Earplay San Francisco Season Concerts

2007-08 Season

Herbst Theatre, 7:00 PM

Pre-concert talk 6:15 pm

Earplay 23: Facets and Lines Monday, November 12, 2007

Mark Applebaum, Peter Maxwell Davies, Liza Lim,

Wayne Peterson, Laurie San Martin, Barbara White

Earplay 23: Unorthodox Journeys

Monday, February 11, 2008

Peter Maxwell Davies, Aaron Einbond, Morton Feldman,

Richard Festinger, Martha Horst, Claude Vivier

Earplay 23: Intricate Inventions

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival

Christopher Burns, Peter Maxwell Davies

Beat Furrer, Hèctor Parra, Salvatore Sciarrino February 11, 2008

W elcome to Earplay’s 23rd San Francisco season. Our mission is to nurture new chamber music --composition, performance, and audience--all vital

components. Each concert features the renowned members of the Earplay ensemble performing as soloists and ensemble artists, along with special guests. Over twenty-three years, Earplay has made an enormous contribution to the bay area music community. The Earplay ensemble has performed hundreds of works by more than two hundred composers, has presented more than one hundred world premieres and commissioned new works each season. This season links the rich variety of new chamber music being created here in our own backyard as well as abroad with the music of the 20th century. A “mini-survey” of music by renowned English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies serves as a gateway between the traditions of the late 20th century to the new music of the 21st century. We hope you enjoy the concert and join us in May! Stephen Ness

President, Board of Directors

www.earplay.org

Earplay Board of Directors

Stephen Ness, president

May Luke, secretary

Dan Scharlin, treasurer

Terrie Baune, musician representative

Mary Chun

Christopher Wendell Jones

Earplay Staff

Aislinn Scofieldexecutive director

Scott Koué technical director/stage manager

Terrie Baunescheduling coordinator

Bill Beckermanbookkeeping services

Special Thanks To:

Dennis Wadlington, Sherman-ClaySan Francisco Girls ChorusCNMAT, U.C., BerkeleyJae AlejandrinoNicole Andersson Jennifer Burke, Industry Aaron EinbondSheri GreenawaldScott KouéJensine MartinezJohn McCallumThalia Moore Steve NessKevin NeuhoffEllen Ruth RoseKaren RosenakMax Rosenak Crystal Chun WongJi young YangEric Zivian

Earplay Donald Aird Memorial Composers Competition

Downloadable application at: www.earplay.org/competitions

Deadline: March 31, 2008

Advisory Board

Richard Felciano

William Kraft

Kent Nagano

Wayne Peterson

Chen Yi

SAN FRANCISCO WAR MEMORIAL AND PERFORMING ARTS CENTER HERBST THEATRE

Owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco through the Board of Trustees of the War Memorial of San Francisco

The Honorable Gavin Newsom, Mayor

TRUSTEES

Thomas E. Horn, PresidentNancy H. Bechtle, Vice President

Wilkes BashfordBelva DavisBella Farrow

Claude M. Jarman, Jr.Mrs. George R. Moscone

MajGen J. Michael Myatt, USMC (Ret.)Paul Pelosi

Charlotte Mailliard ShultzEleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis

Elizabeth Murray, Managing Director Gregory P. Ridenour, Assistant Managing Director

EARPLAY 23: Unorthodox Journeys

Tod Brody, flutes Terrie Baune, violin Peter Josheff, clarinets Ellen Ruth Rose, viola Karen Rosenak, piano Thalia Moore, cello

Guest Artists

Ji young Yang, soprano Emily Onderdonk, viola

Lisa Weiss, violin Dan Reiter, cello

Michael Seth Orland, piano Eric Zivian, piano

Daniel Kennedy, percussion Kevin Neuhoff, percussion

Featured Artists

Ji young Yang

Ellen Ruth Rose

Peter Josheff

Mary Chun, conductor

Monday Evening, February 11 at 7:00 p.m.The Herbst Theatre

Earplay is funded in part by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the Amphion Foundation, the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Argosy Foundation Fund for Contemporary Music, the Bernard Osher Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the Ross McKee Foundation, the San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Fund and Generous Donors.

Pre-concert talk 6:15 p.m.

A conversation with Aaron Einbond, Martha Horst

and Richard Festinger

Aaron Einbond Beside Oneself (2007)

World Premiere

Ellen Ruth Rose and electronics

Peter Maxwell Davies Hymnos (1967) Peter Josheff and Eric Zivian

Martha Callison Horst Creature Songs (2007)

Earplay commission/World Premiere

Mary Chun, Ji Young Yang, Terrie Baune, Ellen Ruth Rose, Thalia Moore

played in three movements

Intermission

Claude Vivier Paramirabo (1978)

Mary Chun, Tod Brody, Lisa Weiss, Dan Reiter, Michael Seth Orland

Morton Feldman i met heine on the rue fürstenberg (1973)

Mary Chun, Ji Young Yang, Tod Brody, Peter Josheff, Lisa Weiss, Dan Reiter, Michael Seth Orland, Kevin Neuhoff

Richard Festinger Diary of a Journey(2003)

Mary Chun, Peter Josheff, Terrie Baune, Emily Onderdonk, Thalia Moore, Eric Zivian, Daniel Kennedy

Program

$10,000 +Argosy Foundation

Contemporary Music Fund

The James Irvine Foundation

Meet the Composer, A Meet the Composer

CommissioningMusic/USA CommissionThe San Francisco

Grants For the ArtsThe William and Flora

Hewlett Foundation

$5,000 +Anonymous (2)The Aaron Copland

FoundationAnn and Gordon Getty

FoundationSteven Smith

$3,000 +Carol & Brooke AirdAlice M. Ditson Fund of

Columbia UniversityAmerican Composers

Forum, Bay Area Chapter

Amphion FoundationThe Bernard Osher

FoundationMei Fang LinThe Ross McKee

FoundationThe Zellerbach Family

Foundation

$1,000 +AppleraRichard FestingerMay LukeJohn Mugge & Ronald

CaltabianoBari & Stephen Ness

$300 +Mary ChunMargaret Dorfman

Jane Berstein and Robert Ellis

Andrew W. Imbrie (in memoriam)

Ruth KnierWayne PetersonKaren Rosenak

$200 +John & Mary CarisJohn ChowningPatti Noel DueterRichard & Patricia Taylor

Lee

$100 +Tod BrodyWilliam Beck & Yu-Hui

ChangSeth Brenzel & Malcolm

GainesRaymond & Mary ChunJane GalanteMark Haiman & Ellen

Ruth RoseKenneth JohnsonChristopher Wendell

JonesAntoinette Kuhry & Thomas A. HaeuserAmy Miller LevineNora NordenWilliam SchottstaedtDonald and Phyllis

Sutherland

$50 +Linda AllenMark ApplebaumHerbert W. BielawaAnn CallawayKitty BrodyJames & April CarlsonHal FischerGuillermo GalindoJohn and Lee HauseValerie HerrWilliam KraftArthur Kreiger

Paul & Ellen McKaskleNancy & Howard MelSamuel Nichols & Laurie

San MartinPablo OrtizKurt RohdeMathew RosenblumAllen Shearer & Claudia

StevensUshio Torikai

Up to $50 Frances L. BennionLinda BouchardKenneth BruchmeierErnestine S. CohnAlice Berg CroninLori DobbinsBarbara and Sanford

DornbuschDonald & Stephanie

FriedmanKonstantin Gavrilov and

H. CrossEllinor HagedornStephen J. HarrisonBud HazelkornLouis KarchinArthur KreigerLin MantellAmelie C. Mel De

FontenayWendy Niles

Donors (since January 2007)

Eliane AberdamSarah AderholdtThomas AdèsDonald AirdEleanor AlbergaRichard AldagAlexis AlrichAllen AndersonMark ApplebaumRobert BasartRoss BauerBruce Christian BennettArthur BergerJonathan BergerLuciano BerioChristophe BertrandHerb BielawaSusan BlausteinStephen BlumbergLinda BouchardPierre BoulezMartin BoykanCarolyn BremerBenjamin BrittenAnn CallawayRonald CaltabianoEdmund CampionJames CarrElliott CarterChris ChafeYu-Hui ChangEric ChasalowYi ChenMiguel ChuaguiTimothy Vincent ClarkSteven ClarkAaron CoplandEleanor CoryCindy CoxRuth Crawford SeegerGeorge CrumbBeth CusterMarc-Andre DalbavieGreg D’AlessioLuigi DallapiccolaJames DashowMario DavidovskyPeter Maxwell DaviesAdriana Verdié de Vas

RomeroTamar DiesendruckLori DobbinsFranco DonatoniKui DongJérome DorivalJacob DruckmanEdwin DuggerJoel DurandDavid DzubayJason EckardtGeorge EdwardsAaron EinbondMirtru Escalona-Mijares

Leo EylarFredrik FahlmanRichard FelcianoJohn FelderMorton FeldmanRichard FestingerIrving FineTom FlahertyAndrew FrankDavid FroomPablo FurmanGuillermo GalindoMichael GandolfiGuy GarnettStacy GarropJohn GibsonJames GiroudonvGlenn GlasowDaniel GodfreyAlexander GoehrPerry GoldsteinMichelle GreenMark GreyStephen Michael GrycSusan HardingLou HarrisonEllen Ruth HarrisonStephen HartkeHugh HartwellJonathan HarveyHans Werner HenzeMartin HermanJennifer HigdonVincent Chee-yung HoSunji HongMartha Callison HorstJoan HuangLee HylaIgor IachimciucVictor IaleggioShintaro ImaiAndrew ImbrieCharles IvesEdward JacobsStephen JaffeDavid JaffePing JinBetsy JolasChristopher Wendell JonesPeter JosheffLouis KarchinArthur KeigerHi-Kyung KimEarl KimJerome KitzkeBarbara KolbAnthony KorfPaul KozelWilliam KraftMeyer KupfermanGyorgy KurtagBun-ching LamDavid Lang

Massimo LauricellaRichard LavendaMario LavistaAnne LeBaronYinam LeefFred LerdahlPeter Scott LewisJorge LidermanPeter LiebersonGyörgy LigetiLiza LimScott LindrothDavid LiptakZhou LongJing Jing LuoWitold LutoslawskiDrake MabryJohn MacDonaldSteven MackeyKatherine MalyiUrsula MamlockDonald MartinoDavid MeckstrothMarjorie MerrymanOlivier MessiaenDonal MichalskyDarius MilhaudEric MoePaul MoravecGustavo MorettoTristan MurailThea MusgraveHyo-Shin NaWilliam NeilOlga NeuwirthRoger NixonJoao Pedro OliveiraHenry OnderdonkPablo OrtizGabriela OrtizJose Antonio OrtsKrzysztof Penderecki

Jeffrey PerryWayne PetersonAlexander PostLaurie RadfordDavid RakowskiShulamit RanBernard RandsMaurice RavelBelinda ReynoldsSteve RicksAndrew RindfleischJody RockmakerKurt RohdeMathew RosenblumMorris RosenzweigChris RozeVirginia SamuelLaurie San MartinCarlos Sanchez-GutiérrezMarc Satterwhite

Eric Sawyer

Ralph Shapey

David Schiff

David Schober

Philippe Schoeller

Arnold Schoenberg

Roger Sessions

Allen Shearer

Sheila Silver

Reynold Simpson

Paul Siskind

Ronald Bruce Smith

David Soley

Harvey Sollberger

Claudio Spies

Jeff Stadelman

Kurt Stallman

Dorrance Stalvey

Eitan Steinberg

Frank Stemper

Mark Stickman

Igor Stravinsky

Kotoka Suzuki

Toru Takemitsu

Bruce Taub

John Thow

Leilei Tian

Ushio Torikai

Joan Tower

Christopher Trapani

Bertram Turetzky

Jason Uech

Galina Ustvol’skaya i

David Vayo

Curt Veeneman

Claude Vivier

Caspar Johannes Walter

Xi-Lin Wang

Anton von Webern

Daniel Weymouth

Scott Wheeler

Barbara White

Frances White

Beth Wiemann

Olly Wilson

Mark Winges

Walter Winslow

Stefan Wolpe

Charles Wuorinen

Iannis Xenakis

Pagh-Paan Younghi

Isang Yun

Eric Zivian

Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon

Ellen Taafe Zwilich

Earplay ComposErs: TwEnTy-ThrEE yEars Notes on the Program

aaron Einbond, Beside Oneself (2007) viola and electronics,

Most people think what could I do, I think what shouldn’t I do. What I should do perhaps is involved with the fact that I’m Jewish and what is known as Jewish paranoia. I don’t feel comfortable enough to feel that everything is on my side and that it’s going to work just the way I want it. --Morton Feldman

In Beside Oneself the violist alternates obsessively among a repertoire of gestures, testing the different responses they elicit from the electronics. Not until the end can she settle on a tenor incantation that unites the other gestures and the electronics into a plaintive call. The work takes as its point of departure Temper for bass clarinet and live electronics, written for the 2006 Festival MANCA in Nice, France. Computer analyses of complex sounds from the viola and bass clarinet are treated as models, resculpted, and combined to produce a new environment in which their distinctions are blurred.

I dedicate Beside Oneself to the memory of great composer and teacher Andrew Imbrie. The final elegaic melody is a tribute to his saying “music is singing and

dancing.” --A.E.

aaron Einbond (b. 1978) is a Ph.D.

candidate in com-posit ion at the University of

Cali fornia , Berkeley where his teachers include Edmund Campion, Cindy Cox, Jorge Liderman, John Thow, and Andrew Imbrie. He was born in New York and has studied with John Corigliano, at Harvard with Mario Davidovsky, at the University of Cambridge with Robin Holloway, and at the Royal College of Music, London with Julian Anderson as a British Marshall Scholar. His work is performed by numerous ensembles and he has received several awards. He is studying this year at IRCAM through a Fulbright Scholarship to France and Berkeley’s Georges Ladd Prix de Paris.

pETEr maxwEll daviEs Hymnos (1967)

clarinet and piano

There is always a temptation to betray yourself, I was determined not to do it. .... When you have a creative urge, you can’t stop writing. You don’t have to have a reason to write; you just fulfil your own needs. Players seem to enjoy playing the pieces, and I hope that ultimately we can bridge the division between the language and the public. I do feel, on a good day, that perhaps one can do something to heal. ---P.M.D.

Mission:

e arplay nurtures new chamber music. EARPLAY links audiences, performers, and composers through concerts, commissions, and recordings of the finest music of our time.

Founded in 1985 by a consortium of composers and musicians, EARPLAY is dedicated to the performance of new chamber music offering audiences a unique opportunity to hear eloquent, vivid performances of some of today’s finest chamber music. Earplay concerts feature the Earplayers, a group of seven artists who, as a group, have developed a lyrical and ferocious style. EARPLAY has performed over 400 works in its 23-year history including 107 world premieres and 47 new works commissioned by the ensemble. The 2007-08 season reinforces EARPLAY’s unwavering track record of presenting exceptional music in the 21st century.

Individual donations are vital to Earplay’s success. We hope you will consider making a contribution. If your company has a matching policy, that will be an additional benefit. See our website for information on making donations: www.earplay.org.

m a x w E l l daviEs (b.1934) is one of the most significant figures in post-War European

music. He rose to prominence in late 1960s with neo-expressionistic music-theatre pieces Eight Songs for a Mad King and Vesalii Icones, orchestra scores Worldes Blis and St. Thomas Wake, and the opera Taverner. Many of his works were composed for the distinctive chamber sextet of Fires of London. Davies was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 2004.

ClaudE viviEr

Paramirabo (1978)

flute, violin, cello and piano

It has been said that the title Paramirabo derives from an error on Vivier’s part. He wanted to give his work this title as a reference to the capital of Suriname, a South American country that Vivier appears not to have visited. The result is a work imbued with an imagined form of exoticism that, on hearing, brings to mind a “story in music” for children. The flute’s pastoral naivety, the violin’s lyricism, the piano’s ambivalence, and the good-naturedness of the cello solo all make the instruments seem like characters, and one can clearly discern a dialogue amongst them. A calm and peaceful situation established by the flute, violin, and cello is quickly disrupted by a violent passage in the

piano. A series of exchanges follow, as instruments enter alternately to deliver fragments of children’s melodies that seem familiar. Because Vivier’s works are never exactly cheerful, the extremely calm, lengthy final section comes as no surprise: like the disturbing consensus amongst the instruments, all parties concerned appear to have awakened from a nightmare.

---Martine Rhéaume

ClaudE viviEr (1949-1983) is considered by many to be the greatest composer Canada has yet produced.

Murdered at the age of 34, he left behind 49 compositions in a variety of genres, including opera, orchestral works, and chamber pieces. In the early 1970s, he studied composition with Stockhausen in Cologne. A visit to Bali in 1976 proved pivotal, causing him to re-evaluate his ideas on the role of the artist in society. Visionary works that followed featured texts in an invented language, modal melodies harmonized by a complex overtone series, and shimmering orchestration. Called by György Ligeti “the greatest French composer of his generation, other advocates include Mauricio Kagel, Kent Nagano, Reinbert de Leeuw, David Robertson, and Dawn Upshaw. Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey &

Hawkes.

•

marTha Callison horsT

Creature Songs(2007)

soprano, violin, viola, cello

Earplay commission/world premiere

In this song cycle Creature Songs, I attempted to pair poems from different writers that explore the spiritual connections between living things and man. The poems I chose are by Whitman (19th century American poet), Amergin (1500 BCE Irish poet), and Sassoon (20th century British poet). This song cycle was commissioned by Earplay and was written during the summer of 2007 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.

In “A Noiseless Patient Spider” from his famous poetry collection Leaves of Grass, Whitman uses the spider’s endless attempts to launch filaments into its vast surrounding as an allegory of man’s struggle to find spiritual connections with powers greater than himself. As in much of his transcendentalist poetry, Whitman is turning to objects of nature as a way of understanding the mystic dimensions of life.

The Song of Amergin is an ancient Druid incantation from approximately 1530 BCE. According to Milesian mythology, when the first Gaelic settlers came to Ireland, they went to battle with the Tuatha Dé Danaan, who prevented them from entering Ireland with a magical storm. Amergin sang this invocation, calling

upon the spirit of all living things of Ireland to part the storm and allow them onto land.

Both poets are turning to nature’s inner spiritual powers, but to different ends. Whereas Whitman turns to a lowly spider’s struggle to understand the workings of his inner Soul, Amergin evokes the power of all living creatures in order to capture the physical universe around him.

The final song of the set is the beautiful poem by Siegfried Sassoon called Everyone Sang. This poem was written as a celebration of the signing of the Armistice on November, 11, 1918, which brought World War I to an end. Sassoon images a joyous song emerging from all of humanity. During the poem, the poet at first speaks of feeling a delight “as prison birds must find in freedom.” By the end of the poem, the song and joy is so all consuming that, in fact, birds and man merge together: “Everyone was a bird and the song was wordless.” This wonderful depiction of man and bird unifying in song through a celebration of peace is another vision of the connections between all living things that I wished to explore

through this musical work. --M.C.H

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood, isolated,

Mark’d how, to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

EriC Zivian (piano) grew up in Toronto, Canada, where he attended the Royal Conservatory of

Music. At the age of 16 he was accepted as a double major at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, studying composition with Ned Rorem. Since receiving his degree from Curtis in 1989, Mr. Zivian has continued his studies in both piano and composition, receiving a Master of Music for studies with Peter Serkin at The Juilliard School and a Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music (1995), where he studied composition with Jacob Druckman and Martin Bresnick. Mr. Zivian is pianist with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and the Clavion Quartet.

daniEl KEnnEdy (percussion) is a special-ist in the music of the twentieth century, and is a member of Earplay and the Empyrean

Ensemble. He received his M.F.A. degree from the California Institute of the Arts and his D. M. A. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Mr. Kennedy, who has recorded widely, is both Instructor of Percussion and former Artistic Director of the Festival of New American Music at California State University, Sacramento.

KEvin nEuhoff (percussion) is a soloist and new music chamber musician who has performed

with the CabrilloFestival, the Oakland Ballet, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Other Minds Festival, New Century Chamber Orchestra, and the Paul Dresher Ensemble. He holds the post of principal timpanist with the International Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra, the Western Opera Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony, and the Fremont Symphony, and is principal percussionist with the Marin Symphony.

sCoTT Koué (technical director/stage manager) is a sound recordist, editor and designer with thirty years of experience in film, advertising and the theater. His work can be heard in over thirty films including The Legend of Drunken Master (starring Jackie Chan) and the award-winning Titanic. His credits on these and other projects include sound supervisor, sound editor, creator of specialized sound effects and Foley recordist.

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my Soul.

--Walt Whitman (1819-1892), first published in 1870

Song of Amergin

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,

I am the wave of the ocean,

I am the murmur of the billows,

I am the ox of the seven combats,

I am the vulture upon the rocks,

I am a beam of the sun,

I am the fairest plant,

I am a wild boar in valour,

I am a salmon in the water,

I am a lake in the plain,

I am a word of science,

I am the point of the lance in battle,

I am the God who creates in the head the fire.

Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?

Who announces the ages of the moon?

Who teaches the place where couches the sun?

Who, if not I?

--Anonymous (circa 1530 BCE)

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark—green fields; on—on—and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away … O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

--Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), first published in 1919

marTha horsT has taught music theory and history at San Francisco State University, East Carolina University,

and University of California, Davis. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Theory and Composition, at Illinois State University. Martha Callison Horst began her formal composition studies at Stanford University where she studied with Ross Bauer, David Rakowski, and John Chowning at CCRMA. She has attended several national and international festivals where she has studied with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Oliver Knussen.

lisa wEiss (violin)

A Bay area native, Weiss has earned international recog-nition as a chamber musician including

awards in the Portsmouth and Coleman competitions, and as a participant in the Marlboro Festival. She performs as concertmaster and soloist with Philharmonia Baroque, and is also a member of the American Bach Soloists, the Arcadian Academy, and BMV 2000. As a guest artist, she has appeared with many chamber ensembles including the Artaria Quartet, Musica Pacifica, American Baroque, and Philomel.

A native of San

Francisco, Emily o n d E r d o n K received her bache-lor’s and master’s degrees at the Man-hattan School of

Music and went on to post-graduate studies at Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music. Her teachers include James Buswell, Raphael Bronstein, Arianna Bronne, Daniel Kobialka, and Karen Tuttle.

She has since performed as principal violist with orchestras around the country including the Santa Fe Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra.

dan rEiTEr (cello) is principal cellist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, Festival Opera Or-chestra, Diablo Ballet Orchestra and

Fremont Symphony. His solo work has included Leonard Bernstein’s Three Meditations (OEBS, 2000) and Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto (Fremont Symphony, 2002). Dan is also a former Earplay member (1989-90). As a composer, Dan has written varied chamber works.

miChaEl sETh orland (piano) studied with Margaret Kohn and is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Music Department,

where he studied harpsichord with Davitt Moroney and composition with Gérard Grisey. He later continued his study of composition with David Sheinfeld.

Orland has appeared extensively in the Bay Area as a chamber musician. Orland is on the music faculty at UC Berkeley and also teaches there in the Young Musicians Program

�

morTon fEldman i met heine on the rue fürstenberg (1973)

soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano,

and percussion

My whole generation was hung up on the 20 to 25 minute piece. It was our clock. We all got to know it, and how to handle it. As soon as you leave the 20-25 minute piece behind, in a one-movement work, different problems arise. Up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half it’s scale. Form is easy - just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter. You have to have control of the piece - it requires a heightened kind of concentration. Before, my pieces were like objects; now, they’re like evolving things.--M.F.

morTon fEldman (1926-1987) A key figure in modern music, Feldman’s compositions went

through several phases. He was a pioneer of aleatoric music and indeterminate music, and in requiring improvisation. His compositions are characterized by their quietness, slowness, and often by their extreme length, especially in his later music.

At the age of twelve he studied piano with Madame Maurina-Press, who had been a pupil of Busoni, and it was her who instilled in Feldman a vibrant musicality. At the time he was composing short Scriabin-esque pieces, until in 1941 he began to study composition with Wallingford Riegger.

Three years later Stefan Wolpe became his teacher, though they spent much of their time together simply arguing about music. Then in 1949 the most significant meeting up to that time took place—Feldman met John Cage, commencing an artistic association of crucial importance to music in America in the 1950s. Cage was instrumental in encouraging Feldman to have confidence in his instincts, which resulted in totally intuitive compositions. He never worked with any systems that anyone has been able to identify, working from moment to moment, from one sound to the next.

riChard fEsTingEr

Diary of a Journey (2003)

clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano and percussion

The journey depicted in Diary of a Journey is an imaginary one, or, more accurately, a journey of the imagination. Of course all creative works comprehend a journey of the imagination, but the approach to mining the imagination may differ vastly. This particular journey is not the outcome of formalistic calculations, nor is it the outcome of any overtly or covertly political or utopian vision, nor of any guiding necessity to fuse, or demolish, barriers between, disparate musical eras or traditions. Based on the conviction that musical thought is inherently untranslatable to other modalities,

EllEn ruTh rosE (viola) relocated to the Bay Area in 1998 after having spent several years in Cologne, Germany,

where she first became immersed in contemporary music. As a member of the experimental ensembles Musik Fabrik and Thürmchen Ensemble, and as a frequent guest with Frankfurt’s Ensemble Modern, she toured throughout Europe, premiering and recording countless works. She has performed as soloist with the West German Radio Chorus and appeared at the Cologne Triennial, Berlin Biennial, Salzburg Zeitfluss, Brussels Ars Nova, Venice Biennial, and Budapest Autumn festivals. Ms. Rose holds degrees in viola performance from The Juilliard School and the Northwest German Music Academy; and a degree in English and American history and literature from Harvard University.

KarEn rosEnaK (piano) is an “almost native” of the Bay Area. She was founding member/pianist of Bay Area

new-music groups Earplay and the Empyrean Ensemble, and she currently performs with those groups. She studied modern piano with Carlo Bussotti and Nathan Schwartz,

and credits Margaret Fabrizio with introducing her to the fortepiano during her graduate work in early music at Stanford University. She has found the balance between old and new music, and between old and new pianos, to be an ongoing, most satisfying pursuit. Since 1990, she has been on the faculty at UC Berkeley, where she teaches musicianship and contemporary chamber music.

Guest Artists

Ji young yang (soprano) made her San Francisco Opera debut this season as the Young Shepherd in Tannhäuser, also

appeared as Pamina (The Magic Flute for Families) and Julia Agnes Lee (Appomattox). The Korean native is a first-year Adler Fellow who participated in the 2006 Merola Opera Program. Last spring the soprano appeared with San Francisco Opera Center as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw at Lincoln Theater in Yountville. Yang began her formal studies at Seoul National University and holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, as well as a post-graduate diploma from the New England Conservatory.

the music chronicles a journey guided exclusively by ear and instinct in a search for an itinerary (to extend the metaphor) that leads through intuitive connections to distant, unexpected, preternatural spaces.

In the beginning the performers are asked to imbue the music with a magical quality of anticipation. As the music begins to grow, the piano suddenly bursts out in a brief extroverted display, the ensemble swells, and a sudden, dramatic transition introduces a long clarinet solo, set against a darkly luminous accompaniment of low string chords and bowed vibraphone. The reappearance of the piano incites the ensemble to turbulence, finally giving way to gentle reminiscences of earlier music, evocations that become more elaborate and expansive, culminating in an intense counterpoint between two duos, violin and viola against cello and clarinet, and setting the stage for the final toccata-like game of tag between the vibraphone and piano. -- R.F.

RichaRd FestingeR’s (b. 1948) music has been performed throughout the United States, and in Europe and Asia. His works have been com-

posed for innumerable ensembles, including Parnassus, Earplay, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Alexander String Quartet, the Left Coast Ensemble, the Alter Ego Ensemble, the

Miroglio-Aprudo Duo, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, and the Redwood Symphony Orchestra, and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. His music has been widely performed by numerous groups in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. .

Mr. Festinger studied composition at the University of California in Berkeley with Andrew Imbrie. Since 1990 he has been a professor of music at San Francisco State University.

TErriE baunE (violin), in addition to being a member

of Earplay, she is Co-Concertmaster of the Oakland-East

Bay Symphony, Concertmaster of the North State Symphony and a member of the Empyrean Ensemble. Her professional credits include concertmaster positions with the Women’s Philharmonic, Fresno Philharmonic, Santa Cruz County Symphony, and Rohnert Park Symphony. A member of the National Symphony Orchestra for four years, she also spent two years as a member of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra of New Zealand, where she toured and recorded for Radio New Zealand with the Gabrielli Trio and performed with the New Zealand

Tod brody (flute)

has been in the fore-front of contemporary music activity in northern

California through his performances and re-

cordings with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, and the Empyrean Ensemble. He maintains an active freelance career, teaches at the University of California, Davis, and directs the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum.

mary Chun (con-ductor) has pre-miered the works of many composers, including John Adams earthquake romance

I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky, which she conducted in Paris, Hamburg, and Montreal. In demand as a collaborator for new lyric work and traditionl operatic repertoire, she has worked with opera companies in Europe and the U.S. such as Opera de Lyon, La Monnaie, Kosice State Opera, Hawaii Opera Theater, Opera Theater of Saint Louis, Opera Idaho, the Texas Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Lyric Opera, Pacific Repertory Opera, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera and San Francisco Opera. In Fall 2006 she premiered Every Man Jack, a new chamber opera based on the life of writer Jack London, written by

composer Libby Larsen and librettist Philip Littell, and commissioned by the Sonoma City Opera.

pETEr JoshEff (clarinet) is active both as a composer and a performer. Based in

the San Francisco Bay Area, he is a founding

member of Earplay, a member of the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Empyrean Ensemble, and the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players. He has performed with most of the new-music ensembles in the Bay Area, including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Composers Inc.

Thalia moorE (cello), attended the Juilliard School of Music as a scholar-ship student of Lynn Harrell, and received

her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1979 and 1980. Since 1982, Ms. Moore has been Associate Principal Cellist of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and in 1989 joined the cello section of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.

Performers