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Wednesday, November 16, 2011 6:30 p.m.
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland
director
assistant director
Celebrating the 75th Birthday of Steve Reich
and the 103rd Birthday of Elliott Carter
STEVE REICH Violin Phase (1967)
(b. 1936)
Anthony Bracewell, Boson Mo, Dorothy Ro, Mason Yu, violins
ELLIOTT CARTER Scrivo in Vento (1991)
(b. 1908)
Mark Huskey, flute
REICH New York Counterpoint (1985)
Elinor Rufeizen, clarinet
REICH Different Trains (1988)
I. America – Before the war
II. Europe – During the war
III. After the war
Boson Mo and Miran Kim, violins
Annalisa Boerner, viola
James Jaffe, cello
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This evening we celebrate the birthdays of two the world‗s leading
composers: Steve Reich (who turned 75 last month) and Elliott Carter (who
turns an astonishing 103 in December and is still actively composing). I hope
that you will join us at CIM as we honor David Del Tredici‗s 75th birthday in
February, as well as celebrating the music of Steven Stucky on March 25. I also
extend a special invitation to you to join us on March 31 as we conclude our
concert series at MOCA's downtown location with a performance of Morton
Feldman's epic For Philip Guston. I would like to express special thanks this
evening to Mark Huskey for stepping in at the last minute to replace Bill
DeLelles, who was scheduled to perform today but is unfortunately injured.
- Keith Fitch
* * *
Violin Phase is one of Reich‘s earliest ―phase‖ works. In this work, four violinists
(or solo violin and pre-recorded tape) share the exact same musical material,
initially in unison. As the piece progresses, each individual player moves slightly
ahead and/or behind the others, in effect creating a series of composite layers or
voices. Violin Phase, along with its predecessor, Piano Phase, was premiered in a
series of concerts given in New York art galleries in 1967.
- Keith Fitch
Scrivo in vento, for flute alone, dedicated to the wonderful flautist and friend,
Robert Aitken, takes its title from a poem of Petrarch who lived in and
around Avignon from 1326 to 1353. It uses the flute to present contrasting
musical ideas and registers to suggest the paradoxical nature of the poem.
It was first performed on 20 July 1991 (coincidentally on Petrarch‘s 678th
birthday) at the Ville Rencontres de la Chartreuse of the Centre Acanthes
devoted to my music at the Festival of Avignon, France, by Robert Aitken.
- Elliott Carter
New York Counterpoint was commissioned by The Fromm Music Foundation
for clarinetist Richard Stolzman. It was composed during the summer of 1985.
The duration is about 11 minutes. The piece is a continuation of the ideas
found in Vermont Counterpoint (1982), where a soloist plays against a pre-
recorded tape of him- or herself. In New York Counterpoint, the soloist pre-
records ten clarinet and bass clarinet parts and then plays a final 11th part live
against the tape. The compositional procedures include several that occur in
my earlier music. The opening pulses ultimately come from the opening of
Music for 18 Musicians (1976). The use of interlocking repeated melodic
patterns played by multiples of the same instrument can be found in my
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earliest works, Piano Phase (for two pianos or two marimbas) and Violin Phase
(for four violins) both from 1967. In the nature of the patterns, their
combination harmonically, and in the faster rate of change, the piece reflects
my recent works, particularly Sextet (1985). New York Counterpoint is in three
movements: fast, slow, fast, played without pause. The change of tempo is
abrupt and in the simple relation of 1:2. The piece is in the meter 3/2 = 6/4
(=12/8). As is often the case when I write in this meter, there is an ambiguity
between whether one hears measures of 3 groups of 4 eight notes, or 4
groups of 3 eight notes. In the last movement of New York Counterpoint, the
bass clarinets function to accent first one and then the other of these
possibilities while the upper clarinets essentially do not change. The effect, by
change of accent, is to vary the perception of that which in fact is not
changing.
- Steve Reich
Different Trains, for string quartet and pre-recorded performance tape, began
a new way of composing that has its roots in my early tape pieces It’s Gonna
Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). The basic idea is that carefully chosen
speech recordings generate the musical materials for musical instruments.
The idea for the piece comes from my childhood. When I was one year old
my parents separated. My mother moved to Los Angeles and my father stayed
in New York. Since they arranged divided custody, I travelled back and forth
by train frequently between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942
accompanied by my governess. While the trips were exciting and romantic at
the time I now look back and think that, if I had been in Europe during this
period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very different trains. With this in
mind I wanted to make a piece that would accurately reflect the whole
situation. In order to prepare the tape I did the following:
1. Record my governess Virginia, then in her seventies, reminiscing about
our train trips together.
2. Record a retired Pullman porter, Lawrence Davis, then in his eighties,
who used to ride lines between New York and Los Angeles, reminiscing
about his life.
3. Collect recordings of Holocaust survivors Rachella, Paul and Rachel, all
about my age and then living in America – speaking of their experiences.
4. Collect recorded American and European train sounds of the ‗30s and ‗40s.
In order to combine the taped speech with the string instruments I selected
small speech samples that are more or less clearly pitched and then notated
them as accurately as possible in musical notation. The strings then literally
imitate that speech melody. The speech samples as well as the train sounds
were transferred to tape with the use of sampling keyboards and a computer.
Three separate string quartets are also added to the pre-recorded tape and
the final live quartet part is added in performance.
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Different Trains is in three movements (played without pause), although that
term is stretched here since tempos change frequently in each movement.
They are:
1. America- Before the war
2. Europe – During the war
3. After the war
The piece thus presents both a documentary and a musical reality and begins
a new musical direction. It is a direction that I expect will lead to a new kind
of documentary music video theatre in the not too distant future.
- Steve Reich
Steve Reich has been called ―...America's greatest living composer‖ (The
Village VOICE), ―...the most original musical thinker of our time‖ (The New
Yorker) and ―...among the great composers of the century‖ (New York Times).
From his early taped speech pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out
(1966) to his and video artist Beryl Korot's digital video opera Three Tales
(2002), Reich's path has embraced not only aspects of Western Classical
music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and
American vernacular music, particularly jazz. ―There's just a handful of living
composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical
history and Steve Reich is one of them,‖ states The Guardian (UK)
.
Born in New York and raised there and in California, Reich graduated with
honors in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. For the next two
years, he studied composition with Hall Overton, and from 1958 to 1961 he
studied at The Juilliard School of Music with William Bergsma and Vincent
Persichetti. Reich received his M.A. in Music from Mills College in 1963,
where he worked with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud.
During the summer of 1970, with the help of a grant from the Institute for
International Education, Reich studied drumming at the Institute for African
Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra. In 1973 and 1974 he studied
Balinese Gamelan Semar Pegulingan and Gamelan Gambang at the American
Society for Eastern Arts in Seattle and Berkeley, California. From 1976 to
1977 he studied the traditional forms of cantillation (chanting) of the Hebrew
Scriptures in New York and Jerusalem.
In 1966, Reich founded his own ensemble of three musicians, which rapidly grew
to 18 members or more. Since 1971, Steve Reich and Musicians have frequently
toured the world, and have the distinction of performing to sold-out houses at
venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall and the Bottom Line Cabaret.
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His music has been influential to composers and mainstream musicians all
over the world. He is a leading pioneer of Minimalism, having in his youth
broken away from the "establishment" that was serialism. His music is known
for steady pulse, repetition, and a fascination with canons; it combines
rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental color.
It also embraces harmonies of non-Western and American vernacular music
(especially jazz).
Steve Reich‘s music has been performed by major orchestras and ensembles
around the world, including the London, San Francisco, and Boston
Symphonies, all led by Michael Tilson Thomas; the New York Philharmonic
conducted by Zubin Mehta; The Ensemble Modern conducted by Bradley
Lubman; The Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by David Robertson;
the London Sinfonietta conducted by Markus Stenz and Martyn Brabbins; the
Theater of Voices conducted by Paul Hillier; the Schoenberg Ensemble
conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw; the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Robert Spano; the Saint Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard
Slatkin; the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Neal Stulberg; and the
BBC Symphony conducted by Peter Eötvös.
In 1994, Steve Reich was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, to the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1995, and, in 1999, awarded
―Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et Lettres.‖ The year 2000 brought five
additional honors: the Schuman Prize from Columbia University, the
Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College, the Regent's Lectureship at
the University of California at Berkeley, an honorary doctorate from the
California Institute of the Arts. In 2007, Mr. Reich was awarded the Polar
Music Prize by the Swedish Academy of Music.
Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians have each earned him GRAMMY
awards, and his ―documentary video opera‖ works—The Cave and Three Tales,
done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot—have pushed the
boundaries of the operatic medium. Over the years his music has significantly
grown both in expanded harmonies and instrumentation, resulting in a
Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 composition, Double Sextet.
Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.
* * *
Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, first composer to receive the United
States National Medal of Arts, one of the few composers ever awarded
Germany's Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, and in 1988 made ―Commandeur
dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres‖ by the Government of France, Elliott
Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices in
classical music. He recently received the Prince Pierre Foundation Music
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Award, bestowed by the Principality of Monaco, and was one of a handful of
living composers elected to the Classical Music Hall of Fame.
December 11, 2008 marked Carter‘s 100th birthday, bringing salutes from
performing organizations around the globe. A number of recordings were
issued including Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5 from Pacifica Quartet and
Elliott Carter: A Nonesuch Retrospective. A four-disc set, the collection includes
most of the recordings Nonesuch made of Carter‘s music between 1968 and
1985. The event launched major celebrations around the world, including
dedicated festivals at the BBC Proms and at Tanglewood.
First encouraged toward a musical career by his friend and mentor Charles
Ives, Carter was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Committee for the first time
in 1960 for his groundbreaking compositions for the string quartet medium,
and was soon thereafter hailed by Igor Stravinsky for his Double Concerto for
harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto
(1967), both of which Stravinsky dubbed ―masterpieces.‖
But the creative burst began in earnest during the 1980s, with major
orchestral essays such as Oboe Concerto (1986-87), Three Occasions
(completed 1989) and his enormously successful Violin Concerto (1990). The
composer's astonishing late-career creative burst has continued unabated.
The first few weeks of 2004 brought a pair of acclaimed new scores:
Micomicon for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the incisive Dialogues
commissioned by the London Sinfonietta. In the United States, the Boston
Symphony Orchestra brought Carter‘s Three Illusions for Orchestra to life in
October 2005, a piece which the Boston Globe calls ―surprising, inevitable, and
vividly orchestrated.‖
Still extraordinarily prolific at over 100 years of age, recent works include the
Flute Concerto (2008), premiered by Emmanuel Pahud, flute, and the
International Chamber Music Ensemble, led by Daniel Barenboim; What are
Years, a 2010 joint commission of the Aldeburgh and Tanglewood Festivals;
Tintinabulation, premiered in 2008 by the New England Conservatory
Percussion Ensemble at Jordan Hall in Boston; the Concertino for Bass Clarinet,
premiered in Toronto in December 2010 by Virgil Blackwell and the New
Music Concerts Ensemble, and most recently, Conversations (2010), premiered
at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2011.
Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.
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Keith Fitch currently heads the composition department at the Cleveland
Institute of Music, where he holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in
Composition and also directs the CIM New Music Ensemble. Called
―gloriously luminous‖ by The Philadelphia Inquirer, his music has been
consistently noted for its eloquence, expressivity, dramatic sense of musical
narrative, and unique sense of color and sonority. Reviewing a performance of
his work Totem by Wolfgang Sawallisch and The Philadelphia Orchestra
(chosen by Maestro Sawallisch to celebrate the orchestra‘s centennial), The
Wall Street Journal praised ―the sheer concentration of his writing, and its
power to express a complex, unseen presence shaping the course of musical
events.‖ His works have been performed throughout the United States,
Europe, and Japan by such ensembles as The Philadelphia Orchestra, the
American Composers Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony,
the St. Luke‘s Chamber Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and new
music ensembles around the country. Additionally, his music has been heard
at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the June in Buffalo Festival, the
Midwest Composers‘ Symposium, the Atlantic Center for the Arts,
Milwaukee PremiereFest, New York‘s Carnegie and Merkin Halls, and in
university settings nationwide. Highlights of recent seasons include the
premieres of This Rough Magicke (commission, St. Luke‘s Chamber Ensemble),
Le tango maudit (duo-pianists Pavlina Dokovska and Vladimir Valjarevic, Sofia,
Bulgaria), Summer and Shade: Three Dream-dances for Orchestra (Symphony
Space, New York), ’Tho Night Be Falling (commissioned by the Fromm Music
Foundation for the Colorado String Quartet), and Midnight Rounds, written to
celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Da Capo Chamber Players. His most
recent work, Mean Fiddle Summer, composed for the acclaimed violinist Lina
Bahn, was premiered on April 3, 2011 at The Cleveland Institute of Music.
A native of Indiana, Keith Fitch (b. 1966) began composing at age eight and
began formal musical training on the double bass at age eleven. While still in
high school (age sixteen), he received his first professional orchestral
performance. Subsequently, he attended the Indiana University School of
Music, where he completed his Doctorate in 1995. At Indiana, he studied
composition with Frederick Fox, Eugene O‘Brien, and Claude Baker, double
bass with Bruce Bransby and Murray Grodner, and chamber music with
Rostislav Dubinsky, founder of the Borodin Quartet. He also counts Donald
Erb and Joan Tower among his compositional mentors. Among his many
awards are the annual Dean‘s Prize for Composition at Indiana (six times), the
Kate and Cole Porter Memorial Fellowship at Indiana, three ASCAP Young
Composer Awards, the ASCAP-Raymond Hubbell Scholarship, three National
Society of Arts and Letters awards, an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana
Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Fromm
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Foundation Commission. He has enjoyed multiple residencies at The
MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as at
The Charles Ives Center for American Music and the Atlantic Center for the
Arts, and he has twice served as Resident Composer and faculty at the Chamber
Music Conference and Composers‘ Forum of the East. Most recently, he served
as guest composer at California Summer Music and at the MidAmerican Center
for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University.
Highly regarded as a teacher, chamber music coach, and conductor of new music,
he has taught at Indiana University, Bard College, and for eleven years served on
the faculty of the Mannes College of Music in New York, where he founded the
new music ensemble, CIRCE. His students regularly win awards from such
prestigious organizations as ASCAP, BMI, the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and the Fulbright Foundation, as well as attending leading summer festivals
around the world. His music is published by Non Sequitur Music.
* * *
The music of Tim Mauthé has been featured in performances in North
America and Europe. He was awarded the soundSCAPE Composition Prize
in 2009 and the Grand Prize at the 2008 Wintergreen Summer Music Festival
Prix del Fosse Soloist Competition. Commissions he has received include
incidental music for the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's production of Antony
and Cleopatra and the Virginia Tech Department of Theatre's production of
Gao Xingjian's The Other Shore. A founding member of the North Ohio Music
Exchange and the International Composers Collective, Mr. Mauthé is
dedicated to creating opportunities in the Cleveland area and internationally
for composers and performers of new music. He is currently a doctoral
candidate in composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with
Keith Fitch. Additionally, Mr. Mauthé teaches composition at CIM, Case
Western Reserve University, and in the Preparatory Department at CIM as a
student teacher of composition. Mr. Mauthé earned his MM in Composition
from the Cleveland Institute of Music and his BA in composition and sound
engineering from Virginia Tech.
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Annalisa Boerner is a viola student of Lynne Ramsey, enrolled in the Master of
Music degree program.
Anthony Bracewell is a violin student of Paul Kantor, enrolled in the Bachelor
of Music degree program.
Mark Huskey is a flute student of Joshua Smith, enrolled in the Bachelor of
Music degree program.
James Jaffe is a cello student of Stephen Geber, enrolled in the Master of
Music degree program.
Miran Kim is a violin student of Joel Smirnoff, enrolled in the Bachelor of
Music degree program.
Boson Mo is a violin student of Paul Kantor, enrolled in the Professional Study
program.
Dorothy Ro is a violin student of Paul Kantor, enrolled in the Master of Music
degree program.
Elinor Rufeizen is a clarinet student of Franklin Cohen, enrolled in the
Bachelor of Music program.
Mason Yu is a violin student of Paul Kantor, enrolled in the Bachelor of Music
degree program.
Since its founding in 1920, CIM has offered a world class education to
students from age 3 to 93 and provided concerts for the community. Located
in University Circle, Cleveland's cultural hub, CIM is easily accessible to all
music lovers – providing hundreds of concerts annually, most free of charge.
CIM‘s alumni perform with the world's most acclaimed musical organizations,
in major national and international orchestras and opera companies, as
soloists and in chamber ensembles, and hold prominent teaching positions
world-wide. CIM maintains a close relationship with The Cleveland
Orchestra, with 40 members of The Orchestra serving on its faculty; 39
alumni currently hold positions with The Orchestra.
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Founded in 1968, the Museum of
Contemporary Art Cleveland, a leading
force in the cultural life of Northeast Ohio, is
recognized nationally and internationally for its
vital and creative exhibitions and public
programs. MOCA‘s critically acclaimed
exhibitions have included The Teacher and the
Student: Charles Rosenthal and Ilya Kabakov (2004), Yoshitomo Nara (2004), All
Digital (2006), Diana Cooper (2008), Sam Taylor-Wood (2008), Hugging and
Wrestling: Contemporary Israeli Photography and Video (2009), and Marilyn Minter:
Orange Crush (2010). As it prepares to begin work on its new building, MOCA
looks forward to welcoming both established and new audiences to its
exciting new space in Cleveland‘s University Circle. The new MOCA will
provide the city of Cleveland with a signature building for contemporary art
and ideas.
ON FRONT / Installation view of Ursula von Rydingsvard:
Sculpture at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
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Sunday, November 20 at 4pm
Mixon Hall
STUDENT COMPOSITION
RECITAL
KEITH FITCH, director
New works by CIM
student composers
Monday, February 6 at 4:30pm
Studio 113
SYMPOSIUM
DAVID DEL TREDICI,
guest composer
Del Tredici discusses his music and
approach to composition
Wednesday, February 8 at 7:30pm
Kulas Hall
Celebrating the 75th birthday
of David Del Tredici
CIM ORCHESTRA
STEVEN SMITH, guest conductor
JUNG EUN OH, soprano
DEL TREDICI In Memory
of a Summer Day (Child Alice, Part I)
Sunday, March 4 at 4pm
Mixon Hall
STUDENT COMPOSITION
RECITAL
KEITH FITCH, director
New works by CIM
student composers
Saturday, March 24 at 1:30pm
Studio 113
SYMPOSIUM
STEVEN STUCKY, guest composer
Stucky discusses his music
and approach to composition
Sunday, March 25 at 4pm
Mixon Hall
CIM NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE
KEITH FITCH, director
STEVEN STUCKY, guest composer
Music by Steven Stucky and Donald Erb.
Saturday, March 31 at 7 pm
Museum of Contemporary Art,
Cleveland (MOCA)
8501 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland
CIM@MOCA: Harmonic Hues
CIM NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE
KEITH FITCH, director
CIM closes MOCA's downtown
location with a performance of
Morton Feldman's epic
For Philip Guston.
Explore the galleries and experience
the monumental wooden sculptures
of Ursula von Rydingsvard while CIM
musicians perform this ravishing, late
work by one of the 20th century's
most eclectic composers.
Reservations required. Call
216.421.8671 ext 70
Wednesday, April 18 at 4pm
Mixon Hall
ELECTRONIC MUSIC STUDIO
RECITAL
Students of Steven Mark Kohn
Sunday, April 22 at 4pm
Mixon Hall
STUDENT COMPOSITION
RECITAL
KEITH FITCH, director
New works by CIM
student composers