Hot Air Music Festival 2013

march 3, 2013 san francisco conservatory of music
HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013
PROGRAM
1:00 2:00
RH
Recital Hall
THOMAS CONROY The DANNY CLAY
Brodie Set
A FOOTE + CONROY A LIBBY + HALL + CAMP
Childrens Songs, Book 2
>> 6 >> 8 >> 10 >> 12 >> 15 >> 18 >> 20
CH
Concert Hall
DAVID CONTE String DOMINICK ARGENTO
Quartet No. 2
A IVES QUARTET
Three Songs
A VOCALLECTIVE
RH
Recital Hall
ALDEN JENKS
Hammered
A ENDO + JENKS A LOWRY + MACHIZ + CANNON A SFCM GUITAR ENSEMBLE
KYLE HOVATTER STEVE REICH
The Naughty Child
Electric Counterpoint
3:00
RH
Recital Hall
MOBIUS TRIO
BECKER Last CRESSWELL
Light |
KNIGHT Bon
Voyage |
WALLACE More
Gargoyles
Hesheyoumeus
A MORGAN BRENNER + CRESSWELL A ESCAREO + NASHIMOTO + CLAY
RANDALL-MYERS
Rust and Anchors
OS
Osher Salon
GIACOMO FIORE
EVE BEGLARIAN Until ANTHONY PORTER
It Blazes |
CHRISTIAN WOLFF Another
Possibility
hair of the thing that bit you |
POLANSKY freeHorn
4:00
CH
Concert Hall
VALINOR WINDS + FRIENDS

LUCIANO BERIO BYRON ADAMS
Opus Number Zoo |
JOSEPH STILLWELL
Clarinet Quartet
Serenade for Nine Instruments
RH
Recital Hall
EVAN BUSHMAN
These Ragged Times Hidden Instincts Gallantry
A LEPAGE + GINN + RODDA
KAITO NAKAHORI DOUGLAS MOORE
A NARIZUKA
A BRAND + OHANIAN + FRIENDS
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
5:00
RH
Recital Hall
JUSTIN RALLS Night-Psalms WINTON YUICHIRO WHITE JOHN CORIGLIANO
A GULYAS A WHITE + SEDAN
Two Japanese Komoriuta
>> 22 >> 25 >> 28
Irish Folksong Settings Nativas Machines
A WHITE + SEDAN
CLARICE ASSAD Danas
A COCKERHAM + FRIENDS A COCKERHAM + FRIENDS
RENAUD CT-GIGURE Two
OS
Osher Salon
NEW KEYS
NICHOLAS WHITE stitchings INGRID LEE
JOSEPH M. COLOMBO Ouroboros
Of Monsters |
ANTHONY PORTER archers
IAN DICKE Dj
6:00
CH
Concert Hall
LOREN JONES
Dancing on the Brink of the World
BAILEY + HOT AIR FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
RH
Osher Salon
FRICTION QUARTET
DAN BECKER Lockdown GABRIELA SMITH
PETERS VASKS String
Quartet No. 4
>> 29 >> 31 >> 35 >> 40
Reflection Nebulae
OS
Osher Salon
WILD RUMPUS
WANG Delta
BROWN This
Time Finer |
WHITE
Groove III
TEMPLE Triggerfish
VANHASSEL Revealing,
Unraveling
7:00 8:00
RH
Recital Hall
MATTHIAS MCINTIRE NICK BENAVIDES STEPHEN GOSS
Earthbound and Skyward
A COOLIDGE A REUTTER-HARRAH + LUO
Pain has an element of blank
Under Milk Wood Songs
A JARRING SOUNDS
CH
Concert Hall
LAURA SCHWENDINGER BENJAMIN BOYLE HENRYK GRECKI
The Violinists in My Life
A HE + NAKAGOSHI
To One in Paradise Good Night
A OHANIAN + HOT AIR ORCHESTRA
A LIBBY + GULYAS + MACDOUGALL + GODOY
CREDITS
HOT AIR FESTIVAL STAFF
Collin Boltz Festival Director Red Bennett Festival Co-director Louis Cruz Festival Co-director Vasken Ohanian Festival Co-director
SPECIAL THANKS
Elinor Armer Jiayi Jiang Alice Beckett Dan Becker Jason OConnell Mary Ellen Poole Lauren Quimby Seth Ducey
Nicholas Pavkovic Co-director of Communications Anthony Porter Co-director of Communications Sasha Launer Director of Ensemble/Alumni Affairs Loren Jones Director of Outreach and Educational Affairs Zach Miley Principal Recording Engineer
Clay Bennett Noam Szoke SFCM Percussion Department
HOT AIR PROGRAM ANNOTATORS

Jim Coughenour Editor Adam Cockerham, Joseph Stillwell, Sarah Wald, Winton Yuichiro White Contributing Writers
Playing world-class music. Making life-long friends.

When you attend the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, you gain more than a top tier music education. You make friends, create ensembles and join networks. As an alumni of the Conservatory you dont just think that anything is possible. You know it.
George Duke (B.M., trombone and composition, 67) and Eric Peterson (B.M., trumpet, 69) enjoy a laugh about their college playing trio days.
Re-connecting is easy. Email mclay@sfcm.edu to get started.

Where it all begins.
RH 1:00
THOMAS CONROY

RECITAL HALL
ABOUT THE BRODIE SET The Brodie Set is a multi movement song cycle for soprano and piano based on the Muriel Spark novella, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Jean Brodie imparts life lessons and the virtues of womanhood but hardly any of the specified curriculum to her ten-year-olds at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh. The song cycle is a series of reflections on six particular girls who were Jean Brodies favorites, collectively known as The Brodie Set. ABOUT THOMAS CONROY Dr. Thomas Conroy has been teaching harmony and musicianship at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since 2009. He earned his DMA in composition at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University (2006) and his MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2003). He is also a composer and teaching artist in the ARIA NETWORK opera education program. Conroy has taken part in the The European American Musical Alliance summer course at the cole Normale de Musique in Paris, and is pursuing a masters degree in the Great Books Program at St. Johns College during summer sessions. Recent performances include his homage to choral music teachers and conductors: This is Why I Sing, premiered by the Houston Chamber Choir and featured on NPR; and Searching for Spinoza, a two-act musical drama premiered by the opera department at UNC Chapel Hill.
The Brodie Set (2013)

I. I Am Miss Jean Brodie II. Eunice Gardiner (You Are an Ariel) III. Rose Stanley (With the Profile) IV. Mary MacGregor (Slowly Lumping Back and Forth) V. Jenny Grey (A Leaven in the Lump, There Needs Must Be) VI. Monica Douglas (Famous for Calculating Figures in Your Head) VII. Sandy Stranger (Sister Helena of the Transfiguration, Clutching the Bars of the Grille) VIII. I Am Miss Jean Brodie Thomas Conroy, piano Amy Foote, soprano
DANNY CLAY
Childrens Songs, Book 2 (2011)

I. sitting on a rock II. the wind is a ghost III. questions IV. today V. Id love to take you home Lora Libby, soprano Elizabeth Hall, McKenzie Camp, percussion
RECITAL HALL 1:00 PM
ABOUT CHILDRENS SONGS Childrens Songs, book 2 is a collection of five found poems written by kids from Ohio elementary schools. Ranging from meditations on nature, to surreal evocations of loneliness and isolation, to a pure and unbridled love song, I find these poems embody much more than the quirkiness of childhood thoughts and musings. To me, each fragment of text touches on feelings that are deep and often quite profound the kind of feelings that all people experience, regardless of age. ABOUT DANNY CLAY Born in 1989, Danny Clay is a composer and general noise-maker from Ohio. Clay draws upon elements of Americana (genealogy, art education, childrens theater, digital media) to make his music. He has been commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Central Ohio Symphony, concert:nova + the Cincinnati Ballet, toy pianist Phyllis Chen, the Mobius Trio and Nonsemble 6, and has released music on labels such as Rural Colours, Audio Gourmet and Heat Death Records.
CHILDRENS SONGS TEXTS I. Im sitting on a rock with the clouds above the trees are all above the sky the water is as chilly as can be a bird is flying looking for his friends and Im still sitting on a rock waiting for my friend II. The wind is a ghost that whirls and twirls Twists in moccasins - sweeps up frost Spinning across the grey flatlands. A whirlwind is a ghost! Dancing! III. Winter - do you cry with snow? Trees - can you talk? Ancestors - why are most of you family branches? Where did I get my name? Why am I so inventive? Where do I store all of my pressure and anger? IV. The weather is the frostiest fiction I have ever seen. Somewhere where your mind explodes. Sitting somewhere where you grow your mind. I feel multiplied! I see the past outside the window. V. Id love to take you home on a cold and wintry day. You are the one I think about everyday! And in the day or night, every day and night, youre all I ever think about. Id love to take you home. From Cave Daze, originally published by the Ohio Arts Council. Written by children of Ohio elementary schools.
CH 2:00
DAVID CONTE

CONCERT HALL
ABOUT THE SECOND STRING QUARTET Of this work, the composer has written: String Quartet No. 2 was composed between July 2009 and January 2010. I wrote my First String Quartet in 1979 and was delighted to be given the opportunity by the Ives Quartet to return to this rewarding and challenging medium. The first movement, marked Molto Moderato, is the longest of the movements. It is composed in an expanded sonata form. with a double exposition of an introductory theme repeated down a half-step. This introductory theme is varied and developed in several ways throughout the movement; as the basis for a faster version that serves as the first theme, and in the development section as the basis for fugal development. The second theme, first stated by the first violin, and then by the cello, has a consciously romantic and expressive character. After a climactic passage that includes double-stops for the first violin and rapid sextuplets for the accompanying instruments, there is a brief transition leading to the recapitulation, which is somewhat expanded from the exposition. There is a solemn coda that features a statement of the introductory theme in the viola. The second movement is marked Allegro scherzando, and is cast in 6/8 time. The character of the movement is slightly quirky, and is built out of contrasting sections of the main theme first stated in the first violin with partial statements of the chorale How Brightly Shines the Morning Star by Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608) first stated in the cello. All the instruments have a turn in singing successive phrases of the chorale, culminating in a complete statement of the chorale by the first violin at the end of the movement. The third movement is an Elegy, and is dedicated to the memory of a dear friend of mine who died in 2009. She was a gifted singer and this movement honors her memory through its essentially vocal lyricism. Marked Lento assai, the Elegy is cast in 3/4 time; it is based on a single, cantabile theme first sung by the first violin, and accompanied by a chordal walking bass texture, thus
String Quartet No. 2 (2010)

I. Molto Moderato; Allegro II. Scherzo/Chorale: Allegro scherzando III. Elegy: Lento assai IV. Allegro energico
T H E I VE S QUART ET
Bettina Mussumeli, violin Susan Freier, violin Jodi Levitz, viola Stephen Harrison, cello
DOMINICK ARGENTO
Three songs from To be sung upon the water (1973)

I. The Lake at Evening II. In Remembrance of Schubert III. The Lake at Night
VO C A L L E C T IV E
Indre Viskontas, soprano Luz Brahn, clarinet Ian Scarfe, piano
CONCERT HALL 2:00 PM
giving the feeling of a rhythm section supporting a singer. The fourth movement is a spirited and energetic Allegro in 4/4 meter. This finale is designed as a modified rondo form, with three contrasting themes. The third of these is related to the second theme of the first movement and, like that melody, is consciously romantic and expressive in character. The finale concludes with brisk coda in compound meter that concludes with a flourish in all instruments. ABOUT DAVID CONTE David Conte (b. 1955) is currently Professor of Composition and Conductor of the Conservatory Chorus at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has received commissions from Chanticleer, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Dayton, Oakland and Stockton Symphonies, the American Guild of Organists, Sonoma City Opera, Gerbode Foundation and the American Choral Directors Association. Conte has composed five operas: The Dreamers, The Gift of the Magi, Firebird Motel, America Tropical and Famous as well as a musical, The Passion of Rita St. James. His operas have been produced at the Berlin International Opera, USC, University of Minnesota, Hidden Valley, and many other colleges, universities, and regional companies. A Fulbright Scholar in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, a Ralph Vaughan Williams Fellow and an Aspen Music Festival Conducting Fellow, Conte earned his bachelors degree from Bowling Green State University, where he studied with Ruth Inglefield and Wallace DePue, and his masters and doctoral degrees from Cornell University where he studied with Karel Husa, Robert Palmer, Steven Stucky and Thomas Sokol. In 1982, Conte worked with Aaron Copland preparing a study of the composers sketches. Contes music has been heard in the documentaries Ballets Russes, and Orozco: Man of Fire. In 2010 he was appointed to the composition faculty of the European American Musical Alliance in Paris.
ABOUT THE IVES QUARTET Inspired by the passionate, artistic commitment and unique temperament of American composer Charles Ives (18741954), the quartet has attracted critical enthusiasm for its practice of reveling in the unfamiliar, championing an eclectic repertoire that combines established masterworks with underappreciated gems, neglected scores of early-twentieth-century America, and specially commissioned new pieces. The Quartet has established a reputation for passion, precision, and provocative programming, winning accolades for playing that shows both super-refinement and visceral, rock-and-roll intensity. The Ives Quartet presents an annual home concert series in Silicon Valley and the Greater San Francisco Bay Area in addition to performing nationally and internationally at noted chamber music series and festivals. ABOUT VOCALLECTIVE Founded in 2011, Vocallective is a consortium of singers and instrumentalists dedicated to the art of vocal chamber music. Repertoire includes both world and west coast premieres of pieces by American composers Mohammed Fairouz and Giancarlo Aquilanti, as well as thoughtful reinterpretations of well- known classical works. The variety of music presented by the ensemble underscores a commitment to present not only pieces that have stood the test of time but to champion living composers and commission new works of vocal chamber music. Vocallective has been featured on 91.7 KALW and KUSC in Los Angeles, on VoiceBox. Led by soprano Indre Viskontas, the ensemble is an affiliate of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. More information and sounds clips can be found at www.vocallective.com.
10
RH 2:00
ALDEN JENKS
RECITAL HALL
ABOUT HAMMERED Of this work, the composer has written: This piece is an experiment, using the computer to modify the sound of the piano. The listener hears both the piano directly and (via Ableton LIVE software a colored version of the same sound. The two should mix about 50:50 in the hall. The computer operator is responsible for changing the character of the coloration as the piece progresses. At points the computer contributes another voice, a ghost piano, with which the live piano interacts. ABOUT ALDEN JENKS Alden Jenks (b. 1940) teaches composition and is Director of the Electronic Music Studio at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His music has been performed in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world. He was born in Michigan, attended Yale University and the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received BA and M.A. degrees. Among his composition teachers were Darius Milhaud, Ben Weber, Andrew Imbrie, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He studied piano with Robert Helps and Barbara Shearer. After his academic work was completed, he collaborated with David Tudor and John Cage in several performance presentations. With composer Martin Bartlett he performed as Deus ex Machina, using home-made electronic devices and materials scavenged from second-hand stores. His work includes electronic music for recorded media alone and with live performers, and a significant amount of music for live performers alone as well. Mr. Jenks has premiered two works at past Hot Air Music Festivals: War of Words in 2010 and Unrestful Sleep in 2011.
Hammered (2013)
Mikako Endo, piano Alden Jenks, laptoppist
KYLE HOVATTER
The Naughty Child (2013)

Elisabeth Lowry, flute Doug Machiz, cello Matthew Lee Cannon, marimba
STEVE REICH
Electric Counterpoint (1987)

SF C M GU I TA R ENS EMBL E
Travis Andrews, solo electric guitar Renaud Ct-Gigure, Tatiana Senderowicz, Tim Sherren, Matt Bacon, Alexandra Iranfar, Matthew Lyons, Paul Morton, Christopher Hague, John Zientek, Sarah Stallings, J.C. de Luna, Kyle Sampson, guitars Adam Cockerham, bass Nahuel Bronzini, bass David Tanenbaum, conductor
11
ABOUT THE NAUGHTY CHILD The Naughty Child is based on the poem by Langston Hughes: The naughty child Who ventured to go cut flowers, Fell into the mill pond And was drowned. But the good children all Are living yet, Nice folks now In a very nice town
melodic patterns that result from the contrapuntal interlocking of those eight prerecorded guitars. The second movement cuts the tempo in half, changes key and introduces a new theme, which is then slowly built up in nine guitars in canon. Once again, two other guitars and bass supply harmony, while the soloist brings out melodic patterns that result from the overall contrapuntal web. The third movement returns to the original tempo and key and introduces a new pattern in triple meter. After building up a four-guitar canon, two bass guitars enter suddenly to further stress the triple meter. The soloist then introduces a new series of strummed chords that are built up in three-guitar canon. When these are complete, the soloist returns to melodic patterns that result from the overall counterpoint, suddenly, the basses begin to change both key and meter back and forth between E minor and C minor, and between 3/2 and 12/8, so that one hears first three groups of four eighth-notes and then four groups of three-eighth notes. These rhythmic and tonal changes speed up more and more rapidly until at the end the basses slowly fade out and the ambiguities are finally resolved in 12/8 and E minor. Excerpted from Writings on Music, 1965-2000 (Reich, Steve and Paul Hillier, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002)
ABOUT KYLE HOVATTER Kyle Hovatter (b. 1986) is a composer, organist, pianist, and founding member of SFNewMusic. His works range from orchestral, choral, chamber, and electronic. He has had the privilege to study with Robert Coburn, Francois Rose, and Elinor Armer at the University of the Pacific and then at the San Francisco Conservatory. He has collaborated with Paula Brusky, Cornelia Petroiu, the Third Wheel Trio, and Nonsemble 6. Among his favorite premieres was that of Plum Green a multi-movement work for piano and bassoon. Currently Mr. Hovatter is an active musician in San Francisco and a member of the International Orange Chorale. ABOUT ELECTRIC COUNTERPOINT Of this work, the composer has written: Electric Counterpoint was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Musics Next Wave Festival for the guitarist Pat Metheny. The work is in three movements fast, slow, fast played one after the other without pause. The first movement, after an introductory pulsing section where the harmonies of the movement are stated, uses a theme derived from Central African horn music. That theme is built up in eight voice canon and, while the remaining two guitars and bass play pulsing harmonies, the soloist plays
12
RH 3:00
DAN BECKER
RECITAL HALL
ABOUT LAST LIGHT The last light of any phenomena is a mysterious and magical occurrence, and often just the beginning of something, not the end. Whether its that moment when the sun dips below the horizon, or that moment when a loved one passes from this world, very often the energy surrounding such an event increases rather than diminishes. The piece Last Light was commissioned by and written expressly for the three young men of Mobius, fantastic players all. It is ultimately and simply a play of patterns, spinning out personal musical translations of the thoughts, emotions, and states of mind conjured up by its title ABOUT DAN BECKER Dan Becker (b. 1960) is a San Francisco-based composer whose artistic work has been described as post-minimalist due to the strong influence of works by Terry Riley (with whom he studied) and other minimalists of the early 1960s: La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Becker is the founder and Artistic Director of the Common Sense Composers Collective, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Music Center, and a professor of composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Becker received his DMA in Composition from Yale University, where he earned his masters of music and masters of arts degrees. His teachers include Terry Riley, Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Elinor Armer, Poul Ruders and Louis Andriessen. He is the recipient of awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001), Meet the Composer (2002/2008), American Music Center (2006), Live Music for Dance (2006), the America Composers Forum (2004), and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust (2003). His music has been performed at universities and festivals large and small, across the United States, including the Norfolk Summer Festival, Chicago Arts Series, Park City String Quartet Festival, Bates College American Music Festival.
Last Light (2013)

ADRIAN KNIGHT
Bon Voyage (2013)

FRANK WALLACE
More Gargoyles (2013)

MOB I U S T R IO
Robert Nance, Mason Fish, Matthew Holmes-Linder, guitars
CHRIS CRESSWELL
Hesheyoumeus (2013)
Jill Morgan Brenner, soprano (amplified) Chris Cresswell, electronics
BRENDON RANDALL-MYERS
Rust and Anchors (2012)

Luis Escareo, viola Ami Nashimoto, violoncello Danny Clay, toy piano
13
ABOUT BON VOYAGE With a running time of approximately seven minutes, Bon Voyage consists almost entirely of artificial harmonics, demanding great stamina from its performers. As in many of his other works, Knight focuses here on creating a tranquil, immersive ambience rather than a fast-paced drama. The stasis of the works harmonies and tonality are underscored by an arppeggiated ostinato which permeates the piece. A simple, fragmented melody line occasionally floats above the texture and harmony. Knight gives the impression of rubato to the melody lines through the use of uneven divisions of the beat, including quintuplets and rhythms of two against three and three against four. S AR AH WALD ABOUT ADRIAN KNIGHT Adrian Knight (b. 1987) is a Swedish composer and musician who currently lives in New York. He writes and performs with Max Zuckerman as Blue Jazz TV. Recent activities include performances at The Stone, New York; San Francisco Conservatory of Music (The Living Earth Show); Orchestra Hall (Minnesota Orchestra); Yale School of Drama, New Haven; and (Le) Poisson Rouge, New York Since 2008, he has operated the smallest record label in the world, Pink Pamphlet. ABOUT MORE GARGOYLES About this work, the composer has written: More Gargoyles [was written] for the Mobius Trio of San Francisco. Gargoyles seem to represent the two sides of humanity they protect the sacred space within the walls they adorn, frighten us away. They are ugly by design, but beautiful in their intensity and in the sculptors execution. In fact it is often the most grotesque that fascinate and inspire. Yet it is the sacred space we must enter by facing the gargoyles.
ABOUT FRANK WALLACE Frank Wallace (b. 1952) is an American composer, guitarist and baritone. Fanfare magazine has praised him as a composer with an authentic expressive voice and a high standard of musical interest who performs with flawless technical proficiency. Self-taught as a composer, his style has influences from the blues and jazz to medieval and avant-garde. Wallaces works showcase the classical guitar in solo, duo, ensemble works from 3-6 guitars, and in chamber works. He has written works for Nancy Knowles, ChromaDuo, JugendZupfOrchesters NRW, Mare Duo, Marek Pasiezcny, Norbert Dams, Olson/De Cari Duo, Providence Mandolin Orchestra and others. Frank Wallace founded and directed the Boston Classical Guitar Societys Festival 21. He was also a founder and co-director of the Second Sundays Classical Guitar Series in New York. He has taught at the New England Conservatory, Plymouth State College, Emmanuel College, Keene State College and Franklin Pierce College and has a bachelors degree from San Francisco Conservatory. ABOUT MOBIUS TRIO Described by the eminent Sergio Assad as the most inventive and exciting young guitar ensemble today, Mobius Trio has made it its mission to fully integrate the classical guitar into the 21st centurys nascent musical lexicon. The trio exclusively performs music that they have commissioned; they seek to expand the guitar ensembles repertoire to encompass all of the myriad currents of contemporary art music. Formed in 2010 by guitarists and SFCM students Robert Nance, Mason Fish, and Matthew HolmesLinder, the Trio has already commissioned more than a dozen compositions and performed at the Kennedy Center. They recently released their debut album, Last Light, following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
14
ABOUT HESHEYOUMEUS About this work, the composer has written: hesheyoumeus is a work for amplified soprano and electronics. It is an exploration of love and creativity particularly what happens when your identity is wrapped up in these two concepts and they begin to simultaneously fall apart. In the first two movements, the singer begins to conflate the concepts until they lose their definition. As each movement develops we lose sense of what words the singer is singing and are left only with the vowels. In the final movement, we hear more story, but even this disintegrates in the climax, where we are left only with the sound i as the singer loses herself in the cascading waves of electronic sound. The electronics are constructed around the notion of lost identity. Sounds develop by taking fragments of popular songs and manipulating these with various filters and effects. Built almost entirely out of loops, drones, and with diatonic melodic material, these three movements are more akin to pop songs than classical music pop from a planet in a galaxy far far away. ABOUT CHRIS CRESSWELL Chris Cresswell (b. 1988) is an award-winning composer whose music includes works for large and chamber ensembles, voice, solo instruments, as well as electro-acoustic music. Commissioned by the American Composers Forum, The Jerome Foundation, The Society for New Music, Trudy Chan, Sar-Shalom Strong, and Melissa Wid zinski, his music has been presented by Kathleen Supoves Music with a View Festival, the Museum of Modern Art and the Kennedy Center. Upcoming projects include the world premiere of Description of a Lost Thing, written for Phillip Cheah and Trudy Chan, and Stone Seeking Warmth, a song cycle written for tenor Jon English. Cresswell graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University in 2011. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and studies with Zibuokle Martinaityte.
ABOUT RUST AND ANCHORS About this work, the composer has written: Rust and Anchors is a somewhat nautically-themed piece about pressure. The toy piano is squeezed between the two string parts, the sound emerging only for a second. The string players are asked to bow with increasing amounts of pressure, which gradually squeezes the pitch out of the sound. Much of the piece is unmeasured and the players are asked to avoid visual cues, putting pressure on them to listen carefully to each other in order to stay synchronized. I hear the groans of sunken wrecks collapsing under the weight of the ocean, little bubbles escaping. But maybe thats just me. ABOUT BRENDON RANDALL-MYERS Brendon Randall-Myers (b. 1986) is a composer, guitarist, and improviser. His music examines peoples interactions, expectations, and boundaries, often through juxtapositions and combinations of music for bars and music for concert halls. Brendon co-founded the punk-inflected composing/improvising group Grains, and was a fellow in guitar at the Bang on a Can summer festival in 2012. He has been commissioned by the Guitar Foundation of America and the Guerilla Composers Guild, and by performers such as The Living Earth Show, Friction, Alien Box Man, Sqwonk, Celliola, Nonsemble 6, Mobius Trio, and flutist Esther Landau. Brendon grew up in rural West Virginia, attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Pomona College, and is currently pursuing an masters in composition at the Yale School of Music, studying with David Lang and Chris Theofanidis. His primary guitar teachers have been Bob Squires and Jack Sanders, and past composition teachers include Kurt Rohde, Belinda Reynolds, and Tom Flaherty.
15
OS 3:00
EVE BEGLARIAN CHRISTIAN WOLFF ANTHONY PORTER
OSHER SALON
ABOUT UNTIL IT BLAZES I have cast fire upon the world, and watch, I am guarding it until it blazes. Jesus, Gospel of Thomas This piece sets up repeating patterns, then gradually groups notes until new melodies grow out of the accents. For example, when you are playing a three-note pattern, if you accent every fourth event, you will get one melody; if you accent every fifth event, you will get a different melody. There are six patterns in Until It Blazes, each an outgrowth of the previous pattern. The pattern is played very softly with no accents at all, then gradually expresses a grouping that creates a slower melody arcing across the pattern. The accents occur within a slow crescendo, reach a climax, then recede in diminuendo. The length of the piece varies depending on how slowly cross-melodies are built, then receded allowing the listener to hear both the pattern and the melody that it intersects. ABOUT EVE BEGLARIAN Eve Beglarian (b. 1958) is a contemporary American composer, performer and audio producer of Armenian descent. Her music is often characterized as postminimalist. Her chamber, choral, and orchestral music has been commissioned and widely performed by The Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, The California EAR Unit, The Orchestra of St. Lukes, Relche, The Paul Dresher Ensemble, Sequitur, and The American Composers Orchestra.
Until It Blazes (2001)
Another Possibility (2004)
hair of the thing that bit you (2011)

LARRY POLANSKY
freeHorn (2012)
Giacomo Fiore, solo electric guitar, electronics
16
ABOUT ANOTHER POSSIBILITY In 1966, Morton Feldman wrote his friend and colleague Christian Wolff a piece for solo electric guitar entitled The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar. Wolffwho was not a guitarist performed the piece a few times in concert and on various radio stations, until the guitar (and the case in which he kept the only copy of the music) was stolen from his car one night. In 1994 composer Larry Polansky wrote 34 Chords, an electric guitar orchestration of Feldmans short choral work Christian Wolff in Cambridge as a nod to the lost guitar piece. This unexpected reminder, in turn, prompted Wolff to compose Another Possibility, in part from what he remembered of the Feldman original. ABOUT CHRISTIAN WOLFF Christian Wolff was born in 1934 in Nice, France, but has lived in the US since 1941. He studied piano with Grete Sultan and, briefly, composition with John Cage. Though mostly self-taught as a composer, his association with John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, Earle Brown, Frederic Rzewski and Cornelius Cardew has been important. His music allows performers to freely interact as it is performed. A number of pieces have been used by Merce Cunningham and the Cunningham Dance Company, starting in 1953. Wolff has been active as a performer and as an improviser. His writings on music, up to 1998, are collected in the book Cues: Writings and Conversations. He has received awards and grants from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, DAAD Berlin, the Fromm Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts and the Mellon Foundation. He is a member of the Akademie der Knste and has received an honorary doctorate degree from the California Institute of the Arts. Trained at Harvard as a classicist, Wolff taught classics at Harvard and from 1971 to 1999 was professor of Classics and Music at Dartmouth College.
ABOUT HAIR OF THE THING THAT BIT YOU Commissioned by Matthew Holmes-Linder of the Mobius Trio, this fantasy explores the aftermath in four sections: I. Contemplative and earnest II. Spritely and a bit nave III. Sharp and frustrated IV. Very sentimental (like a love letter) ABOUT ANTHONY PORTER The composer writes: I started playing piano at around age 10 thanks to a generous nudge from my Italian grandma, and it wasnt too long after that I began sharing the left side of the bench with her playing old standards like Caravan and Up a Lazy River as shed shout out the chords to play while she improvised the melody on top. I began writing songs in high school imitating this improvisatory style until arriving at UC Berkeley where I started to hone my craft studying piano with Michael Seth Orland and composition with John Thow. Before finishing at Cal, I went to Bologna, Italy to study music (at the G.B. Martini Conservatory and the University of Bologna), but ended up learning much more about language. There, I experienced first-hand how different patterns of speech and body cues and expressions (of which Italians are, of course, notorious) just simply could not be translated; most of my compositions to this day focus on this concept of meaning being lost in translation. I finished my masters in composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2011; there I studied with Dan Becker.
OSHER SALON 3:00 PM
17
ABOUT FREEHORN Of this work, the composer writes: freeHorn is a live computer work meant to be performed with live instruments. Its a generalization of a set of my previous works, which I refer to as the psaltery set. Its designed so that performers can make their own versions of the piece. Like Psaltery (1978), this version of freeHorn moves through three related harmonic series, tuned a pure major triad above the fundamental A. The overall harmonic trajectory of this version if AC#EA. After the build-up of the original series, each new series is introduced in reverse prime order, from the 17th harmonic down: 1713111471510591263168421). Harmonics are substituted through a nearest available pitch algorithm. The guitar is tuned in harmonic tuning, and the guitarist is free to match the pitches produced by the live computer part. Or not. ABOUT LARRY POLANSKY Larry Polansky (b. 1954) is a composer, theorist, teacher, writer, performer, programmer, editor and publisher. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, is co-director and co-founder of Frog Peak Music, and teaches at Dartmouth College.
18
CH 4:00
LUCIANO BERIO

CONCERT HALL
BYRON ADAMS
Serenade for Nine Instruments (2012)

I. Allegro amabile II. Ballade: Andante moderato e teneramente III. Intermezzo: Allegretto grazioso ma poco scherzando IV. Finale: Allegro giocoso Sasha Launer, flute Jessica Huntsman, oboe Brenden Guy, clarinet Alexis Luque, bassoon Caitlyn Smith, horn Tess Varley, violin Emily Botel, violin Vijay Chalasani, viola Erin Kelly, cello Alanna Jones, bass John Kendall Bailey, conductor
Opus Number Zoo (1950/1970)

I. Barn Dance II. The Fawn III. The Grey Mouse IV. Tom Cats
VA L I NOR W IND S
Sasha Launer, flute Jessica Huntsman, oboe Brenden Guy, clarinet Alexis Luque, bassoon Caitlyn Smith, horn
JOSEPH STILLWELL
Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano (2012)

I. Adagio serio II. Allegro con malizia Brenden Guy, clarinet Kevin Rogers, violin Erin Kelly, cello Joseph Stillwell, piano
ABOUT THE QUARTET FOR CLARINET, VIOLIN, CELLO AND PIANO Of this work, the composer writes: The idea of composing a chamber work for clarinet has been on my musical to-do list for years. In fact, a number of times I began sketches for such a piece, though all occupied a much lighter emotional landscape than the piece on this program. While I typically do not subscribe to the notion of composition as self-expression, I cannot help but consider this piece my most personal to date. The work is cast in a two movement, slowfast form. The first movement, marked Adagio serio begins with a somber melody that appears in a number of different guises throughout the movement. The unfolding of the movement reflects my desire to employ a more organic approach to composition without sacrificing formal integrity.
19
If the first movement seems to look inward emotionally, the second, Allegro con malizia (with malice), is surely an outward reaction to such inner contemplation. ABOUT JOSEPH STILLWELL Joseph Stillwell (b. 1984) began composing at age 17. He currently resides in San Francisco where he maintains a busy schedule teaching, performing, and composing. Stillwell received his masters of music degree in 2010 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied composition with David Conte. In 2007, he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where he studied composition with Charles Rochester Young, piano with J. Michael Keller, and conducting with Brendan Caldwell. Stillwell has composed works for a variety of genres, ranging from solo piano and art song to wind ensemble and orchestra. In addition to composing, Joseph is active as a performer of new music, and also maintains an avid interest in music and art history. In a review for the San Francisco Classical Voice, critic Janos Gereben described Stillwells music as, complex and yet instantly appealing, gorgeously tonal but not old-fashioned. Awards include the 2010 James Highsmith Composition Competition for his orchestral work Music for a Forgotten City. His String Quartet No. 1 was one of three finalists in the 2009 Lyrica Chamber Music Young Composers Competition. ABOUT THE SERENADE FOR NINE INSTRUMENTS Of this work, the composer has written: For many years, I wanted to compose an homage to the great Czech-American composer Karel Husa, who was my composition teacher at Cornell University. I hesitated for a long time, as I was unsure what musical form such an homage might take. The confluence of a commission from Mark Mandarano for the Sinfonietta of Riverdale and Professor Husas ninetieth birthday in 2011
provided the key that unlocked the portal to sustained invention. I have sought to honor Husa by paying an affectionate tribute to his music in particular and Czech music in general. Finally, I sought to create a piece filled with lyricism, charm, and gentle wit but leavened by an occasional touch of melancholy. ABOUT BYRON ADAMS Byron Adams is a composer, conductor, and musicologist. His essays have appeared in journals such as 19th-Century Music, The Musical Quarterly, Music and Letter; Twentieth-century Music and The John Donne Journal, and have been included in a variety of scholarly journals. In 2000, the American Musicological Society presented him with the Philip Brett Award and in 2007, he was appointed scholar-in-residence for the Bard Music Festival, and edited Edward Elgar and His World (Princeton, 2007). Adams music has been performed at the 26th Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, the Leith Hill Festival in England, the Conservatoire Amricain in Fontainebleau, France, and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. A recipient of numerous awards and grants, he has had his scores programmed in America by such ensembles as the Syracuse Symphony; Cantori New York; and Boston Secession. Recent commissions include the Variationes alchemisticae for Chamber Music Palisades; Le Jardin Provenal; for Pacific Serenades; and Illuminations for piano commissioned by the distinguished pianist Armen Guzelimian. In the summer of 2011, The Philharmonia Orchestra performed his Midsummer Music for orchestra under the baton on Peter Oundjian for a performance in Great Britain. That same year the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra performed his Capriccio concertante, conducted by Grant Cooper.
20
RH 4:00
EVAN BUSHMAN

RECITAL HALL
ABOUT THESE RAGGED TIMES These Ragged Times is the most recent in a series of collaborations between Evan Bushman and Brandon LePage (flute), spanning 6 years. Dance forms and the theatrical have a prominent place in his work (including three operas and two ballets), and this piece draws inspiration from the ragtime/ cakewalk idiom. Throughout, the ragged rhythmic flavor and subdivision familiar in Joplins ragtime is taken to another level with the heavy use of mixed meter, and the stratifying of different levels of metric subdivision being implemented simultaneously. The pieces slow introduction presents several ideas which later develop and play prominent roles. These include several simple rhythmic and melodic motives, as well as some markedly dissonant harmonic ideas which color the fundamentally tonal thematic material of the quicker rag section which follows. The rest of the piece unfolds in several clearly defined sections, including a much faster and metrically stratified section, a reflection of the introductory material mixed with the main rag theme, and a presto tag-on coda to finish with style. BIOGRAPHY Evan Bushman (b. 1988) received his bachelors degree from Michigan State University in 2010, where he studied composition with Charles Ruggiero and Jere Hutcheson. His masters degree was completed at Florida State University in 2012, where he studied composition with Dr. Ladislav Kubik, and was also employed as an aural skills instructor. Evans oeuvre of over one hundred works includes a variety of chamber and orchestral works, six symphonies, art songs, operas, and ballets. His ballet Rumpelstiltskin was selected by competition for a reading session with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2010.
These Ragged Times (2013)

Brandon LePage, flute/piccolo James Thomas Ginn, trombone Jess Rodda, tuba
KAITO NAKAHORI
Hidden Instincts (2012)

I. Opening my eyes II. Being wise after the event Mona Narizuka, piano
DOUGLAS MOORE
Gallantry (1958)
Announcer: Amber Rose Johnson, mezzo-soprano Doctor Greg: Alexandre Tarczynski, baritone Lola Markham: Sarah Eve Brand, soprano Donald Hopewell: Brandon Casbeer, tenor Dancers: Katya Lohngoen and Annie Smith Ted Zoldan, stage director James MacDougall, piano Vasken Ohanian, conductor
21
ABOUT HIDDEN INSTINCTS This two-movement work based on the Haruki Murakami novel Lederhose and dedicated to pianist Aki Takahashi, who performed the works 2012 premiere in Tokyo, Japan. ABOUT KAITO NAKAHORI Kaito Nakahori (b. 1989) is a Japanese composer based in Tokyo and San Francisco whose works have been described by Timeless Atmosphere as, Very Asian, very elegant. He is well known for his string ensemble and orchestral works and makes heavy use of extended techniques. He received his bachelors degree from the Toho College of Music and is currently pursuing a masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Conrad Susa. His past compositional teachers have included Jun Nagao, Kazuaki Ogikubo and Ren Staar. He has written for the theater in collaboration with company Keizaito H. Nakahoris works have been performed in Europe, America and Japan by well-known musicians such as Aki Takahashi. He has recently taken part in the international A-EN Project with Hikari Kiyama and is a member of the Tokyo International Association of Artists as well as the Japanese composer group The Sound Set. ABOUT GALLANTRY Douglas Moores short opera Gallantry was composed with a libretto by Arnold Sundgaard and was premiered at Columbia University in 1958. The works subtitle is A Soap Opera, and indeed, Gallantry is a parody of television soap operas that is still relevant over fifty years after its premiere. The plot recalls soap opera clichs (it centers around a love triangle and infidelity in a hospital) and even interrups the action with commercial breaks at critical dramatic moments to humorous effect.
Moore uses several musical devices to represent soap operas: jazzy figures for muted trumpet and tunes reminiscent of jingles during the Announcers introduction; an impressive range and often disjunct, dramatic melodies for the lead soprano; and constant tonal uncertainty throughout the work, thus reflecting the constant dramatic twists in soap opera plots. Synopsis. After the Announcer promotes Lochinvar Soap (the operas sponsor), the surgeon Doctor Gregg confesses to the anesthetist Lola Markham that he has fallen in love with her. Lola, however, is engaged to one of the hospitals patients, Donald Hopewell. Lola rebuffs Doctor Gregg, and a commercial for Billy Boy Wax follows. Donald later reveals to Lola that Doctor Gregg is a married man. When Lola confronts Doctor Gregg and threatens to reveal his philandering ways to the public, the Doctor expresses his anger by attempting to stab Donald. Lola saves Donald from the Doctors wrath, and the drama ends with a quartet, with Lola and Donald declaring their passion for one another on the one hand, and the Announcer and Doctor Gregg advocating Lochinvar Soap on the other. ABOUT DOUGLAS MOORE Douglas Moore (1893-1969) was an American composer remembered primarily for his operas. These are often referred to as folk operas, as they center on themes in American rural life or on aspects of contemporary American culture, as in the case with Gallantry. Moores best-known opera is The Ballad of Baby Doe, which premiered in 1956. Moores education was heavily influenced by French musical traditions, as he studied with Vincent DIndy and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He served as a professor at Columbia University between 1926 and 1962, during which time he wrote many of the works he is known for today.
PRO GRA M NO T E AND BI O GRA PHY BY SARA H WAL D
22
RH 5:00
JUSTIN RALLS

RECITAL HALL
RENAUD CT-GIGURE
Two Machines (2013)

I. Machine with Abandoned Doll II. Thinking Chair
Night-Psalms (2013)
Gina Gulyas, flute
Renaud Ct-Gigure, Paul Morton, Matthew Lyons, Adam Cockerham, guitars
ABOUT NIGHT-PSALMS
WINTON YUICHIRO WHITE
Two Japanese Komoriuta (2013)

I. Edo no Komoriuta II. Takeda no Komoriuta Winton Yuichiro White, tenor Amy Sedan, flute
JOHN CORIGLIANO
From Three Irish Folksong Settings (1988)

I. The Foggy Dew III. She Moved Through the Fair Winton Yuichiro White, tenor Amy Sedan, flute
Of this work, the composer has written: Night-Psalms was composed as an homage to the hermit thrush, one of the most beautiful song birds. The harmonic and melodic material is entirely derived from its song, making use of the idiomatic and timbre variations of the flute. The song is a unique whistled prelude accompanied by arpeggiated flourishes, mysterious, barely decipherable to human ears. Phrases vary through individuals and regions, yet all share a simple, firm musical framework of contrasting variations. The hermit thrush, which nests on the ground, climbs to a high perch late at night, often singing in the twilight alone. It prefers the pine barrens above open woodland, its ethereal whistle echoing off the trees a powerful psalm in the night initiating travelers to the temples of North Americas mountain forests. ABOUT JUSTIN RALLS Composer Justin Ralls (b. 1987) has premiered works at the Hydansaal in Eisenstadt, Austria, the Lucca International Youth Orchestra Festival in Albano Terme, Italy, Oregon Bach Festival, as well as other venues in Salzburg, Rome, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. Winner of Third Angle Ensembles inaugural 2012 New Ideas in Music Competition, he conducted his winning work, Anthrophony, at two of the groups New Ideas in Music Concerts. In July 2012 he participated in the first-ever Composing in the Wilderness workshop in Denali National Park, in
CLARICE ASSAD
Danas Nativas (2006)

I. Twisted Samba II. Reflective Cano III. Mad Baio Renaud Ct-Gigure, Paul Morton, Chris Hague, Adam Cockerham, guitars
23
collaboration with the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival and Alaska Geographic. Justin takes an active interest in natural soundscapes, believing that cultural relevance and sustainability entail a stringent commitment to regionalism in contemporary music. ABOUT TWO JAPANESE KOMORIUTA Of this work, the composer has written: My Japanese folk song arrangements were written to pair with John Coriglianos Three Irish Folksong Settings for this years Hot Air Music Festival. Although I was raised in Japan, I was not familiar with the Takeda no Komoriuta. A komori uta is a lullaby sung by a mother or nanny. Takeda no Komoriuta is more specifically a moriko uta a lullaby sung by young teenage girls who cared for the infants of the aristocrats and the wealthy. The song is a lament: A teenage girl wants to attend the Bon Festival but her family cannot afford the appropriate outfit for the occasion. Taking care of the baby amidst the cheerful sounds she hears from the Bon Festival, she longs to leave the city and return to her familys poverty -stricken home. Edo no Komoriuta is a traditional lullaby that mothers have sung to their infants since Japans Edo Period (1603-1868). ABOUT WINTON YUICHIRO WHITE Winton Yuichiro White (b. 1980) has been composing for more than 15 years, emerging as a versatile composer for orchestral instruments, vocal ensembles, dance groups and film. Born in New York, raised in Japan, he has pursued composition studies in California at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and at Biola University. Winton recently composed his first soundtrack for the HAFU Film, which will have its premiere American screenings at the Hapa Japan Conference (University of Southern California) and at University of California, Berkeley in April. Whites work has been performed by members of the Milwaukee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati,
Colorado, and National Symphonies as well as by colleagues in Japan, Singapore, France, and throughout the United States. During his time in Los Angeles, he was active as a tuba player and bassist. Still active as a performer, Winton now sings as a tenor and countertenor with a variety of Bay Area ensembles. ABOUT THREE IRISH FOLKSONG SETTINGS The simple instrumentation that Corigliano composed for this cycle evokes a setting of musicians in old Ireland; this type of music may have been performed with just voice and flute. The Foggy Dew is a classic and familiar Irish folk tune about a mans pursuit of a woman. She Moved Through the Fair is also a traditional folk tune; its subject is the awaited union between the man and woman. Corigliano creates a celestial, religious tone that is reminiscent of medieval music, building on similarities between music of that period and Irish folk music. WI NT O N YUI C HI RO WHI T E ABOUT DANAS NATIVAS Of this work, the composer has written: Danas Nativas is a collection of four Brazilian dances in three movements, written for the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet. Each movement is based on contrasting ideas of form and musical style. The first movement combines the exciting rhythmic pulse of the samba and the lush, sophisticated harmonies associated with jazz. Because the final result is not real samba, bossa nova or jazz, I decided to give it the title of Twisted Samba, a take-off on a famous bossa nova song called Samba Torto by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The second movement, Reflective Cano (cano is the word for song in my native Portuguese), begins with a slow and sorrowful melody that gradually turns into a more cheerful waltz. My goal was to create ambiguity not only with meters and form, but with the evocation of contrasting emotional context by drawing ideas from each other.
24
ABOUT DANAS NATIVAS , CONTINUED
ABOUT TWO MACHINES Two Machines is inspired by two kinetic sculptures by Arthur Ganson. Ganson, an American artist and engineer, builds machines that bring simple objects to life in a choreographic manner. The first sculpture represented in the music, Machine with Abandoned Doll, displays a stained baby doll moving like a real newborn. The object is resting on a dozen metal sticks which are connected to a machine. The machine causes the sticks to move up and down in a syncopated matter as one of the infants arm comes up, the other goes down. The music inspired by this scene mostly reflects its peaceful quality. When accompanied by the video of the sculpture, this piece contributes to the illusion that the abandoned doll is real. An introspective affect is created by using minimalism containing lullaby-sounding melodies and restful chords. In Gansons Thinking Chair, a small yellow chair slowly sways from one leg to another, emulating someone thinking and pacing in circle. The machines musical representation is found in CtGigure choice of harmony for the second section of the movement: It constantly seeks somewhere happier to settle, but eventually has to no choice but to return to D minor. The idea of thinking especially thinking in a circle is represented by unstable polyrhythms in the first section and emphasised by infrequent triplet figures. ABOUT RENAUD CT-GIGURE Guitarist and composer Renaud Ct-Gigure (b. 1990) has performed in numerous venues and festivals throughout Canada and the United States, including recent appearances at the Switchboard Music Festival (with his guitar duo, Pinocchio) and the Kennedy Center. Renaud began his studies at the Conservatory of Montral at 16 and completed his bachelors degree there under the tutelage of Jean Vallires. He is currently in his second year of the masters program at the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studies with composer and guitarist Srgio Assad.
Mad Baio closes this set of works, again by introducing two different musical ideas and then combining them in the coda. It starts off with a series of idiomatic strumming gestures in mixed meters that suddenly drop out and give room to the baio (a Northeast Brazilian rhythm) that comprises the main body of this piece. In the end, the two ideas mingle as the rhythmic melody of the baio is accompanied by the groove of the mixed meter patterns from the movements beginning. ABOUT CLARICE ASSAD Clarice Assad (b. 1978) is a pianist, arranger, vocalist and composer. A native of Rio de Janeiro, Assad was born into one of Brazils most famous musical families; she is the daughter of Srgio Assad, and has performed professionally since the age of seven. her compositions incorporate a wide variety of styles which often merge in her works. Assads formal piano studies began with Sheila Zagury in Brazil; she then studied with Natalie Fortin in Paris and had additional instruction in jazz and Brazilian piano under the tutelage of Leandro Braga. Assad continued her classical piano studies in the United States with Ed Bedner (Berklee School of Music) and Bruce Berr at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Assad has studied composition with Ilya Levinson, Stacy Garrop, David Rakowski, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers and Claude Baker. Her voice teachers have included Susan Botti and Judy Blazer. She received her bachelors degree from the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois and her masters in composition from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
25
OS 5:00
NICHOLAS WHITE
OSHER SALON
ABOUT STITCHINGS Regarding this work, the composer has written: While attending Fullerton Community College, I was part of a piano ensemble. For one of our concerts, we had programmed Six Pianos by Steve Reich, and, while rehearsing the piece, I had the idea to write a piece for the same ensemble. stitchings is my take on Reichs minimalist technique, which I have always been fond of as both listener and composer. Because it is difficult to find venues equipped with six pianos, I rearranged the work for four players on two pianos. ABOUT NICHOLAS WHITE A native of Anaheim, California, Nicholas White (b. 1988) received his bachelors degree from California State University, Fullerton in 2010 where he studied composition with Ken Walicki and Lloyd Rodgers and piano with Eduardo Delgado. While at CSUF, he performed on oboe, recorder, and harpsichord in a variety of ensembles large and small. White is a founding member of the Long Beach New Music Collective and is currently writing works for their June concert. ABOUT OUROBOROS Ouroboros is the name for the symbol of a snake, or dragon, swallowing or eating its own tail, creating a circle, and symbolizing wholeness or infinity. Taken pessimistically, it depicts a creature causing its own destruction. Both cycles and the self-implosion come into play in this work for the piano eight hands written for and dedicated to New Keys. A chromatic line descends the entire range of the piano, only to reappear in the highest register, circling back upon itself, continuing its descent. Once it returns to where it started from another faster line slips off. More lines continue to pile up until the music collapses under its own weight.
stitchings (2010)
JOSEPH M. COLOMBO
Ouroboros (2013)
N E W K E YS
Lucy Moore, Kanoko Nishi, Anthony Porter, Regina Schaffer, piano
INGRID LEE
Of Monsters (2012)
Anthony Porter, accordion Regina Schaffer, piano
ANTHONY PORTER
archer (2011)
Anthony Porter, Regina Schaffer, piano
IAN DICKE
Dj (2009)
Lucy Moore, Kanoko Nishi, Anthony Porter, Regina Schaffer, piano
26
ABOUT JOSEPH M. COLOMBO Joseph M. Colombos (b. 1989) work is characterized by a strong rhythmic drive and vibrant energy. He has written for the concert hall, often enjoys performing his own music, and is excited to present his first installation at this years Hot Air Festival. He has studied with Dalit Warshaw, Curtis Hughes, Jan Swafford, and Andy Vores. Mr. Colombo has a bachelors degree in music composition from the Boston Conservatory and is currently pursuing a Masters degree at the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studies with Dan Becker. He is a founding member of the Fifth Floor Collective. ABOUT OF MONSTERS About this work, the composer has written: Notions of the Self/Other dichotomy are central in my work and are expressed in her use of sounds that trigger (attack), grow from (sustain), or end (release) from different points of contact. Of Monsters consists of hybrid sounds resulting from different kinds of resonances between the strings of the piano, and between the accordion and the piano. Using the microtonal tunings of the piano harmonics against the equal tempered tunings of the piano keyboard and the accordion, subtle beatings emerge and dissipate throughout the piece. Each sound is patched together from different sources, extended by sympathetic resonance, disturbed by beatings, resulting in a series of hybrid, monstrous sounds. ABOUT INGRID LEE Ingrid Lee (1990-) is a Los Angeles based composer, improviser, and pianist from Hong Kong. Lees work is influenced by ideas of becoming and failure in human-technology relationships. Lees collaboratve projects with filmmakers, animators, dancers, and visual artists have been performed/ screened in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, and Essen, Germany. Lee received a bacherlors in music composition and piano performance from
California Institute of the Arts where she studied composition with Michael Pisaro, Karen Tanaka, and Wadada Leo Smith, and piano with Vicki Ray. She currently teaches piano and performs in experimental, new music, and improvisation ensembles including KREation and the L.A. Stylophonic. ABOUT ARCHER archer is a love letter. ABOUT ANTHONY PORTER The composer writes: I started playing piano at around age 10 thanks to a generous nudge from my Italian grandma, and it wasnt too long after that I began sharing the left side of the bench with her playing old standards like Caravan and Up a Lazy River as shed shout out the chords to play while she improvised the melody on top. At UC Berkeley, I started to hone my craft, studying piano with Michael Seth Orland and composition with John Thow. Before finishing at Cal, I spent time in Bologna, Italiy, where I experienced first-hand how different patterns of speech and body cues and expressions (of which Italians are, of course, notorious) just simply could not be translated; most of my compositions to this day focus on this concept of meaning being lost in translation. I finished my masters in composition in 2011 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I studied with Dan Becker. ABOUT DJ Dj is scored for two pianos/four pianists. It explores two unique and mystical human sensations: dj vu (already seen) and dj rve (already dreamed). Nearly all of us have had the feeling that weve experienced something before whether it was an image, sound, or some combination of both. This eerie feeling has caused many to believe that our brains have a built-in
OSHER SALON 5:00 PM
27
system of clairvoyance, or that the fabric of space and time is not always what it seems. The first movement echoes this experience through the use of repetitive patterns, creating a literal sense of hearing it before. The end of the movement features a famous chord that may cause a real sensation of dj vu. In the second movement, Dj Rve, the four pianists weave together independent layers into a dream-like series of waves. Here the repeated patterns are less regular and clear, similar to how we experience the seemingly random discarding of the days sights and sounds via dreaming. Dj concludes with a question that awakens the power of our subconscious: is the future determined by our past dreams? ABOUT IAN DICKE The music of American-born composer Ian Dicke (b. 1982) includes works for orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber ensembles, and electronic media. Heralded by the San Francisco Classical Voice as colorful, well-designed, and deftly scored, Dickes works often explore contemporary social-political culture through a mixture of pungent and triadic harmonies, dance-like rhythms, and intricately layered textures. Dicke has received awards and recognition from the Fulbright Program, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Meet the Composer Foundation, ASCAP, and BMI, among others. He was recently awarded two summer 2012 artist residencies: The Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida and Art342 in Fort Collins, Colorado. Dicke is an Assistant Professor of Digital Composition at the University of California, Riverside. He holds degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Dicke has studied composition with David Conte, Dan Becker, Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, Dan Welcher, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Donald Grantham, and Russell Pinkston.
ABOUT NEW KEYS New Keys, now entering its tenth full season, promotes the most innovative work written for the piano. Having performed Steve Reichs iconic Six Pianos in 2010 on the Hot Air stage with 6 Yamaha keyboards, New Keys returns with a full hour set of newfangled music for the piano, featuring 2 world premieres, and a slew of other exciting multi-hand works.
28
CH 6:00
LOREN JONES

CONCERT HALL
ABOUT DANCING ON THE BRINK OF THE WORLD Conductor John Kendall Bailey writes: At 6:00pm on March 3 in the main Concert Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, I will conduct the world premiere of composer Loren Jones 14-movement tribute to the city of San Francisco, titled Dancing on the Brink of the World, which will be the centerpiece of the annual Hot Air Music Festival. Each movement of Jones work brings to life different episodes, cultures, and moments in San Franciscos rich history. Echoes of music from China, the Ohlone people, and the early California Missions combine with movements which remember historical events like the Gold Rush, the West Coasts first Worlds Fair, and the 1906 earthquake and fire; other movements commemorate beloved places in SF, capturing them in their time of greatest historical significance or popularity Playland, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, the Castro, North Beach and of course the myriad of different cultures and styles inevitably demands a wonderfully unique instrumentation for the orchestra, including erhu, pipa, banjo, Native American flute, accordion, musical saw, and more. ABOUT LOREN JONES Loren J. Jones (b. 1950) began composing as a child. He spent his early years between film-making and music, and his film work was periodically broadcast on local television station KTVU. Eventually choosing to pursue music instead of film, Jones formed several local bands, performing and creating different genres of original music. He has studied with Tom Constantine, Alexis Alrich, and David Conte. Jones music has been performed by his own chamber group, by the The San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the Zofo Duet, and by students, teachers and professional musicians from around the Bay Area. He has produced recordings, worked in radio and film, and created the sound track for an animated short which won a special Academy Award.
Dancing on the Brink of the World (2012)

I. Ohlone Song 1600 II. Ave Maria Yerba Buena 1776 III. Gold Rush 1849 IV. Dragon Gate 1850s V. The Barbary Coast March 1860s VI. Midwinter Exposition 1894 VII. The Outside Lands 1900 VIII. Earthquake & Fire 1906 IX. Playland 1920s X. Golden Gate Bridge 1930s XI. North Beach 1950s XII. Haight Ashbury 1960s XIII. The Castro 1970s XIV. The City by the Sea 2013s Steve Adams, soprano sax Travis Andrews, acoustic and electric guitar Dan Cantrell, accordion, melodica, saw Ariella Hyman, cello Loren Jones, Native American flute Anna Maria Mendieta, harp Mitch Polzak, banjo Tao Shi, Erhu Jeffrey Staulcup, horn Joseph Stillwell, piano Shenshen Zhang, pipa Golden Gate Chorus Hot Air Festival Orchestra John Kendall Bailey, conductor
29
RH 6:00
DAN BECKER
RECITAL HALL
ABOUT LOCKDOWN Of this work, the composer has written: Lockdown is all about patterns. A teeming, overheated and overstuffed prison of patterns. Sometimes they interlock harmoniously, but more often they grind fiercely against each other in what seems like an attempt to escape off the musical page. Such unruly musical material needs an even more ferocious and dangerous group of performers to maintain control and keep the scoundrels in their compositional cells. Lockdown was commissioned by the Banff International String Quartet Competition for the Afiara String Quartet and premiered in January, 2010 at the Banff Centre as part of a collaboration with the Common Sense Composers Collective. ABOUT DAN BECKER Dan Becker (b. 1960) is a San Francisco-based composer whose work has been described as post-minimalist, showing the influences of Terry Riley (with whom he studied) and other minimalists (La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Philip Glass). Becker received his bachelors degree from the San Francisco Conservatory and subsequently completed masters degrees and a doctorate at Yale University. His teachers included Terry Riley, Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, Elinor Armer, Poul Ruders and Louis Andriessen. He is the recipient of awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2001), Meet the Composer (2002/2008), American Music Center (2006), Live Music for Dance (2006), the America Composers Forum (2004), and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust (2003). His music has been performed at the Norfolk Summer Festival, Chicago Arts Series, Park City String Quartet Festival and the Bates College American Music Festival. Becker is the founder and Artistic Director of the Common Sense Composers Collective, a member of the Board of Directors of the American Music Center, and a professor of composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Lockdown (2010)
PETERIS VASKS
String Quartet No. 4 (2003)

I. Elegy II. Toccata 1 III. Chorale IV. Toccata 2
GABRIELA SMITH
Reflection Nebulae (2011)

FR IC T ION QUART ET
Kevin Rogers, violin Otis Harriel, violin Pei-Ling Lin, viola Doug Machiz, cello
30
ABOUT STRING QUARTET NO. 4 Vasks fourth string quartet was premiered in 2000 by the Kronos Quartet. It consists of five movements and runs approximately thirty minutes. Vasks has said the following about the piece: There has been so much bloodshed and destruction, and yet loves power and idealism have helped to keep the world in balance. I wanted to speak of these things in my new quartet; not from the sidelines, but with direct emotion and sensitivity. To accomplish this, Vasks juxtaposed folk elements with chaotic passages, ebbing and flowing as dramatic moments are succeeded by tranquility. Critic Robert Levine has compared the quartet with the music of Arvo Prt and Dmitry Shostakovich, and indeed, Vasks himself has acknowledged the influence of Shostakovich in this work. ABOUT PETERIS VASKS Peteris Vasks (b. 1946), born in Latvia, studied double bass and composition as a teenager in Riga. Formal studies in double bass continued at the Lithuanian Conservatory in 1970 and composition studies began at the Latvian Music Academy in 1973. He is particularly known for his choral writing, although his instrumental works have been performed all over the world and have proven to be popular with choreographers.
P R O G R A M NO T E A ND BIOGR APHY BY S AR AH WALD
vision of this multi-million-year process of star formation, condensed into about 13 minutes. ABOUT GABRIELA SMITH The music of Gabriella Smith (b. 1991) has been performed by the Berkeley Symphony under Kent Nagano, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, the Azure Ensemble, Classical Revolution, Contemporaneous, members of Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble 39 and Monadnock Music. A winner in the ASCAP/ Morton Gould Young Composer Competition, Smith also received the First Place Prize in the 2009 Pacific Musical Society Composition Competition. Most recently she was selected to write for the 2012 One Book One Philadelphia project. Smiths composition teachers have included Arkadi Serper, Yiorgos Vassiladonakis and John Adams. She currently attends The Curtis Institute of Music, where she studies with David Ludwig, Jennifer Higdon, and Richard Danielpour. An active violinist, she has played in the Superdelegates (an improvisational classical/blues string quartet), the Formerly Known as Classical ensemble, and the Young Peoples Symphony Orchestra. ABOUT FRICTION QUARTET The recipient of the 2012 Berkeley Piano Club Emerging Artist Award, Friction Quartet has established a reputation for edgy programming and exhilarating performances. The quartet has commissioned new works from Daniel Felsenfeld, Brendon Randall-Myers, Noah Luna, and Rafael Hernandez. By fostering artistic collaboration in varied mediums, exploring new genres, and adding movement to performances, the ensemble creates a progressive and inviting concert atmosphere that attracts audiences of all ages and interests. Community improvement and education are crucial elements of their mission. They provide free public performance and outreach in struggling communities and schools in order to build and sustain musical cultures as well as broaden future audiences of classical music.
ABOUT RELECTION NEBULAE Of this work, the composer has written: Nebulae are giant, interstellar clouds of dust and gasses. Seen through a telescope, they are beautiful and fascinating with shapes and textures ranging from foggy and nebulous to delicate wisps and intricacies. Reflection nebulae reflect the light of nearby stars to produce a multitude of brilliant, glowing colors. Over the course of billions of years, the dust and gasses of nebulae rotate and clump together, gradually forming larger and larger masses. Eventually the entire nebula is pulled in to one giant mass and a star is born. This piece is my own musical
31
OS 6:00
JEN WANG
OSHER SALON
ALEX TEMPLE
Triggerfish (2006)

Dan VanHassel, electric guitar
Delta (2011)

DAN VANHASSEL
Revealing, Unraveling (2012)

Amy Sedan, flute Sophie Huet, clarinet Joseph Maile, violin Joanne DeMars, cello Margaret Halbig, piano Carla Fabris, harp Dan VanHassel, electric guitar Nathaniel Berman, conductor
Amy Sedan, flute Sophie Huet, clarinet Joseph Maile, violin Joanne DeMars, cello Margaret Halbig, piano Carla Fabris, harp Dan VanHassel, electric guitar Maria Janus, soprano Margaret Jones, soprano Nathaniel Berman, conductor
ELIZA BROWN
The Barely Cycle: This Time Finer (2012)

ABOUT DELTA Of this work, the composer has written: Delta refers both to the place where a river flows into an ocean and to the Greek letter that, in mathematics, signifies change. Beginning with parallel threads of music, both measured and unmeasured, the piece unfolds as a series of ideas that arise and dissolve, half-formed snippets of material moving toward increasingly pronounced forms and greater expanses over time. ABOUT JEN WANG The work of Jen Wang (b. 1980) has been featured at the Wellesley Composers Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Bang On A Can Summer Institute, the California EAR Unit Residency at Arcosanti, the Music 03 and 04 festivals, and the SPARK Festival. Her commissions include works for the Iktus Percussion
Sophie Huet, clarinet
LIZA WHITE
Groove III (2011)

Amy Sedan, flute Sophie Huet, clarinet Joseph Maile, violin Joanne DeMars, cello Margaret Halbig, piano
32
ABOUT JEN WANG, CONTINUED
Quartet, Coro DAmici, the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, flutist Janet McKay, NeXT Ens, and clarinetist Cristhian Rodriguez; she has also been performed by Lucy Shelton, the California EAR Unit, Onix Ensamble, Eco Ensemble, the New Spectrum Ensemble, and the percussion ensembles of Mannes College and the University of California, Davis. Her first installation work, Black Cloud (for streaming data and electronics), premiered as part of Panorama, an evening-length multi-media performance featuring choreography by Merce Cunningham and Lisa Wymore. Wangs percussion quartet, Renderings of Things We Couldnt Take Home, was recently featured at San Franciscos Other Minds Festival. Other projects include a song cycle for contralto Karen Clark and a piece for piano and electronics for pianist Gloria Cheng. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, where she was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, and the Millay Colony of the Arts. Her bachelors degree was completed at Carleton College and her masters at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, she has been awarded the Eisner Award in Music, the Nicola de Lorenzo Prize, and the William V. Power Graduate Award. Jen Wang is the founder and co-director of Wild Rumpus. ABOUT THE BARELY CYCLE Of this work, the composer has written: The Barely Cycle is an extractable set of solo pieces for five different instruments linked by miniature chamber works. Each solo focuses on something essential about the instrument at hand, while also limiting or handicapping the instrument in some way. This Time Finer showcases the unique set of microtones available in each register of the clarinet, but limits the music to narrow bands of pitches within each register, forcing it to simultaneously accommodate tiny microtonal intervals and extremely wide leaps between registers.
During the composition process, this friction between the innate and the imposed is a source of revelation, prompting a search for musical identity that mirrors, abstractly, the human process of self-discovery. ABOUT ELIZA BROWN Composer Eliza Brown (b. 1985) writes music that explores the interaction between natural acoustic properties of sound, the physical construction of instruments, and culturally defined elements of musical meaning and syntax. Described as delicate, haunting, [and] introspective by Symphony Magazine, Browns music has been performed and/or commissioned by Ensemble Dal Niente, Network for New Music, Spektral Quartet, Wet Ink Ensemble, and members of the PRISM and Anubis saxophone quartets. Recent projects include Wax Figure, a solo guitar piece written for Ensemble Dal Nientes Jesse Langen, and Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (after Mahler), commissioned by Network for New Music. As a winner of Center City Opera Theaters 2012 Art Song Competition, Eliza is currently creating an opera scene for the company with librettist Royce Vavrek. Currently a doctoral student in composition at Northwestern University, Brown received her bachelors degree in composition summa cum laude from the University of Michigan, where she also studied cello and viola da gamba performance. ABOUT GROOVE III Of this work, the composer has written: Groove III is part of a family of pieces that includes short solo piano movement, Groove, solo piano piece, Groove II, and mixed septet, Groove Excursion. It explores the repetition of a musical figure, while altering different characteristics such as duration, orchestration, or location of rhythmic emphasis. A musical motive becomes, rather than a stepping stone to something new, an object to be fully examined and experienced in its own right.
OSHER SALON 6:00 PM
33
ABOUT LIZA WHITE Hailed by disquiet.com as melodically incisive, and ever surprising, Liza Whites music serves ideals of direct, focused and socially relevant expression. Her work has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble SIGNAL, Fulcrum Point New Music Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, members of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and ALEAiii conducted by Gunther Schuller. It has been featured at top venues and festivals including REDCAT, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, June in Buffalo, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, as well as on National Public Radio. Upcoming projects include new works for Ensemble Dal Niente, the Palomar Ensemble, the Chicago Q Ensemble, and Singers on New Ground. Liza has won the Craig and Janet Swan Prize and the Margaret Blackburn Composition Competition. Brown has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. Currently pursuing doctoral studies in composition at Northwestern University, she is Music Theory and Composition Department Chair at the Merit School of Music, and she also teaches at Northwestern and at Access Contemporary Music. ABOUT TRIGGERFISH Of this work, the composer has written: Triggerfish was originally part of a set called Three Creatures, written for guitarist Mark Dancigers between 2002 and 2006. [E]verything the guitarist plays is given an electronic echo or rather, two echoes at once, one faster than the other. A single note becomes a rhythmic pattern (familiar to music students as pass the goddamn butter), and a melody becomes a complex, interlocking lattice. Its easy for the texture to become oversaturated, as if the music had been plunged underwater.
ABOUT ALEX TEMPLE The composer writes: My work has been performed by a variety of soloists and ensembles, including Mellissa Hughes, Timothy Andres, Mark Dancigers, the American Composers Orchestra, Fifth House Ensemble, and Ensemble de Sade. I also write vocal and electronic music for myself, which Ive performed in New York venues such as Roulette, Exapno, the Tank, the Gershwin Hotel, and Galapagos Art Space. As the keyboardist for Ben Hjertmanns chamber-rock group The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles, Ive performed at Chicagos Green Mill Cocktail Lounge and at the South by Southwest Festival; at Chicagos Elastic Arts Foundation; and with aperiodic, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of indeterminate music in the tradition of John Cage. Im currently working on an opera called End about TV production company closing logos and the end of the world. Alex Temple (b. 1983) has studied at Yale and the University of Michigan. Her teachers have included Kathryn Alexander, John Halle and Matthew Suttor, Erik Santos, Michael Colgrass, Tania Len and Betsy Jolas. She is currently pursuing a doctorate at Northwestern University, where she has studied with Hans Thomalla and Jay Alan Yim. ABOUT REVEALING, UNRAVELING Of this work, the composer has written: Revealing, Unraveling divides the ensemble into two groups. The two groups are not completely fixed, with instruments sometimes switching loyalty, but in general the piano and harp provide an eternally-cycling harmonic and rhythmic framework for the piece, on top of which the remaining instruments interject noisy, percussive phrases. In this way I achieve a slow moving, continuously evolving form, while simultaneously creating extremes of musical and emotional contrast on the local level. The two sopranos dont sing any text, but instead participate as additional instrumental voices of great range and flexibility. This piece is dedicated to my colleagues in Wild Rumpus.
OSHER SALON 6:00 PM
34
ABOUT DAN VANHASSEL Dan VanHassel (b. 1981) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. A musical omnivore, his works combine noise and chaos with moments of sensuous beauty and simplicity, creating a quirky and evocative sound world drawing from his experience performing in rock bands, gamelan orchestras, free jazz groups, and chamber ensembles. ABOUT WILD RUMPUS Founded in 2011, the San Francisco-based new music ensemble Wild Rumpus is dedicated to the development of new music through collaboration with young and emerging composers. Its performances span the spectrum of contemporary music, from hard-edged modernism to post-minimal and works influenced by pop culture. With support from the Columbia Foundation, the Zellerbach Foundation, and the American Composers Forum, Wild Rumpus has commissioned eighteen pieces from emerging composers in its first two seasons, fostering the development of the next generation of contemporary music.
35
RH 7:00
MATTHIAS MCINTIRE

RECITAL HALL
ABOUT EARTHBOUND AND SKYWARD Of this work, the composer has written: Earthbound and Skyward was written while I was deep in the trenches of the final year of my masters in violin performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. On a personal level it represents a milestone for me as a composer the first piece that I had written for someone else to play. On an artistic level, my goal was to contrast a feeling of earthly suffering and stress with the rare feeling of celestial release and serenity. In my own experience these feelings of total serenity last only briefly before I am whisked back down to earth. ABOUT MATTHIAS MCINTIRE Violinist Matthias McIntire (b. 1986) is active as a performer, improviser, composer, and teacher in many different contexts and styles. Recent professional highlights include performing with Livia Sohn and members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet in a concert of music by Vivaldi; sitting concertmaster for the Bay Area Summer Opera Theatre Institute (BASOTI) orchestra; performing with world-renowned jazz pianist Vijay Iyer at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music; playing on the soundtrack of the new movie Looper as a member of the Magik*Magik Orchestra; and joining the team at Blue Bear School of Music as violin and fiddle instructor. He is committed to bridging the gap between classical and non-classical styles of music. ABOUT PAIN HAS AN ELEMENT OF BLANK Of this work, the composer has written: Before Emily Dickinson died she instructed her sister, Lavinia, to burn all of her correspondence. Though Lavinia complied, it is significant that Dickinson left no instructions regarding a locked chest that was later found with forty notebooks worth of poems. A highly peculiar woman, Dickinson had a penchant for white clothes, gardens, and privacy. This cycle follows a character from the ecstasy of sexual passion (Wild Nights!)
Earthbound and Skyward (2012)

Kyle Coolidge, piano
NICK BENAVIDES
Pain has an element of blank (2013)

I. Its such a little thing to weep II. Wild nights Wild nights! III. Faith is a fine intervention IV. Heart! We will forget him! V. Success is counted sweetest VI. I felt a Funeral VII. Im Nobody! Who are you? VIII. Hope is the thing with feathers IX. I taste a liquor never brewed Danielle Reutter-Harrah, mezzo-soprano Katy Luo, piano
STEPHEN GOSS
Under Milk Wood Songs (1990)

I. Polly Garter II. Lily Smalls III. Rosie Probert and Captain Cat IV. Oh, whatll the neighbours say, whatll the neighbours V. Pretty Polly hums and longs
JA R R I NG SOUND S
Danielle Reutter-Harrah, mezzo-soprano Adam Cockerham, guitar
36
through a falling out (Heart, we will forget him!), a mental breakdown (I felt a funeral in my brain), and finally a recovery and renewed interest in life through nature (I taste a liquor never brewed). Some poems reference the characters experiences, and some are didactic interludes, commenting on the larger human condition. We will likely never know who Dickinson loved most deeply, nor is it particularly important, as her poems prover her capable of deep emotional expression. Would she have liked my settings of her poems, or even Aaron Coplands (with whom I share two settings), for that matter? Dickinson was certainly a fan of music, and received a beautiful piano in 1845. However, she was a harsh critic of public displays, as seen in Im Nobody! I find these poems so clearly describe emotions we all experience, that it is my pleasure to share them with you. These songs were written specifically for and with the mezzo-soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah, who has provided endless feedback and assistance, and to whom I am grateful. ABOUT NICK BENAVIDES Nick Benavides (b. 1987) moved to San Francisco in 2010, where he founded the Guerrilla Composers Guild. He is a board member (with pianist Katy Luo) of Composers and Schools in Concert (www. composersandschools.com Benavides currently studies with David Conte at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His previous has previously studied with Kurt Rohde and Jack Perla.
ABOUT UNDER MILK WOOD SONGS The song cycle Under Milk Wood Songs is based on the Dylan Thomas radio play, Under Milk Wood. Written just months before Thomas death in 1953, the play follows the dreams, actions, gossip, and inner thoughts of the people in the fictional town of Llareggub (bugger all backwards). Stephen Goss has chosen out only a fraction of the many characters from the play to create this song cycle. The cycle begins and ends with Polly Garter. In the original radio production, the character of Polly sings of her past lovers while going about her day to day business. Goss takes this simple, folk-song tune from the radio play and adapts it to his song cycle, preserving the dichotomy between the innocent tune and scandalous subject matter. After the first appearance of Polly Garter in the song cycle comes Lily Smalls, who is a self-loathing maid looking in a mirror, arguing with herself about whether or not she deserves better in life. Captain Cat, who is an elderly recluse and sometimes narrator in the play, dreams of his lost love and reminisces about his time spent on the sea. In the fourth song, Oh, whatll the neighbours say... Goss combines the text from the towns gossiping women and taunting children and sets the words to disjunct and jerky music to reflect the biting nature of the babbling and teasing. The final song features Polly Garter singing the same melody with the same subject matter as the opening of the cycle, giving the effect that Polly has been oblivious to anything but her memories of former lovers. The five movements in this cycle do not necessarily relate to each other, with the exception of the two outer movements, and almost none of them have any linear narrative. Like the radio play, Goss has created snapshots of the townspeoples dreams and thoughts rather than tell a story about their lives. Thomas is said to have written the play in response to the bombing on Hiroshima as a way of reasserting the evidence of beauty in the world.
A DAM C O C KERHA M
37
EMILY DICKINSON TEXTS FOR BENAVIDES PAIN HAS AN ELEMENT OF BLANK

I. Its such a little thing to weep So short a thing to sigh And yet by Trades the size of these We men and women die! II. Wild nights Wild nights! Were I with thee Wild nights should be Our luxury! Futile the Winds To a Heart in port Done with the Compass Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor Tonight In Thee! III. Faith is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency. IV. Heart! We will forget him! You and I tonight! You may forget the warmth he gave I will forget the light! When you have done, pray tell me That I may straight begin! Haste! lest while youre lagging I remember him! V. Success is counted sweetest By those who neer succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of Victory As he defeated dying On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear! VI. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading treading till it seemed That Sense was breaking through And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum Kept beating beating till I thought My Mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then space began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down And hit a World, at every plunge, And finished knowing then VII. Im Nobody! Who are you? Are you Nobody Too? Then theres a pair of us? Dont tell! theyd advertise you know! How dreary to be Somebody! How public like a Frog To tell ones name the livelong June To an admiring Bog! VII. Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all And sweetest in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm Ive heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb of Me. IX. I taste a liquor never brewed From Tankards scooped in Pearl Not all the Vats upon the Rhine Yield such an Alcohol! Inebriate of Air am I And Debauchee of Dew Reeling thro endless summer days From inns of Molten Blue When Landlords turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxgloves door When Butterflies renounce their drams I shall but drink the more! Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats And Saints to windows run To see the little Tippler Leaning against the sun!
38
ABOUT STEPHEN GOSS Stephen Goss (b. 1964) writes communicative and accessible music that draws freely on a number of styles and genres. Goss music receives hundreds of performances worldwide each year and has been recorded on over 40 CDs by more than a dozen record labels, including EMI, Decca, Virgin Classics, Telarc, Naxos and Deutsche Grammophon. Recent commissions have come from: guitarists David Russell, Milos Karadaglic and Xuefei Yang cellist Natalie Clein, flautist William Bennett, and the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Goss Albniz Concerto (2009) for guitar and orchestra was released to great critical acclaim on EMI Classics in November 2010. His collaborative project with Charles Jencks, The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (2005), for violin, cello, bass clarinet and piano, was profiled on The South Bank Show on ITV1. Goss is Professor of Music and Head of Composition at the University of Surrey, and a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. ABOUT JARRING SOUNDS Jarring Sounds is the duo of mezzo-soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah and Adam Cockerham, who plays guitar, lute, & theorbo. The pair is dedicated to the performance of 16th- and 17th-century European songs, as well as contemporary classical works from the 20th and 21st centuries. The intimacy of a single voice and instrument allows for flexible creative interpretation not possible in larger ensembles. Jarring Sounds has a connotation of modernity which belies the duos affinity for contemporary repertoire. The words are, in fact, taken directly from the lyrics in John Dowlands (1563-1626) lute ayre In Darkness Let Me Dwell, one of the first collaborations between Reutter-Harrah and Cockerham. The names link to both early and recent works exemplifies the duos artistic mission.
TEXTS FOR GOSS UNDER MILK WOOD SONGS I. Polly Garter I loved a man whose name was Tom He was strong as a bear and two yards long I loved a man whose name was Dick He was big as a barrel and three feet thick And I loved a man whose name was Harry Six feet tall and sweet as a cherry But the one I loved best awake or asleep Was little Willy Wee and hes six feet deep. O Tom, Dick and Harry were three fine men And Ill never have such loving again But little Willy Wee who took me on his knee Little Willy Wee was the man for me. II. Lily Smalls O theres a face! Where you get that hair from? Got it from an old tom cat. Give it back then, love. Oh theres a perm! Where you get that nose from, Lily? Got it from my father, silly. Youve got it on upside down! Oh theres a conk! Look at your complexion! Oh no you look. Needs a bit of makeup. Needs a veil. Oh theres glamour! Where you get that smile, Lil? Never you mind, girl! Nobody loves you. Thats what you think. Who is it loves you? Shant tell. Come on, Lily. Cross your heart then? Cross my heart.
39
III. Rosie Probert and Captain Cat What seas did you sea, Tom Cat, In your sailoring days long long ago? What sea beasts were in the wavery green When you were my master? Ill tell you the truth. Seas barking like seals, Blue seas and green, Seas covered with eels and mermen and whales. What seas did you sail, old whaler, When on the blubbery waves between Frisco and Wales You were my bosun? As true as Im here Dear you Tom Cats tart You landlubber Rosie You cosy love My easy as easy My true sweetheart, Seas green as a bean Seas gliding with swans In the seal-barking moon. What seas were rocking My little deck hand My favourite husband In your seaboots and hunger My duck my whaler my honey my daddy My pretty sugar sailor. With my name on your belly When you were a boy Long long ago? Ill tell you no lies. The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.
IV. Oh, whatll the neighbours say, whatll the neighbors Poor Mrs Waldo What she puts up with Never should have married If she didnt had to Same as her mother Theres a husband for you Bad as his father And you know where he ended Up in the asylum crying for his ma. Every Saturday he hasnt got a leg And carrying on with that Mrs Beattie Morris up in the quarry And seen her baby its got his nose Oh it makes my heart bleed What hell do for drink He sold the pianola and her sewing machine Falling in the gutter Talking to the lamppost Using language Singing in the w Poor Mrs Waldo Black as a chimbley Ringing doorbells breaking windows Making mudpies stealing currants Chalking words Saw him in the bushes playing mwchins Send him to bed without any supper Give him sennapods and lock him in the dark. Off to the reformatory Off to the reformatory Learn him with a slipper on his b.t.m. V. Pretty Polly hums and longs Now when farmers boys on the first fair day Come down from the hills to drink and be gay, Before the sun sinks Ill lie there in their arms For theyre good bad boys from the lonely farms But I always think as we tumble into bed Of Little Willy Wee who is dead, dead, dead
40
CH 8:00
II. Wei He
CONCERT HALL
HENRYK GRECKI
Good Night (1990)

III. Lento - largo: dolcissimo - cantabilissimo
LAURA SCHWENDINGER
ABOUT THE VIOLINISTS IN MY LIFE Of this work, the composer has written: This is a work that celebrates the wonderful violinists I have had the pleasure to work with. Each movement is a character portrait, not of the actual player, but rather my personal response to the how I hear each players gifts and the particular characteristics they bring to their performances. The first movement is named for Eleanor Bartsch, a wonderfully gifted young UW Madison Alumna, who has become a Wisconsin Public Radio regular. The second movement for Wei He, a dynamic and fabulous faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He premiered this work this last Fall, and performed my violin concerto, Chiaroscuro Azzurro there, last year under the direction of Nicole Paiement. The third movement, Miranda Cuckson, is named for the wonderful young and adventurous violinist, who lives in New York City. The fourth movement is named for the Chicago area violinist, Desiree Ruhstrat, an amazing musician on every level, and a member of the extraordinary Lincoln Trio. And finally the last movement Curtis Macomber, is named for the elegant and brilliant Juilliard faculty artist, who recorded Chiaroscuro Azzurro. ABOUT LAURA SCHWENDINGER The first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin Prize, Laura Elise Schwendinger (b. 1962) is a Professor at UW-Madison and was born in Mexico. Her music, described as evok(ing)..serene mystery and infinite beauty (Fanfare) has been performed by leading artists of our day including Dawn Upshaw, Janine Jansine, Matt Haimovitz, the Arditti and Jack Quartets, Trinity Choir, the Franz Liszt chamber orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra. She has received honors
The Violinists in My Life (2011)

I. Eleanor Bartsch III. Miranda Cuckson IV. Desiree Ruhstrat V. Curtis Macomber Wei He, violin Keisuke Nakagoshi, piano
BENJAMIN BOYLE
To One in Paradise (2005)

I. Sinfonia: And all my days are trances II. Aria: Thou wast all that to me love III. Duo: Ah, dream too bright to last IV. Fugue: For alas! alas! V. Aria: No more No more VI. Duo: A voice from out the future cries VII. Chorale: And all my days are trances Chelsea Hollow, soprano Kaite Schmidt, mezzo-soprano Alan Briones, tenor Reid Delahunt, baritone James MacDougall, rehearsal pianist Hot Air Festival Orchestra Vasken Ohanian, conductor
41
from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, the Radcliffe Institute, the American Academy of Arts of Arts and Letters, the Harvard Musical Association, Chamber Music America, the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies, the Bogliasco and Bellagio Rockefeller Centers. Schwendinger is an alumna of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. ABOUT TO ONE IN PARADISE Of this work, the composer has written: The first movement begins with an emphatic two chords, underscored by ominous and surging repeated pitches in the viola, which announce the call to one in paradise. This will blossom into an imitative sinfonia: And all my days are trances The second movement, a tenor solo movement, depicts the young lover recollecting his sweet days with the departed. Following that, a duo-aria (soprano and counter-tenor) mourn Ah, dream too bright to last! The centerpiece of the work will be a double Fugue on the texts Alas, Alas! and No More, No more. The fifth movement is a beautiful vision of the one in paradise (a soprano solo) comforting the mourning lover. A dark duo recitative follows with the baritone and counter-tenor exchanging voices from out the Future and Past. The piece then closes with a tutti chorale repeating the opening text, giving the work musical closure, but also (I hope) leaving an imprint of divine peace and resolution. ABOUT BENJAMIN BOYLE Benjamin C. S. Boyle (b. 1979) has written in a variety of musical genres, including opera, orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, art songs, and works for piano. Notable performances include the premiere of Hudson Sinfonia by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at Riverside Church in New York City in April 2009. Chicago Lyric Opera, led by conductor Donald Nally, premiered his choral work The Holly and the Ivy in the same season. In 2008, at the piano, he gave the
U.S. premiere of his Sonata-Fantasy with violinist Tim Fain at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Merkin Hall in New York. Boyle was educated at the University of South Florida, The Peabody Conservatory, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed his doctoral studies. Past composition teachers of his include Narcis Bonet, David del Tredici, Christopher Theofanidis, Samuel Adler, Lukas Foss, Jay Reise, Hilton Jones and Nicholas Maw. He is an Adjunct Professor of Composition at Westminster Choir College in Princeton and Faculty in Composition, Keyboard Harmony, Counterpoint, and Analysis at the EAMA Summer Program in Paris. ABOUT GOOD NIGHT The third movement of Greckis Good Night is a sobering epitaph. The source material is a line spoken by Horatio in Shakespeares Hamlet: Good night...flights of angels sing thee to they rest. Grecki colors this text with a simple, singular chord repeated as an accompaniment to the soaring line sung by the soprano. The colorful undercurrent of the piano creates a meditative space that brings the aural focus to a haunting dialog between the singer and the alto flute. The tam-tam then breaks the flow of this meditative atmosphere with its almost ominous resonance, bringing the piece to an end with the piano. This final movement of the work was originally a standalone piece: the composers heart-felt response to the loss of Michael Vyner, former artistic director of the London Sinfonietta. WI NT O N YUI C HI RO WHI T E
42
I
LO C AT ION: S C H EDU L E :
INSTALLATIONS
Francisco Conservatory, where he studies with Dan Becker. He is a founding member of the Fifth Floor Collective. ABOUT LUCIANO CHESSA Luciano Chessa (b. 1971) is active as a composer, performer, and conductor. His scores are published by RAI TRADE and Carrara and have been performed in Europe, U.S., and Australia. Recent compositions include A Heavenly Act, an opera with video by Kalup Linzy commissioned by SFMOMA. Author of Luigi Russolo, Futurist (University of California Press), the first English monograph dedicated to Russolos Art of Noises, Chessas Futurist expertise resulted in a commission by NYCs Biennial PERFORMA to direct the first reconstruction of Russolos intonarumori orchestra and to curate/conduct concerts which received a Best of 2009 mention in The New York Times. Chessa is member of the Steering Committee of the SF Electronic Music Festival and teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music ABOUT JONATHON KEATS Acclaimed as a poet of ideas by the New Yorker, Jonathon Keats (b. 1971) is an experimental philosopher, artist, and writer based in the U.S. and Italy. He recently opened the first restaurant for plants, serving gourmet sunlight to rose bushes at the Crocker Art Museum. He has exhibited extraterrestrial abstract artwork at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, and attempted to genetically engineer God in collaboration with scientists at the University of California. Exhibited internationally, his projects have been documented by PBS, Reuters, and the BBC World Service, garnering favorable attention in periodicals ranging from Science to Flash Art to The Economist. His latest book, Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age, was published this year by Oxford University Press. He is represented by Modernism Gallery in San Francisco.
JOSEPH M. COLOMBO
Sonic Gates (2013)

C07 (caf level) Throughout the Festival
JONATHON KEATS AND LUCIANO CHESSA
Flava of the Month (Copernican Mix) (2013)

LO C AT ION: S C H EDU L E :
Sixth Floor Atrium 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
ABOUT SONIC GATES Sonic Gates is a four-hour sound installation that will run throughout the festival in Room C07. Listeners can use the space as a break from Festival activities, as Colombo invites visitors to chill out in the sound atmosphere hes created. Sonic Gates will loop twice, allowing listeners multiple chances to enjoy its morphing and evolving landscape. ABOUT JOSEPH M. COLOMBO Joseph M. Colombos (b. 1989) work is characterized by a strong rhythmic drive and vibrant energy. He has written for the concert hall, often enjoys performing his own music, and is excited to present his first installation at this years Hot Air Festival. He has studied with Dalit Warshaw, Curtis Hughes, Jan Swafford, and Andy Vores. Mr. Colombo has a bachelors degree in music composition from the Boston Conservatory and is currently pursuing a Masters degree at the San
INSTALLATIONS
43
ABOUT FLAVA OF THE MONTH
Personal Coaching and Counseling

for
Musicians Artists Writers
8
Robert Ressler, PhD
robertressler@creativitysupport.com 4152892212

Hot Air Music Festival 2013 - Program and Notes

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hot Air Music Festival 2013 - Program and Notes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

march 3, 2013 san francisco conservatory of music

A FOOTE + CONROY A LIBBY + HALL + CAMP

Childrens Songs, Book 2

>> 6 >> 8 >> 10 >> 12 >> 15 >> 18 >> 20

DAVID CONTE String DOMINICK ARGENTO

A ENDO + JENKS A LOWRY + MACHIZ + CANNON A SFCM GUITAR ENSEMBLE

KYLE HOVATTER STEVE REICH

The Naughty Child

A MORGAN BRENNER + CRESSWELL A ESCAREO + NASHIMOTO + CLAY

Rust and Anchors

CHRISTIAN WOLFF Another

hair of the thing that bit you |

VALINOR WINDS + FRIENDS

Opus Number Zoo |

Serenade for Nine Instruments

These Ragged Times Hidden Instincts Gallantry

A LEPAGE + GINN + RODDA

KAITO NAKAHORI DOUGLAS MOORE

A BRAND + OHANIAN + FRIENDS

JUSTIN RALLS Night-Psalms WINTON YUICHIRO WHITE JOHN CORIGLIANO

A GULYAS A WHITE + SEDAN

Two Japanese Komoriuta

>> 22 >> 25 >> 28

Irish Folksong Settings Nativas Machines

CLARICE ASSAD Danas

A COCKERHAM + FRIENDS A COCKERHAM + FRIENDS

RENAUD CT-GIGURE Two

JOSEPH M. COLOMBO Ouroboros

ANTHONY PORTER archers

PETERS VASKS String

>> 29 >> 31 >> 35 >> 40

MATTHIAS MCINTIRE NICK BENAVIDES STEPHEN GOSS

Earthbound and Skyward

A COOLIDGE A REUTTER-HARRAH + LUO

Pain has an element of blank

Under Milk Wood Songs

LAURA SCHWENDINGER BENJAMIN BOYLE HENRYK GRECKI

The Violinists in My Life

To One in Paradise Good Night

A OHANIAN + HOT AIR ORCHESTRA

A LIBBY + GULYAS + MACDOUGALL + GODOY

HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

Clay Bennett Noam Szoke SFCM Percussion Department

HOT AIR PROGRAM ANNOTATORS

Playing world-class music. Making life-long friends.

Re-connecting is easy. Email mclay@sfcm.edu to get started.

HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

The Brodie Set (2013)

Childrens Songs, Book 2 (2011)

RECITAL HALL 1:00 PM

HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

String Quartet No. 2 (2010)

Three songs from To be sung upon the water (1973)

Indre Viskontas, soprano Luz Brahn, clarinet Ian Scarfe, piano

CONCERT HALL 2:00 PM

HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

The Naughty Child (2013)

Electric Counterpoint (1987)

RECITAL HALL 2:00 PM

HOT AIR MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013

Last Light (2013)

Bon Voyage (2013)