NEWMUSIC NEWHAVEN christopher theofanidis & hannah lash 路 artistic directors
featuring
ANDREW FORD and music by Yale graduate composers Morse Recital Hall 路 April 17, 2014
Robert Blocker, Dean
Christopher Theofanidis & Hannah Lash, Artistic Directors Daniel Schlosberg b. 1987
ladies and Molly Netter, Jean Laurenz, sopranos Kelly Hill, mezzo-soprano 路 Sara Couden, contralto Jens Peterson, tuba Matheus Garcia Souza, electric violin Benjamin Wallace, keytar Jonathan Allen, drum set Daniel Schlosberg, electric piano Brendon Randall-Myers, electric guitar Samuel Suggs, electric bass
Benajmin Wallace b. 1989
And Stanley Pressed a Button the discocactus Daniel Schlosberg, piano and role of Stanley Jonathan Slade, flute and narrator Molly Netter, soprano Kelly Hill, mezzo-soprano Matheus Garcia Souza, electric violin Samuel Suggs, bass Jean Laurenz, trumpet and soprano Jens Peterson, tuba Jonathan Allen, Douglas Perry, percussion Brendon Randall-Myers, electric guitar Benjamin Wallace, melodica brief pause
Reena Esmail b. 1983
Anjuman Songs II. Gul-e-dodi (Dark Flower) Annie Rosen, mezzo-soprano Shunori Ramanathan, narrator Hsuan-Fong Chen, English horn Suzana Bartal, piano
As a courtesy to the performers and audience, silence all electronic devices. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.
Nicholas DiBerardino b. 1989
world without end Jonathan Hammonds, bass Jacob Mende-Fridkis, flute and piccolo Bo Hee Kim, flute and alto flute Kristin Kall, oboe Fiona Last, oboe and English horn Chi Hang Eric Fung, clarinet Kevin Schaffter, clarinet and bass clarinet Darren Hicks, bassoon Michael Zuber, bassoon and contrabassoon Patrick Jankowski, horn Philip Browne, horn Stephen Ivany, trombone Christopher Brown, bass trombone Victor Caccese, percussion Haley Rhodeside, harp Jonathan Brandani, conductor brief pause
Andrew Ford b. 1957
On Winter's Traces Benjamin Hoffman, Shuali Du, violins Benjamin Bartelt, viola Christopher Hwang, cello Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, piccolo Tianyu Zhang, bass clarinet Anton Smirnov, piano The Scattering of Light Zou Yu, violin Xinyi Xu, viola Zhilin Wang, cello Zhenni Li, piano Louis Lohraseb, conductor
TEXTS Reena Esmail Anjuman Songs By Nadia Anjuman (1980–2005) II. Gul-e-dodi (Dark Flower) I am filled with emptiness Filled And it is often this burden of nothing in the burning field of my body that smolders within From this strange seething my poems suddenly come alive, papery features unfold It is a rare flower Yet these wisps of smoke give the body its smell and color
Benjamin Wallace And Stanley Pressed A Button And Stanley Pushed a Button Text taken from the game The Stanley Parable by Galactic Café 2013© Premise: This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was employee #427. Employee #427’s job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 427 and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. This is what Employee 427 did every day of every month of every year, and while others might have considered it soul-rending, Stanley relished every moment that the orders came it, as though he had been made exactly for this job. And Stanley was happy. . . . This is a very sad story about the death of a man named Stanley.
TEXTS Good morning employee #427. Please press ‘F’ on your keyboard. Stanley is quite a boring fellow. He has a job that requires nothing of him. And every button that he pushes is a reminder of the inconsequential nature of his existence. PLEASE PRESS ‘F#’ Look at him there pushing buttons, doing exactly what he’s told to do. Now he’s pushing a button. Now he’s eating lunch. Now he’s going home. Now he’s coming back to work. One might even feel sorry for him, except that he’s chosen this life. PLEASE PRESS ‘C’ But in his mind, ah, in his mind, he can go on fantastic adventures. From behind his desk, Stanley dreamed of wild expeditions into the unknown. Fantastic discoveries of new lands. It was wonderful! And each day that he returned to work was a reminder that none of it would ever happen to him. PLEASE PRESS ‘B’ TO WATCH TV And so, he began to fantasize about his own job. First, he imagined that one day while at work, he stepped out from his desk to realize that all of his coworkers, his boss, everyone in the building had suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. The thought excited him terribly. PLEASE PRESS ‘F#’ TO SPEND TIME WITH THE BOYS So, he went further. He imagined that he came to two open doors, and that he could go through either. At last, choice! It barely even mattered what lay behind each door. The mere thought that his decisions would mean something was almost too wonderful to behold. PLEASE PRESS ‘C’ TO PREPARE DINNER As Stanley wandered through this fantasy world, he began to fill it many possible paths and destinations. Down one path lay an enormous round room filled with monitors and mind controls, buttons labeled with emotions like happy, or sad, or content. PLEASE PRESS ‘C’ TO FEEL CONTENT And down another was a yellow line that weaved in many directions. PLEASE PRESS ‘B’ TO AGREE TO UNPAID OVERTIME And if he tried hard enough, he even found a path in which he was performing an elaborate musical with impeccable narration. Stanley was both confused and surprised at how well the
TEXTS narrator seemed to be dictating the entire show. It even began describing itself being considered by Stanley, who found it particularly strange. “I’m dreaming of a voice describing me, thinking about how it’s describing my thoughts,” he thought. And Stanley, much to the narrator’s delight, decided to call this entire show, “The Stanley Parable.” It was such a wonderful fantasy. And so in his head, he relived it again, and then again, and again, and over and over, wishing beyond hope that it would never end. That he might always feel this free. Surely there’s an answer down some new path, mustn’t there be?? Perhaps if he played just one more time… PLEASE PRESS ‘E’ TO TELL YOUR WIFE YOU LOVE HER But there is no answer. How could there possibly be? In reality, all he’s doing is pushing the same buttons he always has. Nothing has changed. The longer he spends here, the more invested he gets; the more he forgets which life is the real one. PLEASE PRESS ‘A’ TO GO TO SLEEP And I’m trying to tell him this. That in this world, he can never be anything but an observer. That as long as he remains here, he’s slowly killing himself. He won’t listen to me, he won’t stop. Here, watch this: Stanley, the next time the screen asks you to push a button, DO NOT DO IT. PLEASE PRESS ‘Bb’ TO BE AT WORK IN THE MORNING You see? Can he just not hear me? How can I tell him in a way he’ll understand, that every second he remains here, he’s electing to kill himself! How can I get him to see what I see? How can I make him look at himself? PLEASE PRESS ‘Eb’ TO QUESTION NOTHING I suppose I can’t, not in the way I want him to. But I don’t make the rules, I simply play to my intended purpose, the same as Stanley. We’re not so different I suppose. I’ll try once more to convey all this to him. I’m compelled to. I must. Perhaps, well, maybe this time you’ll see. Maybe this time…. PLEASE DIE And I tried again, and Stanley pushed a button. And I tried again, and Stanley pushed a button. And I tried again….And Stanley pushed a button…. . . . . .
Profiles & NOTES biography Andrew Ford guest composer
end, although the two works have not a single bar in common, the septet had a very similar mood to the symphony’s coda.
Andrew Ford is a composer, writer and broadcaster, and has won awards in all three capacities, including the 2004 Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle Learning to Howl and in 2010 a Green Room Award for his opera Rembrandt’s Wife. His music has been played throughout Australia and in more than 40 countries around the world. He was composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (1992–94) and has held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Fellowship (1998–2000), and a two-year fellowship from the Music Board of the Australia Council (2005–06).
The title, which on the face of it also seems dark, comes from Algernon Charles Swinburne’s poem Atalanta in Calydon and actually speaks of “the hounds of spring… on winter’s traces.” So there’s the promise, at least, of renewal!
A former academic, Ford has written widely on all manner of music and published seven books, most recently Try Whistling This (2012). He has written, presented and co-produced four radio series, including Illegal Harmonies and Dots on the Landscape, and since 1995 he has presented The Music Show each Saturday morning on ABC Radio National. program note On Winter’s Traces (2009) When the Australia Ensemble commissioned this piece in honor of their thirtieth anniversary, they were doubtless in expecting something a little more celebratory. The fact that they ended up with a brooding meditation is largely the result of their request that I feature the viola. The year before, I had composed my first symphony, the closing minutes of which are dominated by the viola section. The music is slow and dark, though trying hard to be lyrical. It occurred to me that I might take this passage as my starting point for the septet, using the same material, but treating it differently. In the
On Winter’s Traces was first performed by the Australia Ensemble on 12 September 2009 at the Sir John Clancy Auditorium of University of New South Wales. It is dedicated to the group’s violist, Irina Morozova. program note The Scattering of Light (2010) The Scattering of Light was commissioned by the University of Queensland to mark its centenary, and so I tried to find a title and rationale for the piece that would link it to the anniversary and celebrate what all the best universities do: namely, send their learning out into the world. The metaphor of light came early and seemed especially appropriate for a university with its main campus in the Brisbane suburb of St. Lucia, but I chanced on the actual title in Ian McEwan’s novel Solar. There are various musical analogies for teaching and learning in the piece, none of which, I hope, is necessary for an understanding or appreciation of the music. These include the way in which different instruments take it in turns to lead the ensemble, while the others challenge, modify, or expand on the musical propositions. In the last few minutes of the piece, the music becomes rather simple with a transparent texture, and I would like to think it gives off its own light. Here the ‘leading’ instrument is the piano, its simple, ‘reasonable’ line consisting mainly of a gently repeated B-flat. Then in the final seconds
Profiles & NOTES of the piece, all four instruments suddenly go their individual ways, scattering their music as they go.
travel to India on a Yale Alumni Service Fellowship. Daniel is grateful for the mentorship of his teachers Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Christopher Theofanidis.
biography Daniel Schlosberg
program note ladies and
The works of composer and pianist Daniel Schlosberg have been played by the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Yale Philharmonia, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Center City Opera Theater, Yale Baroque Ensemble, Yale Glee Club, New Morse Code, and counter)induction, at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Fondation des Etas-Unis (Paris, France), St. John’s Cathedral (Hong Kong), and the Bari International Music Festival (Bari, Italy). In March, Daniel was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also received a 2014 Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Theater remains central to Daniel’s output, and recent work includes his chamber opera Frau Trude, incidental music for J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and re-orchestration/conducting of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George (Yale School of Drama), and performance of a staged version of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (Yale Cabaret). In March, he participated in the Phoenix Winter Chamber Music Festival, playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, as well as the role of the Devil in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale. In May, he will arrange the score for and perform in a workshop production of Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins in New York, directed by Ethan Heard. In July, Daniel will travel to Portland, Oregon to be an artist-in-residence at Chamber Music Northwest, where he will write and perform a work for clarinetist David Shifrin as well as a short film score for string sextet. Later this summer, he will music direct A Lover’s Tale at the Berkshire Theater Festival, and he will also
“Where the boys are, where the boys are, where the boys are, someone waits for me.” — Connie Francis
biography Benjamin Wallace Benjamin Wallace, hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, is currently finishing his Master of Music degree in composition where he has studied with Martin Bresnick, David Lang, and Chris Theofanidis. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in percussion and composition from the University of Cincinnati where he studied with Joel Hoffman and Allen Otte, and he has twice attended the MusicX festival in Blonay, Switzerland. During the summer of 2013, Ben served as the music director for Musical Theatre Southwest’s production of The Pajama Game in Albuquerque. During the fall, he also helped produce and coordinate “The RiteNow Project” at Woolsey Hall in New Haven. Ben has currently become involved with the ensemble “The Gentlemen,” often renamed as “The DiscoCactus” which is wholly dedicated to our love of dance, disco, games, cocktails, and above all else, music. program note And Stanley Pressed a Button While at this point in my life I’ve decided to dedicate myself to music, my first love has always been video games. It’s been a passion I’ve held
Profiles & NOTES close to me ever since I received my first Super Nintendo system when I was about 8 years old. And now, 17 years later, I’ve finally found a way to combine these two passions. During this past winter, I played a game entitled “The Stanley Parable” by Galactic Cafe that completely changed every conception I’ve ever had about gaming, narrative, and choice. Simply put, you, the player, Stanley, wander through and explore an office building making simple binary choices (such as choosing which door to walk through) while a pseudo-omniscient voice narrates the action (or lack thereof ). And while the game’s story branches off into a myriad of endings, the one I’ve decided to set is commonly referred to as the “Apartment Ending.”
biography Reena Esmail Reena Esmail “creates richly melodic lines that imbue her music with the heights of lyricism balanced by winning textural clarity” (AAAL). A graduate of Juilliard and the Yale School of Music, and a recent Fulbright scholar to India, Esmail’s work draws elements from both western and Hindustani (North Indian) classical music. Esmail’s works have received honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and ASCAP. Her 2013–14 season includes works for Albany Symphony’s chamber orchestra, Pasadena Master Chorale, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival / FLUX Quartet, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston, and music for a new Bengali film by Ashish Avikunthak. She is currently a student of Aaron Jay Kernis, and will be graduating from the MMA program at Yale this spring.
program note Anjuman Songs II. Gul-e-dodi (Dark Flower) Nadia Anjuman (1980–2005) was a brilliant young Afghan poet whose life was tragically cut short when she was brutally murdered by her own husband at the age of 25. Many of her poems express her feelings of being censored and unable to say what was in her mind and heart — something she was perhaps only able to do in her poetry. I was drawn to set Nadia’s poetry because I want to help give it a voice beyond the language and audience for which they were intended. Her voice is individual, but her sentiments are universal.
biography Nicholas DiBerardino Nick DiBerardino, hailed as a “bright young star” and a “first-rate talent” by the Portland Press Herald, has recently enjoyed performances of his music across the globe, including a premiere at London’s Barbican Centre. His concert music has received recognition from the Music Teachers’ National Association, the National Federation of Music Clubs, the New York Art Ensemble, the Definiens Project, and ASCAP, and in 2013 he was named a featured composer by the Boston New Music Initiative, the overall winner of the Portland Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition, and the recipient of the soundSCAPE Composition Prize. He is also an active film composer, having recently scored Scholastic’s adaptation of the Jon Klassen book This Is Not My Hat, winner of the 2013 Caldecott Medal. Nick received his bachelor’s degree at Princeton, where he founded the Undergraduate Composers Collective, was elected early to Phi Beta Kappa,
Profiles & NOTES and was awarded the Edward T. Cone Memorial Prize for excellence in music theory and composition. He then attended the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he earned an M.Phil with distinction, co-founded and chaired the Oxford Laptop Orchestra, and was awarded the John Lowell Osgood Memorial Prize for composition. He has furthered his studies at several festivals, including Bowdoin, Aspen, Norfolk, and Brevard. Consistent with his belief in the transformative power of music, Nick also served as co-founder and director of “Back in Tune,� an initiative designed to provide underserved students in Bridgeport, Connecticut with musical instruction and to collect, refurbish, and distribute used instruments on their behalf. He hopes to continue to reach out to new audiences throughout his career, seeking always to spread his passion for music and to harness its powerful ability to draw communities together. program note world without end world without end is a piece about melody, and struggle, and transience.
NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN Artistic Directors Hannah Lash Christopher Theofanidis Manager Andrew W. Parker Music Librarian Roberta Senatore Production Assistant Brent LaFlam Office Assistant Timothy Gocklin Assistant Conductors Jonathan Brandani Louis Lohraseb
Stage Crew Jonathan Allen Garrett Arney Patrick Durbin Jonathan Hammonds Christopher Hwang Stephen Ivany Fiona Last Louis Lohraseb Thomas Park Douglas Perry Zachary Quortrup Elisabeth Shafer Daniel Stone Terrence Sweeney Georgi Videnov Mari Yoshinaga
Music Librarians Batmyagmar Erdenebat Darren Hicks Matheus Garcia Souza Allan Hon Choha Kim Hye Jin Koh Fiona Last Michael Laurello David Mason Nicole Percifield Rachel Perfecto
UPCOMING EVENTS
Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale
Yale Baroque Ensemble
april 25 Woolsey Hall | Friday | 8 pm Peter Oundjian, guest conductor. Rossini: Overture to La Scala di Seta; R. Murray Schafer: Harp Concerto, with Antoine Malette-Chénier, harp; Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe Suites 1 and 2. Free Admission
may 5 Early Music Morse Recital Hall | Monday | 8 pm The postgraduate Yale Baroque Ensemble performs virtuoso music of the High Baroque. Extravagant sonatas and concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann, Geminiani, and others. Free Admission
La Cenerentola
Competition Winners
may 2 & 3 Yale Opera Morse Recital Hall | Fri & Sat | 8 pm Yale Opera presents Rossini’s retelling of the Cinderella story. Ted Huffman, stage director; Douglas Dickson, musical director. Doris Yarick Cross, artistic director. Tickets start at $10 · Students $5
may 6 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 8 pm Featuring the winners of the annual chamber music competition. Beethoven: Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 12, No. 3; Kurtag: Hommage a R. Schumann; Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor. Tickets start at $10 · Students $5
Concert Programs & Box Office: Krista Johnson, Carol Jackson Communications: Dana Astmann, Monica Ong Reed, Austin Kase Operations: Tara Deming, Chris Melillo Piano Curators: Brian Daley, William Harold Recording Studio: Eugene Kimball P.O. Box 208246, New Haven, CT · 203 432-4158
music.yale.edu
Robert Blocker, Dean