Music of Martin Bresnick

fa culty a rtis t s eri es

Martin Bresnick composer

morse recital hall February 13, 2012 • Monday at 8 pm

Robert Blocker, Dean

m a rtin bres nick February 13, 2012 • Sprague Memorial Hall • Faculty Artist Series

Martin Bresnick (b. 1946)

Ballade (2004) twosense Lisa Moore, piano Ashley Bathgate, cello

Songs of the Mouse People (1999) 1. Common Squeaking (Made apparent by its delicacy) 2. That Peace We Yearn for 3. Every Disturbance Is an Opportunity 4. A Thousand Pairs of Shoulders Tremble (Under a burden actually meant for one) 5. Laughter Stops (When we see Josephine) Ashley Bathgate, cello Michael Compitello, vibraphone Strange Devotion (2010) Robert Blocker, piano Grace (2000) 1. Pendula and the Center of Gravity (The Puppet Theatre) 2. Of the Heaviness of Matter (Only a god is a match for matter) 3. Grace Will Return (Most purely in a puppet or a god) Lisa Moore, piano Bob van Sice, marimba Ian Rosenbaum, marimba intermission

As a courtesy to the performers and audience, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.

Martin Bresnick

A Message from the Emperor (2010) Ian Rosenbaum, percussion Michael Compitello, percussion Bird as Prophet (1999) Lisa Moore, piano Sarita Kwok, violin Prayers Remain Forever (2011) twosense Lisa Moore, piano Ashley Bathgate, cello

About the Artists

San Francisco Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Münster Philharmonic, Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo, and Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka. His chamber music has been performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Da Capo Chamber Players, Bang on a Can All Stars, and MusicWorks!, among others. His music has been heard at festivals including Prague Spring, Tanglewood, Banff, New Music America, and New Horizons. He has also received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992), Fromm Foundation (1995), Lincoln Center Chamber Players (1997), Meet-the-Composer (1998), and Chamber Music America (1999).

Composer Martin Bresnick was born in New York City in 1946 and he is presently Professor of Composition and Coordinator of the Composition Department at the Yale School of Music. He was educated at the High School of Music and Art, the University of Hartford (B.A. ’67), Stanford University (M.A. ’68, D.M.A. ’72), and the Akademie für Musik, Vienna (’69-’70). His principal teachers of composition include György Ligeti, John Chowning, and Gottfried von Einem. Mr. Bresnick has taught at many schools, including at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1971-72), Eastman School of Music (2002-2003), New College in Oxford (2004), and the Royal Academy of Music in London (2005), among others.

In 2006, Mr. Bresnick was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Mr. Bresnick’s compositions cover a wide range of instrumentation. His orchestral music has been performed by major symphonies around the world, including the

He has received many prizes, the most recent the Elise L. Stoeger Prize for Chamber Music (1996), Charles Ives Living award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters (1998), the ASCAP Foundation’s Aaron Copland Prize for teaching (2000), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). Mr. Bresnick has written music for films, two of which, Arthur & Lillie (1975) and The Day After Trinity (1981), were nominated for Academy Awards in the documentary category.

Mr. Bresnick’s music has been recorded by Cantaloupe, Centaur, New World, Artifact, Composers Recordings Incorporated, and Albany and is published by Bote and Bock (Berlin), Carl Fischer Music (New York), and CommonMuse Music Publishers (New Haven).

About the Artists

Described as “beautiful and impassioned” (New York Times) and “New York’s queen of avant-garde piano” (New Yorker), the Australian virtuoso pianist Lisa Moore has performed with diverse range of musicians including the London Sinfonietta, New York City Ballet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Bargemusic, Le Train Bleu, Steve Reich Ensemble, So Percussion, Don Byron Adventurers Orchestra, Signal, Third Coast Percussion, Da Capo Chamber Players, Eighth Blackbird, American Composers Orchestra, Mabou Mines Theater, and John Jasperse Dance Company. As a concerto soloist, Moore has appeared with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Wesleyan Orchestra and Sumarsam Gamelan, and the Albany, Sydney, Tasmania, Thai, and Canberra Symphony Orchestras under the batons of Brad Lubman, Reinbert de Leeuw, Pierre Boulez, Jorge Mester, Edo de Waart, and Angel Gil-Ordonez.

Lisa Moore has released six solo discs (Cantaloupe Music, Tall Poppies) and over thirty collaborative discs (Sony, Nonesuch, DG, CRI, BMG, Point, New World, ABC Classics, Albany, New Albion).

In 1981 Lisa Moore won the silver medal in the Rockefeller Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition. From 1992 to 2008 she was the founding pianist for the Bang On A Can All-Stars. Moore has collaborated with composers such as Elliot Carter, Iannis Xenakis, Meredith Monk, Phillip Glass, Elena Kats-Chernin, Thurston Moore, and Ornette Coleman. She has performed in La Scala, the Musikverein, the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall, and the Royal Albert Hall and has made guest appearances at

festivals all over the world. As an artistic curator, Moore produced Australia’s Canberra International Music Festival 2008 Sounds Alive series.

Apart from teaching at Wesleyan University and at the Yale-Norfolk New Music Workshop, Lisa makes guest teaching appearances at conservatories around the world. She was born in Canberra and raised in Australia and London before moving to the United States in 1980. Moore is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Eastman School of Music (’85 M.Mus.), and SUNY Stonybrook (’92 D.M.A.). Her past teachers include Gilbert Kalish, Yvonne Loriod, and Albert Landa. » www.lisamoore.org

About the Artists

American cellist Ashley Bathgate has performed worldwide as both a classical and contemporary musician and has been hailed by critics as a “brilliant, rising star.” Ashley has been a guest artist at festivals including Look and Listen, River to River, Big Ears, Saratoga Chamber Music, Bard Summerscape, Romaeuropa, Athelas New Music, Shanghai International Arts, and Beijing Music Festivals. As a soloist, Ashley has performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, and others. In 2008 she made her New York debut in Carnegie’s Weill Hall with pianist Todd Crow. She has been broadcast on WMHT-FM, WQXR’s Young Artist Showcase, NPR’s Performance Today, and WYNC’s New Sounds Live. Ashley recently recorded a collaborative disc featuring music by Martin Bresnick on Albany Records. As a member of the award-winning Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ashley champions new music across the globe.

She has collaborated with John Adams, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Ingram Marshall, Aaron J. Kernis, Terry Riley, Don Byron, and many others.

Her awards include a grant from the New York Philharmonic Players Fund as well as top prizes at the 1999 and 2001 Lois Lyman Concerto Competition, and the 2006 Hugo Kauder Memorial Strings Competition.

Ashley received a bachelor’s degree from Bard College. She received her master’s degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where she also received the Aldo Parisot Prize for the cellist showing the greatest promise for a concert career. » www.ashleybathgate.com

A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Blocker is highly regarded internationally for his artistry as a pianist, his leadership in arts advocacy, and his contributions to music education. In 1995 he was appointed the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music and Professor of Piano at Yale University.

Robert Blocker’s piano studies began at age five, and continued in adulthood with Richard Cass and Jorge Bolet. Recently he has performed with the Beijing, Shanghai, Korean, and Daejon Symphony Orchestras, the Prague and Moscow Chamber Orchestras, the Monterrey Philharmonic, and the Houston Symphony. He tours internationally in recital and chamber music, and his most recent recording is a disc of three Mozart concerti with the Biava Quartet for Naxos.

A member of the American Music Center Board of Directors, Robert Blocker has served on advisory boards for the Avery Fisher Artist Program and the Stoeger Prize at Lincoln Center. He appears regularly on national radio and television as an artist and commentator and is a consultant to educational institutions and government agencies.

He edited The Robert Shaw Reader, published by the Yale University Press in 2004, now in its third printing and soon to be published in a Korean translation.

About the Artists

Percussionist Michael Compitello is guided by his passion to create new art through collaborations with composers, performers and artists in all mediums. He has worked with composers Helmut Lachenmann, John Luther Adams, Nicolaus A. Huber, David Lang, Alejandro Viñao, Marc Applebaum, and Martin Bresnick on premieres and performances of new works, and has performed as a chamber musician and soloist in diverse locations such as the Darmstadt Summer Course, Frankfurt’s ROT Neue-Musik festival, the Kurt Weill Festival, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the Banff Centre.

From 2009 to 2010, Michael performed and studied contemporary chamber music with the Ensemble Modern and the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt, Germany on a Fulbright Grant from the U.S. Department of State.

Michael earned a B.M. degree in percussion from the Peabody Conservatory and an M.M. degree from the Yale School of Music, both as a student of Robert van Sice, and is currently pursuing his M.M.A. degree at Yale.

Australian violinist Sarita Kwok has been featured on stages in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Israel, Japan, and the U.S. and has performed as a soloist with the major symphony orchestras in her home country. After being named the James Fairfax Sydney Symphony Orchestra Young Artist she made her debut with the Sydney Symphony at age 15 and went on to win the Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award (Strings).

She has been awarded prizes at the Kloster Schöntal International Violin Competition (Germany), Gisborne International Music Competition (New Zealand), and an Honorary Diploma at the Seventh Wieniawski and Lipinski International Competition (Poland). As a soloist and chamber music collaborator, Ms. Kwok has been featured at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Thayer Academy Winter Series, Hebron Academy and Temple Emanuel Chamber Series, Hammond Performing Arts Series, and WGBH public radio. She has performed in concert with Pinchas Zukerman, Amanda Forsyth, Boris Berman, and members of the Tokyo String Quartet. Ms. Kwok has given master classes and talks at the Rockport Festival, Hammond Performing Arts series, Wellesley College, and Central Connecticut State University. She has completed a series of solo recordings for the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments. Sarita Kwok received her Doctor and Master of Musical Arts degrees from the Yale School of Music under Syoko Aki and the Tokyo String Quartet. She currently serves on the faculty of the Yale Department of Music and is the coordinator for undergraduate lessons at the Yale School of Music. Ms. Kwok is on the roster of the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation.

About the Artists & Notes on the Program

Still only 24 years of age, American percussionist Ian Rosenbaum has developed a musical breadth beyond his years. As a member of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Ian performed with conductors including Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, and Zubin Mehta.

Tours with this extraordinary orchestra took him to the major concert halls of France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.

The following season, he made his Kennedy Center debut in Washington, D.C. Later that year he garnered a special prize created for him at the Salzburg International Marimba Competition.

Mr. Rosenbaum frequently performs with the acclaimed So Percussion group and has appeared at the Norfolk, Yellow Barn, and Chamber Music Northwest festivals. At the conclusion of Yellow Barn, artistic director Seth Knopp said, “Ian Rosenbaum’s musicmaking is informed by a wonderful intelligence, interpretive insight, and prodigious control. But above all, it is his openness of approach that makes him an unusually sensitive artist and collaborator.” Highlights of the 2011–2012 season include a return to the Kennedy Center and a tour of Taiwan, performances in New Haven and Baltimore with Robert van Sice, and recitals in New York City and Westchester County. Ian is a member of Le Train Bleu, Novus NY, and the Wanmu percussion trio. He recently joined the faculties of the Peabody Institute’s preparatory program and Yof ale College, where he founded an undergraduate percussion ensemble. Ian endorses Vic Firth sticks and mallets and is a member of the Chamber Music Society Two.

Robert van Sice, percussion, has premiered more than one hundred works, including concertos, chamber music, and solos. He has made solo appearances with symphony orchestras and given recitals in Europe, North America, Africa, and the Far East. In 1989 he gave the first full-length marimba recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and has since played in most of Europe’s major concert halls, many of which have been broadcast by the BBC, Swedish Radio, Norwegian Radio, WDR, and Radio France. He is frequently invited as a soloist with Europe’s leading contemporary music ensembles and festivals, including the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Contrechamps, and L’Itinéraire and the Archipel, Darmstadt, and North American new music festivals. From 1988 to 1997 he headed Europe’s first diploma program for solo marimbists at the Rotterdam Conservatorium. Mr. Van Sice has given master classes in more than twenty countries and frequently visits the major conservatories in Europe as a guest lecturer. He joined the Yale faculty in the fall of 1997.

Notes on the Program

Ballade (2004) Ballade was commissioned by and written for my friend the cellist André Emelianoff, as an homage to Brahms. It suggests the dark colors, compact rhetoric, intricate counterpoint and formal rigor characteristic of that great master.

– Martin Bresnick

Songs of the Mouse People (1999) Songs of the Mouse People is based on a Franz Kafka’s last short work Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse People. In that remarkable valedictory story Kafka meditates on a mouse diva, Josephine, and her relationship to both her art and her audience.

In my composition I have translated sentences from the original that suggested (to me, at least) titles in the mouse people’s multi-volume treasury of songs. There remain two books of five songs each in the first volume, and two further books of songs in volume two.

Commissioned by Maya Beiser and Steven Schick with the assistance of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.

Extraña Devoción (Strange Devotion) (2012) One of the artist Francisco de Goya’s most enigmatic etchings in his famous series Caprichos Enfáticos (Emphatic Caprices) is entitled Extraña Devoción. The etching depicts a group of ordinary Spanish people as they kneel on the roadside to pray while a donkey pulls a bier with a corpse in a strangely see-through coffin through the street. The donkey’s mute yet somehow knowing expression seems to reveal both the sincerity and futility of the people’s unquestioning faith.

This image was my inspiration.

The work is dedicated to Robert Blocker, Dean of the Yale School of Music.

Grace (2000) Grace is a musical meditation on Heinrich von Kleist’s brief essay The Puppet Theatre.

In the essay, two friends meeting in a public park discuss the concept of grace as suggested by a simple puppet show. During their conversation they observe, among other ideas, how easy it is to lose grace and what should be done to find it again: “I am well aware of the damage done by consciousness to the natural grace of a human being. A young man of my acquaintance lost his innocence by a chance remark before my very eyes, and afterwards, despite making

Notes on the Program

every conceivable effort, never regained that paradise.

“Such mistakes have been unavoidable ever since we ate of the Tree of Knowledge. But Paradise is locked and barred and the cherub is behind us. We shall have to go all the way around the world and see whether it might be open again somewhere at the back. For just as two lines intersecting at a point then passing through infinity will suddenly come together again on the other side, so when consciousness has passed through an infinity grace will return. Grace will be most purely present in the human frame that has either no consciousness at all or an infinite amount of it, which is to say either in a puppet or in a god.

“But should we have to eat again of the Tree of Knowledge to fall back into the state of innocence?

“Indeed, that is the final chapter of the history of the world.”

This work is dedicated to Eloise M. Morgan, a person who has graced our lives.

Commissioned by Ronald H. Martin, Jr. for his grandmother and written for marimbist Robert Van Sice.

A Message From the Emperor (2010) In his short parable A Message From the Emperor, Franz Kafka describes a glorious being, never seen by his countless lowly subjects, who, from his death bed, dispatches an indefatigable messenger (a prophet perhaps) with a most important message – “just for you.” For various practical reasons, however, the message cannot possibly be delivered.

And even if it finally arrived, the one who sent it will have died long ago.

We live on a small planet, circling a medium sized sun, in an ordinary galaxy, among an unimaginable number of other galaxies. We have lived here for millions of years, awaiting an explanation for this state of affairs. We dream of a great being, who at the last possible moment has sent someone with the message for which we, in the twilight of our days, have been so hopefully waiting. We are still waiting.

A Message From the Emperor was translated into English from the original German of Franz Kafka by Mark Harman.

Commissioned by New Music Marimba and the following consortium of contributors who all donated to the commission: Gustavo Aguilar, Thad Anderson, Jason Blaquière, Andrew Bliss, Kevin Clarke, Michael Compitello, John Corkill, Logan Dean, Jamie Deitz, Kevin Dufford, Kyle Forsthoff, Janus Percussion (Erik Barsness and Brian Duffy), Laura Jordan, Ji Hye Jung, Nick Gleason and Ian Hale, Chris Graham, Jon Greeney, Adam Groh, Barrett Hipes, Ayano Kataoka, Kunihiko Komori, Setsuko Kutsuno, Eduardo Leandro, Matthew McClung, Nanae Mimura, William

Notes on the Program

Moersch, Lisa Nicol, Fumito Nunoya, Daniel Pate, Lisa Pegher, Julian Pellicano, Denis Petrunin, Ian Rosenbaum, Dr. Larry Snider, Svet Stoyanov, Gwen Thrasher, Jeff Vick, Steve Weiss Music, Alan Zimmerman, Michael Zell, New Music Marimba, SI2 (Matthew Coley and Cory Hills), and Third Coast Percussion (Peter Martin, Clay Condon, Robert Dillon, and David Skidmore).

Bird As Prophet (1999) Bird as Prophet is the last in a series of twelve pieces entitled Opere della Musica Povera (Works of a Poor Music). The title “Bird as Prophet” refers to a piano miniature of the same name from the Waldszenen of Robert Schumann. Bird as Prophet’s combination of simple programmatic suggestiveness and abstract patterning seeks to recapture the vivid, oracular, but finally enigmatic spirit of Schumann’s (and Charlie Parker’s) remarkable musical prophecies.

Prayers Remain Forever (2011) When I first read the poem Gods Come and Go, Prayers Remain Forever, by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, I was deeply moved. Although Amichai surely meant to calm and console us by the gentle wisdom and beauty of his words, I now also hear a strain of existential reproach.

Tombstones crumble, words come and go,

words are forgotten, The lips that uttered them turned to dust, Tongues die like people, other tongues

come to life, Gods in the sky change, gods come and go, Prayers remain forever.

In my work, Prayers Remain Forever, I join my prayer to his.

Commissioned by Ashley Bathgate and Lisa Moore for TwoSense.

Dedicated to Aldo Parisot.

Commissioned by and dedicated to the Rosa/Laurent (violin/piano) Duo.

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Robert Blocker, Dean

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