;on’s sake. This suite is constructed as a series of connected, but stylis;cally disparate, small movements with barely a pause between each sec;on. Sollima loves modal melodies that circle without ever landing in a key and uneven meters like 5/8 and 2+3 construc;ons that will remind you of Philip Glass’s music. Yet he also digs deep into his Italian heritage to find folk music pa9erns and gestures for his cellist to play, some;mes even asking the player to saw away like Hendrix thrashing his electric guitar. But the best part of this energe;c and fascina;ng music is that if you don’t like the story you’re hearing, you haven’t commi9ed to a novel, and the next story is just around the corner.

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C.P.E. Bach, Trio Sonata in D minor, Wq. 145 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was Johann Sebas;an Bach’s second son and as a result bore the weight of his father’s enormous expecta;ons. J.S. sent C.P.E. to the Thomasschule in Leipzig for his schooling where the elder Bach took charge of his son’s educa;on. When ;me came for university, he sent his son to the local University of Leipzig to study law, providing C.P.E. with a liberal arts educa;on and a higher social standing than musicians typically enjoyed. As a result of these choices, C.P.E. lived at home un;l he was 24 and studied music with his father, always claiming that the elder Bach was his most important musical mentor.

You can see the close musical rela;onship father and son enjoyed in Carl Philipp Emanuel’s early composi;ons, especially in today’s Trio Sonata in D minor, Wq 145. Scholars believe that the original composi;on in 1731 was a joint venture composed by both men because it is uncommonly accomplished for a 17-year-old to have composed it and it contains unmistakable features of J.S. Bach’s mature Baroque style. Another clue to the work’s origins come in a version of the sonata that exists in J.S. Bach’s catalog as the Sonata in D minor for Two Violins and Basso con;nuo, BWV 1036. But aDer leaving the University of Leipzig, the younger Bach began working for the crown prince Frederick of Prussia, and became court harpsichordist for the prince when he ascended to the throne in 1740. In this posi;on, C.P.E. Bach began to see his father’s style as hopelessly old fashioned, and in 1747, he returned to his earlier works, revising his trio sonatas and bringing them in line with the new, simpler, and more elegant Galant style. As a result, the Trio Sonata in D minor contains elements of both styles, J.S. Bach’s and C.P.E. Bach’s. The overall structure of the sonata is in three movements in a fast-slow-fast pa9ern, a formula;on decidedly Baroque as is the imita;ve opening movement. But listen to some of the suspensions that seem to sigh in the second movement, a clear indica;on of C.P.E Bach’s more classically minded “sensi;ve style,” and the delighVul interplay of the lines in the final movement with their clear, periodic phrasing. Throughout this marvelous trio sonata, you can hear the changing of historical periods as the baton is passed to a new style, but echoes of the older one s;ll linger.

Sergei Prokofiev, Quintet, Op. 39 Today when we think about Sergei Prokofiev, the beau;ful tunefulness of his Romeo and Juliet or Peter and the Wolf comes to mind or perhaps the percussive and propulsive sound found in his 3rd Piano Concerto. But before finding his mature style, Prokofiev longed to be an enfant terrible and regularly tried to shock his listeners with his musical an;cs.

It is this side of Prokofiev that we’ll hear in the op. 39 Quintet, which is perhaps the most experimental work of his career.

The Quintet began life in 1924 when Boris Romanov, a Russian choreographer living in European exile from his Russian homeland like Prokofiev, asked the composer for a new ballet. The catch? Romanov’s company was a small one and could not travel with a full orchestra. Undaunted, Prokofiev remembered the new combina;ons of chamber groupings that were appearing in the wake of Schoenberg’s epochal Pierrot Lunaire and se9led on an oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass for the work. He finished the ballet the following year, and Romanov’s troupe danced it under the name Trapeze. The story might have ended there, but Prokofiev wasn’t finished with this music. He quickly began rearranging the music for the concert hall and published today’s version in 1927.

Cast in six movements, the Quintet begins with an off-kilter melody that, were it not for its dissonant wanderings, would be at home in a contemporaneous Bartok work. Prokofiev takes this Eastern European folk-like theme through two varia;ons, first a lil;ng lullaby and then a fast jig. The second movement opens with a startling double bass solo before developing into a dance that cannot decide if it is stately or mocking. A rhythmically adventurous movement follows, featuring Prokofiev’s love of repeated rhythmic cells. The fourth movement slows the Quintet’s energy down by presen;ng a mournful oboe melody over a wheezing drone in the lower voices that is as steady and regular as the previous movement is flighty and sca9ered. The fiDh movement is one of the shortest of the set and puts the plucking bass line against the flowing upper strings and oboe in a riot of musical layers. Toward the end of movement, the forward momentum stops before the clarinet jumps in to create a dazzling run that serves as a sa;sfying ending to the work. Here is where you can best see Prokofiev’s desire to push boundaries – instead of ending the work where you expect, he adds one final movement. This Andan,no helps bring the Quintet full circle by recalling the opening movement and its juxtaposi;on of frene;c dances and slow, somber melodies. S;ll, Prokofiev didn’t want to go too far, and so brings the double bass back one last ;me to join the viola in a quick rush to the end, a tradi;onally Roman;c kind of conclusion.

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J U LY 13 & 14

Short Stories and Novelettes: Week Two SATURDAY, JULY 13 | 7:30PM | WHITE RECITAL HALL SUNDAY, JULY 14 | 3:00PM | ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Quartet for Winds (1941) I. Allegro moderato II. Andante III. Allegro vivace e leggermente

Arthur Berger (1912-2003)

Michael Gordon, flute; Melissa Peña, oboe; Jane Carl, clarinet; Joshua Hood, bassoon

Stories from My Grandmother (2009) I. It was like a, like a lightning II. Slow memory

Lembit Beecher (b. 1980)

Michael Gordon, flute; Jane Carl, clarinet; Anne-Marie Brown, violin; Alexander East, cello; Melissa Rose, piano

Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 (1875) I. Allegro non troppo II. Scherzo. Allegro III. Andante IV. Finale

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Anne-Marie Brown, violin; Jesse Yukimura, viola; Alexander East, cello; Melissa Rose, piano

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Arthur Berger, Quartet for Winds Music for winds alone oDen gets short shriD when it comes to classical music. In the large ensemble world, wri;ng music for strings is viewed as more pres;gious, and wind instruments are thought of as adding spice and color to a string founda;on.

Even in chamber music, winds are usually paired with strings (or at the least a piano) so they can provide something extra to the venerable string sound. In fact, if you look through our programs this summer you’ll note that in addi;on to today’s Quartet for Winds there is only one other work on the series for winds alone. However, some of the most beau;ful and powerful pieces of the past one hundred years have been wri9en for a grouping of wind instruments, especially Berger’s work which the great American composer and cri;c Virgil Thomson called “one of the most sa;sfactory pieces for winds in the whole modern repertory.”

There is a hint of sarcasm in Thomson’s statement, most likely because Arthur Berger was an en;rely sa;sfactory composer producing well-craDed works for most of the 20th century, but he never achieved the breakout success of another Nadia Boulanger student, Aaron Copland. Instead, Berger focused on the academic side of music through his teaching at Brandeis and then the New England Conservatory of Music as well as his published cri;cism and academic books. His Quartet for Winds, wri9en in 1941 and dedicated to Aaron Copland, upends the view of Berger as a “sa;sfactory” composer in its delighVul affect and irresis;ble allure. Cast in three movements of almost equal length, the work opens with an almost Baroque-like Allegro moderato that never stops moving forward. Listen for the openness of the movement with its wide spaces between the instruments that provides an expansive feeling. The Andante second movement features a lovely interplay between the oboe and flute, and about a minute in shows that Berger had been listening to the growth of American jazz, par;cularly in the almost boogie-woogie lines given to the bassoon. The final movement is the fastest and is full of Coplandesque gestures that hint at an American musical style based on folk music and looking Westward. I know you’ll be as charmed as Virgil Thomson by this music and perhaps might even upgrade his ra;ng to “one of the most charming and successful pieces for wind in the whole modern repertory.”

Lembit Beecher, “Stories from My Grandmother” Lembit Beecher is probably not a familiar name to you, but he is one of a new genera;on of composers who survey the contemporary world and then pull in a diverse set of experiences and sounds to resemble our diverse and fast moving world.

Growing up in California to an American and Estonian family, Beecher soaked in their stories, the Pacific coastline’s beauty, and the music of East and West to create a singular musical style. That style is inherently theatrical, and Beecher regularly writes operas and oratorios, finding ways to tell stories that embrace instruments from around the world and throughout ;me, technology and anima;on, and even actors.

Today’s work is a two-movement suite that comes from one of those oratorios, And Then I Remember. The composer describes the work: “The piece follows the story of my grandmother, Taimi Lepasaar, who was born in Estonia in 1922 and survived both the Russian and German occupa;ons of Estonia during World War II before escaping the country near the end of the war, eventually making it to the United States. The two movements of Stories From My Grandmother are instrumental reflec;ons on my grandmother’s stories. The first movement, ‘It was Like a, Like a Lightning,’ tries to capture the visceral energy, fear and mournful sadness of one par;cular story, a por;on of which I am including below: And then, was the summer 1940 and I was in Alatskivi with my grandparents. In the evening, there was a dance. About 6’o’clock we le< the farm and we went to the castle to dance together. It was about 9:30… the music stopped.. and the announcement came that the Russian troops have come over Lake Peipsi; the Russian army is coming towards this castle, towards us. We ask you all to take your bicycles and go home. And then was Estonia was conquered. 1940, that summer.

It was like a, like a lightning, like somebody had hit you on the back. And then we all rode quietly, it was a… June night.

The moon was ligh,ng the road, but the hearts were heavy. And we drove home and went to the farm, but the farm was far away from the highway up on the hill. Next morning we were all standing there on the fence under the big linden trees, watching how the Russian army, marched along that highway towards Tartu, towards our city, and this moment we shared together. You know, it seemed that all the dreams were broken.

The second movement, ‘Slow Memory,’ was not inspired by a specific story but is instead a medita,on on memory and my grandmother’s way of storytelling. It tries to capture the mix of emo,on and ma er-of-factness within her voice; the moments of gentle lilt and the moments of struggle, in which a feeling of sadness seems to break through the veil of her words.

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Johannes Brahms, Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 When Brahms sent his third piano quartet to his publisher Simrock in 1875, he included a cheeky proposi;on for the first prin;ng: “You might display a picture on the ;tle page. Namely a head – with a pistol poin;ng at it. Now you can form an idea of the music! I will send you my photograph for this purpose! You could also give it a blue frockcoat, yellow trousers, and riding boots, since you appear to like color prin;ng.” What in the world was Brahms going on about? In Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, the protagonist wears a blue coat and yellow pants when he first meets Charlo9e, the object of his doomed affec;ons. The novel’s popularity certainly created a fad for blue coats (in Pride and Prejudice, the swooning roman;c Mr. Bingley sports one), but Brahms was aDer a deeper connec;on with Werther, one that informs the emo;onal arc of today’s piano quartet.

Twenty years before the quartet’s premiere, a young Brahms ran to Düsseldorf aDer hearing that his mentor, Robert Schumann, had a9empted suicide. When Schumann was subsequently ins;tu;onalized, Brahms moved into the composer’s house to help Robert’s wife Clara and her six children, ul;mately overseeing their finances, covering Clara’s teaching when she toured, and falling in love with his hostess. Brahms ul;mately wrote Clara a le9er in which he poured out his feelings; Clara noted in her diary that “it is the fresh mind, the gloriously giDed nature, the noble heart, that I love in him,” but never physically reciprocated. No;ng the connec;on between his situa;on of loving the wife of his respected mentor and young Werther’s, Brahms began work on a piano quartet cast in three movements in C# minor that would depict Werther’s turbulent emo;ons.

ADer hearing the work performed, Brahms decided it wasn’t quite right, and set the quartet aside for almost twenty years. In 1873, he returned to it, dropped the key a half-step to C minor, reworked the exis;ng movements, added a scherzo, and had it premiered and published. In this form, the opening movement depicts Werther’s tempestuous emo;ons but relates those feelings clearly to Clara Schumann. According to Brahms’s biographer Malcom MacDonald, the opening two-note falling mo;ve “speaks the name ‘Clara’” and is quickly followed by a version of the five-note “Clara mo;ve” that Schumann used in his music. This dark movement gives no resolu;on – even the ending fails to resolve any of the movement’s tension, instead collapsing in exhaus;on. The tumultuous second movement scherzo con;nues the quartet’s obsessive nature with its driving rhythms that even a middle sec;on in a major key cannot dispel. It is not un;l the lovely third movement Andante that we get to experience the hopeful side of love. Although perhaps originally wri9en to proclaim his love for Clara, Brahms was most likely thinking of Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, a former student who was similarly married to a composer Brahms admired, when he revised it. He gives the cello a beau;ful, lyric melody in its upper register that soon begins to intertwine with the violin to create a passionate and musically ecsta;c climax. Some commentators have wished that Brahms stopped with the third movement (In 1933 Daniel Gregory Mason said that the third movement “would make us supremely happy only for a moment, before the Finale came to complete our mys;fica;on”), but the fourth movement’s somber mood is needed to bring the work’s emo;onal arc full circle. From its long-winded opening violin melody to the central sec;on’s harmonic instability, this final movement returns to the quartet’s emo;onal center with a hint of distance and, much like Brahms probably felt when he returned to the work aDer a long hiatus, provides the catharsis needed to move on from a lost love.

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J U LY 2 0 & 21

Short Stories and Novelettes: Week Three SATURDAY, JULY 20 | 7:30PM | WHITE RECITAL HALL SUNDAY, JULY 21 | 3:00PM | ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH Six Short Stories for Woodwind Quintet (1996) I. The Mee;ng II. Na;ve Dance III. Air IV. Fire Dance V. Longing VI. 1 + 1 = 11

Lior Navok (b. 1971)

Shannon Finney, flute; Melissa Peña, oboe; Jane Carl, clarinet; Joshua Hood, bassoon; Tod Bowermaster, horn

Novelle9en for String Quartet (1904) I. Andante moderato II. Presto-Allegre9o III. Allegro vivo

Frank Bridge (1870-1941)

Anne-Marie Brown, violin; Kris,n Velicer, violin; Jesse Yukimura, viola; Alexander East, cello

Three Short Stories (2000) I. Uncle Bebop II. Rays of Light III. La;n Dance

Gernot Wolfgang (b. 1957)

Joshua Hood, bassoon; Jesse Yukimura, viola

Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1, “Ghost” (1809) I. Allegro vivace e con brio II. Largo assai ed espressivo III. Presto

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Kris,n Velicer, violin; Alexander East, cello; Daniel Velicer, piano

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Lior Navok, “Six Short Stories” for Woodwind Quintet One of the fascina;ng things about music is that it oDen appears to tell a story, but that story can be heard differently by someone siFng right next to you in the audience. That narra;ve ambiguity is why many composers choose to focus their crea;vity on drama;c works for stage and screen where the stories are clearly provided to the audience by text and movement. Israeli composer Lior Navok is one composer in this vein, having achieved great acclaim for his two operas, The Bet and An unserem Fluss (By Our River); for his oratorio remembering the holocaust, And The Trains Kept Coming...; and for his stage works for children, The Li le Mermaid and The Adventures of Pinocchio. But even while wri;ng these stage works, Navok has shown his passion for music that tells stories without words through his work playing piano and many other instruments for the Bu9erflyEffect Ensemble, a group he helped establish to create new scores for silent films released before 1929.

Six Short Stories for Woodwind Quintet seems indebted to his work with silent film in that it tries to tell a story; however, it admits to the possibility of mul;ple interpreta;ons of the music, even with the clear and evoca;ve movement ;tles he provided. As the composer relates: “The woodwind quintet is one of my favorite mediums: the individual personality of each musical instrument on one hand, and the homogeneity that can skillfully be achieved on the other hand, s;mulated my imagina;on for a long ;me. The ;tles of the movements represent my own plot thoughts and associa;ons behind each story: The First is a mee;ng of five friends willing to play together while one of them is being considerably late. The second is my associa;on to a na;ve ceremonial dance. The third, reminds me of a light breeze on a lazy summer night, while siFng on front of the porch. The fourth describes a person gazing at the fire flames, controlled like a marione9e by the wind. The fiDh is a sinking / floa;ng memory, and last, a discussion about ‘how a fugue should sound.’ Nevertheless, this is only my view of the music. I would like to invite the listeners to find their own associa;on, and create their individual stories.”

Frank Bridge, “Novelle:en” for String Quartet When we hear Frank Bridge’s name in concerts today, it is oDen in connec;on with his famous pupil Benjamin Bri9en and that composer’s marvelous Varia,ons on a Theme of Frank Bridge. Yet during his early life, Bridge was an integral part of the establishment of the English pastoral sound. His influence was felt as a performer (he was well regarded as a violist, playing with the English String Quartet), as a conductor (Sir Thomas Beecham picked Bridge as his assistant conductor when he established the New Symphony Orchestra), and as a composer (his chamber music and songs were especially popular). What changed, and why don’t we remember him be9er today? A commi9ed pacifist, Bridge was horrified by the reports coming out of World War I and responded by echoing that horror in his music. The English public seems to have turned against his new, more modern style, and quickly forgo9en him.

Today’s Novelle en for String Quartet comes from Bridge’s early, post-Roman;c style as he wrote it the year he graduated from the Royal College of Music. With the ;tle “Novelle9en,” we might think that Bridge was wri;ng short stories for string quartet, much like we just heard in Lior Navok’s work. But Bridge was more likely thinking of Robert Schumann’s op. 21 Novelle en, a group of eight character pieces for piano. The first movement, Andante moderato, opens in a beau;ful, undula;ng manner, but listen closely for the twists and turns Bridge takes in his harmonies, premoni;ons of the direc;on of his later, more dissonant music. In the middle of this opening movement, Bridge builds a passionate crescendo, an unexpected moment that quickly fades back into the tranquil sound of the opening. Where the first movement is consistent, the second movement is a study in sudden contrasts: Presto, Allegre o and Moderato. Each of these sec;ons features a single theme with musical tension derived from Bridge’s interplay among them. Listen especially for the largely plucked sec;ons that bear the influence of the rhythmic swing from popular music of the ;me. The last novele9e opens with a hymnlike statement of the main theme before Bridge proceeds to transform it through various contrapuntal and harmonic means, almost as if he intended the work as a gradua;on piece to demonstrate all that he had learned and show the poten;al in a burgeoning composi;onal career.

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Gernot Wolfgang, “Three Short Stories” Since the turn of the 21st century, the hard and fast dividing lines among genres have dissolved. This dissolu;on is perhaps most obvious for audience members in the music they hear – rock rhythms show up in modern symphonic works in Helzberg Hall as oDen as classical string quartet sounds appear in the latest HBO appointment television shows. But behind those interminglings of genres is a transforma;on in composers’ training and experience. Composers like Gernot Wolfgang, an Austrian composer living and working in Los Angeles, learn jazz composi;on alongside classical before gradua;ng from the “Scoring for Mo;on Pictures and TV” program at the University of Southern California. Gernot, who is associate ar;s;c director of the HEAR NOW new music fes;val as well as an orchestrator for mo;on pictures, eagerly embraces this blenderizing of genres, and today’s “Three Short Stories” brings in jazz rhythms to bear on contemporary composi;onal harmonic prac;ces on top of Baroque-era contrapuntal techniques.

Gernot describes the work by wri;ng: “Although the ;tle - Three Short Stories - suggests programma;c content, the ‘stories’ are mostly musical ones. The first movement – ‘Uncle Bebop’ - is an uptempo romp which starts in octave unisons, leading from there to more counterpoint oriented fast passages, including sec;ons in which the viola, while employing tradi;onal arco and pizzicato playing techniques, prac;cally assumes the part of a percussion instrument. The movement se9les down briefly in a short quiet sec;on interrupted by moments of silence before picking up speed again at the reprise, which leads to an energe;c finish.” “‘Rays of Light’ is lyrical in character, and is almost more a composi;on for two solo instruments than a duet. Bassoon and viola shape the piece trading solo passages, with only a few connec;ng measures in between in which the instruments interact. Only in the last couple of measures do the two parts unite to create a true ensemble sound.”

“The ;tle of the third movement – ‘La;n Dance’ - already gives away its character. This again is a fast, lively piece of music, which explores rhythms found in La;n American music while using an unusually dissonant melodic and harmonic language.”

Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Trio in D Major, Op.70 No.1, “Ghost” It must have been hard to be Beethoven, especially in 1808. By that point in his life, he had accepted his encroaching deafness and was deep into one of his most prolific composi;onal periods, but on the professional front he was in a major dry spell. The premiere of his opera Fidelio had been a disaster, and the city of Vienna had refused his request to stage a concert to raise money. He began to speak seriously of leaving Vienna altogether and found a way out when King Jêrome Bonaparte of Westphalia offered him a job as Kapellmeister, providing housing and a substan;al salary. Beethoven might have leD had it not been for the machina;ons of Countess Anna Maria von Erdödy, a patron with whom Beethoven lived for a short period of ;me and whom Beethoven called his Beichtvater, or “Father Confessor.” Erdödy, a wealthy Hungarian separated from her husband, was a wonderful pianist who hosted a sparkling salon and could not imagine Vienna without Beethoven. She collaborated with some of Beethoven’s regular patrons, including Prince Lobkowitz and the Archduke Rudolph, to establish an annual allowance for Beethoven if he would consent to remain in Vienna. Fla9ered and grateful, Beethoven agreed to the support, wrote the op. 70 piano trios for Erdödy that fall, and even performed them for her in her salon in December of 1808.

The first trio finds Beethoven working in an older model of only three movements, but within that model he updates the musical lines by making the violin and cello equal partners with his piano in an elegant conversa;on. The first Allegro movement opens with a loud, unison declara;on of the melody that builds to a shocking F natural, a note out of the justestablished key and so completely unexpected that the cello holds it a bit before launching into a beau;ful, lyrical melody.

This alterna;on between the shocking and the sublime holds true throughout the movement as the instruments each take turn with the melody while Beethoven gives intricate counter melodies to the other instruments. The second movement is perhaps the most celebrated, certainly the longest, and provided the trio with its nickname – “The Ghost.” For this Largo, Beethoven delved into his sketches for an opera on Shakespeare’s Macbeth he began with the libreFst Heinrich Joachim von Collin but later abandoned. (Almost twenty years ago, composer Albert Willem Holsbergen constructed the opera’s overture from these same sketches.) Part of the reason for the movement’s length is its incredible slowness – every gesture is stretched out, crea;ng a suspended atmosphere for its more than ten-minute length. Into this suspension, Beethoven poured harmonies that seem to exist for their tone color alone, and he asks the musicians to delicately hand the melodies from one instrument to the next as though they were one. Pay special a9en;on to the tremolos in the piano that seem to recreate an orchestral string sec;on suppor;ng this ethereal music. With its cascading runs and arpeggios, the finale is a study in absolute contrast to the central movement. While the second movement is introspec;ve, the final movement is outgoing, constantly surprising the audience with sudden starts and stops. It is as though Beethoven knew that an audience would need an exuberant release aDer the hushed tension that precedes it and so provided a high-spirit finale, one that will end your experience of this concert on a definite high note.

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J U LY 2 7 & 2 8

Short Stories and Novelettes: Week Four SATURDAY, JULY 27 | 7:30PM | WHITE RECITAL HALL SUNDAY, JULY 28 | 3:00PM | ST. MARY’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71, No. 2 (1793) I. Adagio - Allegro II. Andante cantabile III. Menue9o: Allegre9o IV. Finale: Allegre9o – Vivace

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Anthony DeMarco, violin; Kris,n Velicer, violin; Jesse Yukimura, viola; Maria Crosby, cello

Elegiac Trio (1916)

Arnold Bax (1883-1953) Shannon Finney, flute; Jesse Yukimura, viola; Tabitha Reist Steiner, harp

Pastorales de Noël (1943) I. L'étoile II. Les mages III. La vierge et l'enfant IV. Entrée et danse des bergers

Andre Jolivet (1905-1974)

Shannon Finney, flute; Joshua Hood, bassoon; Tabitha Reist Steiner, harp

Murder Ballades (2013) I. Omie Wise II. Young Emily III. Dark Holler IV. Wave the Sea V. Brushy Fork VI. Pre9y Polly VII. Tears for Sister Polly

Bryce Dessner (b. 1976)

Shannon Finney, flutes; Jane Carl, clarinets; Kris,n Velicer, violin; Maria Crosby, cello; Daniel Velicer, piano; Chihiro Shibayama; percussion

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Franz Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71, No. 2 In the 21st century, we have a singular view of Franz Joseph Haydn, the older brother of Michael Haydn whom you heard on Summerfest’s first week. We tend to hear stories of Haydn playing quartets with Mozart or teaching a young Beethoven, and we imagine him in the Viennese concert world being feted as the great composer we now consider him to be. But Haydn started his career as a craDsman, a hired hand working for the Esterházy family who wrote music when they demanded it and for their enjoyment. It was an insular life, a formal life, and a life where speed and facility of composi;on were as important as crea;vity. As Haydn grew in fame (and the new Esterházy prince cut his salary), he began to travel outside Esterháza and discovered a change had occurred, namely the growth of public concerts with sophis;cated audiences who wanted original music by virtuosic performers and were willing to pay for it. You can imagine that Haydn was shocked when he traveled to London for the first ;me in 1791 and found a people so in love with his music that King George III even offered him rooms in Windsor Castle if he would only stay in England. Fla9ered and basking in the adula;on, Haydn agreed to return to the island na;on in 1794 and bring new works with him.

Among those works were six string quartets, his op. 71 and op. 74. He wrote them for the impresario who originally invited him to England, Johann Peter Salomon, who was also first violinist of a string quartet. Evidently Salomon was an outstanding performer, regularly playing under Haydn’s baton in London, and Haydn even wrote the cadenza in his 96th symphony for the violinist. Although Haydn dedicated the quartets to Count Anton Apponyi (which is why they are oDen called the Apponyi quartets), it is clear from the op. 71, no. 2 quartet you’ll hear today that Haydn was thinking about a public concert hall instead of the in;mate Esterháza rooms or Viennese salons where Apponyi would have heard them. The quartet opens like one of Haydn’s London symphonies with a slow introduc;on to set the stage before a series of octave leaps in all the instruments opens the faster main part of the movement. It is as though Haydn wanted to grab the a9en;on of a large group of people and then hold them with one of his most delighVul and charming movements. The second movement Adagio is among the most lyrical of Haydn’s quartet slow movements and surely shows his faith in Salomon’s violin playing. The movement is essen;ally an aria for violin, so listen as you would to a great vocalist, focusing on the emo;onal shiDs of harmony in the lower strings that pulse under the floa;ng violin part, adding a breathless quality to the music. Haydn follows the second movement’s beauty with the shortest, lightest, and most humorous of the movements, a dancing minuet. Here Haydn returns to the octave leaps of the opening movement, but they have a mischievous cast to them as they reach their giddy heights only to fall off, as though they cannot quite maintain the heights to which Haydn takes them. The quartet’s finale abandons Haydn’s symphonic formula, which usually relies on an exuberant character in rondo or sonata-allegro form to provide a weighty end to a monumental work. Here Haydn writes in a simple, song-like ternary form that almost func;ons like a series of varia;ons on the opening melody. In the final minute, almost as if remembering he owes the audience a clear signal that the quartet is ending, Haydn speeds up the musical lines with a series of runs that begin in the violin and quickly pick up all the instruments for a unison run to the end. It is a spectacular ending for one of Haydn’s most open-hearted and accessible quartets.

Arnold Bax, “Elegaic” Trio Perhaps, like me, you remember The Troubles, that decades-long conflict between Northern Ireland (which is part of the United Kingdom) and the Republic of Ireland. Reading about The Troubles in 1980s newspapers was my first exposure to modern Irish history and where I first learned about the event Arnold Bax memorialized in his Elegaic Trio.

Arnold Bax was a Londoner by birth but an Hibernophile by inclina;on. In 1902, Bax, a student at the Royal Academy of Music, read William Butler Yeats’s The Wanderings of Oisín and, as he related in his autobiography, “in a moment the Celt within me stood revealed.” He began learning Gaelic, befriended many of the Irish ar;s;c and literary luminaries of his day, and even moved to Ireland permanently upon his re;rement. So, when a group of Irish revolu;onaries seized Dublin and declared an Irish Republic on Easter Monday in 1916, Bax’s sympathies were with them. Unfortunately, the Bri;sh government did not feel the same and sent thousands of soldiers along with ar;llery to Dublin to put down the rebellion, which they did in just six days. Over 2,600 people were wounded during the figh;ng, over 1,800 jailed, and all the leaders executed. Among the casual;es were several of Bax’s friends, including Patrick Pearse, one of the Irish leaders executed by the Bri;sh government. In response, Bax poured out his grief in this Elegaic Trio.

In composing the Elegaic Trio, Bax followed the lead of the memorial works then appearing during WWI that represented shared grief but also consoled the living. In order to give his piece an Irish flavor, Bax decided to use the harp. He adored the Irish harp and so a9empted to mimic its sound in this work. He then wrote the trio in one movement with two sec;ons. The first, faster sec;on features the harp in arpeggiated accompaniment to the long, ethereal melodic lines in the flute and viola.

Some of the harmonies in this first sec;on are reminiscent of Debussy’s harmonic colors in that they seem to float and move 15

according to beauty rather than prescribed harmonic func;on. The second sec;on is slower, and the harp takes a much more ac;ve role. The flute moves into the background and decorates the melody while the harp and viola present an intertwined duet. At the end, Bax gives the harp the final word as the flute and viola hold high notes that seem to hover above the harp’s ascending melody. By that point, you can not only hear Bax’s sorrow but also his hope for an Irish Republic, one ul;mately realized in 1921.

Andre Jolivet, “Pastorales de Noël” Andre Jolivet is an intriguing character in the history of early 20th century France. An early reviewer of his music from 1949 called him the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of contemporary music, producing at one moment atonal music that was spiker than almost anything else produced in that day and in the next moment, producing sweet melodies and harmonies that were embraced by musicians the world over. Perhaps the only logical comparison to make in regards to Jolivet is with his friend and fellow compatriot in the so-called “La Jeune France,” Olivier Messiaen. These two, along with Yves Baudrier and DanielLesur, proclaimed their inten;ons for music by wri;ng that “As life becomes increasingly strenuous, mechanis;c and impersonal, music must seek always to give spiritual excitement to those who love it … La Jeune France intends to promote the performance of works which are youthful and free, standing apart from academic or revolu;onary clichés. The tendencies of the group are diverse; their common aim is simply to encourage the values of sincerity, generosity and ar;s;c awareness; its goal is to create and foster a living music.”

This desire to create a living music based in spiritual values can easily be heard in the Pastorales de Noël of 1943. This set of Pastorales looks before the current troubles of World War II to a younger ;me, to the Baroque tradi;on. In this delighVul set, you’ll hear the Dr. Jekyll side of Jolivet, easy on the ears with os;natos and flowing contrapuntal lines among the harp, flute, and viola. This is a music that is youthful and free in many ways, a music without pretense or ar;fice.

Bryce Dessner, “Murder Ballades” As noted last week with Gernot Wolfgang, the genera;on of composers who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s are conspicuously unimpressed by genre boundaries. They freely mix and mingle musical styles in their composi;ons and are oDen equally at home in the classical and the popular world. Consider Bryce Dessner. In his teens, he picked up classical guitar while also star;ng a rock band with his twin brother, Aaron. He’s related that people on both sides of the genre divide told him he couldn’t work in both the classical and rock worlds. “My intui;on told me they were wrong,” he said. “Someday that diversity of experience would be more enriching or rewarding than just going down one path.” It certainly has been. In the rock world, Dessner is known as songwriter and guitarist for The Na;onal, a band founded by his brother and inspired by acts from Leonard Cohen to Depeche Mode to Wilco. In the classical world, Dessner has collaborated with Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Caroline Shaw and directs MusicNOW, a new music fes;val based in Cincinna;, Ohio. And he regularly mingles the two areas in his mul;media work, such as the collabora;ve score he wrote for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto.

Murder Ballades is the perfect work to end our four-week explora;on of short stories and novele9es as it explicitly grows out of a story-telling tradi;on. Murder ballads began in 17th century Scandinavia and the Bri;sh Isles both in the oral tradi;on and as printed broadsides and purported to tell the story of grisly crimes and the swiD jus;ce that oDen accompanied them. Some;mes told from the point of view of the murderer, these tales came to the United States with the waves of emigrants from Northern Europe and se9led into the folk culture here. Ballads like “Tom Dooley” or “Two Sisters” are regularly sung and recorded by contemporary musicians, and new ballads are s;ll wri9en, such as “The Hanging Tree,” which appeared in The Hunger Games series of young adult novels and was set to music for the film versions.

Dessner mixed older and newer murder ballads in his seven-song collec;on Murder Ballades. Several of the melodies might be known to you – “Omie Wise” is an American ballad Bob Dylan regularly performed in concert in the 1960s, “Young Emily” is a Bri;sh ballad also known as “Young Edwin” and “Diver Boy,” and Woody Guthrie used the melody of “Pre9y Polly” for his song “Pastures of Plenty.” In these movements, Dessner uses the original tune and even some of the sounds familiar to it in other incarna;ons, such as the banjo picking pa9erns in the piano and percussion for “Omie Wise.” “Brushy Fork” sits halfway between the pure recrea;on of these tunes and the new melodies Dessner composed. “Brushy Fork” is a Civil-War era fiddle tune and as such exists in so many versions that declaring one defini;ve is difficult. Instead, Dessner recreates the shiDing meters and driving rhythms that make up all recorded versions of the tune and has the instruments even play as though they were an old-;me string band. The remaining songs are new melodies based on the stories of the old murder ballads. “Wave the Sea” is perhaps inspired by “Wave the Ocean,” a folk recording Alan Lomax made during his 1960 16

“Southern Journey.” It is the most fran;c of the set, featuring stu9ering instruments under a pulsing flute line that seem aghast at the violence around them even while contribu;ng to its culture. “Tears for Sister Polly” closes the set with a minimalis;c motor rhythm that owes much to Philip Glass’s addi;ve style. It churns along, taking apart the melody from “Pre9y Polly” to build to a raucous ending that, like the ballads that inspired it, leaves the audience with as many ques;ons as answers.

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MUSICIAN BIOS Tod Bowermaster, horn Tod Bowermaster, a na;ve of O9awa, Illinois, is Third Horn of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, a posi;on he has held since 1995.

Noted for his “gorgeous solo playing” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and his “golden-honey tone” (Kansas City Star), he released “The Horn in Song,” a collec;on of lyrical music for horn and piano, in 2012. He served as Ac;ng Principal Horn of the St. Louis Symphony for the 2002-2003 season and has appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on numerous occasions. He has also performed as a soloist with the Honolulu Symphony, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, and numerous orchestras throughout the Midwest. Prior to his appointment with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, he was a member of the Honolulu Symphony and the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra. He has also performed and toured with the orchestras of Chicago, Houston, Pi9sburgh, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Winner of the 1999 American Horn Compe;;on and the 1982 Coleman Chamber Ensemble Compe;;on, he con;nues to enjoy performing in both solo and chamber music seFngs.

Dr. Jane Carl, clarinet Jane Carl, Professor of Clarinet at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, received her degrees from the University of Michigan. She has been a member of the South Bend Symphony, the Flint Symphony, and the Michigan Opera Theater Orchestra in Detroit, and performed with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. She performs regularly with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, as ac;ng assistant principal clarinet from 19992003. She can oDen be heard performing with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and the Kansas City Symphony. She was the ar;s;c chair of ClarinetFest 2008, the annual conference of the Interna;onal Clarinet Associa;on, held in Kansas City. Dr. Carl performed at the 2007 China Interna;onal Clarinet and Saxophone Fes;val in Beijing, and the 2009 ClarinetFest in Porto Portugal. In the fall of 2009, she became the Chair of UMKC’s Instrumental Studies Division. She has performed with Summerfest for over two decades and is a member of the Ar;s;c Commi9ee which selects music heard at Summerfest concerts.

Mr. Bowermaster has been a regular par;cipant in numerous chamber music fes;vals na;onwide, including the Kapalua Music Fes;val on Maui, the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine, Summerfest in Kansas City, the Innsbruck Fes;val outside of St. Louis, Strings in the Mountains in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and the Landmarks Society Chamber Concerts on the island of St. Croix.

He is also in great demand as a teacher, having been invited to give recitals and masterclasses at many of the top American music schools. Recent teaching engagements have included being a guest professor with the horn class at Northwestern University and with the horn students at the Indiana University Summer Music Fes;val, as well as the FEMUSC fes;val in Brazil. When not playing the horn, he enjoys playing tennis, singing, and spending ;me with his two teenage children.

Maria Crosby, cello Maria Crosby received her undergraduate degree in cello performance from Depaul University in Chicago where she studied with Stephen Balderston and Tanya Carey. She went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, under the tutelage of Peter Stumpf.

Maria joined the Kansas City Symphony in 2012. In addi;on to full-;me orchestral playing, she is also an ac;ve chamber musician. She has performed on stages across the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Lithuania, Armenia, Greece, Russia, Japan, and Brazil, and has par;cipated in a variety of orchestral and chamber music fes;vals, including the Aegean Verdi Fes;val, the Schleswig Holstein Musik Fes;val, the Pacific Music Fes;val, the Banff Chamber Music Residency, the Recontres francoaméricaines de Musique de Chambre and the Pine Mountain Music Fes;val. Maria first performed with Summerfest in 2014.

Anne-Marie Brown, violin Anne-Marie Brown, a member of the Kansas City Symphony since 2001, performs extensively as soloist and chamber musician throughout the Kansas City area. The Kansas City Star has described her performances as displaying "splendid virtuosity, with a rich impressive tone" and KCMetropolis has said her "playing was stellar, with lyricism and technique to spare." The Miami Herald has noted her work's "silky, suave tone and unaffected beauty." In recent seasons, she has been a frequent soloist with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, a guest musician with Summerfest, and a member of the newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, recording a work for piano trio on the Navona label in 2012. In addi;on, she serves on the faculty of the Heartland Chamber Music Fes;val.

Previously, she was a member of the New World Symphony, where she appeared as both concertmaster and soloist. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and Manha9an School of Music.

Tony DeMarco, violin Tony DeMarco has been a member of the Kansas City Symphony for 14 seasons. His previous professional experience includes Assistant Concertmaster of both the Virginia and North Carolina Symphonies, subs;tute for the Pi9sburgh Symphony, and a member of the Pi9sburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestra. He was raised in the South Hills of Pi9sburgh then enrolled at Carnegie- Mellon University at age 16, then transferred to Oberlin Conservatory where he earned an ar;st’s diploma. Having chosen his career path at age 9, Tony credits the violin, his mother Bonnie, and his teacher Albert Hirtz of the Pi9sburgh Symphony for the opportunity to travel to Asia, Europe, and all around the United States, making las;ng friends and playing great music. Best among those friends is his wonderful wife, Jeannine Elashewich. Together with sons Albert and Roman, they now reside in a “Li9le House in Prairie Village.”

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Alexander (Alex) East, cello Alexander East is the Assistant Principal Cellist of the Kansas City Symphony. In addi;on to du;es with the Symphony, which oDen include leading the sec;on as principal for opera, ballet, and chamber orchestra performances, he is also heard frequently in recitals and chamber music concerts throughout the Kansas City region and with the Sun Valley (ID) Summer Symphony every year since 1992. Before se9ling in Kansas City, East spent two seasons as a member of the New World Symphony under the direc;on of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. He received his training at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of music. His teachers have included Tsuyushi, Tsutsumi, Janos Sarker, Laurence Lesser, and Colin Carr. He has performed with Summerfest since 2001 and serves on the Ar;s;c Commi9ee which selects the music heard in Summerfest Concerts.

Nina Ferrigno, piano Nina Ferrigno, described by the St. Louis Post Dispatch as "a magnificent pianist," is a collabora;ve ar;st at home in a mul;tude of diverse musical seFngs. Her playing is said to be, “...always precise with superb accentua;on and warmth of feeling...”. Nina is a founding member of the Boston-based Calyx Piano Trio which excites audiences throughout the United States with expressive ensemble playing and brilliant virtuosity. She has been a featured soloist with with such ensembles as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). Recent orchestral keyboard appearances include those with the Chicago Symphony and St. Louis Symphony.

Her fes;val appearances include, most recently, those at Tanglewood with members of the Boston Symphony, Banff, Norfolk, and the Skaneateles Fes;val. She also appears regular at the Carolina Chamber Music Fes;val and Missouri Chamber Music Fes;val where the Calyx Piano Trio holds residencies. Ms. Ferrigno is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, where she received degrees with dis;nc;on. She is especially commi9ed to bringing classical music to new audiences and expanding the repertoire by working with organiza;ons including Chamber Music America and the Barlow Founda;on to commission and perform new works in a variety of seFngs. The New Music Connoisseur has said of her, “pianist Nina Ferrigno [brings] out the inherent horizontal logic...all the while impar;ng sonic beauty from end to end.” Nina is a Founder and Director of the Missouri Chamber Music Fes;val, now in its 9th Season, in St. Louis. She is on the teaching faculty of Washington University and Webster University in St. Louis.

Shannon Finney, flute Shannon Finney is Associate Principal Flu;st for the Kansas City Symphony. She has performed with Summerfest since 1996 and is a former Ar;s;c Advisor. Her summer work extends to Door County, WI, where performs with and is on the faculty at Birch Creek Music Center. She was a past winner of the Na;onal Flute Associa;on Piccolo Ar;st Compe;;on and has been a fellow at Tanglewood. Finney has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, and the Chicago Sinfonie9a. Her teachers include Walfrid Kujala, Mary Stolper, and Karla Flygare, and her degrees are from Northwestern University. Finney enjoys the culinary arts, traveling, and many outdoor ac;vi;es. An adventurer at heart, Finney spent a month in Nepal in 2014, including two weeks trekking in the Himalayas and reaching Annapurna Base Camp. In 2017 she enjoyed whitewater raDing with her dad down the en;re length of the Grand Canyon.

Michael Gordon, flute Michael Gordon serves as the Principal Flu;st of the Kansas City Symphony. Prior to joining the Kansas City Symphony, he was a member of the New World Symphony, where he performed as a soloist in 2007. Gordon has performed with several orchestras across the United States, including the St. Louis Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2004, he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Rice University. His teachers include Leone Buyse and Marianne Gedigian. Gordon serves on the Ar;s;c Commi9ee which selects the music heard in Summerfest Concerts.

Joshua (Josh) Hood, bassoon Joshua Hood, bassoonist, received his bachelor of music degree from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Lewis Hugh Cooper. He completed his master's degree at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University with Benjamin Kamins, former Principal Bassoonist of the Houston Symphony. Hood has performed with a number of orchestras including the Kansas City Symphony, Houston Symphony, and the North Carolina Symphony. He joined the Charlo9e Repertory Symphony to outstanding reviews. He has also performed with several fes;vals including the Pacific Music Fes;val in Japan, May Music Fes;val in Charlo9e, NC, Gateways Music Fes;val in Rochester, NY, the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA, and with the Ritz Chamber Players on the Amelia Island Music Fes;val in Florida. He has performed with Summerfest since 1998.

Celeste Johnson, oboe Celeste Johnson joined the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance faculty in August of 2016 as Associate Professor of oboe. Celeste held the same ;tle at Oklahoma State University where she taught from 2004- 2016. A current member of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Celeste con;nues to enjoy a varied teaching and performing career.

As a performer, Celeste has appeared with numerous orchestras, music fes;vals and compe;;ons around the globe. She has performed in Switzerland, Colombia, the Isle of Man, Canada and as guest principal oboist with the Russian String Orchestra. Ms. Johnson has performed as principal oboe of the New York String Orchestra, and has received fellowships to a9end the Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Fes;val, Kent-Blossom Music Fes;val, Banff Centre, Sarasota Music Fes;val and the Lucerne Fes;val Academy. She has held addi;onal orchestral posi;ons with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra and Champaign Urbana Symphony. Celeste has also won prizes in the Gillet-Fox Interna;onal Oboe Compe;;on, Barbirolli Interna;onal Oboe Compe;;on and Barne9 Founda;on Compe;;on.

Ms. Johnson has held addi;onal teaching posi;ons at the Bay View Music Fes;val, OperaMaya, Filarmonica Joven de Colombia, Roberts Wesleyan College and the University of Kansas. She was awarded the First Lady of OSU Outstanding Music Faculty award in 2011, and the OSU Junior Faculty Award in 2007. A past-president of the Midwest Double Reed Society, Celeste remains ac;ve within a number of double reed organiza;ons, including the Interna;onal Double Reed Society and Texas Double Reed Society.

Celeste Johnson holds a Master of Music in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music as a student of Richard Killmer, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Oboe Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a student of Nancy Ambrose King and Dan Stolper.

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Charles Metz, harpsichord Charles Metz studied piano at Penn State University, beginning his harpsichord studies through private lessons with the legendary Igor Kipnis. In the process of earning a Ph.D. in Historical Performance Prac;ce at Washington University in Saint Louis Missouri, he studied with Trevor Pinnock. More recently, Charles has worked with Webb Wiggins and Lisa Crawford at the Oberlin Conservatory. Charles has performed across the country with concerts in Chicago IL, Saratoga NY, Bennington VT, Louisville, KY and Liberty Mo in their Baroque music JEMS Fest. He has performed solo recitals at the Smithsonian Ins;tu;on in Washington D.C., Oberlin Conservatory and appeared as guest ar;st in Kansas City for the KC Symphony’s summer program “Summerfest”. With the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis, he was the featured keyboard soloist in Bach’s FiDh Brandenburg Concerto under conductor Nicholas McGegan. He has appeared with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Ars An;gua Chicago and the Newberry Consort of Chicago. Recently he has played with the Desert Baroque in Palm Desert California and did performances including master classes at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Penn State University in State College PA. As an early keyboard specialist he is currently performing on his historic Italian virginal, harpsichords and fortepianos. Dr. Metz’s list of performance credits includes interna;onal appearances in the Netherlands, Germany and Costa Rica. Dr. Metz also obtained a doctorate in Optometry and worked for twenty years in his own private prac;ce and Clarkson Eyecare in St. Louis before re;ring. In addi;on to his performing ac;vity, he serves on the Board of Directors of Chamber Music Society of St. Louis and The Newberry Consort.

Melissa Peña, oboe Melissa Peña currently serves as Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Oregon. Prior to joining the Oregon faculty, Peña held the posi;ons of Associate Principal Oboe/English Horn with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra (2002-2011), 2nd Oboe with the Sarasota Orchestra (2001-2002), and Assistant Professor of Oboe at the University of Northern Colorado (2010-2012). An ac;ve orchestral musician, Peña has recently performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Astoria Music Fes;val, and con;nues to hold the posi;on of Associate Principal Oboe/Engish Horn with the New Mexico Philharmonic. Addi;onally, Peña has appeared with the Sea9le Symphony, Santa Fe Opera, Oregon Bach Fes;val, Kansas City Symphony, Opera Colorado, Jacksonville Symphony, and the Florida Orchestra among others.

As a chamber musician, Peña is a member of the Oregon Wind Quintet and is a core member/performer of Cha er - an innova;ve, weekly chamber music and spoken word series in Albuquerque, NM. Peña has performed with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Fes;val, Music from Angel Fire with Ida Kavafian, and Kansas City’s Summerfest.

She has appeared as a concerto soloist with the New Mexico Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, and the Southwest Florida Symphony. An enthusias;c performer of contemporary music, Peña can be heard performing with Molly Barth and Jeffrey Ziegler on David Lang’s thorn (Cantaloupe Music 2017) and contributed performances to the albums: David Crumb: Red Desert (Bridge Records 2015), and New Millennium Music for Horn (Quadre Records 2014). Peña holds degrees from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and the University of Illinois studying with Barbara Bishop and Nancy Ambrose King.

Melissa Rose, piano Pianist Melissa Rose has a 30-year career partnering with instrumentalists and singers in concerts throughout the United States and at venues in Argen;na, Malta, Santorini, and Russia. She regularly collaborates with ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, the Nashville Ballet, in chamber music and song recitals, and as an official pianist for na;onal and interna;onal music compe;;ons and conferences. Melissa’s chamber music recordings are on the Naxos, Centaur, Blue Griffin, Good Child Music, and Delos labels. She is Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Piano at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, where she teaches collabora;ve piano and coaches chamber music. Melissa enjoys living in Nashville, TN, with her husband, Dan Schafer, and their adopted miniature schnauzers, Oscar and Ranger. She is delighted to return to Kansas City for her 24th season with Summerfest.

Richard Ryan, bass Richard Ryan, an Arizona na;ve, has been a Kansas City Symphony member for four seasons. Before his tenure in Kansas City, he was Assistant Principal bass of the Louisville Orchestra. A graduate of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Richard has par;cipated in music fes;vals such as Aspen and Artosphere, and has conducted the Louisville Youth Orchestra and Kling Chamber Orchestra.

Chihiro Shibayama, percussion A Na;ve of Yokohama City, Japan, Chihiro Shibayama is a New York City-based freelance percussionist. She has played percussion on a successful run of a Broadway musical, Miss Saigon and her Broadway debut was as one of three on-stage musicians for a new adapta;on of The Cherry Orchard starring Diane Lane. She has also performed for the renowned Radio City Christmas Spectacular, ABC's Good Morning America with John Legend and Common, The Metropolitan Opera, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Kansas City Symphony. She has been on the percussion faculty of the DillerQuaile School of Music since 2013. ADer gradua;ng from Interlochen Arts Academy with a performance award, Ms. Shibayama earned both Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. She is a Pearl/ Adams concert ar;st. Ms. Shibayama’s hobbies include rock climbing and cooking.

Ma:hew Sinno, viola Massachuse9s na;ve Ma9hew Sinno was appointed Associate Principal Viola of the Kansas City Symphony in 2018. He has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Winner of the 2014 Juilliard Concerto Compe;;on, Ma9hew performed Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher in Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Orchestra. In 2019, He appeared as soloist with the Kansas City Symphony, playing an arrangement of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” featuring solo viola as the voice of Freddy Mercury.

Ma9hew has a9ended several summer fes;vals such as Perlman Music Program and Music Academy of the West. He also performs at Chestnut Hill Concerts in Connec;cut.

Ma9hew holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Cur;s Ins;tute of Music. His primary teachers include Cynthia Phelps, Heidi Castleman, Roberto Diaz, Toby Appel, Ed Gazouleas and David Rubinstein.

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Tabitha Reist Steiner, harp Tabitha Reist Steiner began her musical studies at age four in piano and at age eight in harp. An ac;ve freelancer throughout the Midwest, her playing was lauded as “…some of the most precise and beau;fully inflected harp playing….” by the Kansas City Star. Steiner is principal harpist with the Topeka Symphony Orchestra and a regular extra with the Kansas City Symphony and the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. In the past, she has held principal harp posi;ons with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Tulsa Opera Orchestra and the Washington, D.C. Summer Opera Orchestra. During the summer, she is found on stage with the Summerfest Chamber Music Fes;val. Steiner earned a master of music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor of music degree from Washburn University. She lives in Overland Park, KS with her husband, Michael, and their two small children.

Jesse Yukimura, viola Violist Jesse Keone Yukimura joined the Kansas City Symphony in 2018. Originally from Washington State, Jesse discovered the joys of ensemble music at a young age, in both large and small ensembles. Jesse received a Bachelor of Music degree in Viola Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Peter Slowik, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Oberlin College. He then studied with Ralph Fielding at the Lynn Conservatory of Music, where he earned a Master of Music degree and a Professional Performance Cer;ficate. Before moving to Kansas City, Jesse was a viola fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, an orchestral academy founded by ar;s;c director Michael Tilson Thomas.

Outside of music, Jesse maintains a variety of interests, from birdwatching to chess.

Daniel (Dan) Velicer, piano An ac;ve performer and teacher, Dan Velicer appears regularly with the Kansas City Symphony, Trio Fedele, and the Lyric Arts Trio. He is a frequent collaborator with members of the Kansas City Symphony and the UMKC Conservatory faculty. Velicer also helps university and high school students prepare for recitals and compe;;ons.

Summerfest Annotator Andrew Granade: Andrew Granade is an Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator for Musicology at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. His research and teaching focus on the recep;on and percep;on of modern music in a variety of forms and genres. He is comple;ng a book exploring the impact of the hobo persona on Harry Partch’s life, work, and recep;on, as well as the issues of exo;cism that arise from it. The interest in exo;cism carries over into his other areas of interest, especially the shape-note singing tradi;on of the rural American South and the interplay between Chinese and American music in the 20th century.

Prior to arriving in Kansas City, he was an Opera Coach Fellow at the Aspen Music Fes;val and the head staff pianist at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music. Along with his wife, Kris;, Velicer is on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory where he coaches chamber music, leads master classes, and performs with faculty.

He received his bachelor of arts degree from Cornell University, majoring in both anthropology and music. He received his master of music degree from Rice University.

Kris n (Kris ) Velicer, violin Kris;n Velicer is the Assistant Principal Second Violinist with the Kansas City Symphony. Velicer has performed and toured interna;onally with numerous major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. She has appeared on Na;onal Public Radio as a featured soloist and chamber musician on Performance Today and Houston in Concerts.Velicer was an invited performer in the Carnegie Hall tribute to Alexander Schneider, founder of the New York String Orchestra Seminar.

Velicer holds a bachelor's degree in violin performance at Overlin College Conservatory of Music where she studied with Kathleen Winkler. While at Overlin, she received the pres;gious Conservatory Dean’s Talent Award. Velicer later received a master’s degree from Rice University-Shepherd School of Music studying with Raphael Fliegel and Kathleen Winkler. Velicer serves, along with her husband Dan, on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory in Steamboat Springs, CO.

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DONORS Summerfest’s 29th season was made possible with generous support from the following: Founda on Support: $5,000-9,999 Missouri Arts Council Muriel McBrien Kauffman Founda,on Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund Richard J. Stern Founda,on for the Arts William T. Kemper Founda,on $1,000 –4,999 Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City Francis Family Founda,on Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund Individual Contributors: Benefactors ($2,500-4,999) Charles and Virginia Clark Stephen J. Clegg, Jr. & Karen Kohler Clegg Don and Patricia Dagenais Barbara and Burt Smoliar Patrons ($1,000-2,499) Leonard & Irene BeMnger Philanthropic Fund for the Jewish Community Founda,on of Greater KC Dr. Linda Fleet Chapman Robert and Charlo e Herman Yvonne Jameson Terry Pritche and Don Shanks Dr. Mary Redmon Sponsors ($500-999) Jason Bryles Dr. and Mrs. Robert Coleman Una Creditor William and Barbara Gaeddert Joan Horan Sharon Lundy Evan Luskin and Andrea Kempf Elizabeth Schellhorn Dr. Mary Zimmerman Donors ($250-499) Joe Archias Deborah A. Borek and David Wiseman Bill and Rebecca Crain Mareta Smith Brogan Sullivan Greg Thurman and Don White Friends ($25-249) Eugene Beck Mary Beveridge Bruce and Linda Bradley

Robert Brownrigg James Calvert Carolyn Cameron Jane Carl Cereal Ingredients, Inc.: In Memory of Glenn Spillman Carol Chatelain Patricia Cleary Miller William Cutler and Elisabeth Suter Randy Duty James East Julie Elfving Sara Engber Carol Fields and Charles Downing Martha Field Gould and Nancy Garcia Mary Grant Klaus and Claudia Grunewald Roger and Susan Hawk Debbie Hunsberger Beth Ingram Margaret Jackson Paul Jordan John Kinsey and Mar, Moore Karen Kistner Jon Kowing William Krusemark Larry & Pat Kuhlman Nancy Larner James Ludlow Miller Family Richard Mathis Stephanie Miller Daisy and Walter Muff George and Suzy Pagels Nancy Panzer-Howell Kathy Peters Dan E. Prindle Kathryn B. Pruessner Dale E. Ramsey Mort and Zelda Reeber Patricia Regan Elaine Rhodes Drs. William and Chris,ne Rinck Alvin Schneider Nancy Schurle George and Terry Smith Sue Strickler Darrel and Linda Thomssen Cory Unrein Barbara Weary Ted and Rose Wilch John Wilkinson Anita Wright Dona,ons reflect giving from June 1, 2018—June 15, 2019.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Board of Directors Dr. Mary Redmon, President Charlo9e Herman, Vice President Stephanie Miller, Treasurer Don Dagenais, Secretary

A Sincere Thank You The Summerfest board and staff would like to recognize the following for their generous and invaluable contribu,ons: St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Deacon Gerry Shaon

Jason Bryles Una Creditor Robert Herman Brogan Sullivan

Program Notes Andrew Granade

Ar s c Advisors Jane Carl Alexander East Michael Gordon

Central Ticket Office Amanda Schuster

Ex-Officio Cory Unrein, Administra;ve Coordinator

Stage Manager Brandon Crawford

Librarian Elena Lence Talley

Housing Una Creditor Don and Pat Dagenais Shannon Finney Mike Sigler Rita Spillman Tom Sullivan and Helen Lindquist

Recep ons Duwan Hardge, Sauce Op;onal

Photography Andrew Schwartz, Veritography

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church Keyboards John Yeradi UMKC Keyboards Kent Swafford Harpsichord Father Paul Turner

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