Benjamin Verdery guitar
faculty artist series January 19, 2016 • Morse Recital Hall
Robert Blocker, Dean
Faculty Artist Series
Benjamin Verdery · guitar Tuesday, January 19, 2016 • 7:30 pm • Morse Recital Hall
Benjamin Verdery b. 1955
Prelude and Wedding Dance (2004)
Verdery
Tread Lightly (2008)
Verdery
Satyagraha (2001)
Verdery
Now and Ever (2008)
Verdery and Mark Martin
Selections from Aristotle (2016) I. The Poet Being an Imitator II. A Noun III. A Verb IV. The Wineless Cup Mark Martin, mixed vocals intermission
Verdery
What He Said (2009) Simon Powis, guitar
As a courtesy to the performers and audience, please silence all electronic devices. Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.
Verdery text by Pablo Neruda
En Ti Los Rios Cantan (2014) with the prerecorded voice of Pablo Neruda I. Cantan (Sing) II. Ah tu voz mysteriosa (Ah, your mysterious voice) III. Crepusculo cayendo en tus ojos, muneca (Twilight falling in your eyes, toy doll) IV. En ti los rios cantan (In you the rivers sing)
Verdery
Capitola, CA (1991)
Verdery
Mobile, AL (1991) Jack Vees, lap steel guitar
Verdery
Start Now (2001) Billy Dean Thomas, Mark Martin, vocals
Verdery
Chant for Peace (1996) Billy Dean Thomas, Mark Martin, Kelly Hill, vocals Jack Vees, bass guitar Simon Powis, An Tran, Gulli Bjornsson, Solomon Silber, Jiyeon Kim, Chris Garwood, Max Lyman, guitar
Benjamin Verdery uses D’Addario strings. He plays a guitar built by Garrett Lee and a baritone classical guitar built by Otto Vowinkel. Follow Ben on Facebook, Twitter @benverdery, Instagram Websites: www.gamisimonds.com | www.benjaminverdery.com
Artist Profile
Benjamin Verdery · guitar Artistic director of 92nd Street Y’s Art of the Guitar series since 2006, Benjamin Verdery is hailed for his innovative and eclectic musical career. Since 1980 he has performed worldwide in theaters and at festivals, including Theatre Carré in Amsterdam, the International Guitar Festival at Havana, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Opera in New York. His tours regularly take him throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. He has recorded and performed with such diverse artists as Andy Summers, Frederic Hand, William Coulter, Leo Kottke, Anthony Newman, Jessye Norman, Paco Peña, Hermann Prey, and John Williams. Ben Verdery has released more than fifteen albums, the most recent being Happy Here, with William Coulter; and Branches, featuring works of Bach, Strauss, Jimi Hendrix, and Mozart along with the traditional “Amazing Grace,” both for Mushkatweek. His CD Start Now, also for Mushkatweek, won the 2005 Classical Recording Foundation Award. Other recordings of note include Some Towns & Cities and his collaborations with John Williams (John Williams Plays Vivaldi) and Andy Summers (First You Build A Cloud). Many of the leading composers of our time have created music for Ben, including Ezra Laderman, Christopher Theofanidis, Hannah Lash, Bryce Dessner, David Leisner, Martin Bresnick, John Anthony Lennon, Anthony Newman, Roberto Sierra, Van Stiefel, and Jack Vees. Of particular note was the commission by the Yale University Music Library of a work by Ingram Marshall for classical and electric guitars. Ben Verdery and Andy Summers premiered the work,
Dark Florescence, at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra. Last December, the two guitarists appeared at the annual Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven. Benjamin Verdery is also a prolific published composer in his own right, with many of his compositions having been performed, recorded, and published over the years. In 2012, he was commissioned to compose two works: Penzacola Belongs To All, commissioned by the Pensacola Guitar Orchestra in celebration of their 30th Anniversary (premiered in Pensacola October 2012) and Stand in Your Own Light for guitar and koto, commissioned by the Kyo-ShinAn Arts with funding from the New York State Council for the Arts (premiered in New York City November 2012). In 2010, the Assad Duo premiered Ben’s work What He Said. Commissioned by the 92nd Street Y, the work is dedicated to the late luthier Thomas Humphrey. Other recent works have included Now and Ever (for David Russell, Telarc), Peace, Love and Guitars (for John Williams and John Etheridge, SONY Classical), Capitola (John Williams, SONY Classical) and Give (for eight guitars). This last was composed specifically for Thomas Offermann and the guitar ensemble of the Hochschule for Music and Theatre (Rostock, Germany) and dedicated to the memory of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy. Ben’s Scenes from Ellis Island, for guitar orchestra, has been extensively broadcast and performed at festivals and universities in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Europe, and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet included it on their CD Air and Ground (Sony Classical). Doberman-Yppan (Canada) is currently publishing Verdery’s solo and duo works for guitar, and Workshop Arts (distributed
Artist Profile
by Alfred Music) has published the solo pieces from Some Towns & Cities as well as instructional books and videos. Many other compositions are available on his website. In addition to his performances, tours and recording, since 1985, Benjamin Verdery has been chair of the guitar department at the Yale School of Music and artistic director of the biannual Yale Guitar Extravaganza. He was appointed an honorary board member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas in 2007. Each summer Ben holds his Annual International Master Class on the Island of Maui (Hawaii). » benjaminverdery.com Mark Martin · vocals NYC-based musician and actor Mark Martin (aka Mandibul) has been beatboxing since age 13, inspired by the jazz, rock and hip hop music he grew up listening to. Mark competed in the American Beatbox Championships 2015 in both the 1v1 and 2v2 divisions. He was a judge for the New England Regional Beatbox Battle in 2014 as well as the SingStrong Chicago A Cappella Festival in 2014. He has been an internationally touring member of the Voca People since 2011, an a cappella musical theatre show that features beatboxing and vocal acrobatics. Mark is a teacher at the BEAT Rockers program that teaches beatboxing to the blind at the Lavelle School for the Blind in the Bronx. Mark also performs with NorthCoast, a NYC-based hip hop improve comedy troupe since 2011. Mark graduated from NYU in 2011 from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where he worked on analyzing beatboxing from a linguistic perspective. Mark loves to beatbox.
Simon Powis · guitar Guitarist Simon Powis was born in Sydney, Australia. He commenced his guitar studies at age eleven, sparking dedicated studies that would result in performances as a soloist and collaborator throughout Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Americas. As a teacher, Powis has instructed master classes in Peru, Mexico, Australia, and the United States, as well as conducting workshops at various universities and festivals. He is also the creator of classicalguitarcorner.com, one of the internet’s most prominent guitar education sites, and maintains an active podcast where he interviews leading musicians from around the world, including John Williams, David Russell, and Oscar Ghilgia. Jack Vees · bass guitar Aside from his career as a composer, Jack Vees has been recognized as a bass guitarist at the forefront of progressive bassists for many decades. In 1981 his work, The Book on Bass Harmonics, was published by Alfred Music and it was quickly taken up by performers around the world as the “go to” reference. From the American premiere of Andriessen’s “De Staat” to alt rock gigs at CBGB, Jack has often brought the house down. In addition to performing in bands and ensembles, for modern dance concerts, and art installations, his own recordings have won high praise. In 2001 he released The Restaurant Behind the Pier, a unique CD in that it was composed entirely of pieces for bass guitar. It has been lauded at home and abroad as an ambitious and overwhelmingly successful undertaking:
Artist Profile
“Bassist comes up with a solo recording? So many musicians fear to be alone with their instrument. Jack Vees succeeds. On ‘Manic Depression’ by Jimi Hendrix, ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ by John Lennon, and ‘As You Said’ by Jack Bruce, he manages, in these three pieces, to reconstitute the magic and intensity of the music, and also to integrate a personal language to adorn what he found, and color them with the musical palette he has created. Tradition, work and trans-cendence in this album are in good supply.” – Jazzosphère “‘Everything you never dared to do with the bass,’ Vees operates with equal determination the area of the rock and ambient music through personal compositions with astounding playing techniques on his instrument.” – Traverses Billy Dean Thomas · vocals Billy Dean Thomas is a musician, a Harlem native and Smith College graduate. Billy’s musical career started at the age of 8 playing congas in an Afro Caribbean percussive ensemble. Her love of words began when she became a member of the Advanced Poetry/Performance program where she was mentored by Pharaohe Monch, Rosie Perez, and DMC, with whom she had the opportunity to perform at sold-out art benefits for Urban Arts Partnership. She was booked to appear as a spoken word artist twice for The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway and once in The 24 Hour Plays in LA, a production sponsored by Montblanc, HBO, and NBC. She has also performed at venues around New York City, including The Bowery Poetry Club, The Bleecker Street Theater and was
recently featured on ABC’s The View. Her style and musical predilections range from Run DMC to Mozart to Muddy Waters. Kelly Hill · vocals Kelly Hill, mezzo-soprano, recently graduated with a Master’s Degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music as a student of Doris Yarick-Cross. While at Yale, she’s performed with Yale Opera, The Yale Baroque Opera Project, and the Yale Cabaret in roles including: Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Lucretia in The Rape of Lucretia, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Arnalta in L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti. This past summer she sang the role of Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus with the Opera Theater of Connecticut, and will return this August to sing the title role in their production of Carmen. Previously, she has worked as a Young Artist with the Cedar Rapids Opera Theater, Central City Opera, The Aspen Music School and Festival, and The Santa Fe Opera. She currently works as Program Coordinator at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, and maintains a vocal studio at Naugatuck Valley Community College.
Upcoming Events
Guitar Extravaganza
Brentano String Quartet
february 20 Special Events Sprague Hall | Saturday | All Day Concerts, talks, master classes, and more Benjamin Verdery, director Featuring performances by Mark Zuckerman, Daniel Corr, Duo Ditirambo, Z.o.o. guitar duo, and Marc Teicholz All-day passes $44 • Students $26 Three-concert passes $30 • Students $20
january 26 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm Haydn: Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 4; Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 14 in F-sharp major, Op. 142; Dvořák: Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61 Tickets start at $26 • Students $13
Pierre Réach, piano january 20 Horowitz Piano Series Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm Beethoven: Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, “Tempest”; Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9; Berlioz-Liszt: Symphonie Fantastique Tickets start at $18, Students $11
Music for Brass january 21 Yale in New York Preview Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm Featuring YSM brass players in music from the Renaissance to Ezra Laderman Free admission
Carolyn Kuan, guest conductor january 29 Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm Berg: Violin Concerto, with soloist Melanie Clápiès; Mahler: Symphony No. 1 Tickets start at $10 • Students $5 $3 surcharge for purchases at the door
A Midsummer Night’s Dream february 19, 20 & 21 Yale Opera Shubert Theatre | Fri & Sat, 8 pm | Sun, 2 pm Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conducted by Rune Bergmann and directed by Claudia Solti • With the Yale Philharmonia Tickets start at $19, on sale at www.shubert.com or 203-562-5666
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Robert Blocker, Dean