New Music New Haven featuring Kate Soper, February 8, 2018

Robert Blocker, Dean

new music new haven

featuring music by

Kate Soper and works by Yale School of Music graduate-student composers

Hannah Lash, Artistic Director Thursday, February 8 • 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall

Yale School of Music

New Music New Haven February 8, 2018 • Morse Recital Hall

Alishan Gezgin b. 1994

Made of Dawn Bora Kim, violin Elizabeth Faure, electric guitar Addy Sterrett, soprano Alishan Gezgin, piano

Aaron Israel Levin b. 1995

Should Vanessa Haynes, piano

Kate Soper b. 1981

Into that World Inverted (2006, revised in 2010) Scott Leger, horn Gabriele Strata, piano “Cipher,” from IPSA DIXIT (2011) Kate Soper, soprano Joshua Modney, violin

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.

Artist Profiles • Notes on the Program biography Alishan Gezgin Alishan Gezgin is a composer living in New Haven, Connecticut. His projects include Nous, a multimedia cantata for soprano, string quartet, and electronics premiered inside James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” light installation in Houston, as well as a work for Thai traditional instruments at the Burapha International Music and Performing Arts Festival in Bangsaen, Thailand, where he was a composer-in-residence. He received a Bachelor of Music Degree in composition from Rice University and is currently pursuing an Master of Music Degree at the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Martin Bresnick, Hannah Lash, and Christopher Theofanidis. biography Aaron Israel Levin Aaron Israel Levin, is a composer whose music is guided by the emotional dynamism of storytelling and drama. He draws from a variety of musical and non-musical influences to create compositions that are both personal and wide-ranging.

Levin’s music has been performed by Fifth House Ensemble, members of Bent Frequency, Pavia Winds, Kayleigh Butcher, Sean Neukom, the Grinnell Symphony Orchestra, and others. Levin’s work, Once I Saw—a multi-dimensional chamber piece that draws from pop music and jazz—has been the recipient of several calls-for-scores across the country. Most recently, Levin was selected to compose a new work by the Iowa Composers Forum Commissioning

Project for mezzo-soprano Lisa Neher and pianist Gustavo do Carmo. Levin has also taken part in several collaborations, including working with choreographer Celeste Miller on Galileo’s Tears, a work that looks at the role of water in the modern world.

Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Levin received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in music from Grinnell College in Iowa where he studied composition with Eric McIntyre and John Rommereim. Through several music festivals, he has also studied with Donald Crockett, Joel Hoffman, Pierre Jalbert, David Ludwig, George Tsontakis, Clint Needham, Dan Visconti, Chen Yi, and others. Levin is currently pursuing his Master of Music Degree in composition at the Yale School of Music where his teachers have included Hannah Lash and Christopher Theofanidis. program note Should Some of my favorite pieces of music are the piano works of Romantic composers, who, with their lush sound, take complete advantage of everything the instrument has to offer. In this work, I draw from the highly resonant and expressive sonorities of that music and recontextualize it in my own way. The title, Should, refers to my attempts to take advantage of the piano’s endless possibilities, and the many “shoulds” that accompanied that process. I hope, though, that this piece can recall not only my personal “shoulds,” but the many “shoulds” that we all face throughout life.

– Aaron Israel Levin

Artist Profiles • Notes on the Program biography Kate Soper Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer whose work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. She has been hailed by The Boston Globe as “a composer of trenchant, sometimes discomfiting, power” and by The New Yorker for her “limpid, exacting vocalism, impetuous theatricality, and... mastery of modernist style.” A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Soper has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters (The Virgil Thomson and Goddard Lieberson awards and the Charles Ives Scholarship), the Koussevitzky Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund, the Music Theory Society of New York State, and ASCAP, and has been commissioned by ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Center/BUTI, the Mivos string quartet, and Yarn/Wire.

She has received residencies and fellowships from the Civitella Raineri Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Camargo Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Tanglewood, Royaumont, and Domaine Forget, among others.

Praised by the New York Times for her “lithe voice and riveting presence,” Soper performs frequently as a new music soprano. As a singer and performer with experience in Western classical and Indian Carnatic music, songwriting, improvisation, and experimental theatre,

she has sung in U.S. and world premieres of works by composers such as Peter Ablinger, Beat Furrer, George Lewis, Matthias Spahlinger, and Katharina Rosenberger, and has appeared with groups such as the Morningside Opera Company, the Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf, and the Dinosaur Annex Ensemble.

She performs regularly in her own works, and has been featured as a composer/ vocalist on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW series, the New York City-based MATA and SONiC festivals, the Lucerne Forum for New Music, Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York, the Sacramento Festival of New Music, and the American Composers Orchestra’s Orchestra Underground series.

Soper is a member of Wet Ink, a New Yorkbased new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries. She is the Iva Dee Hiatt Assistant Professor of Music at Smith College. program note Into that World Inverted (2006, revised in 2010) Into That World Inverted is a light exploration of the interiority of the instruments: sounds from the stopped horn versus the full, loud voice of that instrument (and the places in-between) as well as from the inside of the piano and the resonance of its strings. These sounds move between moments of propulsion/aggression and a more aimless introversion, seeking equilibrium. The title is taken from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Insomnia.”

—Kate Soper

Artist Profiles • Notes on the Program program note “Cipher,” from IPSA DIXIT (2011) “Cipher” wends its way along the slippery slopes where language and music and meaning collide, exposing the inherent ambiguity of musical temparament, ensemble hierarchy, and lyric comprehension via several centuries of linguistic investigations. Visual artist Jenny Holzer prepares a rationale; Ludwig Wittgenstein warns of conundrums; Renaissance humanist Pietro Bembo fêtes the phonemes; Sigmund Freud scrutinzes dream reality; and Jenny Holzer reappears with a moral that may not be as forthright as it seems: “people can understand you when you say something.” “Cipher” is dedicated to Josh Modney.

—Kate Soper

II.

Pietro Bembo featuring Michael Drayton

...it is this [‘A’] that sends out the most spirit, and so sends the most spirit up to the heavens.

We come last to ‘U,’ much more restricted, a pulling-out takes away from the mouth the dignified spirit...

Weak and slight and bent, and yet with a sweet spirit, next we come to ‘I,’ which is very gentle.

How good is the sounds of ‘O,’ which sends the spirit out with lips quite extended, it is round and sonorous as it exits.

—Pietro Bembo, from Prose della Volgar Lingua

text I.

Jenny Holzer featuring Ludwig Wittgenstein

“I came to language because I wanted to be explicit about things... and it became clear that the only way to do it was to use language. People can understand you when you say… something.”

—Jenny Holzer, interview in The Progressive, May 1993 So one and the same sign can be common to two different symbols.

In this way the most fundamental confusions are easily produced.

In order to recognize a symbol by its sign, we must observe how it is used with a sense.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein, from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

…while we are abroad, Shall we not touch our lyre?

Shall we not sing an ode? …Though in the utmost peak A while we do remain…

—Michael Drayton, from An Ode Written in the Peak III. Introducing Sigmund Freud (Spoken by soprano) The dream is not comparable to the irregular sounds of a musical instrument, which, instead of being played by the hand of a musician, is struck by some external force; the dream is not meaningless, not absurd, does not presuppose that one part of our store of ideas is dormant while another part begins to awake. It is a perfectly valid psychic phenomenon, actually a wish-fulfillment. It may be enrolled in

Artist Profiles • Notes on the Program the continuity of the intelligible psychic activities of the waking state... It is built up by a highly complicated intellectual activity. The first dream which we have considered was the fulfillment of a wish; another may turn out to be the realization of an apprehension; a third may have a reflection as its content... Are there, then, dreams other than wish- dreams; or are there none but wish- dreams?

(Spoken by violinist) If, in the evening, I eat anchovies, olives, or other strongly salted foods, I am thirsty at night, and therefore I wake. The waking, however, is preceded by a dream... namely, that I am drinking... And then I wake, and find that I have an actual desire to drink.

Even if we conclude that every dream has a meaning and psychic value, we must nevertheless allow for the possibility that this meaning may not be the same in every dream. The first dream which we have considered was the fulfillment of a wish; if the dream, as this theory defines it, represents a fulfilled wish, what is the cause of the striking and unfamiliar manner in which this fulfillment is expressed?

—Sigmund Freud, from The Interpretation of Dreams IV. Guido d’Arezzo presents Sarah

Teasdale (featuring Jenny Holzer) Since all that can be said can be written, and all that can be sung can be written, therefore all that can be sung can be spoken.

—Guido d’Arezzo, from Micrologus I am the still rain falling…

I am the brown bird pining…

—Sarah Teasdale, from Moods

“I came to language because I wanted to be explicit about things… and it became clear that the only way to do it was to use language. People can understand you when you say… something.”

—Jenny Holzer, interview in The Progressive, May 1993 biography Joshua Modney, violin Joshua Modney is a violinist devoted to creative music-making. A “new-music luminary”, “superb violinist” (The New York Times) and “multitasking virtuoso” (The New Yorker) hailed for “brash, energetic performances” (The New York Times), Josh has performed at festivals and concert series across four continents and presented hundreds of premieres.

As violinist and Executive Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Josh has collaborated closely on new work with composers including Kate Soper, Alex Mincek, Eric Wubbels, Andrew Greenwald and Rick Burkhardt, and worked with major figures including Kaija Saariaho, Mathias Spahlinger, Helmut Lachenmann, George Lewis, Christian Wolff, and Peter Ablinger. Josh performed internationally with the Mivos Quartet for 8 years, a vital new-music string quartet that he co-founded in 2008.

As an improviser, Josh has performed with artists including Sam Pluta, Nate Wooley and Patrick Higgins (ZS), and recently recorded Engage, his debut album of original music for solo violin. Josh’s critically-acclaimed release of improvised chamber music for violin and guitar on

Artist Profiles • New music new haven staff NNA tapes, EVRLY MVSIC (with Patrick Higgins) was praised for its “Baroque grandiosity… with a modern tension and heaviness… that resonate with the times we live in” (BBC Radio) and “clairvoyant connection and sheer instrumental prowess” (The Quietus).

Josh has a passion for large-scale performance projects, and has presented eveninglength chamber works including Mathias Spahlinger’s extension, for violin and piano (with Wet Ink’s Eric Wubbels) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Musik für Drei Streicher (with ICE), as well as adventurous interpretations of J.S. Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin informed by his work with Just Intonation. Josh has recorded for Carrier Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Sound American Publications, hat[now] ART, Nonesuch, Ex Cathedra, and Tzadik Records.

Artistic Director Hannah Lash Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Music Librarian Samuel Bobinski Conducting Fellow David Yi Philharmonia Office Assistant Kristy Tucker Library Antonia Chandler Bora Kim Marta Lambert Gregory Lewis Laura Park Lauren Williams Leonardo Ziproyn Stage Crew Jisu Jung Matt Keown YoungKyong Lee Aaron Israel Levin Gabriel Mairson Dmitrii Nilov Lucas Oliveira Tanner Porter Hillary Simms Sam Seyong Um Daniel Vaitkus Rimbo Wong

Upcoming Events Marc-André Hamelin, piano february 14 Horowitz Piano Series Guest artist Marc-André Hamelin, of whom The New York Times has asked, rhetorically, “Is it possible for a pianist to be too good?” performs an eclectic program that includes Debussy’s Images, Book I, music by Liszt, and more.

Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $21 • Students $11 The Magic Flute february 16-18 Yale Opera The Yale Opera presents an innovative new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute that tells us to question truth, find love, and be human.

Yale School of Drama alumnus Dustin Wills directs the cast and Israel Gursky conducts the Yale Philharmonia in this timeless tale of a hero’s journey to enlightenment.

Shubert Theatre | Friday & Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2 pm Tickets from $19, Students $14 Visit shubert.com or call (203) 562-5666

Philharmonia in Sprague february 23 Yale Philharmonia Conducting fellow David Yi leads the Yale Philharmonia in a program that includes Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19, with Szymon Nehring ’19AD; Wieniawski’s Légende, Op. 17, and Ravel’s Tzigane, M. 76, with violinist Sirena Huang ’19AD; and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61.

Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $10 • Yale Faculty/Staff $8 Students $5 Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio february 27 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Pianist Gloria Chien, violinist Soovin Kim, and cellist Paul Watkins, each of whom enjoys a distinguished career in other contexts, come together in a new trio to perform Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 70, No. 2; Pierre Jalbert’s Piano Trio No. 2 (2014); and Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87.

Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $26 • Students $13

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Robert Blocker, Dean