New Music New Haven

CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS Artistic Director

MARCH 04 2010

FEATURED FACULTY COMPOSER Aaron Jay Kernis

MUSIC OF Reena Esmail Polina Nazaykinskaya Jack Vees Aaron Jay Kernis

Robert Blocker, Dean

SPRAGUE MEMORIAL HALL

REENA

Feritas

ESMAIL Andreas Stoltzfus, trumpet David Wharton, trumpet Paul Florek, trumpet Douglas Lindsey, trumpet Ryan Olsen, trumpet Kyle Sherman, trumpet

POLINA

Passacaglia Zero

NAZAYKINSKAYA Igor Pikayzen, violin Janice Lamarre, viola Arnold Choi, cello Sara Wollmacher, clarinet Michael Namirovsky, piano David Fung, piano

As a courtesy to the performers and to other audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers.

Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.

MARCH 4, 2010 AT 8 PM

JACK VEES

Party Talk

Thomas Duffy, conductor Kelly Yamaguchi-Scanlon, narrator Holly Piccoli, violin Piotr Filochowski, violin Christopher Williams, viola Shannon Hayden, cello Alexander Smith, electric bass Dariya Nikolenko, flute Alexandra Detyniecki, oboe Sara Wollmacher, clarinet Jeremy Friedland, bassoon Katherine Herman, horn Timothy Riley, horn Paul Florek, trumpet Douglas Lindsey, trumpet John Corkill, drum set Leonardo Gorosito, marimba Samuel Adams, piano/organ

INTERMISSION

AARON JAY

Still Movement with Hymn

KERNIS David Southorn, violin Eve Tang, viola Arnold Choi, cello Jeannette Fang, piano

REENA ESMAIL Feritas

: Notes

: Biography

Reena Esmail’s compositions have been heard in performances and festivals in the United States, Canada and Europe. She holds a bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School and has studied composition with Susan Botti, Christopher Rouse, and Samuel Adler. She has won two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer It occurred to me recently that in other temporal Awards, and was the inaugural recipient of the art forms, namely modern literature and film, Milton and Sylvia Babbitt Scholarship for artists use seams in a different way: instead of Women Composers at Juilliard. Esmail is seeking to eliminate them by delivering the currently pursuing a master’s degree in compoobserver safely from one event to the next, a sition at the Yale School of Music, where she is series of seemingly disconnected images are a student of Christopher Theofanidis. presented, and it is only as the work progresses that the relation between those images is As a pianist, Esmail was a winner in the mtac-wla revealed. Or perhaps the images are presented Chamber Music Competition, and performed in a way that suggests a certain obvious pro- chamber music with members of the Los gression of events, but as the work unfolds, Angeles Philharmonic. She has also studied the audience becomes aware of many other violin with Ella Rutkovsky-Heifets and has combinations and outcomes that are possible sung with the New Amsterdam Singers and C4 (The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective). from the material presented.

She collaborates with Indian Carnatic singer This is my first attempt to replace my previous Shobana Raghavan. notion of seamlessness with one of possibility.

Two ideas develop simultaneously, cut into Esmail is currently on the composition faculty one another, not converging or relating, just at the Manhattan School of Music, where she served on the theory and ear training faculty existing in the same space. from 2006 to 2009.

For some reason, I had always assumed that seamlessness was the goal in the creation of music. And on the contrary, I’ve always felt gaping seams in my own music that, no matter how many times I work and rework, are still stubbornly audible.

POLINA NAZAYKINSKAYA Passacaglia Zero

: Notes

: Biography

Passacaglia Zero was written for an ensemble headed by pianist Misha Namirovsky and premiered on January 30, 2010, in Sudler Hall at Yale University. The piece combines the quality of several different forms such as rondo sonata and continuous variations. The composition evokes rondo-sonata form because the two main subjects are repeated several times in a certain progression vis-à-vis each other. In addition, the piece’s two contrasting themes contain sonata aspects that are asserted thematically and tonally. The composition can also be viewed as a continuous set of variations, because the main theme is based on a chord progression which does not vary throughout the piece. However, the concept of sonata form more accurately represents the piece, in terms of its musical idea involving the secondary theme that undergoes change in the recapitulation. Beyond formal elements, the music contains aspects of poetic symbolism. Inspired by the dark emptiness of long winter nights and insomnia, the piece transcends the boundaries of experience by offering a journey into a fragmented consciousness. Evocative and haunting, the music offers an emotional flight over the abyss of melancholic longing and a search for solace.

Between sadness and anxiety, between nostalgia for the infinite and a loss of absolutes, the music captures despair and fleeting emotions which combine dream-like delirium with being fully awake and present in the moment, while searching for a passage of hope.

Polina Nazaykinskaya was born in Togliatti, Russia on January 20, 1987. She has been studying music since the age of four. She graduated with honors from the Music Academic Gymnasium in Togliatti in 2004. In 2008 she graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory Music College as a violinist and composer.

Currently she is a graduate student at the Yale School of Music, studying composition with Ezra Laderman and Christopher Theofanidis and violin with Kyung Hak Yu. She is the winner of several composers’ competitions such as the Dmitriy Kabalevskiy Competition and the International Composers Competition named after Vyacheslav Zolotarev.

Her music had been performed in a number of music festivals including the Music Academy of the West, Classic Music Festival on the Volga River (Russia), Cadiza Festival (Spain), and throughout Europe. In 2008, Polina was included in the Golden Book of the Samara Region as an outstanding violinist and composer. In 2009 she was among the finalists of ASCAP’s young composers’ competition and the Missouri New Music Festival. The same year, Polina participated as a composer in the New Music Workshop at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she had a premiere of a new cycle of songs.

In 2009 Polina was among the finalists of ascap young composer`s competition and Missouri New Music Festival. At the same year Polina participated as a composer in New Music Workshop at Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, where she had a premiere of the new cycle of songs.

JACK VEES Party Talk

: Notes

: Biography

Many years ago, a Japanese friend of mine, new to this country, needed a place to stay while he found a place to live. For a few weeks he slept on a couch at my house as he began to find his way around the town. One night before going off to a dinner party, I saw him reading some Xeroxed notes. It was an excerpt from a manual he had been given that explained how to “fit in” at American parties.

Jack Vees, composer and electric bassist, is operations director of the Center for Studies in Music Technology at the Yale School of Music.

He received his MFA in composition from the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied with Louis Andriessen, Vinko Globokar, and Morton Subotnik. He is active in the international arena as both a performer and a composer, having works played at sites from CBGB’s of the downtown New York scene to such festivals as the Berlin Biennale and New Music America.

I felt myself in a learning moment. There I was, seeing my own subconsciously learned behaviors getting the broad brush stroke from a different Many contemporary music groups, including perspective. Finding it both funny and gently Ensemble Modern, Zeitgeist, and the California Ear Unit, have commissioned pieces from Vees. unsettling, I knew I had to use it somehow.

A collection of his works entitled Surf Music That opportunity would have to wait ten years, Again is available on the CRI/ Emergency Music when I was approached by the Berlin Bienniealle label. His opera Feynman, for solo voice and festival to write a piece for Ensemble Moderne. percussion, was premiered in June 2005 at the They wanted a piece from me that would have Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and later some sort of “American” feel (whatever that performed at the Knitting Factory in New York was). I recalled the text, and Party Talk is the City. He is also the author of The Book on Bass result. I am happy to have it come home to its Harmonics, which has become a standard reference for bassists since its publication in American premiere.

1979. Mr. Vees came to Yale in 1988.

JACK VEES Party Talk

: Text

Among the more interesting things to observe as you travel the world are the varied ways in which people conduct themselves at parties. In some countries men and women drift to opposite ends of the room and talk to one another; in others they sit in large chairs around the edge of the room and talk only to the people on either side of them, or silently eat and observe the scene.

open a window) until soon everyone is standing, moving around, chatting with one group and then another.

Sitting becomes static beyond a certain point.

We expect people to move about and be “selfstarters.” It is quite normal for Americans to introduce themselves and their wives. If this happens, you are expected to reply by giving your name and your wife’s name; then at least It is normal in some lands for a person to the two men generally shake hands. Sometimes remain patiently silent until he has been intro- the women do so as well, but often they merely duced, then to talk only to those whom he has nod and smile. A man usually shakes a woman’s hand only if she extends it. Otherwise he too “met properly.” just nods and greets her.

When you first arrive at a large [American] party, the host or hostess may introduce you to After such an informal introduction, you talk two or three people nearby, but if others are together for a little while (here come those still arriving, he or she may then return to questions): “Are you new here?” “How long greet newcomers, expecting you to go on by have you been in America?” “Did you bring yourself, moving from group to group. If this your children with you?” Within a moment or feels too uncomfortable and frightening, it is two, you will have struck some common ground, quite all right to say to someone: “I am a stranger conversation will move along for a while, and here and know no one. Could you introduce then either person can feel free to say something me to some of the people?” Almost anyone will informal like: “Well, it’s been nice to meet feel flattered that you turned to him for help you” or “I hope we see you again soon.” This is and will gladly take you under his wing, the signal for both couples to say their “adieus” and drift off to another group. introducing you and easing your discomfort.

As you would imagine, Americans move about a great deal at parties. At small gatherings they may sit down, but as soon as there are more people than chairs in a room – or better yet, a little before this point – you will see first one and then another make some excuse to get to his feet (to fetch a drink or greet a friend or

AARON JAY KERNIS Still Movement With Hymn

: Notes

From 1990 to 1995 I composed a series of works which are personal responses to the brutality and unending loss of war. Some works from this period are my Second Symphony, Colored Field, Lament and Prayer, and Still Movement with Hymn. During this time I read extensively about the conflict in Bosnia, and this led me on to explore my Jewish heritage and relationship to the Holocaust.

Still Movement with Hymn feels as if it reflects the Kaddish and Requiem prayers, and the influence of Hebraic music and Christian plainchant plays an important role in it. The work opens with bell sounds which are transformed throughout the work. The work is approximately 30 minutes and is in three large contrasting sections with an extended hymnlike closing section.

It was commissioned by Minnesota Public Radio for Pamela Frank, Paul Neubauer, Carter Brey, and Christopher O’Riley and completed in 1993. It was later arranged into a second version with clarinet replacing the viola.

AARON JAY KERNIS

: Biography

Aaron Jay Kernis, winner of the coveted 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition and one of the youngest composers ever awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has taught composition at the Yale School of Music since 2003. His music figures prominently on orchestral, chamber, and recital programs worldwide. Among the most esteemed musical figures of his generation, he has been commissioned by many of America‘s foremost performing artists, including soprano Renee Fleming, violinists Joshua Bell and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, soprano Dawn Upshaw, and guitarist Sharon Isbin, and by institutions including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Birmingham Bach Choir, Minnesota Orchestra, and Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras, the Walt Disney Company, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the Museum of Natural History in New York, among many others.

Mr. Kernis looks forward to new works for trumpet soloist Philip Smith with the New York Philharmonic and a consortium of Top 10 college wind ensembles, the Seattle Symphony, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Recent and upcoming recordings include a disc of his song cycles by soprano Susan Narucki (Koch) and orchestral works by the Grant Park Festival Orchestra (Cedille). His music is available on Nonesuch, Phoenix, New Albion, Argo, and CRI.

One of America’s most honored composers, Mr. Kernis received the Grawemeyer Award for the cello concerto Colored Field and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 2 (“musica instrumentalis”). He has also been awarded the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rome Prize, and Air and the Second Symphony were nominated for Grammy Awards.

He has become an especially familiar and muchadmired presence in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, having served as Composer-in-Residence for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Public Radio, the American Composers Forum, and, from 1998-2008, as New Music Advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra. He is the director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, a program that gives young composers the opportunity to hear their works played by one of the world’s great orchestras.

NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN

artistic director Christopher Theofanidis managing director Krista Johnson production assistant Roberta Senatore music librarian Renata Steve assistants Andrew Parker Christopher Matthews

music librarians Scott Holben Holly Piccoli Kathryn Salfelder Elizabeth Upton Christopher Williams Sara Wollmacher stage crew Nathaniel Chase Joseph Peters Mark Wallace Craig Watson

UPCOMING

http://music.yale.edu

KYUNG YU & ELIZABETH PARISOT

Faculty Artist Series Free Admission / Sprague Hall Violinist Kyung Hak Yu and pianist Elizabeth Parisot perform Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat major, k. 454; Franck’s Sonata for violin and piano; and Mendelssohn’s Trio in D minor, Op. 49, with cellist Ole Akahoshi.

Mar 26 / Fri / 8 pm

YALE BAROQUE ENSEMBLE Mar 28 / Sun / 4 pm

BORIS BERMAN Mar 31 / Wed / 8 pm

NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN Apr 1 / Thu / 8 pm

yale school of music Robert Blocker, Dean 203 432-4158 Box Office concerts@yale.edu E-mail Us music.yale.edu/media Listen Live

Early Music Free Admission / Sprague Hall Les Goûts-Réünis: The Yale Baroque Ensemble plays sonatas of the French and Italian High Baroque. Robert Mealy, director.

Horowitz Piano Series Tickets $11-$20 / Students $6 / Sprague Hall Boris Berman brings his “poetical refinement and intense musicality” (New York Times) to Debussy’s 24 Preludes.

Tom Johnson, featured composer Free Admission / Sprague Hall Featuring music by guest composer and Yale graduate Tom Johnson (’61BA, ’67MM), plus new works by Chris Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, Robert Honstein, and Andy Akiho.

concerts & media Vincent Oneppo Dana Astmann Monica Ong Reed Danielle Heller Elizabeth Martignetti operations Tara Deming Christopher Melillo

piano curators Brian Daley William Harold recording studio Eugene Kimball Jason Robins