Acknowledgements Benefactors The activities of C4 are funded, in large part, by grants and generous contributions. We wish to thank and acknowledge: For their major support: The David and Minnie Berk Foundation, Inc. Dodger Properties Nan Bases Michael David & Lauren Mitchell Tracy & Stanley Shopkorn
C4 And for their contributions:
Clarence & Sally Baum Francine Belkind Jennifer Borum Timothy Brown Nancy & Lee Corbin Zachary Cummings Orianne Yin Dutka Hugh & Kathryn Eddy Carol Garner & Martin Geller Martha Garner-Duhe Eileen & Arthur Hirsh Linnéa Johnson John Kander Sheldon Klenetsky Tania J. León Jodi & Stephen Leone Stanley Lieblein Patricia Lutz Elizabeth Marker Dan Martin & Michael Biello Edward & Rose Mermelstein Peter & Christine Metz Jon Minikes & Susan Backstrom
Ian Moss Ruth Mueller-Maerki Michael & Roberta Nassau Rochelle & Bernard Natt Marjorie Naughton Elizabeth Vardin Newman Julianne Parolisi Raymond Penn Warren Prince Barry Putterman Amy Fonda Sara Ann & Richard Sarnoff Mina Seeman Larry & Pat Siegel Alan Silverman Carol Spencer Ellen Stafford-Sigg Daniel & Susan Stearns Kenneth & Jean Telljohann Deborah Teplow Mary Tsimenoglou Richard Walker Jessica & Markus Wichser
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Special Thanks We also wish to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following organizations and individuals for their support and assistance: Church for All Nations David Root The Norwegian Seamen’s Church
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective Sopranos Magdalen Kadel Karen Siegel Martha Sullivan Melissa Wozniak
Altos Melissa Bybee Jonathan David Elizabeth Marker
Tenors Christopher Baum Mario Gullo Joseph Rubinstein Fahad Siadat
Basses Daniel Andor Hayes Biggs Timothy Brown Steve Cohen
Her thesis topic concerns settings of Emily Dickinson poetry. In addition to teaching Music Appreciation in Mississippi, she appeared as a soprano soloist in Bach’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and Derr’s I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Melissa has performed with the Southern Chorale, the Southern Mississippi Chamber Singers, and the Hattiesburg (MS) Civic Chorale The Meistersingers, as well as the USM Vocal Jazz Ensemble. In 2005 Melissa earned a B.M.E. in Music Education from SUNY Fredonia. Onstage performances include L’Orfeo (Fury), and choral roles in I Pagliacci, The Merry Widow, L’Elisir d’Amore, and Candide. In 2009, Melissa was the recipient of both the DAAD Intensive Language Course Grant which enabled her to live and study in Berlin for 8 weeks, and the Sigma Alpha Iota Professional Development Grant, which provided assistance for three weeks of musicological study in Vienna with her mentor Edward Hafer. Melissa’s past voice teachers include J. Taylor Hightower, Kimberley Davis and Margaret Kuhl. She is a member of the American Musicological Society and Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity. She is now living and teaching on Long Island with her husband David, a saxophonist.
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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 written in the last twenty-five years. A collaborative project of its singing members, it functions not only as a presenting ensemble in its own right, with a three-program, six-concert season, but also as an ongoing workshop and recital chorus for the emerging composers and conductors who form the core of the group. It is, as far as we know, the first ensemble of its kind. Please visit our website, www.c4ensemble.org.
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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, Trio Eos, and the Matrix Music Collaborators, and performed by the new music ensemble Cygnus. Currently, Karen is a PhD candidate in composition at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she studies with Tania León and was awarded the 2009 Robert Starer Award for composition. She is working on a dissertation on timbral transformations in the vocal music of Kaija Saariaho. www.karensiegel.com
dance and has performed with Capoeira Narahari and Raizes do Brasil, is a rockclimbing enthusiast, and a tri-athlete. If you would like to learn more or here samples of his work, you can visit his website at www. fahadsiadat.com Martha Sullivan has written for many of America’s leading choral groups, including the Dale Warland Singers, the Gregg Smith Singers (with whom she was a resident composer for several years), and the Esoterics (Seattle). Her work has been published by Laurendale and G. Schirmer, and recorded by the Esoterics and Chicago A Cappella. She was one of three winners of the Sorel Medallion for women composers in 2009, so her music was performed at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, and she won the Dale Warland Singers’ Choral Ventures competition in 2003. She is also a professional singer in the New York area, with a focus on the new and the obscure—she has sung neglected operas for Bard Summerscape, and new operas on City Opera’s VOX showcase for new work. Other highlights as a soloist include premieres by Toby Twining (Chrysalid Requiem, performances and recording on Cantaloupe) and John Zorn (several premieres and a recording). She has also performed Steve Reich’s Tehillim with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with Vox Vocal Ensemble.She has also sung as a chorister with many of New York’s professional choral groups and opera companies over the last decade, allowing her the chance to travel widely (Switzerland, Israel, Japan) and to sing under many notable conductors, including Robert Shaw, Robert Spano, Zubin Mehta, and James Levine.
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective
One Foot in Eden: Music of Nature and the seasons Thursday, 2 June 2011, Church for All Nations, New York, NY Saturday, 4 June 2011, Norwegian Seamen’s Church, New York, NY
One Foor in Eden Still, I Stand (1990) Martha Sullivan, Melissa Bybee Joseph Rubinstein, Timothy Brown soloists Christopher Baum, conductor
Nicholas Maw (1935-2009)
Nubes Oriebatur: the eruption of Vesuvius (2009) Fahad Siadat, conductor
Timothy C. Takach (b. 1978)
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Fahad Siadat specializes in theatrical music for vocal ensembles. His work explores the differing sound possibilities of the voice, using both standard notation/singing as well as extended vocal techniques. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in Music Performance and Composition with a focus on Vocal Music, and a Bachelor’s of Music in Theory and Composition from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. Fahad has composed for a variety of ensembles, dance, and theater companies: the California EAR Unit, New Century Players, CalArts Singer’s Collective, TOCCATA Orchestra, and Warrior Poet Theater Group, as well as public schools along the west coast. He currently performs with the C4 Vocal Ensemble in New York, the TOCCATA Orchestra and as a guest vocalist with PARTCH. He serves as composer-inresidence for the TOCCATA Orchestra in Lake Tahoe and Warrior Poet Theater Productions in Los Angeles. He is also an active performer of Brazilian music and
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Melissa Wozniak is working as the School Programs Administrator at New York City Opera while she works on her thesis for her M.M. in Music History and Literature from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Three Romances (1995) I. Cherry Robbers II. Green III. Old Song Martha Sullivan, conductor
Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955)
Bara du går över markerna (1995) Timothy Brown, conductor
Karen Rehnqvist (b. 1957)
Fish (2007) 1. Prologue 2. Star-Fish 5. Heaven Christopher Baum, conductor
Jonathan David (b. 1965)
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TEN-MINUTE INTERMISSION
† World premiere
Tombtuul (Crosswind) (1993) Timothy Brown, conductor
Veljo Tormis (b. 1930)
Rossetti Nursery Rhymes (2002) I. II. III. Daniel Andor, conductor
George Tsontakis (b. 1951)
Tyger, Tyger (2009)† Daniel Andor, conductor
Martha Sullivan (b. 1964)
Princeton Singers, the Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble, and the New York Treble Singers, among many others. He has served as Composer-inResidence for The Greenwich Village Singers and Music Director for the chamber chorus, Howl! His music has received awards from ASCAP, the Americas Vocal Ensemble, and the Global Network of Conservatories. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he studied composition with John Bavicchi and Don McDonnell at the Berklee College of Music. He is published by Oxford University Press. His music is also available through his website. www.jonathandavidmusic.com
coached with Alan Rodgers. She has sung with many notable choral groups including Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Russian Chamber Chorus and Cantori New York. In 1987, Elizabeth was invited to sing with the Oregon Repertory Singers representing the United States at the 26th Choral Singing Festival in Kärnten, Austria, where the group won both the Folk and Classical Repertoire competitions. Elizabeth performed in many Robert Shaw Choral Workshops at Carnegie Hall and was a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. She has served as section leader at The Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) and been a member of the professional choir at St. Ignatius of Antioch (Episcopal). As a soloist, Elizabeth can be heard on two recordings: My Heart is Ready, music of Yuri Yukechev (Russian Chamber Chorus), and, as the Mother of Iseut, in Le vin herbé by Frank Martin (I Cantori di New York).
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Four Bright Seasons (2011)† I. Autumn Day II. Madness in the Spring III. Wash of Cold River IV. A Summer Love Song Christopher Baum, conductor
Joseph N. Rubinstein (b. 1986)
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† World premiere
Mario Gullo has been seen in New York at Alice Tully Hall, City Center, the Dramatist’s Guild, Arlene’s Grocery, and the Barrow Street Theater. His favorite so far has been appearing with Barbara Cook in concert at Carnegie Hall. Regionally, he has performed at Artpart, the Theater of Youth, Tri-State Center for the Performing Arts and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic . Magdalen Kadel sang for many years in the Girls’ Choir and in the Choir of Men and Boys at Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton, where she served as head girl under the direction of John Bertalot. She received her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University, where she was enrolled in the Institute for Early Music, studying voice with Paul Elliott. She has had singing engagements with the New York based contemporary music group Alarm Will Sound. She enjoys living in New York City, where she is soprano section leader at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church, directed by David Hurd.
Joseph N. Rubinstein sings tenor with C4. He is a passionate supporter of contemporary music and has been involved in many premieres of pieces by young and emerging composers. A composer himself, his works have been featured at festivals such as the Bowdoin International Music Festival and the Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, and by groups including the Columbia University Bach Society, the International Vocal Arts Workshop, C4, the Young New Yorker’s Chorus, the Norfolk Contemporary Ensemble, and WorldMuse. Joe studied composition at Columbia University with Joseph Dubiel, Sebastian Currier, and Fred Lerdahl, and currently works on composer and new music promotion for a major music publisher. He will attend The Juilliard School in the fall of 2011 as a composition student of Robert Beaser www.josephnrubinstein.com
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Elizabeth Marker is an accomplished musician who has devoted the major portion of her career to the advancement of choral music. She holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance from Boston University where she studied with Mary Davenport and
Karen Siegel grew up harmonizing doowop tunes with her family, and went on to study voice, piano, cello, and eventually
Hanslowe. With C4, Tim’s piece for choir and tape Drip Dream was premiered in May 2010. Tim has also led C4 as a conductor including premiere performances of Joseph Rubinstein’s How She Went To Ireland and Jocelyn Hagen’s Ophelia. Tim’s church music includes Christ Our Passover and Eloi, Lama Sabbachtani, both commissioned through and premiered by the choir and instrumentalists of The Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York.
after the O. Henry story; available on rental from Theodore Presser) and La Pizza Del Destino (libretto by Joseph Renard). Steves Wind Quintet is included on a CD of American Music by the Pennsylvania Wind Quintet on the Centaur label, and his Saxophone Quartets Nos 1 and 2 are available from To The Fore Publishers. (Quartet No 2 is included on a CD by the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet on the Eclectra label) Steves orchestral composition Juggernaut won the 2004 Composers Award given jointly by the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Museum in the Community. As an arranger and orchestrator, Steve has supplied scores for the New York Pops Orchestra, Radio City Music Hall, Maureen McGovern, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the American Ballet Theater, the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Goldman Memorial Band, Edwin F. Kalmus Publishers, the PanAmericana Latin jazz band, the world premieres of the musicals Behind the Limelight (Christopher Curtis), Spittin Image (Stephen Weiner), The Visit (Kander & Ebb, assisting Michael Gibson), and touring companies of Beauty And The Beast, Porgy and Bess, Crazy For You, Guys and Dolls and The Secret Garden.
Program Notes & Texts One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand Maw’s motet One foot in Eden still, I stand is a setting of the Scottish poet Edwin Muir which Maw discovered in The New Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1950. Scored for mixed choir and soloists, as well as optional organ (omitted in this performance), it demonstrates a composer in total command of his medium and is impressive in its varied choral writing and striking use of harmony and melody in response to the text.
A memorable, agitated musical image occurs at the words “Scattered along the winter way” and a solo for the alto takes up the jagged rhythm of “scattered”. The music rises to an intense climax at the crux of the poem “What had Eden ever to say/ Of hope and faith and pity and love” and again at “buried all its day”. Only at the very end of the poem is a resolution achieved, as reflected in the concord of the music in the final bars.
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Melissa Bybee, alto for C4, received her Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and her Master of Music in vocal performance from Manhattan School of Music. An active member of New York’s professional choral scene since 1989 when she was still in school, Melissa has sung with Voices of Ascension, New York Choral Artists and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Pro Arte, Opera Orchestra of New York, American Symphony Orchestra, Mark Morris Dance Company, Mostly Mozart Festival, St. Ignatius Loyola Concert Series and Little Orchestra Society. In addition, she has sung professionally in church and temple choirs all over the city, including a 9-year stint as an alto in Marble Collegiate Church’s Sanctuary Choir under the direction of Kenneth Dake. Known for her musicianship, Melissa has made a “career” of stepping into soloist and ensemble roles at the last minute to replace ailing colleagues. In addition to her musical interests, Melissa is an accomplished athlete (swimming, cycling and barefoot running), and she recently began a visual art adventure that she hopes to be on for the rest of her life.
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Steve Cohen received his training at the Eastman, Juilliard and Manhattan Schools of Music, and has composed a large catalog of symphonic, chamber, liturgical and musicaltheater pieces, including the operas The Cop and the Anthem (libretto by Alison Hubbard
Composer Jonathan David has been described as “an important emerging musical voice” in the worlds of choral music, musictheatre, and art song. Recent premieres include Even in Darkness by the Juilliard Pre-College Chorus; Evening Song, a finalist in the Shoreline Community Chorale’s 2010 composition competition; and the west coast debut of Fantasy on Medieval Carols by the Mountainside Master Chorale (CA). Upcoming commissions include a 9/11 memorial piece for NYC’s Central City Chorus (Dec., 2011); a new Stabat Mater for Carroll College (Umbria, June, 2012); Gitchee Gumee, a song for baritone Daniel Neer and harp (early 2012); and a new work for saxophonist David Wozniak. David’s choral music has also been performed by the
Muir’s poetry is riven with the recurring image of mankind’s Fall in the Garden of Eden, and the subsequent loss of innocence. From Muir’s personal perspective, his own enactment of the Fall took place when, after an idyllic Orkney childhood, he moved with his family at the age of fourteen to the urban “Hell” of Glasgow; it was a change that proved traumatic for him. In this poem Muir posits the view that mankind’s acquisition of knowledge at the Fall brought evil but also good so that “nothing now can separate/ The corn and tares [i.e., weeds] compactly grown”.
This work was commissioned by King’s College, Cambridge, to mark the 550th anniversary of the founding of the college in 1441. It was first performed by the Choir of King’s College, under the direction of Stephen Cleobury, on September 18, 1990. – Adapted from notes by Andrew Burn Nicholas Maw is one of Britain’s most admired composers. He was an acknowledged master in whatever genre he expressed himself, and one whose musical language is instantly recognisable. Born in 1935 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London (1955-58) with Paul Steinitz and Lennox Berkeley; and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Schoenberg’s pupil, Max Deutsch. His career as a teacher has included positions at Trinity College Cambridge, Exeter University, Yale University and latterly he was Professor of Composition at the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore.
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The peaceful opening for the solo quartet, almost chanted like a prayer, is exquisite in its serene beauty and is quietly answered by the full choir in unison. This alternation of voices sets much of the pattern for the work. A melody with expressive leaps for the sopranos is taken up by the tenor solo, before a climax occurs at “Evil and good stand thick around”. The first section ends with a hushed, lush cadence at ‘lead our harvest in’, out of which the music of the opening is magically recalled by the quartet.
Prizes and awards he has won include the 1959 Lili Boulanger Prize, the 1980 Midsummer Prize of the City of London, the 1991 Sudler International Wind Band Composition Competition for American Games and the 1993 Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. His extensive and varied
catalogue includes much chamber, vocal and choral music, two comic operas (the chamber opera One Man Show, 1964, and the three-act The Rising of the Moon, 1967-70), solo instrumental works, and music for children. Maw is, however, most celebrated for his orchestral music: his reputation being established when, at the age of 26, he produced Scenes and Arias (1962) for a BBC Prom, which immediately put him right at the forefront of the British musical scene. This BBC commission is now recognised as one of the most outstanding British works of its decade. In addition to fulfilling other numerous commissions, from 1973 to 1987 Maw composed Odyssey for orchestra: the single, unbroken 96-minute span of symphonic music which has been unanimously lauded since its initial performance in 1987 at a BBC Prom in London. The EMI recording by Simon Rattle and the CBSO was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 and cited by Classic CD (June 2000) as the best recording out of a hundred recommended releases in the decade. Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Orchestra gave the American premiere of Odyssey in St Louis and New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1994. His Violin Concerto (1993) recorded by Joshua Bell on Sony, was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Prize. Maw died in Washington, D.C in 2009.
The corn and tares compactly grown. The armorial weed in stillness bound About the stalk;—these are our own. Evil and good stand thick around In the fields of charity and sin Where we shall lead our harvest in. Yet still from Eden springs the root As clean as on the starting day. Time takes the foliage and the fruit And burns the archetypal leaf To shapes of terror and of grief Scattered along the winter way. But famished field and blackened tree Bear flowers in Eden never known. Blossoms of grief and charity Bloom in these darkened fields alone. What had Eden ever to say Of hope and faith and pity and love Until was buried all its day And memory found its treasure trove? Strange blessings never in Paradise Fall from these beclouded skies. - Edwin Muir (1887-1959)
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective Daniel Andor started started playing piano at four and studied composition and piano at The Purcell School of Music, London. His compositions won a number of awards and have been performed internationally, and he was featured by the Society for the Promotion of New Music during 20002002. As he felt drawn to making music with others, he took up trombone and conducting. Orchestral conducting kept him busy during his years at the University of Cambridge, where he lingered vigorously until he received his PhD in physics in 2005.
the opportunity to live and compose in Copland’s home in upstate New York for five weeks in the summer of 2002. Since 1992 he has been on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. His Symphonia brevis, commissioned by the Riverside Symphony, received its premiere under the direction of George Rothman in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on February 12, 2010. Biggs is currently composing a song cycle on religious poetry, Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, for soprano Susan Narucki. In December of 2006 his String Quartet: O Sapientia/Steal Away (2004) was given its premiere at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall by the Avalon String Quartet as part of the 2006-2007 season of the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society; it was recorded by the Avalon String Quartet in 2008, and was recently released on Albany Records. Biggs’s music is published by C. F. Peters Corporation, APNM (Association for the Promotion of New Music) and Margun Music, Inc. www.hayesbiggs.com
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One foot in Eden still, I stand And look across the other land. The world’s great day is growing late, Yet strange these fields that we have planted So long with crops of love and hate. Time’s handiworks by time are haunted, And nothing now can separate
Nubes Oriebatur: the eruption of Vesuvius
I loved the chance to set this text, the words appealed to me on many levels. Plinyís descriptions are so vivid and poetic, and appropriately so, since he was there when Vesuvius erupted. I loved the idea of setting the original Latin, even though the immediate meaning of the words would be obscured to just about every listener, because it gave me the chance to capture the colors, gestures and images of the words without feeling like I was painting the text too obviously. The feelings and emotions evoked here are real - this isnít a myth or folk tale. This event actually happened to real people.
In addition to conducting, singing and occasionally composing for C4, Christopher Baum is the Music Director of the Manhattan Wind Ensemble, a member of the musical staff of New Music New York, an Associate Conductor of Columbia Summer Winds, and the tenor section leader at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea. He is also active as a classical guitarist. Chris received his BA in Classical Guitar from San Jose State University and his MM in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Denver. www.christopherbaum.com
Timothy Brown has been a choral music professional for over 25 years, directing and singing with high school, church, community, and chamber choirs. As a composer, Tim focused for a time on music for the theatre. His Curious George toured nationally for over ten years. His songs have been showcased at the the BMI Workshop, the Laurie Beechman Theatre, the Donnell Library Songbook and – most recently – in A Trace of Love, a complete concert of his songs at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. On the classical side, Tim worked toward a masters degree at the Manhattan School of Music with Nils Vigeland and studied further with J. Mark Stambaugh and John Corigliano. His Epitaph (Songs on Poems of Dorothy Parker) was recorded by Metropolitan Opera mezzo Theadora
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Hayes Biggs was born in Huntsville, Alabama and raised in Helena, Arkansas. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from Columbia University. His teachers included Don Freund, Mario Davidovsky, Jack Beeson, Fred Lerdahl and Donald Erb. Biggs has been a fellow in composition at the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at Wellesley, at the Tanglewood Music Center, at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Millay Colony for the Arts and at the MacDowell Colony. Among his honors are a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, as well as the 2001 Aaron Copland Award, which afforded him
I hop scotch over to you 3. Wash of Cold River Wash of cold river in a glacial land, Ionian water, chill, snow-ribbed sand, drift of rare flowers, clear, with delicate shelllike leaf enclosing frozen lily-leaf, camellia texture, colder than a rose;
Rainbows arch from ground to gold I climb over to you Thunder grumbles, lightning tumbles And I bounce over to you
Some escaped with their lives, many did not. I hope that this music captures the awful beauty of this dreadful eruption. - Timothy C. Takach Reviewed as “gorgeous” (Washington Post) and “stunning” (Lawrence JournalWorld), the music of Timothy C. Takach (b. 1978) is rapidly gaining momentum in the concert world. Applauded for his melodic lines and rich, intriguing harmonies, Takach has received a number of commissions from numerous organizations including the St. Olaf Choir, Cantus, Pavia Winds, the Bowling Green State University Men’s Chorus, The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists, the Cherry Creek High School Meistersingers, the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus and the Western Michigan University Chorale. His compositions have been heard on NPR and have been recorded by various groups in North America. Takach won Rochester Choral Arts Ensemble’s Second Annual Commissioning Contest and was a finalist in the Young New Yorker’s Competition for Young Composers. Takach studied music composition with Timothy Mahr and Peter Hamlin at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, where he received a BA and graduated with honors. He now lives in Minneapolis and sings with the professional male vocal ensemble, Cantus. As a singer with Cantus, Takach gives over 80 concerts a year and has had his works performed in concert halls across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Nubes oriebatur. (Praecesserat per multos dies tremor terrae.) Nubes oriebatur, cuius similitudinem et formam non alia magis arbor quam pinus expresserit. Nam longissimo velut trunco elata in altum quibudam ramis diffundebatur, credo quia recenti
spiritu evecta. Nubes atra et horrenda, ignei spiritus tortis vibratisque discursibus rupta, in longas flammarum figuras dehiscebat; Fulguribus illae et similes et maiores erant. Candida interdum, interdum, sordida et maculosa prout terram cineremve sustulerat. Nec multo post illa nubes descendere in terras, operire maria;
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wind-flower that keeps the breath of the north-wind— these and none other;
intimate thoughts and kind reach out to share the treasure of my mind, intimate hands and dear drawn garden-ward and sea-ward all the sheer rapture that I would take to mould a clear and frigid statue;
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rare, of pure texture, beautiful space and line, marble to grace your inaccessible shrine - H.D. 4. A Summer Love Poem Clouds float by on a summer sky
Iam cinis, adhuc tamen rarus. Mox dies verus; sol etiam effulsit. Occursabant trepidantibus adhuc oculis mutata omnia altoque cinere tamquam nive obducta. - Pliny the Younger, Letters to Tacitus, 62-122 AD - adapted by Timothy C. Takach Translation:
A cloud was ascending. (There had been noticed for many days before a trembling of the earth.) A cloud was ascending, the appearance of whicih I cannot give you a more exact description than by likening it to that of a pine tree. For it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into branches of a sort; Because, I believe, it was occasioned by a sudden gust of air that impelled it. A black and dreadful cloud, broken with rapid, zig-zag flahses, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of flame: these last were like sheet- lightning,
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but much larger. it was sometimes clear and bright and sometimes dark and spotted, according to whether it had picked up earth or cinders. Soon afterwards, the clouds began to descend, and cover the sea; The ashes now began to fall upon us, though it was still sparse. Soon the real day returned, and even the sun shone out. Every object that presented itself to our faltering eyes seemed changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow. - Translated by William Melmouth, with revisions by Anne Groton
microtones, from a unison F-sharp at the start all the way out to C. Text sung in polyrhythms of 3 against 4 creates further unease. A middle section describing the lover’s eyes is set almost entirely in augmented triads, which are inherently unstable. And for the last part, the singers contract from three Cs back down, through the microtonal polyrhythmic tritone, back to the quiet F-sharp they began on. F-sharp begins and ends the third song (“Old Song”) as well, but the C is mostly absent. At the beginning and the end, the women sing in unison, as do the men; in the middle, however, the harmony and texture thicken, with altos and basses doubling each other, singing in harmony, and the sopranos and tenors doing the same, adding extreme dynamic variation, until they resolve into parallel octaves on the text, “things that are left unsaid.” The piece finishes with gentle fragmentation of the text and music, ending not on a lone F-sharp, but on that note against a G natural: In love and death, there is no true resolution. --Martha Sullivan
On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare sieze the fire?
I. Autumn DayI
And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow on the sundials and let loose the wind in the fields.
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Three Romances
D. H. Lawrence’s texts, like so much of his poetry, reflect an ambivalence toward sex and the deep feelings provoked by beauty. Lawrence plumbed this ambivalence with thousands of pages of narrative in his novels, but Kortekangas evokes it deftly in these three short Romances. The first (“Cherry Robbers”) begins and ends on the note C, with some very complex harmony in the middle (including a progression from a half-diminished seventh chord to an E7— Wagner’s famous Tristan progression—as the singers describe three dead birds; what better evocation of love and death could there be?). Its meter shifts between 3 / 4 and 5 / 8, keeping the listener offbalance. And the music fails to resolve at the end, since the tenors continue their uncertainty by rising from the stable C to a very dissonant F-sharp. The second poem, “Green”, seems to celebrate love and beauty, but Kortekangas continues to play on the uncomfortable relationship between the lovers, and between F-sharp and C. He asks the choir to slide, in opposite directions, very slowly and by
Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955) is one of the most popular Finnish composers of today. He has received commissions from ten countries; his oeuvre ranges from solo pieces and chamber music to orchestral works and operas. He studied music theory and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under the direction of Rautavaara and Hämeenniemi, and continued his studies in West Berlin with Schnebel. Subsequently Kortekangas has worked as a teacher, including periods at the National Theatre Academy and the Sibelius Academy, and has taken part in a number of educational projects with children and youth, both in Finland and abroad. Throughout his career, Kortekangas has been interested
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What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? - William Blake, 1794
Bid the last fruits to be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them to ripeness, and chase the last sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore. Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time, will stay up, read, write long letters, and wander the avenues, up and down, restlessly, while the leaves are blowing. - Rainer Maria Rilke; translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown -Who ponders this tremendous scene -This whole Experiment of Green -As if it were his own!
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Four Bright Seasons
One thing I like about the northeast is the distinctiveness of the four seasons. The varying weather and quality of light in spring, summer, winter, and fall imbue each season with a particular and characteristic feeling. I decided that I wanted to write a piece that explored at least some of the range of emotions I associate with each season. I called the piece four “bright” seasons because each movement attempts to distill a particular emotional state in as direct and vivid a manner as possible. “Four Bright Seasons” is dedicated with love to my friend and mentor Jane McMahan. - Joseph N. Rubinstein
2. Madness in the Spring A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown -Who ponders this tremendous scene -This whole Experiment of Green -As if it were his own! - Emily Dickinson
And not find such a one. I dreamt I set a sunflower, And red as blood it grew-But such a sunflower never Bloomed beneath the sun. II. Dead in the cold, a song-singing thrush, Dead at the foot of a snowberry bush,-Weave him a coffin of rush, Dig him a grave where the soft mosses grow, Raise him a tombstone of snow.
in collaboration with other arts and artists. These have included some of the leading choirs of Finland (the Tapiola Choir and Condomino, in particular) as well as a ten-year residency with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra. His works have been recorded on Alba Records (choral works) and Ondine Records (the operas Grand Hotel and Messenius and Lucia). Olli Kortekangas’ music is published by Fennica Gehrman and represented worldwide by Boosey & Hawkes.
She opened her eyes, and green They shone like flowers undone For the first time, now for the first time seen. 3. Old Song
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III. Love me, -- I love you, Love me, my baby; Sing it high, sing it low, Sing it as may be. Mother’s arms under you, Her eyes above you; Sing it high, sing it low, Love me -- I love you - Christina Rossetti
Tyger, Tyger
highlights it by setting it at the end of a soaring but slightly slower section for solo soprano. Neither the poem nor the music answers that question, since it’s up to the individual to come to his or her own conclusions. As for the music, I wrote it mostly to be fun to sing. (My question was: What would I have liked to sing in my college Glee Club?) The music had to be challenging but manageable, and it had to have an interesting text. The challenges come from thick harmonies and fleet rhythms. All the notes fall within an unchanging mode (called Lydian Flat 7, or the Harmonic Series Mode), but this mode is a bit unusual and creates a few odd harmonies. Since the mode does not change, I reasoned, the notes should not be too difficult to get; a steady common-time meter also makes the music manageable, as does a catchy melody. I honored the strangeness of the text by using odd harmonies (the mode allows for minor/major sevenths and augmented/major sevenths) and an unsettled canon at the end, before finishing with a chord that simply lays a D major right on top of a C major chord in the same voicing … this is a nod to Blake’s ambivalence about beauty and danger being knit into the same sinews by the same Creator. I am very grateful to C4 for singing the world premiere of Tyger! Tyger! --Martha Sullivan
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Blake often used images of blacksmithing as a metaphor for Creation; in his own personal mythology, Los is the blacksmith Creator-God, and sometimes a standin for Blake himself. Such a god would naturally forge a creature as dangerous and full of fire as the tiger (the spelling “Tyger”, archaic even in Blake’s day, adds a tinge of danger and mystery). The pivotal question here is “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”—the music
The Tyger. Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies, Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
1. Cherry Robbers Under the long dark boughs, like jewels red In the hair of an Eastern girl Hang strings of crimson cherries, as if had bled Blood-drops beneath each curl. Under the glistening cherries, with folded wings Three dead birds lie: Pale-breasted throstles and a blackbird, robberlings Stained with red dye.
The day is ending, the night descending, the heart is frozen, the spirit dead; but the moon is wending her way, attending to other things that are left unsaid. - D.H. Lawrence
Bara du går över markerna
Writing of her approach to Bo Bergman’s peom, Karin Rehnqvist describes Bara du går över markerna as a “love song for mixed chorus.” Envisioning the beloved as man dressed in a sweater and heavy boots walking a long way off on the horizon, she begins the setting with static, barely undulating - horizontal - tones and chords. In contrasting passages, the music blossoms “passionately and ringing” in the moments of higher emotion, returning sometimes to the more static, then blossoming again. It is interesting to note that Rehnqvist injects throughout the piece a small bit of text from near the end of the poem, “Säg mig vem ger dig” - “Tell me who gives you...” -which leads to the poignantly set final phrase, “...the power that turns into melody.” Ms. Rehnqvist ends with a burst of emotion in the final measures, “Du!, Bara Du!” - “You, if only you!”
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Against the haystack a girl stands laughing at me, With cherries hung round her ears, Offering me her scarlet fruit: I will see If she has any tears. 2. Green
The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between.
Karin Rehnqvist (born 1957) is one of Sweden’s best-known, most highly awarded, and most widely performed composers. With regular performances throughout Europe, the United States, and Scandinavia, her range extends to chamber, orchestral, stage, and vocal music. Above all, she enjoys working with unusual, cross-genre forms and ensembles. One strong characteristic feature of Rehnqvist’s work is her exploration of the areas between art and folk music. Both elements are integral and never merely used for effect or as a nostalgic element. In particular, Rehnqvist has explored the extraordinary and dramatic vocal technique of Kulning (herding calls). Between 1976 and 1991 Ms. Rehnqvist conducted and was the artistic director of the choir Stans Kör. This cemented her special affinity with vocal music and also fired her interest in experimental approaches to concert presentation. In 1996 the Läkerol Arts Award “for her renewal of the relationship between folk music and art music”. Rehnqvist’s skill at writing for musicians of different abilities, and especially young performers, has often been praised: like the best music for young performers, her works make no artistic compromises, and challenge the musicians while recognizing realistic technical limits. In 2009, Ms. Rehnqvist was appointed Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. This makes her the first woman to hold a chair in composition in Sweden.
lövet som guld i din famn Och vid de skummiga stränderna hör jag din stämmas vaggande vågsorl till tröst. Räck mig de älskade händerna. Mörkret skall skrämmas. Kvalet skall släppa mitt bröst.
(again on o in koik) Tombtuul, oo tombtuul! - Henrik Visnapuu. Crosswind, oh crosswind! On terrible storm driven shores there lies our brief shelter Buffeted yet are we hurled by raging welter Crosswind, oh crosswind! Where to? Beasts run in wild flight when all the trees bend Seeking some safe haven must flee the blowing storm Where to? Bitter chill penetrates through teeth clenched to the marrow Crosswind, oh crosswind! Howling now one way, eastward loudly clattering
with the even shorter and modest utterances of Rossetti -- no less profound nor wise in their unpretentious brevity. Both the set of sonnets and rhymes were created to stand on their own as well, as two triptychs. The work was commissioned by the New York Virtuoso Singers and Harold Rosenbaum through a grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust and premiered in New York in 1999. - George Tsontakis
C4 C4 Bara du går över ängarna, bara jag ser dig vandra i fjärran förbi, darra de eviga strängarna. Säg mig vem ger dig makten som blir melodi? - Bo Bergman
Fish
The choral cycle, Fish, was written in 2007 for Virginia Davidson and the New York Treble Singers. The full 5-movement cycle uses the unlikely medium of fish to muse on Creation, Sex, Love, Death and the Afterlife. This performance omits the two movements with baritone sax… and thus will jump from sex directly to Heaven. Except for the first few bars, the opening movement is a cappella. The singers begin with a declamatory section expressing wonder at God’s creation, followed by a faster section of repeated patterns expressing the sea’s great bounty. Eric Ormsby’s poem Star-Fish marvels at the animal as a master seductress/seducer. The saxophone features swelling gestures and multiphonics, while the chorus sings in dense, chromatic harmony throughout. Rupert Brooke, the poet of the last movement Heaven, is known more for the 5 patriotic poems he wrote at the start of World War I. This is a distinctly more irreverent text, with fish bemoaning their
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Bara du går över markerna, lever var källa, sjunger var tuva ditt namn. Skyarna brinna och parkerna susa och fälla
Blowing, raging westward, wailing now thundering Gaze on the branches whipped to the end How they are flying! Two ways it’s braying! Wind! All that is loose fierce wind will be flaying, flying. Crosswind, oh crosswind! Crosswind, crosswind.
George Tsontakis has been the recipient of two of the richest richest prizes awarded in all of classical music; the international Grawemeyer Award, in 2005, for his Second Violin Concerto and the 2007 Ives Living, from the American Academy. He studied with Roger Sessions at Juilliard and in Rome, with Franco Donatoni. Born in Astoria, NY into Cretan heritage, he has become an important figure in the music of Greece and his music is increasingly performed abroad, with several performances in Europe every season. Most of his music has been recorded by Hyperion and Koch, leading to two Grammy Nominations for Best Classical Composition. He is Distinguished Composer-in-Residence at the Bard Conservatory and at the Aspen Music Festival, where he was founding director of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, from 1991-98. He served as Composerin-Residence with the Oxford (England) Philomusica and is continuing a six-year Music Alive residency with the Albany Symphony and served as Composer in Residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2009-10. He lives in New York’s Catskill Mountains.
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Rossetti Nursery Rhymes “Three Nursery Rhymes by Christina Rossetti”, which are drawn from my “Sonnets and Rhymes on Love and Aging” (1999) alternate three Shakespeare sonnets with three nursery rhymes by Christina Rossetti. My intention was to juxtapose three short, compactly powerful “observations” by Shakespeare
I. I dreamt I caught a little owl And the bird was blue-But you may hunt for ever
- Rupert Brooke
Tombtuul Veljo Tormis’ Tombtuul (Crosswind) uses all male voices in fast moving, parallel chromatic lines to energize his setting of this poem by Henrik Visnapuu. Tormis writes that Visnapuu, “forced to flee in the crosswinds of the war, writes about his homeland that forever remains buffeted by the winds.” It is dedicated In Memoriam Arvo Ratassepp.
writing for voices is always remarkable, to say nothing of his skill at creating tensions with the cumulative, seemingly monotonous repetition of an ancient folk tune. It may be that the meanings and musical symbols embedded in Tormis’ songs can be fully grasped only by people who have some experience of that life, but the message of Tormis’ music in general has demonstrated its power regardless of language or time. - Drawn in part from the Veljo Tormis Biography by Urve Lippus, Prof. of Musicology, Estonian Academy of Music.
blasé existence and reflecting on what fish-heaven must be like. The first half of the text is whispered and spoken, the saxophone accompanying with key clicks. The piece culminates in a fugal daydream about how splendid and plentiful the food will be. –Jonathan David 1. Prelude 0 Lord! How marvelous are your works! In wisdom you have wrought them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Look at the sea, great and wide! It teems with countless beings, living things both great and small. -Psalm 104: 24-25
You clutch the seafloor. You taste what has fallen. - Eric Ormsby 5. Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity. We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near -Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time. Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
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Estonian composer Veljo Tormis (b.1930) has composed almost exclusively for the voice, explaining that - for him - music begins with words. He once famously said of his settings of traditional melodies and verse, “It is not I who make use of folk music, it is folk music that makes use of me.” Indeed, Tormis’ work demonstrates his conviction that traditional Estonian and other Balto-Finnic music represents a treasure which must be guarded and nourished, and that culture may be kept alive through the medium of song. He holds a deep conviction that the ancient song traditions of different peoples have much in common: they reflect a way of life that is closer to nature, its beliefs and morals. Tormis is regarded as one of the greatest 20th century composers in Estonia. This view arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral, mostly a cappella works. The great majority of these pieces are based on traditional Estonian folksongs (regilaulud), either textually, melodically, or merely stylistically. Tormis is a real master of choral sound and large-scale choral composition. His colourful, almost orchestral style of
Tombtuul, oo tombtuul! (don’t know how to put the mark over the o in Tomtuul) Oleme tormide teele raajnud maja. Pagiseb, ulvab ja vilistab üle raja
Tombtuul, oo tombtuul! Kuhu pogeneb netsloom ja linuke puul? (need that mark over the o here in pogeneb) Varjule inimen tottab tuule eest kuhu? (again for the o in tottab) On see ju tunginud läbi hammaste suhu.
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Tombtuul, suur tombtuul! Sajandi ühe läänest itta vuhised. Hirmsa jouga idast lääde nüüd tuhised. (again for the o in jouga) Tombtuul, oo tombtuul! Vaadake oksi Maarjamaa puul! Kuhu need pain dund! Kaksiti rühib! Tuul! Koik, mis on ird, tuul endaga pühib.
2. Starfish
The stellar sea crawler, maw Concealed beneath, with offerings of Prismed crimson now darkened, now like The smile of slag, a thing made rosy As poured ingots, or suddenly dimmed --
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I appreciate the studious labour Of your rednesses, the scholarly fragrance Of your sex. To mirror tidal drifts The light ripples across or to enhance darkness With palpable tinctures, dense as salt. You crumple like a puppet’s fist Or erect, bristling, your tender luring barbs. Casual abandon, like a dropped fawn glove. Tensile symmetries, like a hawk’s claw.
And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies.