PRISM Quartet, October 25, 2016

Robert Blocker, Dean

oneppo chamber music series

PRISM Quartet

David Shifrin, Artistic Director October 25, 2016 • Tuesday at 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall

Yale School of Music

PRISM Quartet Timothy McAllister, soprano saxophone • Zachary Shemon, alto saxophone Matthew Levy, tenor saxophone • Taimur Sullivan, baritone saxophone

Roshanne Etezady b. 1973

Keen (2004)

Salvatore Sciarrino Pagine — elaborazioni da concerto per 4 b. 1947 saxofoni (1998) Carl Gesualdo (1566—1613) “Itene miei sospiri” J.S. Bach (1685—1750) Fughetta super “Dies sind die heil’ gen

zehn Gebot” J.S. Bach Kyrie “Gott Vater in Ewigkeit” George Gershwin (1898—1937) “Who Cares?”

Domenico Scarlatti (1685—1757) Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K. 120 Michael Daugherty b. 1954

Steamboat (2014)

Matthew Levy b. 1963

Above (2013) 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.

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

Robert Schumann 1810—1856 arr. William Bolcom b. 1938

A Schumann Bouquet I. Lieber Mai (Beloved May) II. Knecht Ruprecht (The Bogeyman) III. Sheherazade IV. Ländler V. Sehr Langsam (Very Slowly) VI. Lied italienischer Marinari (Song of the Italian Boatmen)

Georg Friedrich Haas b. 1953

Saxophone Quartet (2014)

Martin Bresnick b. 1946

Every Thing Must Go (2007) I. Andante II. G.L. in Memorium III. Pensoso, con sobrio espressione

Artist Profile

PRISM seeks to place the saxophone in masters Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, unexpected contexts, chart fresh musical Steve Lehman, and Dave Liebman. In 1997, territory, and challenge, inspire, and move PRISM initiated its own concert series, now audiences. “A bold ensemble that set the in Philadelphia, New York City, and Ann standard for contemporary-classical Arbor, presenting the newest compositions saxophone quartets” (The New York Times), created for the ensemble by composers PRISM was founded by students of the from around the world. renowned Donald Sinta at the University of Michigan in 1984. Shortly after winning PRISM’s discography is extensive, with the Fischoff National Chamber Music releases on Albany, ECM, Innova, Koch Competition, PRISM was chosen by International, Naxos, New Dynamic, Musical America as “Outstanding Young New Focus, and its own newly launched Artists,” performed on Entertainment Tonight label, XAS Records (distributed by Naxos). and National Public Radio’s Performance PRISM may also be heard on the soundToday, and toured virtually every state in track of the film Two Plus One, by Emmy the United States. nominee Eugene Martin, scored by quartet member Matthew Levy, and has been Two-time recipients of the Chamber Music featured in the theme music to the weekly America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous PBS news magazine NOW. Programming, PRISM has performed in Carnegie Hall on the Making Music Series, PRISM’s concert series and recordings in Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music feature a who’s who of contemporary Society of Lincoln Center, and throughout music makers, including BMOP, Ethel, Latin America and China under the auspices Sō Percussion, Talujon, Partch, Music of the United States Information Agency From China, Opera Colorado, Cantori and USArtists International. PRISM has New York, Nick Didkovsky, Marilyn also been presented to critical acclaim as Nonken, and top jazz artists including soloists with the Detroit Symphony and Jason Moran, Chris Potter, Ravi Coltrane, Cleveland Orchestra and conducted resiTim Ries, Jay Anderson, Ben Monder, dencies at the nation’s leading conservatories, Bill Stewart, Gerald Cleaver, and John including the Curtis Institute of Music Riley. PRISM has also performed with and the Oberlin Conservatory.

The Crossing (choir), the New York Consort of Viols, and the Chilean rock Champions of new music, PRISM has band Inti-Illimani, as well as Miro Dance commissioned more than 250 works, many Theatre, Nai Ni Chen Dance Company, by internationally celebrated composers and the Pennsylvania Ballet. including Pulitzer Prize-winners Julia Wolfe, William Bolcom, Jennifer Higdon, Zhou In 2016, the PRISM Quartet was named by Long, and Bernard Rands; MacArthur its alma mater, the University of Michigan, “Genius” Award recipients Bright Sheng as the first recipient of the Christopher and Miguel Zenón; Guggenheim Fellows Kendall Award in recognition of its work William Albright, Martin Bresnick, Chen in “collaboration, entrepreneurship, and Yi, Lee Hyla, and Steven Mackey; and jazz community engagement.”

Artist Profile • Notes on the Program

The PRISM Quartet performs exclusively on Selmer saxophones and mouthpieces. roshanne etezady Keen (2004) The word “keen” has several different meanings: as an adjective, it can mean “ardent” or “intense.” Once upon a time, “keen” had a colloquial meaning that suggested something pleasant or exceptional.

Used as a noun, however, the word “keen” signifies a wailing lamentation for the dead.

It is this latter meaning that I particularly was mindful of when I wrote Keen. I wanted to write a piece that took advantage not only of the homogenous nature of the saxophone quartet, with its evenness of timbre across the four voices, but also allowed the instruments to display the subtleties and nuances that make saxophone one of the most versatile instruments in existence. Keen is “bookended” by two sections that call to mind a vaguely Middle Eastern-sounding lament. The use of the drone at the beginning and the end of the piece evokes a sense of solemnity and perhaps spirituality.

The body of the piece is characterized by episodic sections of varying moods and colors that culminate with all four instruments in their highest registers.

— Roshanne Etezady salvatore sciarrino Pagine (Pages) (1998) The saxophone quartet is an incredible ensemble, born more than one hundred years ago but rarely used outside jazz, which means its potential must still be explored. Recently, an Italian style of

saxophone playing has flourished, based on the French school, and the technical abilities of the instrumentalists have become more advanced. Meanwhile, in Europe, original repertoire has begun to develop around the instrumentation. I myself have written La bocca, i piedi, il suono (Mouth, feet, sound), a large work for four alto saxophone soloists and 100 amateur players.

The difficulty of composing for this instrumentation has made me aware of a certain lack of identity that the saxophone quartet suffers from in terms of not having its own repertoire. For this reason I have wanted to offer a contribution to resolve that problem, and I’ve thought not so much about single compositions but about cycles.

The first is called Pagine (Pages), an anthology based on music from different centuries and styles. In arranging the pieces, I have avoided the sterotypical aspects. To the contrary, I have looked to the inexorable modernity of the ancient masters, something that today is fashionable to blithefully ignore.

To bring Bach into the saxophone quartet realm, only simple adaptions are necessary (the adaptations have already been done by numerous other groups). The music of other composers has been more challenging. In the case of Gesualdo’s “Itene miei sospiri,” I have reduced the number of voices from five to four without losing the symmetry of the canonic imitations.

For the Mozart, I have chosen to follow a literal style, as if transcribing for string quartet. The Gershwin required a look toward expressionism while evoking jazz, and the Scarlatti required a decidely 20th

Notes on the Program

century flavor even as arranging his music resulted in a distilled classicism.

— Salvatore Sciarrino The Pagine contains works originating from a variety of periods and genres. Tonight’s performance will include pieces by Gesualdo, Bach, Gershwin, and Scarlatti adapted for saxophone quartet. ­ michael daugherty Steamboat (2014) Steamboat draws from the final movement of Daugherty’s Reflections on the Mississippi (2013), a concerto for tuba and orchestra.

According to the composer, it “conjures up colorful tales from Life on the Mississippi

by Mark Twain (1835-1910). Traveling down the Mississippi River, I have composed lively music that follows the gambling steamboats from Twain’s hometown in Hannibal, Missouri, to the final stop in New Orleans.” matthew levy Above (2013) Above borrows material from Levy’s choral work On Christmas Day, originally commissioned by Voices for Children for a recording benefiting the Philadelphia Pediatric AIDS Foundation. In liner notes for People’s Emergency Center, PRISM’s Innova CD for which Above was recorded, WNYC’s John Schaefer wrote, “Above begins with a lovely series of chords, somehow reminiscent of both Baroque music and the 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen. Even a lone baritone sax

stepping out of the ensemble doesn’t change the subdued colors and lyrical mood of the piece. A soprano sax soon joins in, suggesting a bird singing in the night. Eventually the piece comes back to those grand, peaceful opening chords.” ­ — Matthew Levy robert schumann Schumann Bouquet Arr. William Bolcom (2015) Almost sixty years ago while at the Paris Conservatoire I became friendly with a saxophone student who asked for a piece; I promptly wrote out a jazz tune leadsheet style with chord symbols, and he had absolutely no idea of what to do with it. The saxophone style of sound taught there at that period was mellifluous, almost sugary, with a wide vibrato. (French hornists had developed a similar vibrato and the two instruments, saxophones and horns, sounded uncannily alike then — listen to the French radio-orchestra or Russian recordings of the 1950s, and you’ll see what I mean — and later the German horn-playing style would take over in France and Russia as elsewhere in the world.)

Invented about the time the Schumann pieces in the present set were composed, the saxophones were perhaps mostly intended for band use (in French the orchestre d’harmonie), would be frowned on by orchestras, and still are in some quarters. I’ll never forget the sneer on the face of the concertmaster of the Stuttgart Opera Orchestra when the two saxophonists called for in my Songs of Innocence and of

Notes on the Program

Experience came into rehearsal – this is in January 1984 – and the orchestra players insisted on putting glass partitions between them and the rest of the orchestra, even at the public performances.

in some later ones are as profound as in Schumann’s larger works (see for example Sehr langsam, the fifth “flower” in A Schumann Bouquet). These are not just teaching pieces without depth, and I suspect the major difference between the Album and most music intended for teaching is the presence of that depth. (In fact the only concession to the young seems to be to the size of their hands.) I can’t help sensing Schumann’s desire to help the young mature by exposing them to a mature, expressive universe; by contrast so much of our current culture seems to be dedicated to prolonging childhood and adolescence rather than helping us outgrow them. ­— William Bolcom

This schism may be why the saxophone literature is still so separate from the classical canon. Debussy wrote a pièce de concours for the Conservatoire not knowing much of anything about the instrument; Vaughan Williams and Walton used it also, but these are rare instances. It would be the middle of the 20th century that more composers began to take the saxophone seriously. At first there was an exploration of multiphonics and similar sounds particular to the saxophone (I used many of these various squawks in my Lilith because they fit the protagonist’s wild character) and composers used these, often to excess, for a few decades. georg friedrich haas Clearly the vogue for this has passed, and Saxophone Quartet (2014) it’s fine with me.

Haas’ Saxophone Quartet was commisPRISM is at the forefront of the current sioned by the Kölner Philharmonie for expansion of saxophone literature; I’ve Germany’s SIGNUM saxophone quartet. had a wonderful experience writing for In an interview with Bjørn Woll, Erik them as have so many others. I think my Nestler, a member of SIGNUM, describidea of arranging this set of short Robert ed the piece as a “sound experiment” that Schumann piano pieces for them as a gift employs microtones that sometimes divide is an attempt to bridge the schism menthe octave into 72 notes (on the piano, the tioned above, opening the gate to a wider octave is divided into 12 notes). The piece potential expressivity for the saxophone has an “ostinato-like pulse throughout,” with by connecting it with the rich musical past. each voice having a function that is related I have loved Schumann’s music since to the overtone series to create morphing boyhood, not only the major piano works colors, “as if turning a kaleidoscope.” like Carnaval, Humoreske, and Kriesleriana but also the many modest short pieces.

Album for the Young, dating from 1848, is an often-overlooked rich source. Even the technically easy opening pieces are full of poetry, and the interpretative challenges

Notes on the Program

martin bresnick Everything Must Go (2007) Every Thing Must Go, And does As in these three movements, Now going, now gone.

Every Thing Must Go was commissioned

by New Sounds Music, Inc., the nonprofit organization of the PRISM Quartet, with support from The New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

— Martin Bresnick

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concert announcement We’re thrilled to announce that the Imani Winds will return to the Yale School of Music for a performance with YSM faculty pianist Wei-Yi Yang.

“Of all the tools in the arsenal that the Imani Winds quintet wields so skillfully,” the Washington Post has said, “perhaps the two most powerful are its ability to get into the heart of each piece’s cultural core and to communicate the joy of making music together.”

Ticket holders for Peter Schickele: Composer & Persona on February 14 should come to the box office during intermission tonight to pick up your tickets for the Imani Winds. Tickets for Peter Schickele’s lecture “What’s So Funny About Music?” on February 13 may be discarded; there will be no replacement for this event.

Imani Winds february 14 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Valerie Coleman: Red Clay and Mississippi Delta; Julio Medaglia: Suite popular Brasileira; Stravinsky (arr. Jonathan Russell): The Rite of Spring; Anders Hillborg: Six Pieces for Wind Quintet; Francis Poulenc: Sextour with Wei-Yi Yang, piano; Simon Shaheen (arr. Jeff Scott): Dance Mediterranea Morse Recital Hall Tuesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $26 • Students $13

ONEPPO CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES SEP 27

2016–2017

BRENTANO STRING QUARTET With Ettore Causa, viola; Argus Quartet

OCT 25

PRISM QUARTET Bach, Gershwin, Schumann, and Martin Bresnick

DEC 13

MIRÓ QUARTET With Martin Beaver, viola; David Shifrin, clarinet

JAN 24

BRENTANO STRING QUARTET With Jonathan Biss, piano; Hsin-Yun Huang, viola

FEB 14

IMANI WINDS Wei-Yi Yang, piano

FEB 28

AN UNLIKELY MUSE A concert drama about Brahms and the clarinetist who inspired his later works

MAR 28

JERUSALEM STRING QUARTET Haydn, Prokofiev, and Beethoven

MAY 09

COMPETITION WINNERS Winning student chamber ensembles

brentano string quartet

miró quartet

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Robert Blocker, Dean

Upcoming Events Hannah Lash & Martin Bresnick october 27

New Music New Haven Featuring music by YSM faculty composers Hannah Lash and Martin Bresnick and graduate-student composers Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm free admission

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 october 29

Faculty Artist Series Faculty mezzo-soprano Janna Baty and harpist and faculty composer Hannah Lash present the world premiere of Lash’s new songcycle, Les espaces du sommeil, and other works Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 7:30 pm free admission

Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano october 30 Collection of Musical Instruments Dynamic fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout performs works by Haydn and Beethoven 15 Hillhouse Ave | Sunday | 3 pm Tickets start at $25 • Students $10 Yale staff and seniors $20

Fall Opera Scenes november 4–5

Yale Opera Scenes from operas by Smetana, Mozart, Donizetti, Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Handel, and Massenet Morse Recital Hall Friday & Saturday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $10 • Students $5

Lunchtime Chamber Music november 9

Wendy Sharp, director School of Music students perform a midday chamber music concert Morse Recital Hall Wednesday | 12:30 pm free admission

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