Yale Baroque Ensemble

Yale Baroque Ensemble Stylus Fantasticus New music from the seventeenth century robert mealy Director music of Gabrieli Castello Uccellini Buonamente Biber Schmelzer Purcell

Robert Blocker, Dean

november 10, 2009 ¡ 8 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Yale Baroque Ensemble Benjamin Charmot & Katherine Hyun, baroque violin Daniel S. Lee, baroque violin & viola Laura Usiskin, baroque cello Avi Stein, harpsichord

Giovanni Gabrieli c. 1554—1612

Sonata XXI con 3 violini from Canzoni e sonate (1615)

Dario Castello fl. early 17th c.

Sonata duodecima a 3 from Sonate concertate in stil moderno, libro secondo (1644)

Marco Uccellini c. 1603-1680

Sonata duodecima a 3 violini from Sonate sinfonie in stil moderno, libro secondo (1639)

Dario Castello

Sonata prima a sopran solo from Sonate concertate, libro secondo (1644)

Dario Castello

Sonata decima sesta a 4, per stromenti d'arco from Sonate concertante, libro secondo (1644) intermission

As a courtesy to the performers and audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.

Stylus Fantasticus

New music from the seventeenth century Robert Mealy, director

Giovanni Battista Buonamente c. 1595-1642

Sonata a 3 violini from Sonate, et Canzoni, libro sesto (1636)

Dario Castello

Sonata undecima a 3 from Sonate concertante, libro primo (1629)

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber 1644-1704

Sonata No. 5 in E minor from Sonatae violono solo (1681)

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer c. 1620-1680

Sonata a tre violini

Heinrich von Biber

Sonata No. 3 in F major from Sonatae violono solo

Henry Purcell 1659-1695

Three parts upon a Ground, Z731

program notes

The second half of tonight’s program moves to the later seventeenth century, as the music of these Italian pioneers found its way over the Alps. By the 1680s, virtuosos like Biber and Schmelzer were creating the very First Viennese School with their imaginative works. Biber’s solo sonatas, in particular, take virtuosity to a Our program moves from the pioneering three- new extreme, investigating the full range of violin sonata of Gabrieli, with its antiphonal the Baroque fingerboard with unexpected and echoing of phrases, to the extravagant inven- memorable turns of phrase. tions of Dario Castello, a composer about whom we know nothing except his two striking col- Our program closes with one of the greatest lections of sonatas written “in stile moderno.” masterpieces for three violins, Purcell’s elaborate These early sonatas invent their form as they go ground, in which all kinds of contrapuntal along, creating musical conversations where tricks are introduced (and labeled in the parts!) various points are taken up, argued, interrupted, to produce a brilliant entertainment. abandoned.

Tonight’s program celebrates the remarkable birth of idiomatic violin music in the seventeenth century. Italy in the early 1600s witnessed an explosion of virtuosic nuove musiche composed for one, two, and three violins, sometimes including elaborate obbligato bass lines as well.

yale baroque ensemble Robert Mealy, director

In New York he is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, ARTEK, Early Music New York, and the Clarion Society. He also leads the distinguished Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and has appeared as guest concertmaster and director with the Phoenix String players in the Ensemble go through an Symphony. A devoted chamber musician, he is intensive one-year program of study, immersing a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune’s themselves in the chamber and solo repertoire Wheel, the Renaissance violin band The King’s from 1600 to 1785. The program is designed Noyse, and the seventeenth-century ensemble for modern players to develop virtuosity and Quicksilver. fluency in various historical styles, and to allow the participants to find their own eloquent voice Since 2002, he has performed frequently at Yale on baroque instruments. Through coachings as director of the Yale Collegium Musicum and individual lessons, the participants learn players, and received Early Music America’s to read early notation, develop a familiarity Binkley Award for outstanding teaching at Yale with primary source material and treatises, and and Harvard in 2004. He joined the Yale School become fluent with improvisation in various of Music faculty in 2008. styles. The ensemble prepares and performs a series of concerts together during the year.

The Yale Baroque Ensemble, directed by Robert Mealy, is a new postgraduate trio sonata ensemble of two violins, cello, and keyboard dedicated to the highest level of study and performance of the Baroque repertoire.

Tonight's concert is not only the debut of this year's ensemble, but also marks the first appearance of Yale's new set of baroque instruments

by Jason Viseltear of New York City, recently acquired by the Collection of Musical Instruments.

Robert Mealy is one of America’s leading historical string players. He has been praised by the Boston Globe for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring,” and the New Yorker called him “a world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded over 50 CDs on most major labels, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia and Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata to Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants.

artist profiles

Violinist Katie Hyun received her Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, studying with Ani Kavafian. She received her master’s degree from the State University of New York in Stony Brook, where she studied with Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, and Philip Setzer, and her bachelor’s degree under Aaron Rosand and Pamela Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music. Katie has performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Soloists Orchestra in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Up Close and Musical. Winner of the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert M. Greenfield Student Competition, she has also won the Stony Brook Concerto Competition, Aspen Academy Orchestra Concerto Competition, Music Academy of the West Concerto Competition, Concerto Soloists Young Artists Competition, the gold medal in the Houston Avi is currently finishing his doctoral studies in Symphony League Competition, and the organ and harpsichord at Indiana University. Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra Concerto He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Competition. Katie has appeared on the Music and the University of Southern California television program Good Morning Texas and and is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion. She collaborated with bassist Edgar Meyer at the for study in Toulouse.

Laguna Beach Chamber Music Festival and participated in his Carnegie Hall Workshop. She has attended Encore School for Strings, Kneisel Hall, Music Academy of the West, Aspen, Taos Festival of Music, Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn, and Masterclass at Apeldoorn.

Avi Stein teaches harpsichord, vocal repertoire, and chamber music at Yale University and is the music director at St. Matthew & St. Timothy Episcopal Church in New York. The New York Times described him as “a brilliant organ soloist” in his Carnegie Hall debut. Avi has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Central America. He is an active continuo accompanist who has played with many ensembles such as the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, the Baroque Orchestras of Los Angeles, Seattle, and Indianapolis, and the Warsaw, Toulouse, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras. He has also conducted a variety of ensembles, including the recent debut of the OperaOmnia company in a production of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea and a series called the 4x4 Festival featuring many of New York’s best baroque musicians.

Daniel S. Lee performs as a violinist, violist, and conductor in period and conventional performances in repertoire ranging from the 12th to 21st centuries. Following his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 as a soloist with Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, he has appeared as a recitalist, chamber musician, and guest concertmaster throughout the New York Tri-State area. From the podium, he has worked with instrumentalists and singers, as well as dancers as the music director of the Albano Ballet, and has been the artistic director of the Sebastian Chamber Players and the choir director of the New Haven Korean Church. He has received his degrees from the Juilliard School and Yale University studying with Stephen Clapp, Ani Kavafian, and Jesse Levine. He is currently a graduate teaching assistant at University of Connecticut, where he is pursuing his doctoral studies as a student of Theodore Arm, and a visiting fellow in early music at the Yale School of Music under the guidance of Robert Mealy. Âť www.danielslee.com

Laura Usiskin’s musical interests are diverse, spanning early to contemporary music and solo to orchestral playing. Since coming to Yale, she has participated in many early music productions and ensembles, including Collegium Musicum, the New Haven Oratorio Choir and Orchestra, and the Yale gamba consort Temperaments. In June she gave her premiere performance of the Bach unaccompanied cello suites. Miss Usiskin is also a lover of chamber music, with performances in such New York venues as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, BargeMusic, Steinway Hall, and many others. Her leadership and orchestral abilities have been recognized throughout her career, notably as sitting principal cellist on Juilliard’s 2006 USA orchestra tour. She is also a member of the New Haven Symphony.

In May, Miss Usiskin finished her doctoral coursework at the Yale School of Music. She graduated cum laude from Columbia in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and Behavior and from Juilliard in 2006 with a Master of Music. Her cello studies began at age five with Gilda Barston of the Music Institute of Chicago and continued with Richard Hirschl of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Wendy Sutter of the Bang-on-a-Can All-stars, Fred Sherry of the Juilliard School, and Aldo Parisot of Yale University.

upcoming

http://music.yale.edu box office 203 432-4158 concerts & media Vincent Oneppo Dana Astmann Monica Ong Reed Danielle Heller Elizabeth Martignetti operations Tara Deming Christopher Melillo piano curators Brian Daley William Harold recording studio Eugene Kimball Jason Robins

November 11 lunchtime chamber music Sprague Hall | Wed | 12:30 pm Music by Brahms, Piazzolla, Ravel, and Schumann.

November 11 alfred brendel Sprague Hall | Wed | 8 pm The Horowitz Piano Series presents On Character in Music, a lecture on the perception of character and atmosphere in music by the renowned pianist Alfred Brendel. With musical examples performed from the piano.

Tickets $11-20 | Students $6

November 12 alfred brendel Sprague Hall | Thu | 10:30 am A master class with the eminent pianist.

Tickets $8 | Students free

November 13 yale voxtet Morse Recital Hall | Fri | 8 pm Art songs by Zelter, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Strauss and Reger, performed by voice students of the Institute of Sacred Music. James Taylor, adviser.

Robert Blocker, Dean