New Music for Orchestra, Dec 6, 2018

Robert Blocker, Dean

NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN Hannah Lash, Artistic Director

Featuring music by Yale School of Music graduate-student composers with the Yale Philharmonia Julian Pellicano, guest conductor Thursday, December 6, 2018 | 7:30 pm | Woolsey Hall

Aaron Israel Levin b. 1995

In Between

Nate May b. 1987

Plastic Action

Grant Luhmann b. 1994

Et Bliev Nix...

Francis Pollock b. 1990

“In Twenty Minutes” from This American Life Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano

intermission

Pollock

“Hollow Bones” from This American Life Edwin Joseph, baritone

Ryan Lindveit b. 1994

Pray Away

Anteo Fabris b. 1991

Contrapasso

Tanner Porter b. 1994

Here Comes the Rain

Artist Profiles Julian Pellicano, conductor

Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano

A musician with wide-ranging musical interests, conductor Julian Pellicano has made his mark with a multifaceted approach to programming and performing, engaging audiences in a diverse mélange of concerts and genres. Dedicated to invigorating performances of the traditional and contemporary symphonic repertoire, Pellicano’s range has extended to films live with orchestra, classical and modern ballet, collaborations with composers, opera, pops, musical theater, multimedia productions, workshops, as well as carefully programmed concerts for young listeners.

The Winnipeg Free Press says of Pellicano, “His versatility is truly astonishing…”

Mezzo-soprano Janna Baty enjoys an exceptionally versatile career. She has sung with many of the world’s most celebrated ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Daejeon Philharmonic, Hamburgische Staatsoper, L’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under the batons of James Levine, Seiji Ozawa, and Robert Spano, among numerous others. A noted specialist in contemporary music, Baty has worked with many influential composers. She is an alumna of Oberlin College and the Yale School of Music. She joined the Yale School of Music faculty in 2008.

The 2018–2019 season includes exciting debut performances with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, as well as a return to conduct two productions with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. This year also marks Pellicano’s sixth season as Resident Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra with concerts on the WSO’s Masterworks Series in addition to leading a multitude of performances throughout the season on the WSO’s Pops, Movie, Kids, Specials, and Education series. He studied conducting on fellowship at the Yale School of Music, where he was also a member of the critically acclaimed Yale Percussion Group.

Yale Philharmonia The Yale Philharmonia is one of America’s foremost music-school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire.

Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in the Shubert Theatre.

The Yale Philharmonia has also performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Composer Profiles Aaron Israel Levin ’19 MM Student of Martin Bresnick, Hannah Lash, and Christopher Theofanidis aaronisraellevin.weebly.com Nate May ’23 DMA Student of Aaron Jay Kernis, David Lang, and Christopher Theofanidis natemaymusic.com Grant Luhmann ’19 MM Student of Martin Bresnick grantluhmann.com Frances Pollock ’19 MM Student of Christopher Theofanidis francespollock.com Ryan Lindveit ’19 MM Student of Christopher Theofanidis and Aaron Jay Kernis lindveit.com Anteo Fabris ’19 MM Student of Hannah Lash and Aaron Jay Kernis anteofabris.com Tanner Porter ’19 MM Student of Hannah Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, and Aaron Jay Kernis tannerporter.com

Program Notes Aaron Levin In this work, simple musical gestures become grandiose, even rhapsodic characters. Sometimes in conflict with each other, these characters frequently collide, disagree, or merge. More often than not, though, they simply find themselves in between one another.

Nate May This piece lives in a world where things flutter, rumble, tumble, clank, crank, and shimmer. Gravity is always at play, but doesn’t always win out. As objects transform, gaining or losing mass, the forces on them strengthen or weaken. Yet these fantastical laws of physics have an information-age alteration: time is plastic, stretched and snipped in ways that feel out of control.

Grant Luhmann “Et bliev nix wie et wor” comes from the Kölsches Grundgesetz, a set of life guidelines originating from Cologne in Germany.

Taken literally, it translates as “Nothing remains as it was.” Et Bliev Nix… takes this idea as a starting point, relying heavily on elements borrowed from musical history refracted through a 21st-century prism.

In the first movement, a continuo section consisting of the harp, percussion, and celesta guides the orchestra through a series of chords with an almost-repeating bass line. The orchestration takes some cues

Program Notes cont. from electronic music; orchestrated reverb, delays, and spectral effects add a digital aura to the antique elements.

The second movement is more contrapuntal.

New entrances continually tread on the toes of earlier lines, launching a process of contrapuntal buildup. The music tries on and quickly discards a series of historical guises: Baroque ornamentation, Galant melodic simplicity, quickly-sinking islands of tonality, and even moments of Straussian romantic excess. The core musical material remains relatively unchanged throughout all of these mutations until the density of counterpoint reaches a critical mass. At this point, individual voices are lost to an overall mass of sound.

In difficult times, cultures often look to the past for guidance. But where do we look when part of the sickness in our society originates from fetishization of the values espoused by past generations? Et Bliev Nix does not provide answers to this question so much as it musically catalogues the process of looking at, wondering about, and obsessing over it.

In Twenty Minutes Text by Emily Roller and Frances Pollock There’s only twenty minutes ’til Will comes home Twenty minutes before…

Twenty minutes to spritz and comb And finish every chore.

The drawers are ordered, The windows wiped.

I’ve swept and I’ve scrubbed the floor.

The kids are bathed And their homework’s typed And laundry’s been conquered once more.

And in twenty minutes, when Will comes home, I’ll greet him at the door With a smile and a drink and a kiss and a (wink) And he’ll know what I have in store For twenty years, twice a month He swears he won’t be late Because for twenty years, twice a month I have a special date.

Because I, I get to go to bookclub I get to go to bookclub I get to get out of the house and go to bookclub

Frances Pollock This American Life is a suite of six character studies for voice and orchestra. “In Twenty Minutes” follows a restless midwestern housewife on a special Tuesday night.

“Hollow Bones” sits with a man waiting for a visit from his son and grandson on a non-special late afternoon.

I’ll do a happy dance, Put on my yoga pants, And pile my hair on top of my head And as the wine decants, We’ll discuss Rosencrantz And how the canon is old, white, and dead.

At my bi-weekly ladies bookclub

I cannot lie, I’m simply dying for bookclub

Oh dear, I’m worked up in a state And Will is really pretty great,

We’ve got this book today That’s by Colette (who’s gay!)

But that’s okay, ‘cause that’s the way Of the French

But he will not make me wait for…

(Will) Hi, honey! I’m home!

Bye Will, don’t wait up.

Then on to Cabernet And Fifty Shades of Gray We southern ladies have a thirst, We must quench At my, Intoxicating bookclub How time flies When I’m debating at bookclub.

We’ll have Bacardi, Monroe, Walker, Merlot,

Hollow Bones Text by Laura Barati My youngest visits every afternoon.

I had my children at all the wrong times.

My grandson tells me that birds have hollow bones.

That’s what allows them to fly.

I wish my bones were hollow, not sharp— Poking through my skin, the muscle worn thin.

You know Bronte thought Austin a prude?

My grandson tells me that birds have hollow bones, That’s what allows them to fly.

I wish my bones were hollow, not sharp— I have never felt so heavy and so light But if my bones were hollow, I’d start another day and Yeah, yeah, y’all the beer— Fly. But it’s always been clear, Through the park, Though I fear that this won’t come out right Fly. Over seas, See I love my boys dearly, Fly. My husband sincerely, Through the days and cross continents.

But I severely crave Atwood tonight!

Fly. And Sappho Fo’ Sho’!

Oh the places we’ll go As we through back this batch that Beth brewed.

(Praise be!)

My youngest visits every afternoon.

At my exuberayting—oh, I cannot lie, I’m simply dying for…

Program Notes cont.

Ryan Lindveit Pray Away is about unpeeling layers of personal shame to find authenticity.

The piece is a set of variations on a chaconne — a series of eight chords — that periodically gets stuck and pursues tangential fascinations before eventually cycling back to where it began. The idea of self-invention as inherently self-reinvention, articulated by Didier Eribon in his memoir Returning to Reims, was particularly inspiring: “Our past is still there in the present. So we remake ourselves, we recreate ourselves (a task that is never finished, always needing to be taken up again), but we do not make ourselves, we do not create ourselves.”

Anteo Fabris Through streams of automated data expressed inversely and with intentional contradictions, Fabris explores punishment in contrast to sin and, inevitably, the distance between subject and creator.

Tanner Porter Here Comes the Rain is based on a short poem of Tanner’s by the same title.

Here comes the rain, clarion, craving the taste of that weight you’ve been carrying

Yale Philharmonia Peter Oundjian, principal conductor VIOLIN I Brandon Garbot Nuri Lim Kate Arndt Jisun Lee Matthew Woodard Yebeen Seo Ariel Horowitz Jung Eun Kang Dustin Wilkes-Kim Xiaoxuan Shi Cheuk Ching Tse Yoon Be Kim

Bass Ross Wrightman Samuel Zagnit Ying-Yin Chia Eric Timperman

Violin II Jessy Kim Yintong Liu Emily Switzer Kyungah Oh Ye Jin Yoon Pei Wen Liao Xiaofan Liu Lauren Bennett Jessie Chen James Poe Viola Alex McLaughlin Bethany Hargreaves Arjun Ganguly Rubina Lee Marta Lambert Minji Kim Marlea Simpson Minkyoung Lee Cello Anita Balazs Ha Eun Song Guilherme Nardelli-Monegatto Megan Yip Josephina Kim Hongli Diao Sophie Yu Bo Bae Lee

Timpani Arlo Shultis

Flute Brendan Dooley Hannah Creswell

Percussion Russell Fisher Shiqi Zhong Kevin Zetina Jisu Jung YoungKyoung Lee

Oboe Noah Kay Lauren White

Harp Héloïse Carlean Jones Anna Ellsworth

Clarinet Amy Hur Juan Martinez

piano & celesta Vanessa Haynes

Bassoon Kristy Tucker Philip McNaughton Horn Griffin Botts Scott Leger Nivanthi Karunaratne Gabriel Mairson Trumpet Oscar Mason Kenny Chauby Brian Jose Garcia Chloe Swindler trombone Danny Alford Lyman McBride bass trombone Daniel Vaitkus tuba Aidan Zimmerman

Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Assistant Manager/Librarian Samuel Bobinski philharmonia office assistant Kristy Tucker Stage Crew Héloïse Carlean-Jones Cameron Daly Jisu Jung YoungKyoung Lee Gabriel Mairson Lucas Oliveira Arlo Shultis Andrew Sledge Russel Thompson Daniel Vaitkus Rimbo Wong Aidan Zimmerman Music Librarians Antonia Chandler Brandon Garbot Bora Kim Marta Lambert Gregory Lewis Alex McLaughlin Leonardo Ziporyn

Upcoming Events dec 8 Yale Percussion Group

YSM Ensembles 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 12

Lunchtime Chamber Music 12:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall Free

dec 12 Guitar Chamber Music

YSM Ensembles 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free

jan 18 Peter Oundjian, principal conductor Yale Philharmonia

The Yale Philharmonia performs Shostakovich Symphony No. 11, an arresting musical portrait of resistance.

7:30 p.m. | Woolsey Hall Tickets start at $12, Yale faculty/ staff/ students $5

dec 13 Clarinet Studio Recital

YSM Ensembles 4:30 p.m. | Sudler Recital Hall

Free dec 13 Ettore Causa, viola, with Boris Berman, piano

Faculty Artist Series 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

free dec 17 Bassoonarama

YSM Ensembles 7:30 p.m. | Sudler Recital Hall

Free

jan 16 Peter Serkin, piano

Horowitz Piano Series Visiting professor of piano Peter Serkin performs Bach’s enduring “Goldberg” Variations and works

by Mozart.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $28, students $11

jan 25 The Pat Martino Quintet Ellington Jazz Series

Guitarist Pat Martino’s playing is at once intellectual and spiritual and marked by a sublime viruosity.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $22, students $10

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