Robert Blocker, Dean
new music new haven
featuring music by
Hannah Lash & Martin Bresnick and music by Yale School of Music graduate-student composers
Hannah Lash, Artistic Director October 27, 2016 • Thursday at 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall
Yale School of Music
New Music New Haven October 27, 2016 • Morse Recital Hall
Liliya Ugay b. 1990
Morning Call (2016) David Yi, conductor Jin-Xiang Yu, soprano a Marianne Di Tomaso, violin Florrie Marshall, viola Samuel DeCaprio, cello Mariya-Andononiya Andonova, bass Benjamin Morency, flute Lydia Consilvio, oboe Elisha Willinger, clarinet Sam Um, percussion Shin Young Yu, harp
Benjamin Wallace b. 1989
Selections from SONG CYCLE: A Materia Collective Album (2016) I. Lied of the Fayth (from Final Fantasy X) II. 2 am Emergency at the Pokémon Center (from Pokémon Red and Blue) Kelly Hill, mezzo-soprano a Matthew Bridgham, piano
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.
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Hilary Purrington b. 1990
Heartbeat Without Rhythm (2016) Jonathan Shadle, Theo Van Dyck, trumpet Antonia Chandler, horn Grant Futch, trombone Eliud Garcia, bass trombone intermission
Martin Bresnick b. 1946
And I Always Thought (2015) Ani Kavafian, violin f David Shifrin, clarinet f Lisa Moore, piano g
Hannah Lash b. 1981
Selections from Six Etudes and a Dream for piano (2015) III. Fast and Slow IV. Four Voices V. Thumbs and Pinkies VI. Petit rêve pour les pétunias défuntes VII. Trills Lisa Moore, piano g a
Yale School of Music alumni Yale School of Music faculty g Guest performer f
Notes on the Program • Artist Profiles
biography Liliya Ugay Liliya Ugay is a composer and pianist whose music has been performed in many countries around the globe. A recipient of the 2016 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, her music has been described both as “assertive, steely” and “lovely, supple writing” by The Wall Street Journal. She’s received prizes for her compositions in Montreal (Montreal Conservatory), Oslo (Edvard Grieg Society), Zurich (Ensemble Pre-Art and Convergence), and Moscow (Moscow Conservatory and the Union of Composers) among others. Ugay’s music has been featured at the Darmstadt International Courses of New Music, New York International Electro-acoustic Music Festival, American Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Boston New Music Initiative, and the Venice Biennale, and has been performed by the Albany Symphony, Yale Philharmonia, Molinari Quartet, Antico Moderno, and Omnibus ensembles. Upcoming events include performances by the New England Philharmonic, Raleigh Chamber Orchestra, and violist Paul Neubauer. As a pianist, Liliya is particularly interested in exploring and promoting unknown music of Soviet composers who were victims of political persecutions: her last project was a lecturerecital titled “Silenced Voices: Music of Soviet Russia,” which she worked on under the guidance of Boris Berman. Liliya has won prizes at several piano competitions including second prize at the international competition “Verfemte Musik” (Germany) and fourth prize at the 14th International Beethoven Piano Sonatas competition.
Liliya is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music, where she studies with Aaron Jay Kernis. program note Morning Call (2016) “Morning Call” is the last song of a threesong cycle in which each highlights human feelings in a specific situation and explores themes of death and/or birth. For “Morning Call” I used the poem of the same title by New York-based writer Sokunthary Svay. In this song, I emphasized the mood switch from excitement to trembling stillness (as a parent might watch her/his child falling asleep), by gradually reducing/increasing the music’s metro-rhythmic activity and complexity. This piece marks the beginning of my collaboration with Sokunthary Svay and soprano Jing-Xiang Yu, an alumnus of the Yale School of Music whose unique voice I had in mind while composing this song. —Liliya Ugay text Morning Song (2016) I can hear you calling in a hunger cry to reveal your need. I can hear you coo as you discover your hands and your eyes light up. As you soften your voice I’ll be the embrace you seek to carry you to sleep. I imagine you will rise with the sun, my morning call at the start of each new day —Sokunthary Svay
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biography Benjamin Wallace Benjamin Wallace is a composer, percussionist, and keyboardist pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music. Ben is a cofounder of Invisible Anatomy and DiscoCactus, and is an active member of the Materia Collective. text Selections from SONG CYCLE: A Materia Collective Album (2016) Lied of the Fayth i eh yu i no bo me no re mi ri yo ju yo go ha sa te ka na eh ku ta ma eh イエユイ ノボメノ レーミリ ヨジュヨーゴ ハサテカナエ クタマーエ
Please let me have your name, your age, your date of birth. What is your trainer number? Registration? How many Pokémon are you admitting tonight? I need you to calm down! We need your information. We cannot proceed until we have you in our system. Now, I need your insurance. Oh ... you don’t have Pokémon insurance? Well ... then ... how serious is it? What?? Its wings are broken? Please turn around sir! Do you want this Pokémon admitted here tonight? What is this Pokémon anyway? Zapdos? I’m sorry ... AA-j? What kind of stupid name is that? Sir, sir, SIR, SIR! Please listen to me when I’m talking. Stop running ’round the foyer. I don’t want your stupid fossils. Don’t touch that PC!!
—Kazushige Nojima
2 am Emergency at the Pokémon Center Scalpel ... Making first incision. Excising malignant tumor. Closing up incision. Careful ... Here’s your damned Rattata! Please wait one moment ... Welcome to our Pokémon center. *yawn*
Hey now, can’t we all be friends? Please don’t throw AA-j away. No one has to die today. We’ll overlook your insurance needs. Chancey, prep the OR. Scalpel ... Making first incision. Vitals are dropping quickly. Don’t you die on me! Here’s your Pokémon! —Benjamin Wallace
Notes on the Program • Artist Profiles
biography Hilary Purrington
biography Martin Bresnick
Hilary Purrington is a New England-based composer of contemporary classical music. Her work has received recognition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC), the Massachusetts Music Educators’ Association (MMEA), Houston Grand Opera’s Home and Place, the American Modern Ensemble, and Voices of Change, among others. Recent projects include commissions from the Melodia Women’s Choir, the Novus Trombone Quartet, the Chicago Harp Quartet, and the Musical Chairs Chamber Ensemble. Purrington holds degrees from the Juilliard School and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and she is currently pursuing a Master of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music.
Composer Martin Bresnick was born in New York City in 1946 and he is presently a professor of composition and the coordinator of the composition department at the Yale School of Music. He was educated at the High School of Music and Art, the University of Hartford (B.A. ’67), Stanford University (M.A. ’68, D.M.A ’72), and the Akademie für Musik, Vienna (’69-’70). His principal teachers of composition include György Ligeti, John Chowning, 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.
program note Heartbeat Without Rhythm I composed Heartbeat Without Rhythm for brass quintet in the spring of 2016. The piece explores the capabilities of the individual instruments while also attempting to build “super instruments” out of the entire ensemble. Although written in four movements, distinct melodic, harmonic, and motivic materials bind the work into a cohesive whole. —Hilary Purrington
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, Banff, Tanglewood, New Music America, and
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New Horizons. He has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts (1992), the Fromm Foundation (1995), Lincoln Center Chamber Players (1997), Meet-the-Composer (1998), and Chamber Music America (1999). He has received many prizes, including the Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (1996), the Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998), the ASCAP Foundation’s Aaron Copland Prize for teaching (2000), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003). 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. program note And I Always Thought (2012)
clarinetist Philip Arkinstall, violinist Monica Curro, and pianist Stefan Cassemenos. —Martin Bresnick biography Hannah Lash Hailed by The New York Times as “striking and resourceful … handsomely brooding,” Hannah Lash’s music has been commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, the Naumburg Foundation, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Colorado and Aspen Music Festivals, among many others. Lash has received numerous honors and prizes, including the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a Charles Ives Scholarship (2011) and Fellowship (2016) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fromm Foundation Commission, the Naumburg Prize in Composition, the Barnard Rogers Prize in Composition, and the Bernard and Rose Sernoffsky Prize in Composition, among others.
And I Always Thought is a musical trope Recent premieres include Three Shades based on two poems of Bertolt Brecht: “And Without Angles for flute, viola, and harp, I Always Thought” and “Legend of the by the Boston Symphony Chamber Unknown Soldier Beneath the Triumphal Players, Two Movements for violin and Arch.” Though this composition consists piano, commissioned by the Library of only of “poems without words,” it is the Congress for Ensemble Intercontemporain, hope of the composer that an attentive a new chamber opera, Beowulf, for Guerilla listener might sense and follow its lyric Opera, and new orchestral works for the trajectory. And I Always Thought was com- Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, missioned by and is dedicated to Plexus: the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and
Notes on the Program • Artist Profiles
the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as two concerti for harp premiered by the American Composers Orchestra and the Colorado Music Festival, both with Lash as soloist. In 2016, Lash was honored with a Composer Portraits Concert at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. In the 2016-2017 season, Lash’s major, large-scale orchestral work, The Voynich Symphony, will be premiered by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
biography Ani Kavafian, violin Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has performed with virtually all of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, and San Francisco symphony orchestras, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. A renowned chamber musician, she has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1979. Her numerous solo recital engagements include performances at New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully halls, as well as other major venues across the country.
Lash obtained her Ph.D. in composition from Harvard University in 2010. She has held teaching positions at Harvard University (teaching fellow), at Alfred University (guest professor of composition), and currently serves on the composition faculty at the Yale School of Music. Ani Kavafian serves as concertmaster of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has performed the Mozart violin program note concertos. She has participated in the Selections from Six Etudes and a Dream Heifetz International Music Institute, for piano (2015) Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfok Chamber Music Festival (Connecticut), Pianist Lisa Moore has an extraordinary Chamber Music Northwest Festival charisma and energy at her instrument, (Portland, Oregon), Great Lakes Festival, with a kind of musical laser focus that I the Bridgehampton Chamber Music find tremendously inspiring. I wanted to Festival, and Music from Angel Fire. write her a set of pieces that would play to her wonderful range and character as a Kavafian appears frequently with her performer. So I decided to write pieces in sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian. the spirit of etudes: each focuses on a She is a member of the Trio da Salò, with different type of playing or technique or violist Barbara Westphal and cellist Gustav pianistic color. These pieces are often play- Rivinius, and a member of the Triton Horn ful, energetic, and sometimes dark and Trio, with hornist William Purvis and piacontemplative. They reflect my deep admir- nist Mihae Lee. She has also teamed with ation for Lisa’s musicianship and playing. David Shifrin and pianist André-Michel — Hannah Lash Schub to form the Kavafian-Schub-Shifrin Trio. She is co-artistic director of the New Jersey chamber music series “Mostly Music.” Kavafian has premiered and recorded a number of works written for her, including
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Mr. Shifrin has appeared in critically acclaimed recitals around the world, including at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Ani Kavafian has received the Avery Fisher Carnegie Hall, and the 92nd Street Y in Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists New York City, the Library of Congress International Auditions award, has appear- in Washington, D.C., and throughout ed at the White House on three occasions, Germany. His recordings (on Delos, DGG, and has been featured on many network Angel/EMI, Arabesque, BMG, Sony, and and PBS television specials. Her recordings CRI) continue to garner praise as well as can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, awards, and he has received three Grammy Award nominations. Sought after as a chamColumbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. ber musician, he appears frequently with such distinguished artists as the Guarneri, Ani Kavafian is a professor of violin at Tokyo, and Emerson string quartets and the Yale School of Music. She plays the Wynton Marsalis. 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin. pieces by Henri Lazarof, Tod Machover, Michelle Ekizian, and Aaron Jay Kernis.
biography David Shifrin, clarinet One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974, clarinetist David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator.
Mr. Shifrin continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by championing the works of 20th- and 21stcentury American composers including, among others, John Adams, Joan Tower, Bruce Adolphe, Ezra Laderman, Lalo Schifrin, David Schiff, John Corigliano, Bright Sheng, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
An artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989, Mr. He has performed with numerous major Shifrin served as its artistic director from orchestras including the Dallas, Seattle, 1992 to 2004. Along with his work at Houston, Milwaukee, Detroit, Denver, CMSLC, Mr. Shifrin is also the artistic and Memphis symphonies, the Los Angeles director of Chamber Music Northwest in Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Portland, Oregon. David Shifrin has been and Minnesota orchestras. Internationally, a professor at the Yale School of Music since he has performed with orchestras in Italy, 1987. He has also served on the faculties Switzerland, Germany, and Taiwan. In of the Juilliard School, the University of addition, he has served as principal clarinet- Southern California, the University of ist with the American Symphony Orchestra Michigan, the Cleveland Institute of Music, (under Stokowski), the Cleveland Orchestra, and the University of Hawaii. Mr. Shifrin the Honolulu and Dallas symphonies, the has been on the Yale School of Music faculty Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the since 1987 and has been artistic director New York Chamber Symphony. of the Oneppo Chamber Music Series at Yale and Yale in New York since 2008.
Artist Profiles
biography 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 (on Cantaloupe, Orange Mountain Music, and Tall Poppies) of music that ranges from Leoš Janáçek to Philip Glass. Her latest solo disc, The Stone People (Cantaloupe), features the music of John Luther Adams, Martin Bresnick, Missy Mazzoli, Kate Moore, and Julia Wolfe. She has recorded more than thirty collaborative discs for the Sony, Nonesuch, DG, BMG, New World, Tall Poppies, ABC Classics, Albany, New Albion, Starkland, and Harmonia Mundi labels. Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians (Harmonia Mundi) recorded by Ensemble Signal recently made The New York Times’ “Best Classical Music Recording” list.
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 performances include 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 such venues as the Royal Albert Hall, La Scala, Carnegie Hall, and the Musikverein. As a featured soloist, Moore has performed concertos with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Albany, La Jolla, Sydney, Thai, Tasmania, and Canberra symphony orchestras, 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 Eastman and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from SUNY Stonybrook. She was an artistin-residence at the Banff Centre in January 2016. Moore teaches at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival New Music Workshop and is a regular guest artist at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. Lisa Moore is a Steinway artist.
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 for the electro-acoustic sextet the » www.lisamoore.org Bang On A Can All-Stars, winner of Musical America’s 2005 Ensemble of the Year Award. She has collaborated with composers ranging from Iannis Xenakis, Elliot
New Music New Haven Staff
Artistic Director Hannah Lash Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Assistant Manager Roberta Senatore Conducting Fellow David Yi Office Assistant Valery Sly Library Mariya-Andoniya Andonova Emily Brandenburg Sophie Cash-Goldwasser Antonia Chandler Allan Hon Bora Kim Laura Park Lauren Williams Stage Crew Lydia Consilvio Margaret Davis Thomas Duboski Reese Farnell Christopher Garwood Ashley Hale Nozomi Imamura Pall Quinn Kalmansson Matthew Keown Young Kyoung Lee Cheuk Yin Clement Luu Hillary Simms Andrew Stadler Sam Um Georgi Videnov
Upcoming Events 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 performance of Lash’s new song-cycle, 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 Sunday | 3 pm Tickets to this event are sold out. Watch a live stream of the performance on our website.
Fall Opera Scenes november 4–5
Yale Opera A variety of scenes from comic and tragic operas Doris Yarick Cross, artistic director Morse Recital Hall Friday & Saturday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $10 • Students $5
Lunchtime Chamber Music november 9
Wendy Sharp, director Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday| 12:30 pm free admission
Yale Percussion Group november 12
Yale School of Music Ensembles Works by faculty composers Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Hannah Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, and more; Robert van Sice, director Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 4 pm Tickets start at $10 • Students $5
Warren Lee november 15
YSM Special Events Guest pianist and Yale School of Music alumnus Warren Lee returns to New Haven days before appearing at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm free admission
concert programs & box office Kate Gonzales, Lauren Schiffer communications Donna Yoo, Katie Dune, David Brensilver operations Tara Deming, Chris Melillo piano curators Barbara Renner, Brian Daley, William Harold, Robert Crowson recording services Matthew LeFevre, Travis Wurges, Eugene Kimball
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If you do not intend to save your program, please recycle it in the baskets at the exit doors. Robert Blocker, Dean