NEWMUSIC NEWHAVEN hannah lash & christopher theofanidis 路 artistic directors
a tribute to
Jacob Druckman with music by Yale graduate composers
February 11, 2016 路 Thursday at 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall
Robert Blocker, Dean
Hannah Lash & Christopher Theofanidis, Artistic Directors
Molly Joyce b. 1992
Breaking and Entering Embodiment Molly Joyce, toy organ Jeffrey Stern, glockenspiel Elizabeth Mak, lighting design
Ethan Braun b. 1987
Triptych Maria Chlebus, Yifei Fu, Matthew Keown, Kramer Milan, Jeffrey Stern, Se Um, percussion
Brian Heim b. 1993
beethoven pitchsort [ascending] Brian Heim, live electronics intermission Please take some time to view the exhibition of Jacob Druckman memorabilia, located in the Blocker Room on the second floor.
Jacob Druckman 1928–1996
Valentine (1969) Samuel Suggs, double bass
Druckman
Bo (1979) Bixby Kennedy, bass clarinet Hannah Lash, harp Se Um, percussion Nola Richardsion, Adele Grabowski, Kathryn Aaron, voice
Vivian Perlis conducted the video interview with Jacob Druckman for the Oral History of American Music on January 31, 1983. The Oral History of American Music is a special collection within the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. Special thanks to Austin Kase and Brian Heim for the hard work and dedication, as well as Libby Van Cleve at the Oral History of American Music for providing the Jacob Druckman exhibition.
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.
PROGRAM NOTES
biography Molly Joyce Molly Joyce is a composer originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her work has been described as written to “superb effect” (The Wire) in an “emotionally appealing twenty-first century style” (Fanfare Magazine), and “vibrant, inventive music that communicates straight from the heart” (Prufrock’s Dilemma). Her works have been commissioned and/ or performed by distinguished ensembles such as the New World Symphony, New York Youth Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the New Juilliard, Decoda, and Contemporaneous ensembles, and her music has been performed on the Bang on a Can Marathon. As a performer, Molly often performs on her vintage Magnus electric chord organ, on which she has performed in multiple capacities: solo, with toy piano, and with a beatboxer. Also an active participant in other aspects of the music industry, Molly is currently the Digital Content Manager for New Amsterdam Presents/Records and serves as an assistant to singer and songwriter Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Molly has studied at The Juilliard School, the Koninklijk Conservatorium, and the Yale School of Music. » mollyjoycemusic.com program note Breaking and Entering Breaking and Entering is the first piece of an evening-length set of works for my
favorite instrument, the Magnus electric chord toy organ. Bought on eBay about five years ago, this completely vintage instrument has continued to provide me musical inspiration ever since. Besides my love of the unique sound and tuning that the instrument produces, I also feel that it physically fits my body as a performer very well. I have a weak left hand, and thus the setup of the toy organ, with chord buttons on the left and the keyboard portion of the instrument on the right, personally feels very comfortable for me to perform on. My goal is to produce an evening-length set for the chord organ and electronics, incorporating my love of this eccentric instrument and also my interest in electroacoustic music, and to buy all the vintage toy organs in the world. program note Embodiment Embodiment was originally written in 2013 as part of a set of pieces for toy organ and toy piano, for a duo that I played in with pianist Han Chen. When approaching the idea of writing for these two very unique and eccentric instruments, I hoped to highlight or embody their perhaps “strengths” in sustaining power and lack of sustaining power, while also highlighting the difference in tuning they typically have. In this version for toy organ and glockenspiel, I have adapted the organ part to more of a supporting role for the glockenspiel. Special thanks to Jeff Stern for all his work and effort on the piece.
PROGRAM NOTES
biography Ethan Braun Ethan Braun is pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Chris Theofanidis. His music is born of the desert of southern California, with its haze and its seeming endlessness.
technology, and philosophy. Ultimately interested in a physical and contextual experience of sound, his work questions normalized rituals of performance and listening. He studies with David Lang at the Yale School of Music. » www.soundcloud.com/brian-heim » www.brianlheim.com
program note Triptych
program note beethoven pitchsort [ascending]
Triptych is a series of six tableaux that function like miniature paintings that may be played in any order or configuration. The first set of three miniatures, “Obscura,” is played on Japanese fan drums as a precursor to Iannis Xenakis’ legendary “Peaux.”
beethoven pitchsort [ascending] every melody note in the lovely piano sonata op 2/1 which i have never performed isolated 2907 files sorted by the pitch it’s the most important thing going up!
The second set, “Lucida,” is played on a set of bowed crotales. It inhabits the same musical space as the “Obscura” set, but this time in a slow-moving chord progression that is never resolved in any sense. What is perceived is a small window of possible infinite progression. “Obscura” presents the negative image of “Lucida”: the intervals are presented in their numerical ratios as opposed to their pitch. These pieces are an homage to the incomparable music given to us by György Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis. biography Brian Heim Brian Heim is a composer, programmer, and live electronics performer whose work concerns the intersections of art,
biography Jacob Druckman One of the most prominent of 20 th-century American composers, Jacob Druckman was born in Philadelphia in 1928. After early training in violin and piano, he enrolled in the Juilliard School in 1949. In 1949 and 1950 he studied at Tanglewood; later, he continued his studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris (1954–55). Druckman produced a substantial list of works embracing orchestral, chamber, and vocal media, and did considerable work with electronic music. In 1972, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Windows, his first work for large orchestra. Among
PROGRAM NOTES
his other numerous grants and awards were a Fulbright Grant in 1954, a Thorne Foundation award in 1972, Guggenheim Grants in 1957 and 1968, and the Publication Award from the Society for the Publication of American Music in 1967. Organizations that commissioned his music include Radio France (Shog, 1991); the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Brangle, 1989); the New York Philharmonic (Concerto for Viola and Orchestra, 1978; Aureole, 1979); the Philadelphia Orchestra (Counterpoise, 1994); the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (Mirage, 1976); the Juilliard Quartet (String Quartet No. 2, 1966), and numerous others. Mr. Druckman taught at The Juilliard School, Bard College, and Tanglewood; in addition, he was director of the Electronic Music Studio and Professor of Composition at Brooklyn College. In April of 1982, he was appointed composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic. In the last years of his life, Mr. Druckman was Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Yale University. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes program note Valentine Valentine begins with a driven intensity and moves towards a state of euphoria. The work is one of the most difficult ever written for the contrabass and demands that the player attack the instrument with bow, timpani stick, and both hands alternating percussive tapping on the body of the instrument with pizzicato harmonics, while the voice sustains tones, sings couter-
points, and punctuates accents. All of this necessitates the player’s assaulting the instrument with an almost de Sade-like concentration (hence the title). program note Bo Bo is the Chinese word for waves. It refers to two aspects of the piece, one programmatic and the other structural. The idea of the work came from thoughts about the boat people of Southeast Asia, and the work is dedicated to them. The underlying structure of the opening and the closing sections are built of repetitive and symmetrical events (analogous to patterns of movement on the surface of water), each symmetrical within its own system but not symmetrical in relation to the other simultaneous systems. The text is from the prose poem Hai-Fu (the Sea) by Mu Hua, ca. A.D. 300.
NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN
Artistic Directors Hannah Lash Christopher Theofanidis Manager Andrew W. Parker Assistant Manager Roberta Senatore Conducting Fellow Heejung Kim NMNH Assistants Andrew Robson Valerie Sly Music Librarians Krists Auznieks Bora Kim Yefim Romanov Valerie Sly Hanna Yukho Stage Crew Eric Braley Maria Chlebus Lydia Consilvio Julia Ghica Reese Farnell Matthew Keown John Kossler Richard Liverano NoĂŤl Wan
UPCOMING EVENTS Ettore Causa, viola Wei-Yi Yang, piano
Dénes Várjon, piano
february 12 Faculty Artist Series Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm With Julie Eskar, violin • Music by Nielsen, Mendelssohn, Penderecki, Fauré, and Bruch Free admission
february 17 Horowitz Piano Series Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm Haydn: Sonata in E minor, Hob. XVI:34; Janácek: On an Overgrown Path; and music by Schumann and Chopin Tickets start at $18, Students $11
Bonet & Weiss
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
february 14 Collection of Musical Instruments 15 Hillhouse Ave | Sunday | 3 pm Lina Tur Bonet, baroque violin • Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord • Works by Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Domenico Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Boccherini, Handel, and J.S. Bach Tickets $25 • Seniors & Yale staff $20 Students $10
february 19, 20 & 21 Yale Opera Shubert Theatre | Fri & Sat, 8 pm | Sun, 2 pm This atmospheric new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is conducted by Rune Bergmann and directed by Claudia Solti With the Yale Philharmonia Tickets $19–$50, available at www.shubert.com or 203-562-5666
Yale Percussion Group
Guitar Extravaganza
february 14 YSM Student Ensembles Morse Recital Hall | Sunday | 7:30 pm Robert van Sice, director • Music by Ligeti, Xenakis, James Wood, and Ethan Braun With Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano Tickets start at $10, Students $5
february 20 Special Events Sprague Hall | Saturday | All Day Concerts, talks, master classes, and more Benjamin Verdery, director Featuring performances by Marc Teicholz, Duo Ditirambo, Z.o.o. guitar duo, and more » music.yale.edu/guitar-extravaganza
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Robert Blocker, Dean