Download The Music of Virko Baley A Festschrift “les adieux” concert

College of Fine Arts presents
The Music of Virko Baley
A Festschrift “les adieux” concert
PROGRAM
From Partita No. 3, for violin and piano (1999)
III. Duma
IV. Hopak-Rondo
Transcribed for flute and piano by Denis Savelyev
Denis Savelyev, flute
Radoslawa Jasik, piano
VI. Passacaglia… for solo violin and two groups of obbligato strings
(…figments, six etudes for solo violin, 1981;1990–91)
Wei-Wei Le, violin solo
Group 1:
Dmytro Nehrych, violin
Alexandria Pritchard, violin
Ashley Riedy, violin
David Chavez, viola
Group 2:
Yestyn Griffith, violin
Jake Stegman, violin
Katherine de Garcia, violin
Vicente Gomez, violin
Klytemnestra, a dramatic scene (1997–98) for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, violoncello
and piano (poem by Oksana Zabuzhko, translated from Ukrainian by Lisa Sapinkopf)
Stephanie Weiss, mezzo-soprano
Timothy Bonenfant, clarinet
Yuri Cho, violin
INTERMISSION
Andrew Smith, violoncello
Christina Wright-Ivanova, piano
From The Emily Dickinson Songbook, Bk. 1 (2000–01)
I. Love can do all but raise the dead
II. Oh, honey of an hour
III. I held a Jewel in my fingers
IV. There is a solitude of space
Timothy Hoft, piano
Arsenia Soto, soprano
Agnus Dei (from Symphony No. 1, Sacred Monuments, (1997–99)
transcribed for piano by Timothy Hoft
Timothy Hoft, piano
Finale
From the opera HOLODOMOR (Red Earth. Hunger, 1985; 1995-97; 2007–12) for
soprano, tenor and a chamber ensemble of 10 performers.
WOMAN: Marie Plette, soprano
MAN:
John Duykers, tenor
Daphne Guevara, flutes
Erika Hill, oboe
Ivan Ivanov, clarinet
Linnie Hostetler, horn
Timothy Jones, percussion
Monday, May 2, 2016
7:30 p.m.
Timothy Hoft, piano
Emily Montoya Barnes, harp
Yuri Cho, violin
Andrew Smith, violoncello
Luigi Ng, percussion
Dr. Arturo Rando-Grillot Recital Hall
Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
VIRKO BALEY
"…sonic images memorable enough to take home.”
— Kyle Gann, The Village Voice, New York
Virko Baley is a Jacyk Fellow at Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and Distinguished
Professor of Music, Composer-in-Residence and co-director of NEON, an annual
composers’ conference, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received a 2007
Grammy® Award as recording co-producer for TNC Recordings and the prestigious
Academy Award in Music 2008 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The
citation read:
"A highly cultured, polyglot intellectual, brilliant pianist and a dynamic and
accomplished conductor, the Ukrainian-born Virko Baley composes music which
is dramatically expansive of gesture, elegant and refined of detail and profoundly
lyrical. It is music which ‘sings’ with passionate urgency whether it embraces (as
in his more recent work) folkloric elements from his origins or finds expression in
a more universal style of modernism typical of his earlier music. It is always a
singular voice and a deeply felt and acutely heard music."
In the spring of 2013, his magnum opus, the opera Holodomor (Red Earth. Hunger)
(begun in 1985) received two performances in a special chamber concert version in Las
Vegas and New York, and was repeated in Kyiv, Ukraine at the Shevchenko Opera in
November of that same year, this time with an orchestra. Plans are now being made to
have a fully staged production done in the 2017-18 season.
Virko Baley was born in Ukraine in 1938, but has spent his creative life in the United
States and considers himself a citizen of the world. Multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary,
he infuses his music with themes of contemporary and traditional motifs. Shirley Fleming,
reviewing a concert of his music given by CONTINUUM, in the New York Post called his
music "vibrant, dramatic, communicative, much of it framed by extra-musical allusions
that place it in a solid context." The New York premiere of Concerto No. 1, quasi una
fantasia for violin by the New Juilliard Ensemble, Joel Sachs conductor, Tom Teh Chiu,
soloist, prompted the Village Voice critic Kyle Gann to describe it as full of "sonic images
memorable enough to take home.” His Symphony No. 1: "Sacred Monuments" was
described by David Hurwitz in Classics as, "Powerfully imagined, clearly articulated, and
quite moving… It's a very serious ambitious statement by a gifted artist, and I wouldn't
be a bit surprised if it turns out to have more staying power than many other
contemporary works by today's trendier composers." In 2010, reviewing a recent CD
released of Virko Baley’s music, Robert Schulslaper wrote that “Baley’s music [is] deeply
lyrical and emotively powerful in equal measure. Recommended,” while American
Record Guide pronounced, “These are exceptional compositions and fantastic
performances. The language in these pieces is a part of a larger context of exploration
for new sounds in the world of instrumental music.” In reviewing Baley’s monumental
chamber cycle Treny in Gramophone, Ken Smith wrote “The strength of the piece lies in
its highly - and unapologetically – emotional content, dispensed artfully with the utmost
thematic discretion…Hearing nearly 73 minutes of brooding Slavic ruminations on death
may not inspire much toe-tapping, but Baley does arrive at an effective catharsis. The
vocal line, whose wordless hum soon blooms into a text reconciling itself to human
morality, descends on the earthiness of the cello like a message from above…”
Virko Baley joined UNLV’s Department of Music (as it was known then) in 1970 and
during his tenure, in addition to founding the composition area, established an Annual
Contemporary Music Festival (1971-1985), was honored with the first NEA music grant
given to Southern Nevada, created the Las Vegas Chamber Players (1975-1995), was
Music Director and Conductor of the Nevada Symphony (1980-1995), remains the Music
director of NEXTET (2001-present), and co-founded with Jorge Grossmann N.E.O.N.
(2007-2009, 2016), the annual composers’ conference, at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas.
SOLOISTS ands GUESTS (in order of appearance)
Denis Savelyev was born in Lviv, Western Ukraine in 1991, and at the age six
began to study flute with Pavlenko Olena, after which he was awarded a place at
the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow, where he studied with Professor Albert
Gofman. He shall graduate with a Master of Music in 2016 from Mannes College of
The New School for Music, where he currently studies with Judith Mendenhall. His
soloist work includes performances at the Ukrainian Institute of America, Carnegie
Hall, with the Lviv Philharmonic, the Ivano-Frankivsk Philharmonic, and the Mannes
College of Music. At his Carnegie Hall debut, he and Radoslawa Jasik (piano)
performed his arrangement for flute of Virko Baley’s Partita for Violin, which
received its world premiere at that venue.
Polish pianist Radoslawa Jasik began her musical education at the age of seven and
continued study at the Karol Szymanowski State Secondary Music School in Katowice,
with Professor Anna Górecka. In 2014, Ms. Jasik graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree
of Music from the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz and was
accepted in the graduate program (MM) at Mannes College of The New School for
Music in New York City and studies with Professor Pavlina Dokovska, after a highly
competitive audition, as a recipient of the Provost’s Merit Scholarship Award.
Radoslawa has won First Prizes in the Beijing Music Academy Piano Competition
(China), J. S. Bach International Piano Competition, Gorzów Wielkopolski (Poland),
Polish-German International Piano Competition, Zgorzelec/Goerlitz (Germany), Cittá di
Barletta 20th International Music Competition (Italy), and the 9th International
“Independent Music Competition for Individuals”, Kiev (Ukraine) in both the solo and
duo (with guitarist) categories.
Wei-Wei Le. a native of Shanghai, began her violin studies at the age of six, and over
the course of her career, Ms. Le has won numerous competitions, including the Yehudi
Menuhin International Violin Competition (England), the Kloster Schontal International
Violin Competition (Germany), and the Starling International Violin Competition (USA).
Her studies have taken her to the Yehudi Menuhin School and Shanghai, Cincinnati, and
New England conservatories with world renowned violin pedagogues, such as Yehudi
Menuhin, Donald Weilerstein, Almita & Roland Vamos, Dorothy DeLay, and Kurt
Sassmenshaus. As a solo performer, Ms. Le has given recitals and concerts all over the
world, performing with noteworthy orchestras such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic,
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London), Queensland Symphony (Australia), World
Youth Orchestra (Italy), Bermuda Symphony (Bermuda), and the Tianjin Symphony
Orchestra (China). Many of her performances have been conducted by Lord Yehudi
Menuhin himself, who described her as “one of the most talented young musicians he
has ever seen.” As a devoted chamber music player, Ms. Le has collaborated with great
musicians and quartets in North America, Europe, and Asia, including Richard Stoltzman,
William Preucil, Sara Chang, and Eliot Fisk, as well as the Ying Quartet and St.
Petersburg Quartet. Her major projects since 2006 include the Complete Bartok Cycle
with the Atlanta-based Vega Quartet and several appearances at Carnegie Hall. Prior to
her appointment at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Ms. Le served on the faculty at
Emory University and Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Stephanie Weiss joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Music/Studio Voice at
University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Fall 2014. She holds degrees from New England
Conservatory (voice), Tufts University (biology and drama), University of MissouriKansas City, Mannes College of Music, and UNLV. Previously, she has been on the
faculties at UMKC Community School Division, the New York State Summer School for
the Arts, Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, and a Teaching Fellow with the
Metropolitan Opera Education Department. In 2015, she was on the faculty of COSI
(Centre for Opera Studies in Italy) in Sulmona, Italy. Since 2010, she has been on the
voice faculty at AIMS in Graz. A San Diego native, Ms. Weiss was a Midwest Regional
Finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and at Mannes College of
Music, a recipient of a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation. As
the winner of the American Berlin Opera Foundation Competition, she became a
member of Deutsche Oper Berlin as a Stipendiatin in the 2004/2005 season where she
debuted as Frasquita in Carmen. Other roles that season included Musetta, Erste Dame
(Die Zauberflöte), Gerhilde (Die Walküre), and Schlafittchen in the Berlin premiere
of Das Traumfresserchen.
Arsenia Soto combines her interest and passion for new music with her love for the
stage. She was a member of the winning team in Atlanta Opera’s 24-Hour Opera
project, in which she prepared a new operatic work under the direction of Matthew
Ozawa. As a guest artist with NEXTET she has collaborated with guest composers Erica
Muhl, Jorge Grossman, and Dan Welcher. Ms. Soto is equally at home on the opera
stage and has been praised for her dramatic interpretation. Tim Smith of the Baltimore
Sun remarked that her acting, “had a disarming naturalness” in response to Ms. Soto’s
performance of Sophie in Udo Zimmermann’s Die Weisse Rose. Other operatic credits
include Konstanze (Abduction from the Seraglio), Despina (Cosi fan tutte), Poppea
(L’incoronazione di Poppea), and Second Lady (The Magic Flute). Ms. Soto has
performed with the Baltimore Opera Company, Washington National Opera Company,
the Bay Area Summer Opera Company, the Richmond Philharmonic, and the Cornell
University Symphony. Ms. Soto earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell
University, graduating cum laude. She continued her studies at the Peabody
Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where she earned both a Master of Music
and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree. She currently serves on the voice faculty of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A pianist of unique versatility, Timothy Hoft is in demand as a soloist and chamber
musician. In recent years, Hoft has given performances in the concert halls of France,
Italy, Czech Republic, England, Scotland, and the U.S., including Carnegie Hall's Weill
Recital Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington D.C.), the
Phillips Collection (Washington D.C.), the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
(Houston), the Piano Salon at Yamaha Artist Services (New York), and the Smith
Center-Cabaret Jazz (Las Vegas). He has performed as a concerto soloist with the
Detroit Civic Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Peter by the Sea, the Peabody
Camerata, the Peabody Wind Ensemble, the UNLV Wind Orchestra, and the Henderson
Symphony Orchestra. An active accompanist and chamber musician, Hoft has
collaborated in chamber performances with members of the Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco
Symphony, and Las Vegas Philharmonic. Hoft frequently performs with virtuoso flutist,
Anastasia Petanova, having given performances in numerous venues such as The
Phillips Collection, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, l'Hotel d'Assezat in
Toulouse, France and The New York University in Florence, Italy. Hoft earned a
Bachelor's of Music Degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan, as
well as Master's of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees from the Peabody
Conservatory of Music. His primary interests include collaborating with composers and
performing unfamiliar repertoire. Current projects include performing and recording the
music of Ukrainian composers Boris Lyatoshynsky, Valentin Silvestrov, Valentin Bibik,
and Virko Baley.
American soprano Marie Plette has performed in major opera houses of North America
and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric
Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, Washington National Opera,
Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Glimmerglass Opera, the Wexford Festival, Rome Opera,
Stuttgardt Opera, Frankfurt Opera and the Edinburgh Festival with Scottish Opera. Ms.
Plette is known for her compelling portrayals as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro,
Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Seiglinde in Die Walkure, Elsa in Lohengrin, and the title
roles of Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Rusalka, and Ariadne auf Naxos. A champion of new
works, Ms. Plette has performed in concert with L’ensemble Intercontemporain, as Love
Simpson in Carlyle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree, in Jake Heggie’s one-woman opera
Another Sunset, the symphonic song cycle Promise of Time by David Carlson, and the
role of The Woman in Holodomor (Red Earth. Hunger) with composer Virko Baley at the
baton for the first performance in Ukraine. Recent performances include several
appearances in the western states: Tosca for Anchorage Opera, the title role in Strauss’
Ariadne auf Naxos for West Edge Opera; three productions for Livermore Valley Opera –
Mimi in La Boheme, Donna Elvira in a modern production of Don Giovanni and Puccini’s
Tosca, a role she has sung for Sacramento Opera and Opera North. Ms. Plette’s recent
concert appearances include performances of the Beethoven 9th Symphony with
Stanford Symphony, David Carlson's Promise of Time with Santa Rosa Symphony and
Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with Las Vegas Philharmonic. A resident of the San Francisco
Bay Area, Marie Plette teaches lessons and master classes, and is an Artist-inResidence with the Oakland School for the Arts.
John Duykers made his operatic debut with Seattle Opera in 1966. Since then he has
appeared with many of the leading opera companies of the world including The Lyric
Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Royal Opera Covent
Garden, Netherlands Opera, the Grand Theatre of Geneva, Teatro Carlo Felice in
Genoa, Frankfurt Opera, Opera de Marseille, Canadian Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los
Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera and the Opera Company of Philadelphia. He is
particularly well known for his performances of contemporary music, having sung in 120
contemporary operas including 72 world premieres. He created the role of Chairman
Mao in John Adams' Nixon in China, premiered with Houston Grand Opera and
performed throughout the world. Philip Glass has written three roles for Duykers
including The Visitor (In The Penal Colony) and the role of the Older Galileo in
Galileo/Galilei. Paul Dresher has written several roles for Duykers including The Tyrant,
which premiered in 2003 and has appeared in various venues around the US. Duykers
has performed with Opera Parallele as The Captain in Berg’s Wozzeck, Heurtebise in
Philip Glass’ Orphee and Father Grenville in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. In 2016
he performed the role of Antonin Scalia in the premiere of Gary Fagin’s Supreme Justice,
the Battle for Gay Rights, with the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra in NYC. In 1990
Duykers and Melissa Weaver started a production company (established as First Look
Sonoma in 2010). They have created more than 25 new music theater performance
works, including A.ga.pe with Hitomi Ikuma, Trespass Knot with composer Miguel
Frasconi, Serial Murderess, Winchester Rosary and D’Arc, Woman on Fire written and
performed by Amanda Moody, Caliban Dreams with Moody and composer Clark
Suprynowicz, and Holodomor with composer Virko Baley. Currently, they are creating a
new music theater work Heart of the Great Divide with composers Philip Aaberg and
Gary Funk, about the turbulent history of Butte Montana.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
After forty-six years, as the magnitude of this moment dawns on me, my reflections upon
what has been an extraordinary odyssey are flavored with gratitude. I first thank Chair
Susan Mueller and the School of Music for sponsoring this capstone paean, and all the
performers and staff who contributed their talents and dedication to make it happen.
Looking at the past nearly five decades, the staggering number of people to thank is
more than my simple mind can assemble. But I will like a crab, go backwards and start
with the present.
I could not have managed without the critical editor’s eye and wise tongue of my friend,
partner, and wife, Patricia. Her willingness to deal with whatever ball I would throw her
way was and remains prodigious. My oldest friend Ken Hanlon, who as Chair of the
department rescued my ass more times than I can repay and remains a steadfast friend
(nearing the half-century mark!). Dr. W. Howard Hoffman, who as supporter and then
Chairman of the Board of Nevada Symphony (formerly Las Vegas Symphony) kept the
organization afloat and saw in me a composer I wasn’t certain was there. Dr. Jeffrey
Koep, our former, and thus, my Dean, who supported my more idealistic concoctions,
such as NEON (Nevada Encounters Of New music), and NEXTET as a resident
ensemble for new music and visiting composers and performers to work intensely with
our new composition area. He also had the bright (as far as I am concerned) idea of
making me UNLV’S first composer-in-residence. During the heady early days of the 70s
and early 80s, the then Music Department backed me founding the Annual
Contemporary Music Festival and later the Las Vegas Chamber Players, both of which
put us on the national and even international map. Also, and far from least, being asked
to become the Music Director of the second revival of a local symphony in 1980, the Las
Vegas Symphony, later renamed the Nevada Symphony, which I had the pleasure to
lead for almost 15 seasons. Although it didn’t survive for more than 2 full seasons after I
left, the Symphony was immediately reborn again as the Las Vegas Philharmonic. My
copyist and musical “son” Timothy Bonenfant, who has to keep reminding me that the
viola does NOT go down to the low b and that complex rhythms can be made to look
more legible. Having the great fortune in the winter of my content, of finding a colleague,
Timothy Hoft, who would enthusiastically take upon himself performing and recording my
music. My two talented and generous composition brothers, Jorge Grossmann and
Diego Vega, who helped build the composition program and aided in placing many of
our graduates in some of the best doctoral programs in the country (from USC to
Eastman and many in between) and assisted in securing Fulbright grants for two of them.
Chair Jonathan Good who unfailingly championed the composition program mission,
then handing over that commitment to our current chair Susan Mueller who upholds it by
her own enthusiastic spirit.
I am very grateful to my many students, who over the years made a better musician of
me. Special thanks to Michael Wineski, who was my student for six years and since then
my trusted assistant. They were and are my greatest projects.
During these many years, I had the pleasure of working with many excellent UNLV
musicians; space dictates I can mention but a few: Kalman Banyak, Ichiro Mitsumoto,
Stephen Caplan, Richard Soule, Laura Spitzer, Andrea Ridilla, Yoshi Ishikawa, Lynn
Huntsinger, Taras Krysa and Tom Leslie (for orchestral and band readings of student
compositions), Janis McKay, Bill Bernatis, Andrew Smith (from whom I “stole his
Christmas” when he willingly agreed to perform in my complete Treny), Mykola Suk,
Jennifer Grim, Carol Urban-Stivers, Russ Cantor, George Stelluto, Weiwei Le, all the
performers on tonight’s concert – and the list goes on. Musicologists Anthony Barone
and Isabelle Emerson I thank for all those heated (at times) conversations that
sharpened my intellectual ability and gave me so much pleasure. Nor can I forget the
School of Music’s and the Dean’s office staff without whose continual support from 1970
into the more current times (in recent years managed by Staci Shapin and now Kaci
Kerfeld, facilitated by the Dean’s Delia Martin and Karen Spica) helped to make
bureaucracy bearable for me. Being addicted to performances, I need to in the end
thank my colleague Jennifer Bellor who joyfully undertook many duties to make our
NEXTET performances run smoother and thus be better. To my dear friend Haik, who
supervised the stage for the last two decades, a heartfelt thanks. A place of honor in my
geeky heart is reserved for Curt Miller, George Safire, Rob Mader, Chuck Foley, Gil
Kaupp and Arthur Chivis who fed all my now digital needs with a steady flow of
encouragement and eagerness to keep the projects moving and keep me hooked.
Obviously, from those I failed to include, I ask forgiveness. Thanks to you all for a great
ride!