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2009 Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival
Inspiration: What Sparks the Imagination

April 6

Cindy McTee	Capriccio per Krzysztof Penderecki	Gary Levinson, violin
Victoria Bond	Oracle (World Premiere)	Gary Levinson, violin
Victoria Bond	Woven	Gary Levinson, violin; Karen Bentley Pollick, viola
Greg Sandow	Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano	Charles Neidich, clarinet; Jenny Lin, piano
Greg Sandow	Short Talks	Jenny Lin, piano & drum
Bruce Adolphe	The Tiger's Ear: Listening to Abstract Expressionist Paintings	Tara O'Connor, flute; Stephen Taylor, oboe; Curtis Macomber, violin; Misha Amory, viola; Michael Kannen, cello; Marija Stroke, piano

PROGRAM NOTES

Capriccio per Krzysztof Penderecki was written in 1993 for Krzysztof Penderecki in celebration of his inspired music, his dedicated teaching, and his 60th birthday. German violinist, Christiane Edinger, gave the work its première in Krakow, Poland in January of 1994.

Capriccio may be heard as a character sketch, mixing spirited determination with humor and playfulness, aspects of Penderecki's personality I most admire. I chose to write for violin because the instrument is one of Mr. Penderecki's favorites and because he himself was a violinist. Also, I gave the work a title similar to the first Penderecki piece I studied years ago, a composition for solo cello entitled, Capriccio per Siegfried Palm. (Cindy McTee)

Oracles are common to many civilizations. The Chinese I Ching, or "Book of Changes" is a collection of linear signs used as oracles. In India, the oracle was known as Akashwani, literally meaning "voice from the sky" and was related to the message of God. In Nigeria, oracles were usually female priestesses living in a cave or secluded location who would deliver prophecies in an ecstatic state to visitors seeking advice. In Tibet, the word oracle refers to the spirit that enters those who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms. The earliest known oracle was in the temple of Per-Wadjet, an important site in ancient Egypt that may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to ancient Greece. The Delphic Oracle was associated with the goddess of nature and fertility. She was renowned for giving prophesies which were often misinterpreted.

I am fascinated with the multiple meanings that people interpreted from the oracle's prophesies, and in my composition for solo violin, the player alternates between an ambiguous opening phrase and sudden outbursts of fury. If there is a prediction in these shifting messages, it is left to the hearer to interpret. (Victoria Bond)

Jack Larsen's luscious fabric designs are the inspiration for Woven. Rather than trying to translate one art form into another, I have applied the principle of interwoven strands of colored thread to interwoven musical lines. Texture, color and design are the governing elements. Each short movement explores one combination. The work opens with Spinning, in which the motion of the loom becomes the rhythm, while the two intertwining lines exchange musical phrases, spinning around each other. The second movement, Knotted, focuses on both lines in close proximity, "rubbing" against one another in dissonant clusters. Open Weave, the third movement explores the opposite extreme, with the lines separated and spaced wide apart. Tapestry combines disparate elements, such as transparent and opaque, smooth and prickly, pale and bright, coarse and fine, elastic and brittle. (Victoria Bond)

In Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano, I've combined a sonata-form movement in the piano with a scherzo in the clarinet. The scherzo, too, has repeated sections, which have to play against a constantly unfolding landscape in the sonata. Clarinet and piano each play their own passacaglia, the piano working fairly strictly with a constant bass line, the clarinet more freely varying the contour of its opening phrase. Then, in the final movement, the two instruments come together-but tumultuously, playing wildly tricky rhythms absolutely in unison at breakneck speed.

It's crazy music, maybe. Intricate, very hard to play, lasting barely five minutes-even though it's tonal, I think it shows my debt to Webern, and my eager love for all his intricate, short pieces. But I don't want to give the wrong idea. Whatever complexities exist inside it, this sonatina isn't hard to listen to. In fact, it's very catchy, with almost gushy lyrical outbursts in the second movement. And even the complexities create some really playful moments. Toward the end of the first movement, just for instance, you can hear the piano winding down, while the clarinet-playing the last of its scherzo repeats-keeps dancing onward, showing not the slightest sign of coming to a stop until it plays its final note. (Greg Sandow)

Short Talks
Short Talk On Gertrude Stein About 9:30
How curious. I had no idea! Today has ended.

Short Talk On Defloration
The actions of life are not so many. To go in, to go, to go in secret, to cross the Bridge of Sighs. And when you dishonored me, I saw that dishonor is an action. It happened in Venice; it causes the vocal cords to swell. I went booming through Venice, under and over the bridges, but you were gone. Later that day I telephoned your brother. What's wrong with your voice? he said.

Short Talk On Ovid
I see him there on a night like this but cool, the moon blowing through black streets. He sups and walks back to his room. The radio is on the floor. Its luminous green dial blares softly. He sits down at the table; people in exile write so many letters. Now Ovid is weeping. Each night about this time he puts on sadness like a garment and goes on writing. In his spare time he is teaching himself the local language (Getic) in order to compose in it an epic poem no one will ever read.

Short Talk On Rain
It was blacker than olives the night I left. As I ran past the palaces, oddly joyful, it began to rain. What a notion it is, after all -- these small shapes! I would get lost counting them. Who first thought of it? How did he describe it to the others? Out on the sea it is raining too. It beats on no one.

Short Talk On Rectification
Kafka liked to have his watch an hour and a half fast. Felice kept setting it right. Nonetheless for five years they almost married. He made a list of arguments for and against marriage, including inability to bear the assault of his own life (for) and the sight of the nightshirts laid out on his parents' beds at 10:30 (against). Hemorrhage saved him. When advised not to speak by doctors in the sanatorium, he left glass sentences all over the floor. Felice, says one of them, had too much nakedness left in her. (Greg Sandow)

Poetry copyright 1995 by Anne Carson. Used by permission of the poet.

Commissioned by Armstrong Chamber Concerts, The Tiger's Ear: Listening to Abstract Expressionist Paintings reacts to the energy, color, texture, and form of an abstract painting. The six movements are based on the following six painters: Jackson Pollack; Barnett Newman; Clyfford Still; Mark Rothko; Philip Guston; Willem de Kooning. (Bruce Adolphe)

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Bruce Adolphe has composed music for many renowned musicians and ensembles, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Sylvia McNair, the Brentano String Quartet, the Beaux Arts Trio, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He is resident lecturer and director of family concerts for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; keyboard quiz-master on American Public Media's Piano Puzzler, featured weekly in over 200 cities as part of Performance Today; and founder and creative director of The Learning Maestros education company. The author of three books on music, Adolphe has taught at Yale, Juilliard, and New York University, and in 2008 he was appointed composer-in-residence at the Brain and Creativity Institute in Los Angeles.

Greg Sandow was best known for many years as a music critic, one of the few with a national reputation for writing about both classical music and pop. But in recent years he's revived a composing career that he abandoned in the 1980s, and spends much of his time speaking and writing about the future of classical music. He explores that topic in an influential blog (www.artsjournal.com/sandow) and in an in-progress book. He's a member of the Graduate Studies faculty at Juilliard, where he teaches graduate courses on music criticism and on the future of classical music. For the past three years, he's also taught his future of classical music course at Eastman. He was chief pop critic of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and both music critic and senior music editor at Entertainment Weekly. His music has been played by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Fine Arts Quartet, St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and the South Dakota Symphony.

Cindy McTee has received two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Composers Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Ensembles that have performed her music are: the Pacific Symphony, the North Texas and Dallas Wind Symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the United States Army Field Band, and the symphony orchestras of Colorado, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, Rochester, Saint Louis, San Antonio, Seattle, and Sydney. She has taught at the University of North Texas since 1984.

Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Audubon String Quartet. The first woman awarded a doctorate in conducting from The Juilliard School, Bond was appointed by Andre Previn as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China and served as Music Director and Conductor of the Roanoke and New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestras, Opera Roanoke, Bel Canto Opera, Harrisburg Opera, and as Music Advisor of the Wuhan Symphony in China. Victoria Bond has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and on NBC's Today Show, featured in People Magazine and in The New York Times.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble and is a member of the virtuoso woodwind quintet, Windscape. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, she is an artist member for the 2008-2009 season of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Tara performs regularly with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire and Spoleto USA and she received two Grammy nominations in 2003 for Osvaldo Golijov's Yiddishbbuk. Tara is professor of flute and chair of the wind department at Purchase College Conservatory of Music and is on faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan School of Music.

Oboist Stephen Taylor holds the Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III solo oboe chair with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He is also solo oboe with the New York Woodwind Quintet, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble (where he is co-director of chamber music), the American Composers Orchestra, the New England Bach Festival Orchestra, the renowned contemporary music group Speculum Musicae, and plays as co-principal oboe with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Trained at the Juilliard School with teachers Lois Wann and Robert Bloom, Mr. Taylor is a member of its faculty as well as of the Yale School of Music, Purchase College Conservatory, and the Manhattan School of Music.

Violinist Curtis Macomber, a member of the New World String Quartet, has performed in virtually all the important concert series in the United States, as well as touring abroad. He is the violinist of Speculum Musicae and a founding member of the Apollo Trio, with a series of acclaimed recordings. He is a member of the chamber music faculty of the Juilliard School, where he studied with Joseph Fuchs. He is also on the violin faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, and has taught at the Tanglewood, Taos and Yellow Barn Music Festivals.

Since winning the 1991 Naumburg Viola Award, Misha Amory has been active as a soloist and chamber musician. He has been invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Festival, the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Amory holds degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School; his principal teachers were Heidi Castleman, Caroline Levine and Samuel Rhodes. Himself a dedicated teacher, Mr. Amory serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City.

Cellist Michael Kannen was a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, with whom he performed throughout the world and on radio, television and recordings. He continues to perform chamber music in major venues and festivals throughout the United States. In addition, he is dedicated to the performance of contemporary music and old music on period instruments. He is currently a member of the Apollo Trio and is the Director of Chamber Music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he holds the Sydney Friedberg Chair in Chamber Music.

Pianist Marija Stroke, a chamber musician and soloist, has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Hong Kong, and her performances have also been broadcast in all these countries. She is a founding member of the Apollo Trio and Elastic Band and has performed with several string quartets, including the Brentano and Cassat. Solo performances have included a recital tour of the Soviet Union and concerti with the Vienna Mozart Orchestra and the Solisti New York.

Clarinetist Charles Neidich regularly appears as soloist and as collaborator in chamber music programs with leading ensembles including the Saint Louis Symphony, Minneapolis Symphony, the MDR Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and many others. An ardent exponent of new music, Mr. Neidich has expanded the technical possibilities of the clarinet and has championed works especially of Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter. Very active in education, Mr. Neidich is on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Queens College of the City University of New York, the Manhattan School, and the Mannes College of Music.

Pianist Jenny Lin has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Miller Theatre, MoMA and the Whitney Museum, as well as at Chopin, Archipel, Flanders, Ars Musica, BAM's Next Wave and Spoleto USA Festivals, with orchestras such as Orchestra Sinfonica Nationale della RAI in Italy, SWR Rundfunkorchester in Germany and the Flemish Radio Orchestra. Jenny studied with Noel Flores at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at the Peabody Conservatory (Artist Diploma) in Baltimore, and with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She has also worked with Richard Goode and Blanca Uribe in New York and with Dimitri Bashkirov and Andreas Staier at the Fondazione Internazionale per il pianoforte in Cadenabbia, Italy.

Violinist Gary Levinson joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra as its senior associate concertmaster in 2001 after 13 years with the New York Philharmonic. He earned his master's degree at Juilliard. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrating to the United States in 1977, Levinson made his U.S. solo debut at the age of 13 with the Minnesota Orchestra. Mr. Levinson appears as a regular recitalist in Western Europe, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Bohemians at the Kosciuszco Foundation and various music festivals.

Violist Karen Bentley Pollick has performed with Paul Dresher's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble since 1999. She performs a wide range of solo repertoire and styles on violin, viola, piano and Norwegian hardangerfele. She has appeared as soloist with Redwood Symphony in the world premiere of Swedish composer Ole Saxe's Dance Suite for Violin and Orchestra, the Alabama Symphony and orchestras in Panama, Russia, Alaska, New York and California. Recent collaborations have been with LSU cellist Dennis Parker, Russian pianist/composer Ivan Sokolov, Emory University pianist William Ransom, the Seattle Chamber Players, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century and appearances at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival.

April 13

Fred Lerdahl	Chasing Goldberg	Joanna Chao, piano
Steven Takasugi	Iridescent Uncertainty
Victoria Bond	Bridges I. Railroad Trestle Bridge in Galax, Virginia II. Stone Bridge Over a Reflecting Pool in Suzhou, China III. Golden Gate Bridge IV. Brooklyn Bridge	Wang Guowei, erhu; Zhou Yi, pipa; Tibi Cziger, clarinet; Carol McGonnell, bass clarinet; John Shumway & Parker Sims, video artists
Fred Lerdahl	Duo for Violin and Piano	Miranda Cuckson, violin; Joanna Chao, piano
Michel Galante	Modern Prometheus (world premiere)	Michel Galante, conductor; Bo Chang, mezzo-soprano; Argento Chamber Ensemble; R. Luke DuBois, video artist

PROGRAM NOTES

Chasing Goldberg (2004) was written for the pianist Gilbert Kalish in response to an unusual commission. The Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival asked a number of American composers each to write a variation based on the famous "Aria" of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Chasing Goldberg was my contribution. Kalish premiered the new set of variations in February 2004 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the Gilmore Festival resides.

Much of my music employs variation techniques, and a few works employ canonic and moto perpetuo textures. Chasing Goldberg combines these traits. Two initial compositional constraints were (1) that each measure could use only pitch classes appearing in the equivalent measure in the Aria of the Goldberg Variations, and (2) that the Goldberg ground bass be projected clearly. These limitations give my piece a functional-diatonic dimension that is unique in my output. Within the constraints, common-practice harmonic syntax and dissonance treatment are not observed. Pitches are displaced to create multiple lines, as in Bach's solo string music. Careful attention is paid to rhythmic patterns and syncopations as well as linear connections. Instead of binary repeats, as in the Bach, each repeat is a canon. This idea came from the canons in every third variation of the Goldberg Variations. My canons are at the unison a quarter note apart. The technical feat is threefold: (1) the original, unaccompanied line must be satisfactory in itself; (2) the same line must work harmonically and melodically in canon; (3) the result must be playable with two hands.

The title of my piece refers both to the Goldberg Variations and to the chase-like aspect of classical canons and fugues. Less directly, it refers to the hopeless aesthetic position of writing another variation to an already consummate work of art. I was chasing perfection. (Fred Lerdahl)

Iridescent Uncertainty (1999) is a computer assisted electro-acoustic "tape piece" composed using thousands of pre-recorded samples of Japanese koto (with traditional and non-traditional strings), shamisen, Hardang fele (Norwegian Hardanger fiddle), and cello. Although very little sound processing is used, many of the unusual sounds are derived from extensive experimentation with playing techniques, plectra, bowing, and string materials. The samples were organized through obsessive revisions (hundreds) of a base algorithm realized portion by portion in Csound.

At the time of composing this work, Takasugi's primary compositional interests led to a re-examination of "what an instrument could be"-Western, "non-Western," technological, makeshift and invented-informed by deconstructive analyses of assumptions embedded in traditional or experimental practices, as well as scientific, socio-political, or religious-aesthetic pretense, as these pervade compositional and artistic thinking of musical material, time and space. From this "excavation" of lodged assumptions came the energies for this work. (Steven Takasugi)

Bridges-When Fontana Chamber Arts commissioned me to write a quartet involving two clarinets and two Chinese instruments, the Erhu and the Pipa, the title Bridges seemed like a logical choice, bridging the music of the East and the West. Having worked with folk songs from my own background as well as Chinese songs that I had learned, I decided to organize the piece around four actual bridges, covering a wide variety of landscapes and cultures. The first movement, Railroad Trestle Bridge in Galax, Virginia, uses the motoric rhythm of a train and the sound of a fiddle and banjo playing country music. The second movement, Stone Bridge Over A Reflecting Pool in Sozhou is based on a traditional Chinese song called Moli Hua or Jasmine Flower. The third movement, The Golden Gate Bridge, recalls the folk music revival of the 1960's and 70's in California, with particular respect paid to the singer Joan Baez, whose haunting songs had a profound effect on me. The fourth movement, The Brooklyn Bridge, has a particularly happy co-incidence. I wanted this bridge to partake of the vibrant be-bop era in New York City. In researching be-bop melodies, I came across a standard favored by many jazz musicians, "I Got Rhythm" by George Gershwin. Using only the harmonic chord changes to this tune, players crafted seemingly endless improvisations. As the song was written in the typical AABA song form, the "B" section was referred to as the "bridge". Here was the ideal confluence of the many meanings of the word "bridge", and I leaped at the opportunity to bring them all together in this final movement. (Victoria Bond)

Duo for Violin and Piano (2005) was commissioned by the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress and is dedicated to the violinist Rolf Schulte, who premiered the work with pianist James Winn. The Duo has two movements and lasts about 19 minutes.

The first movement, after quiet introductory piano chords, is fast and aggressive. Its form employs a spiral technique in which an idea expands and becomes more complex with each cycle. Here process reverses about three-fifths of the way through, collapsing the music back to its starting point. At the same time, the material continues to proliferate while the form compresses, creating an explosive climax. The longer, more contemplative second movement is in binary form: ABC/A'B'C'. This movement has an elegiac, passionate, and at times dirge-like expression that arose unbidden in response to the sudden deaths of two close friends and a student within the preceding two years. (Fred Lerdahl)

Epilogue from Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelly was only 19 years old when she wrote Frankenstein. She was a very unique kind of prodigy, possessing a freakish emotional clairvoyance, and an ability to imagine and articulate the scope of interminable suffering and even world weariness. My piece Modern Prometheus is really about her and this amplified sense of empathetic projection. So while the words in the text belong to the monster in her book, they are sung by a mezzo-soprano who embodies the author. Visuals from the very first movie on Frankenstein, from Edison's 1910 film, are manipulated by my collaborator for the project, the composer/VJ Luke Dubois. (Michel Galante)

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Composer Fred Lerdahl studied at Lawrence University, Princeton, and Tanglewood. He has taught at UC/Berkeley, Harvard, and Michigan, and since 1991 he has been at Columbia University, where he is Fritz Reiner Professor of Music. Major orchestras and chamber ensembles have commissioned and performed his music throughout the United States and abroad. He has been in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival, IRCAM, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the American Academy in Rome, the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Also prominent as a music theorist, Lerdahl has written two books, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (with linguist Ray Jackendoff) and Tonal Pitch Space, both of which model musical listening from the perspective of cognitive science.

Steven Kazuo Takasugi studied composition with Noah Creshevsky, Bunita Marcus, Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa, and Roger Reynolds, as well as computer music with Charles Dodge, F. Richard Moore, and Harold Cohen. He received his masters and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of California, San Diego and has held artists and guest residencies in Japan, Germany, France, Israel, and the United States. His compositions have been presented worldwide and he has won numerous grants and awards. He has lectured extensively, is author of many articles on new music and aesthetics, and is one of the founding editors of Search Journal for New Music and Culture. Takasugi is also a well-known teacher, having taught at UC San Diego, California Institute of the Arts, the Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, and HaTeiva in Israel. He is permanent faculty at the International Summer Academy for Young Composers, Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and beginning in July, this year, will join Harvard University as an Associate of Music (Composition) and Managing Director of the Harvard Summer Master Classes in Composition.

Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Audubon String Quartet. The first woman awarded a doctorate in conducting from The Juilliard School, Bond was appointed by Andre Previn as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China and served as Music Director and Conductor of the Roanoke and New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestras, Opera Roanoke, Bel Canto Opera, Harrisburg Opera, and as Music Advisor of the Wuhan Symphony in China. Victoria Bond has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and on NBC's Today Show, featured in People Magazine and in The New York Times.

Michel Galante's compositions, which include solo, vocal, chamber, and orchestral works, explore timbre, color, and harmony as their primary concerns. His composition awards include Fulbright, Hertz, and Mellon fellowships, as well as prizes from ASCAP and the Composer's Guild. He is currently working on commissions from the Ensemble Court-Circuit, and the Kate Weare Dance Company. A proponent of digital media as a means to create, produce and distribute music, he was one of twelve composers worldwide to be a stagiere at IRCAM, France's leading electronic music institution. He has conducted in North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, leading orchestras and ensembles including the Janá?ek Philharmonic, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Collegium Musicum Choir and Orchestra, Canada's Ergo Ensemble, Ensemble Courage of Dresden, the OCNM Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and TACTUS. Future engagements include European performances with Ensemble Court-Circuit in programs of contemporary American music, and a performance of Pierre Boulez' Le Marteau sans maître with the percussion-based ensemble, the Marticians, to be rehearsed in the presence of the composer.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Wang Guowei is one of the most outstanding erhu soloists and composers of his generation. He is the recipient of a commissioning award from the American Composers Forum for "Three Chinese Poems" for Music From China. Wang has performed with the New Music Consort, Peabody Camerata, Norfolk Chamber Consort, Four Nations Ensemble, Ethos Percussion Group, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Ornette Coleman Trio. Wang Guowei assumed the position of Artistic Director of Music From China in 1996. He also teaches erhu and is on the faculty of the Wesleyan University music department.

Zhou Yi is an outstanding young pipa player. Recent performances include Young People's Concert with the New York Philharmonic, Tan Dun's Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra, Bun-Ching Lam's Pipa Concerto "Song of the Pipa", "Sisters of the Grassland" with the Ohio Youngstown Symphony, the 2006 Alaska Music Festival and the 2007 Bowling Green New Music Festival. In 2008, Zhou was selected as the featured pipa-ist for the Spoleto Festival's premiere show, "Monkey: Journey To The West." Zhou collaborated with Damon Albarn (Gorillaz/Blur). Zhou is a co-founder of the Ba Ban Chinese Music Society of New York.

Bo Chang, mezzo-soprano, appeared with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Ensemble NOW, counter)induction, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, Continuum, and the Chicago Symphony, and performed in Asia, Europe and the US. Her repertory includes works by Berio, Crumb, Boulez, Druckman, Sciarrino, Ligeti, Gubaidulina, and Schoenberg among others.

R. Luke DuBois, video artist, is a composer, artist, and performer who explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University, and has lectured and taught worldwide on interactive sound and video performance. He has collaborated on interactive performance, installation, and music production work with many artists and organizations including Toni Dove, Matthew Ritchie, Todd Reynolds, Michael Joaquin Grey, Elliott Sharp, Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can, Engine27, Harvestworks, and LEMUR, and was the director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra for its 2007 season.

Members of the Argento Chamber Ensemble

Pianist Joanna Chao is a recipient of the Vladimir Horowitz Memorial Scholarship, and William Petschek Scholarship at The Juilliard School. An active chamber musician, Joanna has appeared in concerts on the New York Philharmonic Ensemble Series, Sarasota Music Festival, and toured the northwestern region of Denmark as part of the Thy Chamber Music Festival and Masterclass. She currently serves as piano faculty at The College of New Jersey and ear-training faculty at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division.

Violinist Miranda Cuckson has appeared as soloist with orchestras including Indianapolis Symphony, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, the Virginia Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony, and Beijing Radio Orchestra. A passionate champion of new music, she is involved in groups including the Argento Chamber Ensemble, ACME, and Sequitur, and she has worked with composers such as Henri Dutilleux, Elliott Carter, John Adams, Salvatore Sciarrino, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Mario Davidovsky. Ms. Cuckson studied at The Juilliard School and now teaches at Mannes College.

Clarinetist Tibi Cziger is the first clarinetist ever admitted to the prestigious Artist Diploma program at The Juilliard School, from which he graduated in 2008. Solo appearances include concerti with the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen, Metropolis Ensemble NYC, and Israeli Chamber Orchestra among others and collaborations with the Norway Radio and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras (Norway), and Israel Philharmonic, Orpheus, and West-Eastern Divan Orchestras.

Flutist Erin Lesser performs as soloist and chamber musician throughout Canada, Europe, and the US. Actively involved in contemporary music, she has given the American premieres of works by Murail, Hurel, and Holliger, and worked with Boulez, Crumb, and Mackey. Her performances have been broadcast on CBC's "Jeunes Artistes" series and New York's WQXR.

An advocate of contemporary music, percussionist Alex Lipowski has performed in ensembles such as the Argento Ensemble, Second Instrumental Unit, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, and The Marticians. He currently serves as Artist-Faculty at the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea.

Clarinetist, Carol McGonnell has worked closely at Carnegie Hall with composers including Elliott Carter and George Benjamin. International engagements include the Pan Contemporary Music Festival (Seoul Korea), the International Electro-acoustic Festival (Shanghai China), Izmir Contemporary Festival (Turkey), Plovdiv Festival (Bulgaria), West Cork Chamber Music Festival and the Marlboro Music Festival. Carol studied with Brian O'Rourke and Charles Neidich. She is on the clarinet faculty of the Juilliard School's MAP program.

Bassoonist Adrian Morejon studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Yale University School of Music. He is a recipient of a Theodore Presser Foundation Grant and a prize winner of the Fox-Gillet International Competition. He has performed with the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Metropolis Ensemble, Manhattan Sinfonietta, ICE, and on the Great Performer Series at Lincoln Center. He is currently on faculty at the Long Island Conservatory.

Percussionist Matt Ward has performed with groups such as the Boston Symphony, Albany Symphony, and New World Symphony. His awards include a Ridley-Tree Fellowship at the Music Academy of the West. He has shared the stage with Emmanuel Ax at Lincoln Center and performed as soloist with the North Shore Philharmonic.

April 20

Kyle Gann	Private Dances	Justin Kolb, piano
Paul Yeon Lee	Three Images for B-flat Clarinet and Cello I. Agitato II. Adagio e affettuoso III. Appassionato molto	Thomas Piercy, clarinet Maxine Neuman, cello
Derek Bermel	Language Instruction	Meighan Stoops, clarinet Renée Jolles, violin Maxine Neuman, cello Molly Morkoski, piano Rhoda Levine, director
Mark Grey	A Rax Dawn (world premiere)	Molly Morkoski, piano
William Bolcom	Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano	Meighan Stoops, clarinet; Renée Jolles, violin; Molly Morkoski, piano

PROGRAM NOTES

The ideas for Private Dances are all rhythmic, and "Sexy" is the simplest, an ever-further-modulating tango. "Sad" is an arrangement for live pianist of one of my Disklavier studies, Folk Dance for Henry Cowell. The idea was to have a clear harmonic rhythm while thoroughly obscuring the meter. "Swingin'" is freer, releasing a boogie-woogie melody from its implied 4/4 meter and letting it cadence when- and wherever it wants. Written half in 2000 and half in 2004, the entire six-movement set was commissioned, inspired, premiered, and finally recorded by Sarah Cahill, on a New Albion CD. (Kyle Gann)

Three Images - I often have vivid dreams. Some dreams are dramatic, volatile and colorful gestures like abstract paintings. Some are fluid, and I hear fragments of melody. As a composer, I get up in the middle of night to sketch images of dreams and write down the tunes that I hear for my future composition. Three Images has three brief, yet distinctive movements. Each movement reflects a dream and depicts it musically. My music is intensely personal, and I hope it speaks for itself.

Three Images was commissioned and premiered by Lost Dog New Music Ensemble. The premiere performance was on November 9, 2007 at Waltz-Astoria Café and subsequently at Tenri Cultural Institute in New York on November 11, 2007. Three Images is dedicated to my friend Garth Edwin Sunderland. (Paul Yeon Lee)

I began working on Language Instruction while studying Brazilian Portuguese language tapes. During the piece the players assume quasi-theatrical roles. The clarinet attempts to "teach" various phrases to the string players, with particular emphasis on the inflections. The players respond with uncertainty at first, and at different speeds. The cellist parrots the phrases faster and more eagerly, the violinist more timidly. As with the language-tape process, the learning progresses slowly, with the "teacher" often breaking down the phrases into constituent parts and combining them with other phrases. Because of the slow speed of retention, the piece at times takes on a "minimalist" form.

It soon becomes clear that one student in the "class" poses a particular difficulty. The pianist cannot imitate the inflections correctly, being unable to gliss along a single note. This proves frustrating for the pianist, who is eager to participate in the lessons. After various tantrums, he/she discovers a solution--adapt the phrases to fit the instrument's particular limits (or "accent"). This moment proves to be a significant event in the drama, and the string players, intrigued, begin to switch allegiance to their new "teacher". Throughout the piece the players should attempt to muster an actor's conviction in conveying the quirks of their own character and developing their relationships to the other players. (Derek Bermel)

A Rax Dawn has been written specifically for Molly Morkoski. The title of the work is inspired by the breathtaking early morning colors illuminating the Rax Alpen, a mountain range just southwest of Vienna, Austria. This is the place where I now live. Around the valleys of Gloggnitz, a town just at its base, sunrise peeks around hills to color the cliffs in brilliant pinks and reds. Elsewhere in the world, it's a light mixture I have only experienced during the early dawn and late dusk hours throughout the southwestern United States. Something so magical and fantasy-like, it is no wonder why artists throughout the centuries have been endeared to this region. Early morning walks in the woods spill you out into rolling hill clearings where Austrian spires point to a stained sky and cliff sides sparkle with trees. Here, ultimately, you find the simplicity of peace in such a complex world. These valleys echo with the music of Mozart, Mahler, Strauss and Schoenberg - and all who have been inspired by its colorful wonders. (Mark Grey)

Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano
Twist of Fate - Mazurka, the first binary movement, begins loudly and dramatically and ends quietly in sadness. Between these extremes come two very different tempos and moods. Twist of Fate clambering ahead in blows and screams and followed by an ironic Mazurka. The whole is a meditation on the seeming inevitability of war and tragedy in human existence.

The first of the next pair, Apotheosis of J.V., requires separate explanation. John Verrall [b. 1909, Britt, Iowa] studied at the Budapest Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in London; he taught me composition, counterpoint, orchestration and so much else from 1949 on through my teens in Washington State. While not utilizing any of Verrall's thematic material, this music is reminiscent of his style; we move directly into Dithyramb after a short transitional passage. Here, headlong and frenetic, the music's forward drive is only slightly held back toward the midpoint by a recall of the mysterious section from Twist of Fate; then we return to the main tempo, which leads to a frenetic coda. (William Bolcom)

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Kyle Gann, born 1955 in Dallas, Texas, was new-music critic for the Village Voice from 1986 to 2005. Since 1997 he has taught music theory and history at Bard College. His books include The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995), American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books, 1997), Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (University of California Press, 2006), and John Cage's 4'33" (Yale University Press, 2009). Gann studied composition with Ben Johnston, Morton Feldman, and Peter Gena, and his music is often microtonal, using up to 37 pitches per octave. His rhythmic language, based on successive and simultaneous tempos, was developed from his study of Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo Indian musics. His music is available on the New Albion, New World, Cold Blue, Lovely Music, New Tone, and Monroe Street labels.

Paul Yeon Lee, Korean-American composer is the recipient of the 2001 Helen F. Whitaker Commission from the American Composers Orchestra. Lee has also received commissions from Anthony J. Cirone, Chair of the Percussion Department at Indiana University in Bloomington and Pascal Rogé. Lee has received the Walter Hinrichsen Award (2005) and Charles Ives Scholarship (1999) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ACO Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Composer Workshop, Haddonfield Symphony Young Composers' Competition, MacDowell Colony, American Composers Alliance's Festival of American Music. Lee has earned a doctorate degree (DMA) in music composition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His principal teachers have included Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom and Bright Sheng.

Derek Bermel-composer, clarinetist, jazz and rock musician-has won many awards including the Rome Prize, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Faber Music. Upcoming projects include his musical Golden Motors written with librettist Wendy S. Walters, and a guest artist appearance as clarinetist with conductor/composer John Adams and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As the American Composers Orchestra's 2006-2009 Music Alive Composer-in-Residence, Bermel premiered The Migration Series in collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Mark Grey's music has been performed in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Barbican Centre (London), Het Muziektheater (Amsterdam), Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, Philharmonie Hall (Warsaw), UNESCO Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City), Symphony Hall (Phoenix), Royce Hall (Los Angeles), as well as at the Ravinia, Cabrillo, OtherMinds, Perth, and Spoleto festivals. Grey was The Phoenix Symphony's Composer In Residence in 2007/08 where he composed a 70-minute oratorio, Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio, for baritone, chorus of 130 singers, and large orchestra - also released on Naxos Records. Grey made history as the first sound designer ever to design for The New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in 2002, The Lyric Opera in Chicago in 2007 and The Metropolitan Opera in New York City, for John Adams' Doctor Atomic in 2008.

Seattle-born composer/pianist William Bolcom studied at the University of Washington, Mills College, the Paris Conservatoire, and Stanford University. Recently retired after 35 years' teaching at the University of Michigan, he continues to undertake commissions from organizations and individuals worldwide. His numerous honors and awards include the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, and Musical America's Composer of the Year. As a composer, Bolcom has written four violin sonatas; eight symphonies; three operas (McTeague, A View from the Bridge and A Wedding), plus several musical theater operas; eleven string quartets; two film scores (Hester Street and Illuminata); incidental music for stage plays, including Arthur Miller's Broken Glass; fanfares and occasional pieces; and an extensive catalogue of chamber and vocal works.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Violinist Renée Jolles's concerto engagements have included The Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey, The Cape May Festival Orchestra, The Salisbury Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Jolles is a member of The Jolles Duo, Continuum, The Roerich Quartet, The New York Chamber Ensemble, and is a concertmaster of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Committed to recording new music, she can be heard on three new albums appearing in the spring of 2009 which showcase the music of composers Oleg Felzer, Ushio Torikai, and Victoria Bond. Ms. Jolles is on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College Division, The Mannes School of Music Preparatory Division and the Bowdoin International Music Festival. Jolles received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard where, upon graduation, she was presented with the school's highest award, the William Schumann prize.

Pianist Justin Kolb's performances champion music by living American composers. Recordings of Twentieth Century composers include CDs on the Albany Records label of Robert Starer and William Ferris. His traditional repertoire centers around Beethoven and Liszt. Additionally, he is well known for presenting works by composers whom he feels live in underserved obscurity, such as Hermann Cohen (young ward of Franz Liszt), and Edward Collins (Chicago based friend of the Chicago Symphony). His performances have wide appeal with interesting and often humorous commentary.

Rhoda Levine has directed Of Mice and Men; Lizzie Borden; Rogoletto; The Ballad of Baby Doe; X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (world premiere); From the House of the Dead (American premiere); Die Soldaten; and Mathis der Maler at New York City Opera; Treemonisha at Opera Theater of St. Louis; Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis (world premiere) at Netherlands Opera; South African premiere of Porgy and Bess at Cape Town Opera in 1996; productions at Belgium's Opéra National; Scottish Opera; San Francisco Opera; Festival of the Two Worlds; Cabrillo Festival; and Holland Festival; directed and choreographed productions on and off-Broadway, in London's West End, and for CBS and WNET; librettist; author of children's books. Ms. Levine is on the faculty of Curtis Institute of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, and Northwestern University. She is also the artistic director of improvisational opera group Play it by Ear.

Pianist Molly Morkoski has been a featured soloist on the Making Music series at Carnegie Hall and the Tanglewood, Bang-on-a-Can, and Pacific Rim festivals, and has appeared as soloist with the Raleigh, Asheville, and Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestras. An avid chamber musician, she has performed at the Aspen, Norfolk, and Tanglewood festivals; is a member of the Zankel Band and Open End Ensemble; and has collaborated with the NY Philharmonic Chamber Players, St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players, New World Symphony, Speculum Musicae, Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Recently, she was invited by David Robertson to perform Messiaen's Vingt Regards Sur L'enfant Jesus as part of the St. Louis Symphony's Pulitzer Series and the celebration of his centenary year. Ms. Morkoski was a Fulbright scholar to Paris, France where she was apprentice with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Ms. Morkoski is currently Associate Professor at Lehman College in the Bronx.

Cellist Maxine Neuman is a three-time Grammy Award winner and a grant recipient of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a founding member of the Claremont Duo, Belmont Trio and Crescent String Quartet. In New York, she can be heard in the Orchestra of St. Luke's, New York Virtuosi, American Composers Orchestra, Westchester Philharmonic and many other fine ensembles. A distinguished teacher as well as performer, Maxine serves as judge for several international competitions. On the faculty at School for Strings and Hoff-Barthelson Music School, she has taught at Bennington College, Williams College and C.W. Post University.

Clarinetist Thomas Piercy performs concerts of standard classical music, jazz-inspired programs, contemporary works, pieces written specifically for him, and his own original arrangements, compositions and collaborations. He has performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Wigmore Hall (London) and Parthenon (Tokyo), and has performed and recorded for Broadway, movie soundtracks, television, radio, video and commercial recordings. A devoted performer of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous compositions written for him including Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem's only piece for clarinet and piano.

Clarinetist Meighan Stoops is a member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, she has appeared at the Moscow Forum and Autumn festivals; St. Petersburg Sound Ways festival; Merkin Hall; the Knitting Factory; the Fischer Center at Bard College; and many other prestigious venues. Ms. Stoops is an original member of the American Modern Ensemble, the Wet Ink Ensemble, the Walden School Players and Glissando bin Laden (an electro-acoustic improvising quintet). She regularly performs with other ensembles, such as Manhattan Sinfonietta, Newband, Music from Japan, Sequitur, John Eaton's Pocket Opera Players, Music from Copland House, Sylvan Winds and the Quintet of the Americas. Orchestras with which Ms. Stoops can be heard regularly are the Brooklyn Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and the Princeton, Westfield and Colonial symphonies.

April 27

Xi Wang	Rhapsody	John Haines-Eitzen, cello
Andrew Waggoner	Songbook (world premiere)	Molly Morkoski, piano
Gabriela Lena Frank	Cinco Danzas de Chambi (Five Dances of Chambi)	Daniel Panner, viola Molly Morkoski, piano
Victoria Bond	Jasmine Flower	Daniel Panner, viola
Steven Stucky	Tres Pinturas, for Violin and Piano	Renée Jolles, violin Molly Morkoski, piano

PROGRAM NOTES

Rhapsody is a result of my reaction to a series of unexpected events which happened in my personal life, as well as in my friend's life. Rhapsody was written within a week when I was extremely emotional. I am grateful that music has accompanied me throughout my life. For me, composing is a process of releasing tension, telling stories, and walking towards my ideal realm. (Xi Wang)

Songbook was both a labor of love and a personal compositional challenge. Much being made these days of the need to infuse new concert music with the rougher, richer blood of pop music, I set both myself and my students the task of integrating our favorite pop songs into a "classical" setting. I upped the ante for myself by basing each movement not only on a specific song, but also on the manner of a favorite composer. This made not only for a curious "crash" of styles but also for some probably too-clever yet fun titles. Thus: Little Wing of Jimi Hendrix is conjoined with Joan Tower's Wings to make Little Wings; the second movement puts Sting's Fields of Gold into a Feldman-like timeframe, with the inscrutable title Just Past Llano…, Llano meaning "plain" and referring both to the plains of Texas and to another piano piece of mine; Homecoming fuses Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin with something of the late style of Ligeti; and Beauty-Bound imagines Jane Siberry's Bound by the Beauty re-imagined by Josef Zawinul. I've always loved the set and am delighted that Molly Morkoski is giving its full premiere as part of Cutting Edge Concerts. (Andrew Waggoner)

Cinco Danzas de Chambi (Five Dances of Chambi) for viola and piano is a partial arrangement of an earlier work for violin and piano, Sueños de Chambi: Snapshots for an Andean Album (2002). It is inspired by the work of Martín Chambi (1891-1973), the first Amerindian photographer to achieve international acclaim, albeit posthumously. In a career spanning half a century, he documented both the Quechua-speaking descendants of the Incas and the mestizo (mixed-race) populace, producing more than 18,000 glass negatives depicting the customs and festivals, the working lives and public celebrations of twentieth-century Peruvians. Each movement is a musical portrait of one of Chambi's photographs, drawing on local themes, rhythms, and "translated" performance practices.

Jasmine Flower-I am fascinated by contrast. In music, this takes the form of the contrast between tonal grounding and chromatic tension to escape that grounding. Without tonality, chromaticism floats freely above a rootless world and has no point of reference. I chose the Chinesefolksong Moli Hua because it was so beautiful, pure and simple in its flowing melody. To use this as a point of reference gave me the perfect foil to counterbalance the desire to break free of the orderly and explore the complex, asymmetrical, chaotic elements that contrast the song.

Thus each variation focuses on a tiny fragment of the song - tossing it around, exploding it and re-arranging the pieces. It returns frequently to the original, to measure the distance traveled and to find refreshing relief in a world of quiet, peaceful repose. (Victoria Bond)

Tres Pinturas, for Violin and Piano
My orchestral Pinturas de Tamayo is a suite inspired by paintings of Mexican master Rufno Tamayo (1899-1991) and premiered in 1995 by the Chicago Symphony. When Martin Chalifour, concert-master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, asked me to make a version for violin and piano, I decided that three of the original five movements were amenable:

Anochecer (Sunset). The form of the music is suggested by the line of the painting, which seems to begin in the upper left-hand corner and billow downward until it climaxes in the lower right-hand quadrant with astonishing, geometric, trumpet-like light-rays.

Músicas dormidas (Sleeping Musicians). A famous image, showing two dark female forms stretched out on the ground, their instruments abandoned beside them. The music obeys not the logic of daylight, but that of dreams; bits of the day's music, half-remembered, float in the night air.

Amigas de los pájaros (Friends of the Birds). Two women stand with a pair of birds encircling their heads, bathed in a reddish glow of almost unbearable intensity. The music strives for a similarly intense brightness. (Steven Stucky)

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

Chinese born composer Xi Wang is considered one of the most talented and active composers of her generation. Her orchestral music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra and the Spokane Symphony. Upcoming concerts include a performance by the Atlanta Symphony. Xi Wang's music has been spotlighted on Minnesota Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and Radio-China. She is a winner of several ASCAP concert music awards, the Fourth International Jurgenson Competition for Young Composers, the Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award, the 5th Northridge Composition Prize, the first prize in the "Music from China" International Composition Competition, the first prize of the "Ensemble X" competition, and the Outstanding Student Studying Abroad Award from the Chinese Government, to name a few. Xi Wang received her B.A. from Shanghai Conservatory, M.M from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and her D.M.A. from Cornell University where she studied with Prof. Steven Stucky and Prof. Roberto Sierra. Currently she is on the faculty at Cornell University.

Andrew Waggoner studied in New Orleans at NOCCA, and at Eastman and Cornell. He has received awards from ASCAP, Yaddo, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, and New Music Delaware. He has also received the Ettelson Prize from Composers Inc., a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Roger Sessions Prize from the Bogliasco Foundation. Commissions and performances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Denver, St. Louis, Syracuse, and Winnipeg Symphonies; the Cassatt, Corigliano, and Miro, Quartets; pianist Gloria Cheng; violist Melia Watras; cellist Robert Burkhart; Sequitur, the Empyrean Ensemble; Buglisi-Foreman Dance; CELLO; Flexible Music; Ensemble Nordlys of Denmark, and Ensemble Accroche Note, of France. He teaches at Syracuse University.

Identity has always been at the center of Gabriela Lena Frank's music. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has travelled extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin-American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. She writes challenging idiomatic parts for solo instrumentalists, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras. At the University of Michigan, Frank studied composition with William Albright, William Bolcom, Leslie Bassett, and Michael Daugherty, and piano with Logan Skelton.

Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Audubon String Quartet. She was recently honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Walter Hinrichsen Award, established by the C.F. Peters Corporation for the publication of a work by a gifted composer. The first woman awarded a doctorate in conducting from The Juilliard School, Bond was appointed by Andre Previn as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and China and served as Music Director and Conductor of the Roanoke and New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestras, Opera Roanoke, Bel Canto Opera, Harrisburg Opera, and as Music Advisor of the Wuhan Symphony in China. Victoria Bond has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and on NBC's Today Show, featured in People Magazine and in The New York Times. She is a frequent pre-concert lecturer for the New York Philharmonic.

Composer Steven Stucky, whose Second Concerto for Orchestra won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, had two major premieres on the same day this season: September 18 saw the world premiere of his evening-length concert drama, August 4, 1964, by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the US premiere of Rhapsodies, by the New York Philharmonic, which had given its world premiere three weeks earlier at London's BBC Proms. Other premieres this season include Four Postcards at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (November 2008) and new orchestrations of Hugo Wolf Lieder for mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway and the Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra (February 2009). In recent seasons, Mr. Stucky has also fulfilled commissions from the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Singapore, St. Louis, Washington (National), and many others. Based at Cornell University, he has also taught at the Aspen Festival, Eastman School of Music, and University of California at Berkeley. Active as a conductor, advocate, writer, and lecturer, this spring he concludes 21 years in association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and four seasons as host of the New York Philharmonic's Hear & Now concerts.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Cellist John Haines-Eitzen has performed in most of the world's major concert halls. He was a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1995 until 2005 when he joined the faculty of Cornell University as Senior Lecturer and Artist in Residence. His solo and chamber music appearances have taken him to such diverse locations as Sapporo, Japan, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and to the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the Sarasota Music Festival in Florida, and numerous concert series throughout the United States and abroad. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with pianists Wolfgang Sawallisch, Yefim Bronfman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, as well as many other leading musicians. Mr. Haines-Eitzen is a graduate of Indiana University where he was a student of Janos Starker.

Violinist Renée Jolles's concerto engagements have included The Philharmonic Orchestra of New Jersey, The Cape May Festival Orchestra, The Salisbury Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Jolles is a member of The Jolles Duo, Continuum, The Roerich Quartet, The New York Chamber Ensemble, and is a concertmaster of the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Committed to recording new music, she can be heard on three new albums appearing in the spring of 2009 which showcase the music of composers Oleg Felzer, Ushio Torikai, and Victoria Bond. Ms. Jolles is on the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music Pre-College Division, The Mannes School of Music Preparatory Division and the Bowdoin International Music Festival. Jolles received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Juilliard where, upon graduation, she was presented with the school's highest award, the William Schumann prize.

Pianist Molly Morkoski has been a featured soloist on the Making Music series at Carnegie Hall and the Tanglewood, Bang-on-a-Can, and Pacific Rim festivals, and has appeared as soloist with the Raleigh, Asheville, and Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestras. An avid chamber musician, she has performed at the Aspen, Norfolk, and Tanglewood festivals; is a member of the Zankel Band and Open End Ensemble; and has collaborated with the NY Philharmonic Chamber Players, St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players, New World Symphony, Speculum Musicae, Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Recently, she was invited by David Robertson to perform Messiaen's Vingt Regards Sur L'enfant Jesus as part of the St. Louis Symphony's Pulitzer Series and the celebration of his centenary year. Ms. Morkoski was a Fulbright scholar to Paris, France where she was apprentice with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Ms. Morkoski is currently Associate Professor at Lehman College in the Bronx.

Violist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Daniel Panner enjoys a varied career as a performer and teacher. He has performed at music festivals in Marlboro, Tanglewood and Aspen and has collaborated with members of the Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri and Juilliard String Quartets. As a member of the Whitman String Quartet, Panner received the 1998 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and served as teaching assistant to the Juilliard String Quartet for two years. He currently teaches at the Juilliard School, the Mannes College of Music and the Queens College Conservatory of Music. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and he has taken part in numerous tours with Musicians from Marlboro and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Panner has been heard on National Public Radio's "Performance Today," both as soloist and chamber musician. He has served as the principal violist of such orchestras as the New York City Opera, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra. An active performer of new music, he is a member of the ensemble Sequitur and has performed with such new-music groups as Speculum Musicae, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and the Locrian ensemble. Mr. Panner studied with Jesse Levine at Yale University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Joseph dePasquale and at the Juilliard School with Samuel Rhodes.

 

2007 Cutting Edge Concerts: A Musical Tapestry

April 9: A Musical Tapestry
Start time: 8:00
Symphone Space - www.symphonyspace.com
Box Office: $15.00

Judith Shatin	Penelope's Song Animators: Kathy Aoki and Marco Marquez	Maxine Neuman, Amplified Cello Electronics
Libby Larson	Slow Structures	Margaret Kampmeier, piano Maxine Neuman, cello Sato Moughalian, flute
Kenji Bunch	Crawl Space Sarabande The 3 G's	Kenji Bunch, viola

Weaver: Pamela Topham

April 23: Woven Sounds
Weaver: Jack Lenor Larsen

Cornelius Dufallo	Night Visions	Jenny Lin, piano
Cornelius Dufallo	Naiad	Cornelius Dufallo, violin
Victoria Bond	Woven	Renee Jolles, violin Sheila Reinhold, violin
Philip Glass	Piano Concerto #2: After Lewis and Clark	Paul Barnes, piano Sato Moughalian, flute

April 30: Vocal Textures
Weaver: Susan Martin Maffei and Archie Brennan

Laura Kaminsky	Duo	Tara Helen O'Conner, flute Margaret Kampmeier, piano
Laura Kaminsky	Rise My Love	Natalie Kikkenbourg, mezzo soprano Margaret Kampmeier, piano
Tobias Picker	Suite for Cello and Piano	Caroline Stinson, cello Margaret Kampmeier, piano
Tobias Picker	Arias from Thérèse Raquin	Judith Bettina, soprano James Goldsworthy, piano
Tobias Picker	Old and Lost Rivers	Ken Noda, piano