Martin Bresnick, composer, Oct 18, 2016

Robert Blocker, Dean

faculty artist series

Martin Bresnick composer

Morse Recital Hall October 18, 2016 • Tuesday at 7:30 pm

Faculty Artist Series

Martin Bresnick, composer October 18, 2016 • Morse Recital Hall

Martin Bresnick b. 1946

Ishi’s Song (2012)

Bresnick

Joaquin is Dreaming (Joaquin Soñando) (2008) I. Joaquin Imagines a Part of His History

(Joaquin Imaginarse una Parte de su Historia) II. Joaquin Foresees a Future

(Joaquin Preve un Futuro) III. Joaquin is Sleeping, Joaquin is Dreaming

(Joaquin Durmiente, Joaquin Soñando)

Lisa Moore, piano

Benjamin Verdery, guitar Bresnick

Bird as Prophet (1999) Elly Toyoda, violin Lisa Moore, piano intermission

As a courtesy to the performers and audience, silence electronic devices.

Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.

Faculty Artist Series

Bresnick

Caprichos Enfáticos: Los Desastres de la Guerra (Emphatic Caprices: The Disasters of War) (2007) I. Farándula simple (Simple Farandole) II. Farándula de charlatanes—No saben el

camino (Farandole of charlatans—They

don’t know the way.)

III. Estragos de la guerra (Ravages of war) IV. Farándula de políticos—Contra el bien

general (Farandole of politicians—Against

the common good.)

V. Farándula de populacho (Farandole of the rabble) VI. ¡Extraña Devoción! (Strange devotion!)

VII. Farándula de creyentes—Nada. Ello dirá

(Farandole of believers —Nothing. It will say.)

VIII. Farándula doble (Double Farandole) Lisa Moore, piano Quartet from the Yale Percussion Group Matthew Keown, percussion Kramer Milan, percussion Dmitrii Nilov, percussion Georgi Videnov, percussion

Program Notes

Ishi’s Song (2012) Ishi was among the last of the Yahi Indians.

Living in northern California, these Native Americans were part of a larger group known as the Yana. They were ruthlessly oppressed and finally decimated at the end of the 19th century. The few remaining Yahi people hid in the mountains until they all died, leaving only Ishi. He was found and brought to the University of California at Berkeley by sympathetic anthropology professors Alfred Kroeber and T.T. Waterman. Ishi lived for several years at the University’s museum, then in San Francisco, teaching the professors and other researchers the ways of his people and helping to create a dictionary of his language. He was the last native speaker of the Yahi-Yana language. The opening melody of my work was taken from a transcription of a recording made

by Ishi himself singing what he called “The Maidu Doctor’s Song.” There is no known translation of the text.

Commissioned by the Aeroporti di Puglia Dedicated to Maestro Emanuele Arciuli Joaquin is Dreaming (Joaquin Soñando) (2008) Joaquin Bresnick-Arias, my grandson, was born on June 3, 2007, in New Haven, Connecticut. The child of Johanna Bresnick and Dimitry Arias, his wonderfully complex human inheritance (American, Ecuadorean, Jewish, Catholic, Russian, German, Spanish, native South American, and more) inspired me to reflect in a musical way on this joyful

new person and his intricate place in a brave new world.

Joaquin is Dreaming is dedicated to my friend and colleague Ben Verdery, commissioner of this work. His impassioned musical artistry has been a consistent and stirring inspiration to me. I am deeply grateful to him.

Commissioned by Benjamin Verdery and dedicated to Benjamin Verdery and Joaquin Bresnick-Arias 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.

Commissioned by and dedicated to the Rosa/ Laurent (violin/piano) Duo. Caprichos Enfáticos: Los Desastres de la Guerra (Emphatic Caprices: The Disasters of War) (2007) Caprichos Enfáticos is a concerto in eight movements for piano/keyboard and percussion quartet. It was commissioned by Meet the Composer for pianist Lisa Moore and Sō Percussion. The eight movements

Program Notes • Artist Profiles

are accompanied by interpolated DVD projections, created by Johanna Bresnick and based on Francisco Goya’s book of etchings Los Desastres de la Guerra. Konrad Kaczmarek was the technical consultant.

Martin Bresnick, composer

Composer Martin Bresnick was born in New York City in 1946 and is presently professor of composition and coordinator of the Composition Department at the The titles of the eight movements are either Yale School of Music. He was educated at

by Goya himself or suggested by his ideas. the High School of Music and Art, the A farándula, or farandole, was a chain dance University of Hartford (’67BA), Stanford popular in Provence, although its origins are University (’68MA, ’72DMA), and the much older. The dance is often in 6/8 time, Akademie für Musik, Vienna (’69–’70). with a moderate to fast tempo. In modern His principal teachers of composition Spanish, a farándula is a company of actors. include György Ligeti, John Chowning, —Martin Bresnick and Gottfried von Einem. Mr. Bresnick has taught at many schools in the United States and Europe, including 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 the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Bresnick’s compositions cover a wide range of instrumentation, from chamber music to symphonic compositions and computer music. His orchestral music has been performed by major symphonies around the world, including the 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 in concert 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 numerous festivals, including Prague Spring, Tanglewood, Banff, New Music America, and New Horizons. He has received commissions from

Artist Profiles

the National Endowment for the Arts (1992), Janáçek to Philip Glass. Her latest solo disc, Fromm Foundation (1995), Lincoln Center The Stone People (Cantaloupe), features the Chamber Players (1997), Meet the Composer music of John Luther Adams, Martin (1998), and Chamber Music America (1999). Bresnick, Missy Mazzoli, Kate Moore, and Julia Wolfe. She has recorded over thirty He has received many prizes, the most re- collaborative discs for the Sony, Nonesuch, cent being the Chamber Music Society of DG, BMG, New World, Tall Poppies, ABC Lincoln Center’s Elise L. Stoeger Prize for Classics, Albany, New Albion, Starkland, Chamber Music (1996), the “Charles Ives and Harmonia Mundi labels. Steve Reich’s Living” award from the American Academy Music for Eighteen Musicians (Harmonia of Arts and Letters (1998), the ASCAP Foun- Mundi), recorded by Ensemble Signal, redation’s Aaron Copland Prize for teaching cently made The New York Times’ “Best (2000), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). Classical Music Recording” list.

Mr. Bresnick has written music for films, two of which — Arthur and Lillie (1975) and The Day After Trinity (1981), both directed

by Jon Else — were nominated for Academy Awards in the documentary category. Mr. Bresnick’s music has been recorded by Cantaloupe Records, Composers Recordings Incorporated, Centaur, New World Records, Artifact Music, and Albany Records, and is published by Carl Fischer Music (New York), Bote and Bock (Berlin), and CommonMuse Music Publishers (New Haven). » martinbresnick.com Lisa Moore, piano The New York Times writes: “Lisa Moore, an Australian pianist long based in and around New York, has always been a natural, compelling storyteller.” TimeOut New York describes her as a “wonderfully lyrical pianist.”

Lisa Moore has recorded nine solo discs (Cantaloupe, Orange Mountain Music, Tall Poppies) whose repertoire ranges from Leoš

Moore has performed with a diverse range of musicians and artists, including the London Sinfonietta, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York City Ballet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Steve Reich Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Ensemble Signal, Clocked Out, Australian Chamber Orchestra, TwoSense, Grand Band, and the Paul Dresher Double Duo. From 1992–2008 she was the founding pianist of the electro-acoustic sextet Bang On A Can All-Stars and winner of Musical America’s 2005 Ensemble of the Year Award.

She has collaborated with composers ranging from Iannis Xenakis, Elliot Carter, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Frederic Rzewski to Ornette Coleman, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Thurston Moore, Hannah Lash, and Martin Bresnick.

Moore’s festival appearances include performances at Lincoln Center, BAM, Banff, Gilmore, Graz, Tanglewood, Huddersfield, Paris d’Automne, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, BBC Proms, Southbank, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne Metropolis, Israel, and Warsaw, in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, La Scala, Carnegie Hall, and

Artist Profiles

the Musikverein. As a featured soloist, Moore has performed concertos with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Albany, La Jolla, Sydney, Tasmania, Thai, and Canberra symphony orchestras, the Philharmonia Virtuosi, Wesleyan Orchestra and Sumarsam Gamelan, Monash Academy of Performing Arts Orchestra, and the Queensland Philharmonic — under the batons of Bradley Lubman, Steven Schick, Richard Mills, Benjamin Northey, Reinbert de Leeuw, Jorge Mester, and Angel Gil-Ordonez.

Moore has a Master of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY Stonybrook.

She was an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre in January 2016. Moore teaches at the Yale Summer School of Music / Norfolk Chamber Music Festival’s New Music Workshop and is a regular guest artist at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. Lisa Moore is a Steinway artist. » lisamoore.org Elly Toyoda, violin Elly Toyoda began her violin studies at age eleven in Osaka, Japan. Three years later, she was nominated as an “Uprising Young Musician” by Asahi Shimbun newspaper and gave a solo performance at Osaka Symphony Hall. An avid supporter of contemporary music, Toyoda has premiered works at the Norfolk New Music Workshop, Lucerne Festival, and the Talis Music Festival, and was appointed concertmistress for the New Music for Orchestra concert at Yale.

In May 2016 she earned her Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music

studying with Syoko Aki, and received the Yale School of Music Alumni Prize.

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 United States, 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 The Ben Verdery Guitar Project: On Vineyard Sound, which features music by Yale School of Music composers as well as a piece by Verdery himself. The album was released in June 2016 on Elm City Records, a record label Verdery launched with guitarist and Yale School of Music alumnus Solomon Silber. Verdery’s CD Start Now won the 2005 Classical Recording Foundation Award. Other recordings of note include Some Towns and Cities and his collaborations with John Williams (John Williams Plays Vivaldi) and Andy Summers (First You Build A Cloud).

Artist Profiles

Many of the leading composers of our time have created music for Ben, including Ezra Laderman, 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, and the two guitarists appeared at the annual Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven festival.

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

by Alfred Music) has published the solo pieces from Some Towns and Cities as well as instructional books and videos. Many other compositions are available through his website.

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 Since 1985, in addition to his performances, to compose two works: Penzacola Belongs tours, and recordings, Benjamin Verdery to All, commissioned by the Pensacola Gui- has been chair of the guitar department at tar Orchestra in celebration of its 30th the Yale School of Music and artistic anniversary (premiered in Pensacola in director of the biennial Yale Guitar ExtravOctober 2012) and Stand in Your Own Light aganza. He was appointed an honorary for guitar and koto, commissioned by Kyo- board member of the Suzuki Association Shin-An Arts with funding from the New of the Americas in 2007. Each summer, York State Council for the Arts (premiered Ben holds his Annual International Master in New York City in November 2012).

Class on the Island of Maui (Hawaii).

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

» benjaminverdery.com Yale Percussion Group 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.

Artist Profiles

Members of the YPG have gone on to perform as concerto soloists with the Berlin Philharmonic, to form the acclaimed quartet SĹ? Percussion, and to perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Oslo and Auckland philharmonics.

Former members are also percussionists in America’s great chamber music ensembles, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. Currently, YPG alumni teach at the University of Miami, Michigan State University, Princeton University, Baylor University, Bard College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Cornell University, University of Alabama, Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, the University of Kansas, and the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. The Yale Percussion Group has twice won the Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition and released its first CD on NMC Records (London) in 2016.

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Upcoming Events

Lunchtime Chamber Music

october 19 Wendy Sharp, Artistic Director School of Music students perform a midday chamber music concert Yale Center for British Art Wednesday | 12:30 pm free admission

David Fung, piano

Hannah Lash & Martin Bresnick

october 27 New Music New Haven Violinist Ani Kavafian and clarinetist David Shifrin, both members of the School’s faculty, and pianist Lisa Moore, perform music

by YSM faculty composers Hannah Lash and Martin Bresnick Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm free admission

october 20

Doctor of Musical Arts Recital Pianist David Fung presents a DMA recital featuring performances of works by Mozart, Schubert, Scarlatti, Ravel, and YSM alumnus Samuel Adams Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm free admission

PRISM Quartet

october 25 Oneppo Chamber Music Series The acclaimed saxophone ensemble performs works by Bach, Gershwin, Schumann, and YSM faculty composer Martin Bresnick Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $26 • Students $13

The Langston Hughes Project

october 28 Ellington Jazz Series A multimedia presentation of Langston Hughes’ trailblazing poem Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz, for which he wrote musical cues, featuring spoken-word artist Kenyon Adams, the Ron McCurdy Quartet, and imagery from the Harlem Renaissance Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $20 • Students $10

Janna Baty & Hannah Lash september 28

Faculty Artist Series Harpist and faculty composer Hannah Lash and faculty mezzo-soprano Janna Baty present the world-premiere performance of Lash’s new song-cycle and other works Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm fr ee admission

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