C4
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C4 CHAMBER CHORUS Sopranos Franny Geller Anna Levenstein Asia Meirovich Karen Siegel
Altos Joy Chia Monika Heidemann Shira Moss Malina Rauschenfels
Tenors Christopher Baum Jonathan David Sam McCoy David Rentz Eddie Rubeiz
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective
Basses James Bilodeau Manuel Castellano Muñoz Ian Moss Benjamin Niemczyk
a concert about
LOVE
Friday, 15 June 2007, The Norwegian Seamen’s Church, New York, NY
C4 C4 C4 CHAMBER CHORUS
• Member of the C4 Collective
Set Me as a Seal (2007) ‡
C4 SYMPHONIC CHORUS
Sopranos Reena Esmail Franny Geller Tina Goldstein Adria Le Boeuf Anna Levenstein Erica Lowe Asia Meirovich Karen Siegel Eileen Stevens Jieun Yang
Altos Joy Chia Rachel Dowell Sally Fenley Eloise Flood JoAnne Harris Monika Heidemann Shira Moss Malina Rauschenfels Ellen Rentz Lorena Ruiz
Tenors Christopher Baum Jonathan David Steve Lanser Sam McCoy Andrew Ormson David Rentz Eddie Rubeiz
Joseph Gregorio (b. 1979)
Joy Chia, conductor
Basses Daniel Andor James Bilodeau Jonas Cartano Manuel Castellano Muñoz Ian Moss Benjamin Niemczyk Tim Rusterholz
Love in C(ummings) (rev. 2007) † if i love You be of love(a little)
David Rentz (b. 1977)
Selections from Canti d’Amor (1991)
Bernard Rands (b. 1934)
Christopher Baum, conductor
I V VI Sam McCoy, conductor
The Perfect Gift (2007) †
Karen Siegel (b. 1980)
Christopher Baum, conductor
C4: THE CH0RAL COMPOSER/CONDUCTOR COLLECTIVE
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C4, the world’s first Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, is a unique vocal ensemble in New York City dedicated to performing music by living composers. A collaborative project of its singing members, it functions not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right, with concerts at least twice yearly, but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group. It is, so far as we know, the first ensemble of its kind, and the largest choral group in the nation to focus entirely on the music of our time. C4 operates two choruses of different sizes. The 17-voice Chamber Chorus rehearses every week on Thursday nights and sings all of the repertoire on each concert. The C4 Symphonic Chorus is a larger group comprised of a rotating pool of singers called in for works that require additional forces in order to be effective. The 12-member C4 Collective consists of the composers, conductors, and singers who share responsibility for running the group and serve as the organization’s Board of Directors. The C4 Collective makes all artistic decisions on behalf of the group.
C4 SYMPHONIC CHORUS
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Odysseus and the Sirens (1981)
H. Garrett Phillips (b. 1941)
Tu pauperum refugium (2006) †
Jonathan David (b. 1965)
Karen Siegel, conductor
Benjamin Niemczyk, conductor
TEN-MINUTE INTERMISSION
† World premiere ‡ East Coast premiere
Program Notes C4 CHAMBER CHORUS Selections from love, war and politics (1992)
James Bassi (b. 1961)
these children singing in stone a Asia Meirovich, conductor why // do the Benjamin Niemczyk, conductor
Set Me as a Seal Set Me as a Seal, completed in 2007, is a setting of verse adapted from the Song of Solomon 8:6-7. The text describes a love that is unquenchable by the tides of time and trouble, while reminding us that love and death are inextricably intertwined. Gregorio’s setting borrows some inspiration from Chopin’s “Raindrop” prelude (Op. 28, No. 15, in D-flat), prominently featuring the pitch A flat/G sharp. — Joy Chia A native of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, JOSEPH GREGORIO began his study of composition as an undergraduate at Cornell University with composer Steven Stucky. Gregorio’s music has been performed in the United States and abroad by ensembles and soloists including Chor Leoni; the San Francisco Bach Choir and Period Consort; the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus; the Yale University Pro Musica and Camerata; the Rutgers Glee Club; the Cornell University Glee Club and Chorus; the San Francisco Conservatory Chorus, Orchestra, and New Music Ensemble; violist Jodi Levitz; and soprano Rebecca Plack. Gregorio holds a MM in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with David Conte. He also received a BA magna cum laude in music from Cornell University, and a MM in choral conducting from Yale University, where he studied with Marguerite Brooks and Simon Carrington.
extremely rich; in this set, I have tried to give musical expression to his masterful poetry. “if I love You” was originally written in July of 1995, for the Whitefish Bay (Wisconsin) High School Concert Choir. “be of love(a little)” was written in the summer of 1998 for the Washington University Chamber Choir. Both have been significantly revised for today’s performance.— David Rentz
C4 C4 C4 CHAMBER ENSEMBLES
Balada interior (from Siete Canciones) (1999) § Malina Rauschenfels, Eddie Rubeiz and David Rentz
Selections from Metaphors of Women (1994) Moon and Flowering Plum Franny Geller and Karen Siegel
Malina Rauschenfels (b. 1978)
Elliot Z. Levine (b. 1948)
Intimation Anna Levenstein and Asia Meirovich
C4 CHAMBER CHORUS
Ave verum Corpus (1973)
Imant Raminsh (b. 1943)
Ian Moss, conductor
Stacy Garrop (b. 1969)
Sonnets of Desire, Longing, and Whimsy (2004) ‡ I. Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane II. Time does not bring relief, you all have lied III. I shall forget you presently, my dear David Rentz, conductor
c4ensemble.org C4 SYMPHONIC CHORUS
This Living Hand (2000)
Ian Moss (b. 1980)
David Rentz, conductor
Steven Sametz (b. 1954)
Sam McCoy, conductor
‡ East Coast premiere
§ New York City premiere
Canti d’Amor, written in 1991, is a setting of 15 Poems from Chamber Music by James Joyce. Each poem delves into the many facets of love, including longing, desire, lust, nature and repose. Rands dedicated the work to his wife, the composer Augusta Read Thomas. Born in England in 1934, BERNARD RANDS studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor. He studied composition and conducting with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and York University before emigrating to the United States in 1975, becoming a US citizen in 1983. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. Since 1988 he has taught at Harvard University, where he serves as the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music. Rands is the recipient of many awards for his work. His work Canti del Sole won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He was elected and inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004. From 1989 to 1995 he was composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Canti d’Amor, recorded by the men’s vocal ensemble Chanticleer, won a Grammy Award in 2000.
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Love in C(ummings)
in time of (1995)
Selections from Canti d’Amor
Both of Cummings’s poems deal with his understanding of and response to “love.” The poems move from awe to tenderness to ironic ambivalence to exultation, all within the span of a few words. The materials of musical construction are similarly pithy – the pieces are based on a single four-note motive: c-e-c-d. Cummings’s language, both in its visual symbolism and its sonority, is
The Perfect Gift This piece is dedicated to Charles. His first gift to me was intercepted by the police in a routine subway search, and thanks to their carelessness he arrived with a broken binding machine. We worked on it for hours, taking it apart and putting it back together again, and again, and again. By the end we still had a broken machine on our hands, but after hours of disagreeing on how to go about fixing it, we were still crazy about each other. The music starts out with quietly intense fragments that coalesce into a brief unison melody before multiplying and expanding into lush harmonies. It ends with a gentle closing section. — Karen Siegel
open a central section on a tune based on the piece’s opening re-do-mi motif, before accompanying a solo soprano, whose notes are derived from a longer compound melody also from the opening section. The texture of the opening soon returns with the men’s and women’s roles reversed. Ultimately, the warm expressiveness that started the piece has become more troubled and introspective by the end, where we end on the word “morte” (death). —Jonathan David
Balada interior Federico García Lorca has been one of my favorite poets for many years, and Balada interior is my favorite of his poems. I can relate to it on many levels. I find it already extremely musical and rhythmic, so the music that followed seemed to me a natural extension of the poem itself. I felt like Lorca was writing it for me. — Malina Rauschenfels
1973 beneath a magnificent Araucaria tree in the Adelaide (South Australia) botanical garden while I was on a year-long trip around the world. There are some hidden references to the Mozart Ave Verum Corpus which was an inspiration for the work. — Imant Raminsh IMANT RAMINSH is a Canadian composer best known for his choral compositions. Born in Ventspils, Latvia, he came to Canada in 1948 and became a naturalized citizen in 1954. He completed an ARCT (Associate of The Royal Conservatory of Music) diploma in violin at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada and a Bachelor of Music programme at the University of Toronto, where he studied with Elmer Iseler. He then spent two years at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, during which he studied composition, fugue, violin and conducting, and played in the professional Camerata Academica orchestra. He established the music department at the College of New Caledonia in British Columbia and was also the founding conductor of the New Caledonia Chamber Orchestra. He is a two-time winner of the biennial Canadian National Choral Awards in the category of “Outstanding Choral Work”, first in 1990 for his Magnificat and again in 1994 for his Veni Sancte Spiritus. — adapted from Wikipedia
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Odysseus and the Sirens
Odysseus and the Sirens is a musical imagining of the moment from Homer’s The Odyssey when Odysseus stands tied to the ship’s mast listening to the bewitching song of the sirens while his crew, with beeswax in their ears, rows on. The first sound is the wind, taking the form of a soft hiss. Then the gentle waves of the water are heard. As we approach the sirens, the waves are heard crashing against the rocks, and the sirens begin to sing “Odysseus,” the only text of the piece. The music gradually builds in intensity and range, with simple haunting motives passing through the sections of the chorus. The ship moves on, the sirens fade away, and we are left again with water and wind. — Karen Siegel
Selections from love, war and politics
The title of this work, love, war and politics, reflects two essential aspects of E.E. Cummings’ writing: ardent love poetry and biting social commentary. This cycle is dedicated, with love and gratitude, to the members of The Western Wind. — James Bassi JAMES BASSI is a pianist and composer who has collaborated with many esteemed artists. Among the singers he has accompanied in concert are Judy Kaye and Ann Crumb in the world of music theatre, and Jessye Norman in the world of opera. James has worked extensively with soprano Deborah Voigt. He wrote, arranged and music directed a holiday concert for her, which they premiered together in New York City; highlights of this program were featured on an A & E television special. At New York Theatre Workshop, he and Ms. Voigt performed an all-Broadway concert which received praise in Opera News magazine. Mr. Bassi’s compositions, including vocal, choral, orchestral, chamber and theatre works, have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and other major venues. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as composer-in-residence with the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble. His music publisher is Oxford University Press.
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Tu pauperum refugium The active acknowledgment of something or someone other than ourselves is at the heart of love as it is of prayer. In the first third of my piece the word “Tu” is repeated in all voices over several pages (“You, you, you”), summoning the quintessence of a love song (the feel of the repeated syllables within the thick counterpoint suggests the Swingle Singers via Tallis, perhaps). The men
Selections from Metaphors of Women
My “Metaphors of Women” – four settings of poems of Katha Pollitt – were commissioned by Michèlle Eaton and Marion Beckenstein for a recital in 1994. I am always browsing through books of poetry and had this one as a gift from a friend. It suddenly spoke to me as the perfect thing for these two singers. The pieces have been done on many recitals and are recorded by Shauna Holiman on Albany Records. — Elliot Z. Levine ELLIOT Z. LEVINE has been the baritone for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble since its inception in 1969. He has appeared as a soloist with such groups as Musica Sacra, the Rome Opera, La Fenice, the Mannes Camerata, Music at Ascension, the Ensemble for Early Music, the Folger Consort and the Kalamazoo Bach Festival. Since 1980, he has been a conductor and coach at Western Wind Workshops at such institutions as Dartmouth and Smith Colleges, University of Massachusetts, and ACDA choral conferences around the country. He has taught at CCNY and Upsala College. Levine is the cantor at Temple Emanuel of Great Neck, N.Y. and sings at the Church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York City. Mr. Levine is published by Shadow Press, Harold Flammer Inc., E. Henry David, Plymouth, Colla Voce, and Willis Music.
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Ave verum Corpus The original SATB version of my Ave verum Corpus was written in two or three days in
Sonnets of Desire, Longing, and Whimsy Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was an American poet who produced a great body of work in her lifetime. Among her works are several books of poetry, essays, plays, an opera libretto, and over two hundred sonnets. The topics of her sonnets range from love to politics to the fate of mankind. Beautifully constructed, I find that many of Millay’s sonnets are well suited to be set to music. I am currently in the middle of composing a choral cycle of Millay’s sonnets; when complete, the cycle will contain
approximately twenty five sonnets grouped into nine sets. Sonnets of Desire, Longing, and Whimsy is the fourth set. It takes a look at love from three aspects: unreasonable desire, inconsolable longing, and shallow, whimsical romance. — Stacy Garrop STACY GARROP has received several awards including the 2006/2007 Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award, 2005 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize, 2005 and 2001 Barlow Endowment commissions, and a 2002 Artists Fellowship Award from the Illinois Arts Council. Dr. Garrop was the 2004-2005 composer-in-residence of Chicago’s Music in the Loft chamber music series, where her works were performed by the Biava Quartet, Enso Quartet, and Lincoln Trio; she served in this capacity again in 2006. The Biava Quartet regularly performs her “String Quartet No. 2: Demons and Angels.” The Biava recently recorded the piece for Cedille Records which will receive its commercial release in the fall of 2007. Theodore Presser Company and Hildegard Publishing Company publish several of her works. Dr. Garrop is an Associate Professor in Composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. For more information, please visit her website at www.garrop.com.
and reflects the twisted sense of humor that pervades Keats’s miniature creation. — Ian Moss
in time of Steven Sametz’s setting of E.E. Cummings’ poem “in time of ” (No. 16 of his 95 Poems), was originally scored for three orchestras and five choirs. The composer has subsequently adapted the work for a variety of different performing forces, including the version for triple chorus performed tonight. Sametz writes of this elegy: “For those left behind, even as they forget and let go of those they loved (for they will), even in grief, there is sweetness and a gentleness possible in the remembrance.” — adapted from liner notes to the CD Colors of Love by Chanticleer STEVEN SAMETZ has earned increasing renown in recent years as both composer and conductor. He is the Ronald J. Ulrich Professor of Music and director of Lehigh University Choral Arts, one of the country’s premiere choral programs. He also serves as Artistic Director for the elite a cappella ensemble The Princeton Singers and is the founding director of The Lehigh University Choral Composer Forum, a summer course of study designed to mentor emerging choral composers. Sametz’s compositions have been heard throughout the world at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Santa Fe music festivals. Dr. Sametz has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Council on the Arts, and the Santa Fe music festival, creating new works for Chanticleer, the Dale Warland Singers, Philadelphia Singers, Pro Arte Chamber Choir, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Connecticut Choral Artists, and the King of Thailand. His compositions are published by Oxford University Press, Alliance Music, ECS Publishing, GIA, and Steven Sametz Publications.
English Texts Set Me as a Seal
Canti d’Amor
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, As a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it. Adapted from Song of Solomon 8:6-7
I Strings in the earth and air Make music sweet; Strings by the river where The willows meet. There’s music along the river For Love wanders there, Pale flowers on his mantle, Dark leaves on his hair. All softly playing, With head to the music bent, And fingers straying Upon an instrument.
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This Living Hand
This Living Hand was the first choral piece I ever wrote. Inspired by the experience of performing Rachmaninoff’s Vespers with the Yale Glee Club in the winter of my sophomore year, I broke out my book of John Keats poems in search of something to set. I considered several, but in the end, I couldn’t get his morbid “This Living Hand” out of my head. Written on his deathbead, the poem is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen: it packs a lifetime’s worth of irony, bitterness, and plain old horror into a mere seven and a half lines. My setting of the text is a fairly literal depiction of the poem
Love in C(ummings)
I if I love You (thickness means worlds inhabited by roamingly stern bright faeries if you love me(distance is mind carefully luminous with innumerable gnomes Of complete dream if we love each(shyly) other,what clouds do or Silently Flowers resembles beauty less than our breathing II be of love(a little) More careful Than of everything guard her perhaps only A trifle less (merely beyond how very) closely than Nothing,remember love by frequent anguish(imagine Her least never with most memory)give entirely each Forever its freedom (Dare until a flower, understanding sizelessly sunlight Open what thousandth why and discover laughing) E.E. Cummings (1894-1962)
V My love is in a light attire Among the apple-trees Where the gay winds do most desire To run in companies. There, where the gay winds stay to woo The young leaves as they pass, My love goes slowly, bending to Her shadow on the grass; And where the sky’s a pale blue cup Over the laughing land My love goes lightly, holding up Her dress with dainty hand.
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VI Winds of May, that dance on the sea, Dancing a ring around in glee From furrow to furrow while overhead The foam flies up to be garlanded In silvery arches spanning the air, Saw you my true love anywhere? Welladay, welladay! For the winds of May! Love is unhappy when love is away! James Joyce (1882-1941)
The Perfect Gift The police took your box and broke my present So you gave me your love instead I took your love and put it in my nightstand Where it grew into a poem Now I listen to the labored breathing of your sleep And see the dreams you won’t remember when you wake I rest my head on your chest and close my eyes To watch the dream unfold Karen Siegel
why // do the why do the fingers of the lit tle once beau tiful la dy(sitting sew ing at an o pen window this fine morning)fly instead of dancing are they possibly afraid that life is running away from them(i wonder)or isn’t she a ware that life(who never grows old) is always beau tiful and that nobod y beauti ful ev er hur ries E.E. Cummings
Metaphors of Women Moon and Flowering Plum A huge moon rises behind the branches stippled with white plum flowers, cold and frail, like snow in early spring. Suddenly it is that moment you have longed for. You overflow like a cup. Like the moon overflowing with whiteness. Could you live like that, moving from incandescence to incandescence as courtly viewers of plum flowers proceed from one white orchard to the next? Or would you find their formal robes too stiff, the moon too slow, the orchards when you reached them muddy and full of frogs?
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love, war and politics
these children singing in stone a these children singing in stone a silence of stone these little children wound with stone flowers opening for ever these silently lit tle children are petals their song is a flower of always their flowers of stone are silently singing a song more silent than silence these always children forever singing wreathed with singing blossoms children of stone with blossoming eyes know if a lit tle tree listens forever to always children singing forever a song made of silent as stone silence of song E.E. Cummings
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Intimation It says what you’ve always known even as a child when your grandmother sat on your bed in the dark and sang that tuneless song about a white goat and raisins and almonds and you felt suddenly strange: as though you had waked in the night and snow was falling. Katha Pollitt (b. 1949)
Sonnets of Desire, Longing, and Whimsy
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I Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane I shall be dead or I shall be with you! No moral concept can outweigh the pain Past rack and wheel this absence puts me through; Faith, honour, pride, endurance, what the tongues Of tedious men will say, or what the law — For which of these do I fill up my lungs With brine and fire at every breath I draw? Time, and to spare, for patience by and by, Time to be cold and time to sleep alone; Let me no more until the hour I die Defraud my innocent senses of their own. Before this moon shall darken, say of me: She’s in her grave, or where she wants to be.
II Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear To go – so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, ‘There is no memory of him here!’ And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
in time of in time of daffodils(who know the goal of living is to grow) forgetting why,remember how in time of lilacs who proclaim the aim of waking is to dream, remember so(forgetting seem) in time of roses(who amaze our now and here with paradise) forgetting if,remember yes in time of all sweet things beyond whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek(forgetting find) and in a mystery to be (when time from time shall set us free) forgetting me,remember me E.E. Cummings
Foreign Texts and Translations Tu pauperum refugium Tu pauperum refugium, Tu languorum remedium, spes exsulum, fortitudo laborantium, via errantium, veritas et vita. Et nunc Redemptor, Domine, ad te solum confugio, te verum Deum adoro. in te spero, in te confido, salus mea, Jesu Christe. Adjuva me, ne unquam obdormiat in morte anima mea. Anonymous
Thou art the refuge of the poor, remedy for afflictions, hope of exiles, strength of those who labor, way for the wandering, truth and life. And now, Redeemer, Lord, in thee alone I take refuge; thee, true God, I adore, in thee I hope, in thee I confide, my salvation, O Jesus Christ. Help me, lest my soul ever sleep in death.
Balada interior
Interior Ballad The heart that I had in school where there was painted the first little card, is that in you, black night? (Cold, cold, like the water of the river.) The first kiss that tasted like a kiss and was for my young lips like the fresh rain, is that in you, black night? (Cold, cold, like the water of the river.) My first verse, the girl of the braids that looked you in the face, is she in you, black night? (Cold, cold, Like the water Of the river.)
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III I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year, Ere I forget, or die, or move away, And we are done forever; by and by I shall forget you, as I said, but now, If you entreat me with your loveliest lie I will protest you with my favourite vow. I would indeed that love were longer-lived, And oaths were not so brittle as they are, But so it is, and nature has contrived To struggle on without a break thus far, – Whether or not we find what we are seeking Is idle, biologically speaking. Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
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This Living Hand This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calmed – see, here it is – I hold it towards you. John Keats (1795-1821)
El corazón, Que tenía en la escuela Donde estuvo pintada La cartilla primera, ¿Está en ti, Noche negra? (Frío, frío, Como el agua Del río.) El primer beso Que supo a beso y fue Para mis labios niños Como la lluvia fresca, ¿Está en ti, Noche negra? (Frío, frío Como el agua Del río.) Mi primer verso. La niña de las trenzas Que miraba de frente ¿Está en ti, Noche negra? (Frío, frío, Como el agua Del río.)
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Pero mi corazón Roído de culebras, El que estuvo colgado Del árbol de la ciencia, ¿Está en ti, Noche negra? (Caliente, caliente, Como el agua De la fuente.) Mi amor errante, Castillo sin firmeza, De sombras enmohecidas, ¿Está en ti, Noche negra? (Caliente, caliente, Como el agua De la fuente.) ¡Oh, gran dolor! Admites en tu cueva Nada más que la sombra. ¿Es cierto, Noche negra? (Caliente, caliente, Como el agua De la fuente.) ¡Oh, corazón perdido! ¡Réquiem aeternam! Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)
But my heart gnawed through by snakes, the one that was hanged in the Tree of Knowledge, is it in you, black night? (Hot, hot, like the water from the fountain.) My wandering love, castle without foundation of mildewed shadows, is that in you, black night? (Hot, hot, like the water from the fountain.) Oh great pain! You admit into your cave nothing more than the shadows. Is it true, black night? (Hot, hot, like the water of the fountain. Oh lost heart! Rest in peace! Translated by Adriana Martinez and Malina Rauschenfels
C4 Chamber Chorus Christopher Baum holds degrees in classical guitar (from San Jose State University) and orchestral conducting (from the University of Denver). Before moving to New York, he served for three years on the conducting staff of the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra Association in Denver. While in Colorado, Chris was also active as a freelance opera and orchestra conductor. Notable past performances include a program of three one-act operas for Passaggio Opera, the musical Yours, Anne for the University of Denver, and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw for the Colorado Britten Society.
a postdoctoral associate in the Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience at Rockefeller University, where he studies the cellular basis of hearing. Joy Chia has spent most of her life singing in choruses, and is very excited to continue to do so in New York City. A native of Singapore, she was a member of its Philharmonic Chorus, singing under the baton of Maestro Lim Yau. In college, she directed Yale’s all-senior, all-women singing group, Whim ‘N Rhythm 2004, as well as Something Extra, an underclassman all-women group. C4 is her first a cappella choral group co-ed experience - she feels so grown up. She is currently allowing C4 to distract her from studying for the New York bar.
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Ave verum Corpus
Ave verum Corpus, natum de Maria Virgine: Vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine: Cujus latus perforatum, vero fluxit sanguine: Esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine. O clemens, O pie, O dulcis, Fili Mariae, Amen. Anonymous 13th-century hymn
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, Who truly suffered, Sacrified on the cross for mankind, Whose side was pierced And blood truly flowed: Be for us a foretaste of heaven As we consider death. O merciful, O pure, O sweet, Son of Mary, Amen.
James Bilodeau grew up in the Adirondacks. He spent his youth singing in church choirs, school choruses and several musicals. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Production and Technology from the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, CT. At Hartt he also studied choral arts and conducting with Dr. Edward Bolkovac and voice with Janine Hawley and Janet Alcorn. Since moving to New York, James has sung with the Empire City Men’s Chorus for the last three years under Dr. Jonathan Babcock. He is proud to be performing his debut with the C4 Chamber Ensemble. Professionally, he works as a Talk Radio Imaging Producer for Sirius Satellite Radio.
Jonathan David was a singer/songwriter/ guitarist for several rock bands from his early teens. In college he was lured by the evil temptations of “classical” music, and today is a composer mainly of choral works, music-theatre and “art” song. He recently had premieres of commissioned works by the New York Treble Singers (03/07) and the Thanks-giving Foundation of Dallas (01/07). His choral music has also been performed by groups including the Princeton Singers, Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, The Greenwich Village Singers, the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus and the Americas Vocal Ensemble. Music-Theatre works include Bronx Express (New York Fringe Festival, 2005), Wild Wind (NY Fringe, 1999), and Islands of Light (in progress). He is composer-inresidence for The Greenwich Village Singers and Music Director for the chamber chorus, Howl!. He studied with John Bavicchi and Don McDonnell at the Berklee College of Music. Jonathan is published by Oxford University Press.
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Manuel Castellano Muñoz was one of the founders of proyectoeLe, one of the few vocal ensembles in Spain to specialize in contemporary music. He is also active in the field of early music, having studied recorder with Guillermo Peñalver and Bárbara Sela at the Conservatorio Superior de Música in Seville and voice with Lambert Climent and Carlos Mena. Manolo has attended diverse courses in choral music and conducting from Martin Schmidt, Vasco Negreiros and Harry Christophers and was part of the Andalusian Baroque Chorus. He is currently
Franny Geller is a Manhattan native and choral-music addict who, in a different realm of possibilities, would gladly sing the Mass in B-minor as a daily morning exercise routine. Her life in classical performance began with the role of Phoebe in a fifthgrade production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard, and she went on to kindle a love for Baroque and early music in high school, where she sang a principal role in the American premiere of Antonio Caldara’s opera La costanza in amor vince l’inganno. She recently completed her music major at Queens College and now enjoys quality choral time with such ensembles as the Bach Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Trinity Choir of Wall Street, Cerddorion, and the Pharos Music Project. By day she lovingly assists and computes for The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble. She is also the grateful recipient of endless, patient encouragement from her family, her friends, and her Mike.
Anna Levenstein has toured extensively with the medieval vocal ensembles Sequentia and Ordo Virtutum. She has appeared as guest artist with Chatham Baroque and La Sfera Armoniosa, and has toured and recorded with ensembles Elysium and Ciaramella. Anna is a passionate voice teacher with a growing studio on Roosevelt Island in New York City. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Case Western Reserve’s Early Music Performance Practice Department and a certificate in Early Music Singing from The Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Anna can be heard on the Decca, Naxos and Auditorium labels. www.elysium-sings.net www.ciaramella.org
orchestration and studio production. Asia released her rock singer/songwriter CD “Shards” in May 2006 and performs regularly with her band Asia Mei & The Waters. Asia works as a teacher and as an assistant record producer and arranger, working for such artists as Moby, Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. She was born in Russia, raised in Israel, and lived in Boston before moving to New York. She is excited to have joined C4. www.asiamei.com
the music, composed and performed by the Paul Winter Consort. Shira is about to make a huge transition from getting to hang out with adorable middle schoolers in the Bronx to learning Spanish in a small rural town in Guatemala where she will be living and volunteering next fall. She’s excited about this next adventure but can’t wait to return to sing with C4 in the spring. She love love looooves (like the concert) singing with C4 and finds the experience of singing pieces alongside their composers to be an inspiring and humbling experience.
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Monika Heidemann’s musical endeavors started with the saxophone in the 4th grade elementary school band. Initially pursuing a career in wildlife biology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Monika instead found herself singing and playing saxophone in local rock bands. There, she directed and arranged for a cappella groups, led her own jazz trio and sang and toured with the Catamount Singers, a select 16piece classical/contemporary choir. In 2000, Monika left the United States for a four-month excursion to Brazil to study the native music with local musicians. In May 2003, Monika received her Master’s degree in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory where she studied voice, improvisation, and fell in love with composing. Now residing in New York City, she leads her self-titled project “The Monika H. Band”, playing her original music falling somewhere between Art Rock, Jazz and her dreamlike interpretation of the world. www.monikah.com
Sam McCoy began his musical life singing and playing trumpet as a kid. He then went on to study both voice and orchestral conducting at Oklahoma City University. He recently served as the cover conductor for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and the assistant conductor for the Oklahoma City University Orchestra’s tour of mainland China. Now living in New York, you can find Sam delving into an array of things from live electronic dance music, multimedia electronic/acoustic performance, contemporary choral music, and other musical adventures. He recently performed with the Guildsingers, an early music ensemble directed by fellow C4 member David Rentz. Sam’s primary focus has been playing live electronic dance music with his band pico fermi. www.picofermi.com
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Asia Meirovich is a pianist, vocalist, composer, songwriter and arranger. She joined her first choir at the age of 3 and spent her entire childhood as a choir singer and a classical piano student. Asia went on to get a degree in Contemporary Writing and Production from the Berklee College of Music, where she studied jazz and contemporary piano, vocals, writing,
Ian Moss began his musical studies at the age of 12 by transcribing classics from the Wee Sing songbook for his computer’s monophonic PC speaker. Since 2004, he has been the leader of the electric new music ensemble/experimental rock band Capital M, which seeks real and total integration between modern classical music and popular genres. An avid choral singer, he has sung with the Dessoff Choirs, the Canticum Novum Singers, and the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia and served as Undergraduate Assistant Conductor of the Yale Glee Club. His music has been performed or read from Connecticut to Alaska by ensembles including Mosaik Two, the Princeton Singers, Forecast Music, Cerddorion, Due East, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, and the Yale Symphony Orchestra. In fall 2007, Ian will return to New Haven to pursue an MBA at the Yale School of Management. www.capitalm.org
Benjamin Niemczyk made his conducting debut with the Civic Orchestra of the Chicago Symphony in 1999. A singer by trade, he has sung with some of the finest ensembles in both Chicago and New York, has appeared on multiple television broadcasts and commercial audio recordings and has sung in most major venues in the New York area. In 2004, he made his European debut in France with the Festival of American Music. Soon thereafter, he made his Town Hall debut conducting the New York premieres of pieces by Ronald Martin. Benjamin studied conducting under Cliff Colnot of the Chicago Symphony and Harold Rosenbaum of the New York Virtuoso Singers. His musical pursuits are matched by a love for visual art, particularly photography. His award-winning pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Time Out New York and The New Yorker. He also runs BDN Design, a small organization devoted to both commercial and pure artistic pursuits in the realms of photography and graphic design. He holds degrees from the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music and the DePaul University School of Music.
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Shira Moss has been singing, harmonizing and improvising anywhere and everywhere since she was quite small. She has sung in a multitude of choral groups, musical theater productions, personal tape recorders, karaoke bars, high school talent shows, fake microphones, and for the last 11 years at this awesome annual festival held at the Cathedral St. John the Divine where thousands of wacky New Yorkers bring their dogs, cats, snakes, and birds to be blessed by
Even back in Minnesota, Malina Rauschenfels always had a short attention span. Although she has spent nearly a quarter century playing the cello at Eastman (BM), Juilliard (MM), and around town, large chunks of that time were also spent
playing violin, viola, flute, composing “serious” music, collaborating/writing with choreographers, dancing, doing handstands, and singing while walking down the street. This C4 experience marks the first time she has sung publicly in front of other trained vocalists. When not teaching non-stop, Malina is generally creating some sort of performance art and collaborating with other artists. Creating with choreographer Elizabeth Motley, their first work was premiered in Alice Tully Hall and featured dancers and musicians in surreal interactions. Her work with choreographer Luke Wiley and The Juilliard Electric Ensemble was premiered in the Clark Studio Theater and featured touch-sensitive audio technology for dancer and dancing flutist. Malina has written music for Misnomer Dance Theater, Dodge Dance, Airelise and Laura Flowers, and scored Jody Oberfelder’s film ‘LineAge’. She has danced with Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects as a dancing violinist in both Serbia and Pennsylvania and performed her own choreography at the Southern Theater, Zenon Dance in Minneapolis, MN, and at the City Center Studios in NY.
Eddie Rubeiz grew up in Geneva, Swizerland, where he sang in a series of choirs and studied piano, music theory and percussion. After moving to the US in 1993, he started writing vocal music in earnest, and his work has been performed by a variety of ensembles, from college a cappella groups to church choirs to off-Broadway shows. He’s currently involved in the mixed vocal group Cerddorion and a funk band named Shagg, and has also started a one-person choir, ‘Set of All Eddies’, with the help of his computer. By day, he helps write software for the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning.
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In addition to his work with C4, David Rentz directs Guildsingers, an early music ensemble loosely affiliated with the Columbia University Medieval Guild. He also directs the choruses at the Brearley School and serves as assistant conductor for the New Amsterdam Singers and New Amsterdam Singers Chamber Chorus. He has earned graduate degrees in choral conducting from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and, most recently, Yale University, where he was co-director of the University Chapel Choir. David is also an active composer whose works have been performed by, among others, the Madison (WI) Youth Choirs, the Washington University Chamber Chorus, the Milwaukee Young Artists Festival Ensemble, and the Yale Camerata.
Karen Siegel grew up harmonizing doowop tunes with her family, and went on to study voice, piano, cello, and eventually composition. She holds a Master’s degree in Composition from NYU, where she studied with Marc Antonio Consoli, and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Yale. Additional studies include coursework with Conrad Cummings at the Juilliard Evening Division and vocal instruction with Lavinia Bertotti and Claudine Ansermet at the Fondazione Italiana di Musica Antica in Urbino, Italy. Her works have been commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble and Trio Eos and performed by the new music ensemble Cygnus, as well as by numerous student groups. Currently, Karen is a PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she studies with Tania León. She also studies voice with Jacqueline Horner.
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We in C4 wish to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following organizations and individuals for their support and assistance: The Norwegian Seamen’s Church Pastor Svein Helge Rødahl Pat and Larry Siegel Mary Jane Leach Annabel Gordon Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP
This concert is made possible in part with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
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