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present a

Reading Session of new works by

Erik BelgumMargaret BrouwerJackie GabelJennifer Higdon

7 p.m. Tuesday, June 16, 1992Macalester College, St. Paul

THE.. ~

DALE WARLANDr-

SINGERSand.JEROME

. .

FOUNDATION

The Dale Warland Singers andJerome FoundationComposer Reading, Commissioning

9

and Performance Project•

The Dale Warland SingersDale Warland, conducting

7 p.m,Tuesday, June 16, 1992Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Concert HallMacalester College, St. Paul

In 1987, the Jerome Foundation awarded The DaleWarland Singers a multi-year grant to support an exciting, .new program to encourage emerging composers to writefor choruses.

Tonight's Reading Session is the fifth such event in thisprogram and represents a continuing commitment by TheDale Warland Singers to American composers and choralliterature of our time. In addition to the commission to beawarded after this evening, other commissions have beengiven to Mary Ellen Childs of St. Paul, William Hawleyand Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson of New York City, and AlfHoukom of Iowa City, Iowa.

This evening you will be introduced to four composers andtheir recent work for vocal ensemble. Two works have hada previous performance and their composers areexperienced in writing chorallvocal works. The other twoworks were written specifically for this occasion bycomposers who have written almost exclusively forinstruments and the works presented tonight representearly efforts at writing for the vocal ensemble ..

In the next few days, Dale Warland, will decide whichcomposer will receive a $5000 commission, underwrittenby the Jerome Foundation, to write a new work for worldpremiere by The Dale Warland Singers.

Pastorala Vocalise for Mixed ChoirJennifer Higdon (1962)

Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn, New York, andraised in Tennessee. She has studied composition,conducting, and flute at Bowling Green State University inOhio and at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.She is currently working on a Ph.D. in composition at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. She counts among herteachers Judith Bentley, Robert Spano, Marilyn Shrude,Ned Rorem, and George Crumb.

This year Ms. Higdon was the recipient of the Charles IvesScholarship from The American Academy and Institute ofArts and Letters, an ASCAP Award for Young Composers,and first place for her String Trio in the NACUSA YoungComposers Competition. She has also received awardsfrom the National Federation of Music Clubs, InternationalLeague of Women Composers, The Curtis Institute, theKavanaugh Prize from the Delaware County YouthOrchestra, and the Hilda K. Nitzsche Prize from theUniversity of Pennsylvania.

Recent performances have been at the Walker Art Centerin Minneapolis; at new music festivals of Bowling GreenState University and Florida State; the SCI National

A Conference; at the National Flute Convention inWashington, DC.; and by Synchronia in St. Louis.Recent commissions have come from the Network for NewMusic in Philadelphia, Sonus of Baltimore, and from theMaumee High School String Orchestra in Toledo, Ohio... '

Sanctus from Missa Brevis (1991)for men's chorus with flute and violin (or other trebleinstruments), cello or trombone (or other bass instrument),percussion and pianoMargaret Brouwer

Margaret Brouwer is Associate Professor of Music andComposer in Residence at Washington and Lee Universitywhere she is also Founder and Director of the new musicfestival, Sonok/ect. Since 1987 her competition successeshave included San Francisco's Lee Ettelson annualcomposition competition, the Carmichael Competition, theSt. Louis Symphony Orchestral Readings, the Phi MuAlpha Sinfonia's New Music Premiere Winner, theWomen's Philharmonic of San Francisco OrchestralReadings, and Indiana University's CompositionCompetition. Brouwer has received grants from theVirginia Commission for the Arts, WEST AF Meet theComposer, the Indiana Arts Commission, IndianaUniversity, and Washington and Lee Glenn Grants.

Ms. Brouwer has been a Fellow at the Virginia Center forthe Creative Arts, at the Charles YvesCenter for AmericanMusic, at June in Buffalo, at the Montanea InternationalComposers Conference in Talloires, France, and has taughtat Interlochen National Music Camp.

Her works have been performed by the St. LouisSymphony, the Juilliard Symphony, and the San FranciscoWomen's Philharmonic in addition to numerous chamberensemble and solo performances in the U.S. and Europe.

Missa Brevis was commissioned by the Washington andLee Glee Club for Intercollegiate Men's Choruses. Theprogression from movement to movement has something ofa story line. The overall plan of the work incorporatesmusical references to various religious personality types.The Kyrie and Gloria represent two perceptions of the

early Christian church. The Kyrie, fashioned afterGregorian Chant, depicts the pure and spiritual. TheGloria, almost militant in places, depicts the politicalwinners in the early struggles over issues such as whowould lead the church, how the superstructure would be setup and which books of all those that had been writtenwould be included in the New Testament.

once himself scheduled for execution following a coupd'etat, but saved when one of the usurper's generals offeredhis own life in the poet's stead. In his waning years, Li Polonged for his freedom, his family and the simple countrylife of his youth.

The more contemporary personality depicted in the Sanetusis tentative and questioning. However, it resolves into amomentary burst of strength and affirmation at the end ofthe movement. Bells ring while the chorus sings Osanna.The "bells" section was inspired by the tolling of churchbells in a Swiss Alpine village where the composer stayed.The bells rang at regular intervals for many minutes. Therhythmical relationships created by these three bells, whicheach rang at a different speed, was constantly changingand very intriguing.

It's this longing, so eloquently expressed in the context ofhis own life, that led me to choose this poem as a tribute toChina's young intellectuals and artists in their aspirationtoward freedom.

--Jackie T. Gabel ,

In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green,And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep.In East Luh, where my family stays,I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours.I cannot be back in time for the spring doings,Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river.

In the traditional manner, after the priest's simple intoningof the Benedictus the Osanna is restated. In the Angus Deithe psyche has elevated emotionally to a level of

. acceptance and peace.

INTERMISSION

The south wind, blowing, wafts my homesick spiritAnd carries it up to the front of our familiar tavern.There I see a peach-tree on the east side of the house,With thick leaves and branches waving in the blue mist.It is the tree I planted before my parting three years ago.The peach-tree has grown now as tall as the tavern-roof,While I have wandered about without returning.'L'

Jackie Gabel was born and raised in Iowa, and is presentlyliving in Corvallis, Oregon. He has traveled extensively:Europe, Middle East, Far East, and recently returned fromfour years of work and study in Japan. He writes concerthall works for many different combinations of instrumentsand voices, multi-media collaborations using musiqueconcrete. He is a poet has produced a series ofcontemporary music concerts in Portland, Oregon (1986-89). He studied music with Tomas Svoboda and DerekHealey, letters with Ralph Salisbury, and earned a Masterof Music in Composition from University of Oregon, 1981.

Ping-yang, my pretty daughter, I see you standBy the peach-tree, and pluck a flowering branch.You pluck the flowers, but I am not there--How your tears flow like a stream of water!My little son,Po-chin, grown up to your sister's shoulders,You come out with her under the peach-tree;But who is there to pat you on the back?

In the land ofWu (1989)for mixed choir and string quartet .~Jackie T. Gabel

When I think of these things my senses fail,And a sharp pain cuts my heart every day. :Now I tear off a piece of white silk to write this letter,And send it to you with my love a long way up the river.

-- Li Po

Total Vision (1992)Erik Belgum

I composed In the land of Wu in the summer of 1989 as amemorial to those who stood and fell in the June '89Tiennamen massacre. I was living in Japan at the time,and knew a number of students and guest workers fromPRC. They held courageous public demonstrations insupport of their colleagues in Beijing while beingphotographed by agents. The poem by Li Po is not directlyconnected in any topical way to Tiennamen, but is simply amelancholic yearning for reunion with family andhomeland.

Li Po is perhaps China's greatest poet. His life was largelycontrolled by the various rulers he served as scribe andsage--a prisoner of the System that supported him; he was

Erik Belgum writes and composes in the grey area wherewords become music. His writing has most recentlyappeared in literary journals such as Chicago Review, RedBass, Central Park, Black Ice, Avec, and Caliban. Hismusic has been aired on radio stations throughout the U.S..and in Europe. This fall, Com Palace Productions willproduce one of his music theater pieces at the SouthernTheater, as part of New Music Across America 1992.Dramatically Total Vision tracks the evolution of a mobthrough the verbal ebb and flow of a group that is about toturn from speech into action, and finally to thattransforming moment when it's not just talk anymore.Each performer will recount slightly different versions and

Acoustically, the piece investigates a puzzling and veryevanescent sonic phenomenon, a certain speech spectrumin which, on the one end, crowds are too big to understandliterally (roughly anything about 6 or so people), butcrowds that are not to the point of hissing noise (as in afootball stadium size crowd). The piece wanders into, outof, and around this acoustic spectrum.

The Dale Warland Singers also extends its gratitude to theNational Composers Advisory Committee for their work onbehalf of this Commissioning Project. The committeeconsists of Louis Ballard, Emma Lou Deimer, Tania Leon.Stephen Paulus, Gil Seeley, Alvin Singleton, Joan Towerand Dale Warland.

aspects of the story being told, a story briefly summarizedin the introduction. The plot here is about as important asit is in a lot of opera, which is to say not cruciallyimportant, but not negligible.

THE DALE WARLAND SINGERS

Dale Warland, Music Director and ConductorJerry Rubino, Assistant Director, Pianist and

Cabaret Singers Music Director

Politically, the piece tries to question the power structure ofWestern musical organization. I wonder about certainmusical-political questions. At what point is a composer orconductor' or band leader just bossing people around likeanyone else who is given power? How can music act as anexample of new ways to organize groups of people?Writing out pitches and rhythms with split second accuracystrikes me as a relatively controlling way to organize apiece of music. In the piece at hand, the delivery style ofthe mpnologues is relatively open, dynamic changes areindeterminate with respect to each performance (as well asbeing out of the hands of the conductor), and in the finalseconds, control of the piece is wrenched from the hands ofthe conductor and given over to the performers. Through.these compositional techniques, I hope I have kept thingsloose and equitable.

SOPRANOWendi Gerth*Janice HuntonKathy JosselynPolly JutsumNorah LongDeborah OsgoodLeaAnna Sams-McGowanLisa SawatskyMarie SparLinda Steen*

ALTOLisa BarryPatty BatherJoanne HalvorsenLynette JohnsonPatricia ThompsonSandy WaldenMitzi WestraDenise Wahlin Fiskum *

Think of the piece in terms of all three of these aspects: .Dramatics. Acoustics. Politics. Think of the piece assimultaneously a live drama and a piece of concert music,composed under the conviction that spoken language iseasily the most inherently beautiful and complex soundsource available to composers.

TENORPaul AndersonGeorge Berglund"Philip BlackburnGeorge Chu*Robert Knudtson *Gary KortemeierTom LarsonTim McGlynnRandy SpeerSteve Staruch*

BASSSteve BurgerTom JamesDan KallmanJin KimArthur LaRueDavid Moberg*Brian Newhouse*Jerry RubinoKevin ShannonPaul TheisenScott Toperzer

* Guest Singer

InstrumentalistsViolin

--Erik BelgumViolaCelloPercussionPiano

Randy OrsakTracy SilvermanLouise ZeitlinLaura SewellJay JohnsonJerry Rubino

A young law student gets hit head on by a cop car with thecop already dead behind the wheel from a heart attack. Hedied almost a full minute before the collision. A police cardrifts off over into the left lane the left lane left lane theleft lane, driving straight at the oncoming traffic. TomYoung full of big ideas about justice and the beauty andpurity of law, he's hit head on by Officer Lance, theembodiment of the reality of law and order. Heart attacks.

~Drinking problems.

This activity is made possible by a grant provided by theMinnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation bythe Minnesota State Legislature. The Minnesota State ArtsBoard received additional funds to support this activityfrom the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Singers wish to thank the staff of the Janet WallaceFine Arts Center for their assistance and cooperation inmaking this evening's reading possible.

Dr. Warland and the DWS Board of Directors gratefullyacknowledge the generous support of the JeromeFoundation for this activity. ,You are invited to attend the world premiere of the fourthJerome Foundation sponsored commission, Namings, byJalalu-Kalvert Nelson which will be presented by TheSingers on Sunday, November 8, 1992 at 3:00 p.m. at theWalker Art Center, Minneapolis.

For additional information about concert tickets, availablerecordings, and auditioning for The Dale Warland Singers,please call or write:The Dale Warland Singers,120 North Fourth StreetMinneapolis, MN 55401phone 612/339-9707fax 612/339-9826