Yale Percussion Group

Yale Percussion Group february 19, 2012 Morse Recital Hall robert van sice Director 75/100 Celebrating John Cage and Steve Reich

Robert Blocker, Dean

february 19, 2012 Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall · 8 pm

Yale Percussion Group Robert van Sice, director

Steve Reich b. 1936

Mallet Quartet

Original transcription and pre-recorded tracks

by Svet Stoyanov

Electric Counterpoint

Jonny Allen, Michael Compitello, Leonardo Gorosito, and Adam Rosenblatt, percussion

Leonardo Gorosito, percussion Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices,

and Organ Jonny Allen, Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, Cristóbal Gajardo-Benítez, Adam Rosenblatt, Christian Schmidt, and Chase Young, percussion Leonardo Gorosito, organ Hannah Collins, Jessica Petrus, and Virginia Warnken, voice intermission

John Cage 1912–1992

Sonata No. 5 from Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano Arranged and transcribed by Yale Percussion Group Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, Leonardo Gorosito, and Adam Rosenblatt, percussion

Robert van Sice and the Yale Percussion Group would like to thank Adams/Pearl and Vic Firth for their longstanding support of the Yale School of Music’s percussion program.

John Cage

She Is Asleep Jonny Allen, Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, and Adam Rosenblatt, percussion Sonata No. 2 from Sonatas and Interludes Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, Leonardo Gorosito, and Adam Rosenblatt, percussion Child of Tree Christopher Shultis, percussion (guest performer) In a Landscape Michael Compitello, percussion Amores Boris Berman, piano Victor Caccese, Cristóbal Gajardo-Benítez, and Leonardo Gorosito, percussion Third Constrcution Jonny Allen, Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, and Cristóbal Gajardo-Benítez, percussion

*Video footage includes excerpts from “I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It,” directed by Allen Miller, produced by Allen Miller and Vivian Perlis; and excerpts provided by the John Cage Trust.

Videos of John Cage are courtesy of Oral History of American Music, Yale University Library, with permission from its producers, Vivian Perlis and Allan Miller.

the yale percussion group Robert Van Sice, director

Founded in 1997 by Robert van Sice, the Yale Percussion Group has been called “something truly extraordinary” by composer Steve Reich.

It is composed of talented and dedicated young artists who have come from around the world for graduate study at the Yale School of Music.

Members of the YPG have gone on to form the acclaimed quartet So Percussion and to perform with Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two, the Carnegie Hall Academy Ensemble, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Yale percussion students and graduates have recently won the Linz (Austria) International Marimba Competition and the Concert Artist Guild Competition. Recent alumni teach at institutions such as Cornell, Dartmouth, Michigan State, SUNY Stony Brook, UMass Amherst, Baylor, and the Conservatoire de Genève (Switzerland).

The members of the YPG are Jonny Allen, Victor Caccese, Michael Compitello, Cristóbal GajardoBenítez, Leonardo Gorosito, and Adam Rosenblatt.

Tonight they are joined by two Yale undergraduates, Christian Schmidt and Chase Young.

Percussionist Robert van Sice 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 fulllength marimba recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and has since played in most of Europe’s major concert halls, with many broadcasts 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 as a lecturer in percussion in the fall of 1997.

boris berman piano

Boris Berman, piano, is well known to the audiences of close to fifty countries on six continents. He regularly appears with leading orchestras, on major recital series, and in important festivals. He studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the distinguished pianist Lev Oborin.

In 1984, Mr. Berman joined the faculty of the Yale School of Music, where he is professor of piano, coordinator of the piano department, and music director of the Horowitz Piano Series. He also gives master classes throughout the world, and in 2005 he was given the title of honorary professor of Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

An active recording artist and a Grammy nominee, Mr. Berman was the first pianist to record the complete solo works by Prokofiev (Chandos).

Other acclaimed releases include all piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin (Music and Arts) and a recital of Shostakovich piano works (Ottavo), which received the Edison Classic Award in Holland, the Dutch equivalent of the Grammy. His recording of three Prokofiev concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Neeme Järvi conducting (Chandos), was named the Compact Disc of the Month by CD Review.

Other recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Franck, Weber, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Joplin, and Cage.

In 2000, Yale University Press published Mr. Berman’s Notes from the Pianist’s Bench; since then, the book has been translated into several languages. In 2008, the same publisher released Mr. Berman’s new book Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer.

christopher shultis percussion

Christopher Shultis recently retired from the University of New Mexico, where he was Distinguished Professor and Regents’ Professor of Music. He began his musical career as an orchestral percussionist and timpanist, performing with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and the Santa Fe Opera. In 1980 he became the youngest full-time faculty member ever hired at the University of New Mexico, teaching percussion and serving as the assistant director of bands.

Soon after, he was selected as principal percussionist for the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra (where he served until 1986) and principal timpanist for the Orchestra of Santa Fe and later for the Santa Fe Symphony (until 1994).

Under his direction, the UNM Percussion Ensemble became internationally recognized for its performances of the most important contemporary repertoire, working closely with many composers including Lou Harrison, Konrad Boehmer, John Cage, Michael Colgrass, James Tenney, and Christian Wolff — the latter two writing music dedicated to the ensemble.

In 1988 Shultis started work as a composer and musicologist, and in the late ’90s he began teaching composition at UNM. His research on twentieth-century music, especially the music of John Cage, is widely cited by scholars in the field, and he received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for a Cage-related article in 1997. He has been awarded two Fulbrights to Germany (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 1993; Universität Heidelberg, 1999) and in 2010 was selected to deliver the 55th Annual Research Lecture, “the highest honor UNM bestows on its faculty.” Shultis is a member of the American Composers Alliance. A CD of his recent music, Devisadero: Music from the New Mexico Wilderness, is available through Navona recordings.

upcoming Visit music.yale.edu for full listings

yale school of music Robert Blocker, Dean 203 432-4158 Box Office

Lunchtime Chamber Music february 22 Center for British Art | Wednesday | 12:30 pm Free admission.

concerts@yale.edu E-mail

Yale Philharmonia: Haydn & Mahler concerts & public relations Dana Astmann Danielle Heller Dashon Burton

new media Monica Ong Reed Austin Kase

operations Tara Deming Christopher Melillo

february 24 Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 8 pm Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major with Jian Wang, cello, and Aldo Parisot, guest conductor; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 (chamber version), with Xu Zhong, guest conductor, and Heather Buck, soprano. Free admission.

Yale Philharmonia: Handel february 25

piano curators Brian Daley William Harold

recording studio Eugene Kimball

Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 8 pm William Christie, guest conductor, leads the Yale Philharmonia and the new Yale Choral Artists in a rare all-Handel program.

Free admission.

Yefim Bronfman, piano february 28 Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 8 pm The Horowitz Piano Series presents a solo recital by Yefim Bronfman. Haydn: Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI:50; Brahms: Sonata in F minor, Op. 5; and Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat major.