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Miller Theatre at Columbia University
2013-14 | 25th Anniversary Season
Composer Portraits
Roger Reynolds
Irvine Arditti, violin
Ensemble Signal
Brad Lubman, conductor
Saturday, February 22, 8:00 p.m.
Please note that photography and the use of recording devices are not permitted. Remember to turn
off all cellular phones and pagers before tonight’s performance begins. Miller Theatre is wheelchair
accessible. Large print programs are available upon request. For more information or to arrange
accommodations, please call 212-854-7799.
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
2013-14 | 25th Anniversary Season
Composer Portraits
Roger Reynolds
Irvine Arditti, violin
Ensemble Signal
Brad Lubman, conductor
Saturday, February 22, 8:00 p.m.
Kokoro (1993) Irvine Arditti, solo violin
Roger Reynolds (b. 1934)
Aspiration (2004-05)
Solo violin and chamber orchestra
INTERMISSION
Onstage discussion with Roger Reynolds, Irvine Arditti, and Lauren Radnofsky
Positings (2012) New York premiere
Paul Hembree, computer musician, Kelli Kathman, piccolo, David Byrd-Marrow, horn,
Oliver Hagen, piano, Chris Otto, violin, and Lauren Radnofsky, cello
This program runs approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, including intermission.
Major support for Composer Portraits is provided by
the National Endowment for the Arts and
the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts.
About the Program
Introduction
A true composition is not only a remark or stance or display, but a dimensional experience
that either leads the listener along a path or proposes a landscape for exploration.
—Roger Reynolds
It is not so easy to accept that Roger Reynolds will reach the age of eighty this coming
July. True, the weight of achievement is there: an output going back to the beginning
of the 1960s and including dozens of major works. But, as the most recent piece on
tonight’s program will show, this is someone who remains a young explorer. He has
returned repeatedly to standard genres, especially the string quartet, with Irvine
Arditti to prompt him. But he has also gone on looking for new ways in which music
can energize space, interlock with electronics, and spill across into drama – or do all of
these at once, as most recently in his george WASHINGTON, introduced by the National
Symphony Orchestra last fall. Many of his most striking pieces use these elements
of space, electronics, and drama, from Traces for solo piano with flute, cello, and live
modulation (1968) to Sanctuary for four percussion players (2003-7) and beyond.
Reynolds spent much of the 1960s in Europe and Japan, returning to the United States
in 1969 to take up a professorship at UCSD, which he established as one of the foremost
schools for composers and for performers of new music. He founded one of the first
computer-music facilities there in 1971, brought many lively colleagues to join him,
and remains on the faculty. Among his recordings, two releases on the Mode label are
outstanding: a double album of his complete piano works, including Yuji Takahishi in
Traces; and a DVD of Sanctuary, as performed by Steven Schick and red fish blue fish.
Kokoro (1992)
To conclude his string quartet Visions (1991), the second of four collaborations with
the Arditti Quartet, Reynolds composed a substantial solo for the group’s leader, and
from this came the idea of a big solo piece that would draw on the same materials and
be intended for the same musician. For the title, Reynolds chose a Japanese word
as defined by Daisetz T. Suzuki: “‘Kokoro’ is a very comprehensive term. It first of all
means the physical ‘heart,’ and then the true ‘heart’ (connotative and emotional), ‘mind’
(intellectual), ‘soul’ (in the sense of an animating principle), and ‘spirit’ (metaphysical).”
This provided the cue for an eighteen-minute sequence of transformations of the original music, which is closest to the surface in the eighth section and is elsewhere turned
in the direction of the spirit (second section), the physical heart (fourth section), the
true heart (sixth section), the soul (tenth section), and the mind (twelfth section). Each
section has its own title, as follows:
1. Staged Convergence. The convergence is between quick notes and sustained
ones (or rests), through a succession of eight short subsections. As if absorbing
energy from the stilled time, the quick flurries become faster, until the stationary
moments have disappeared.
2. Unearthly. The feel, Reynolds suggests, is “Apollonian – elevated, pure, a dispassionate lyricism.”
3. Intricate Alternation. Not only notes are alternated here but also, again, short durations and long ones, of which the latter “suggest the stopping of the heart,” with
energy maintained through the pause.
4. Excitation, Recovery, Focus. The three-part process happens five times, the first
four times focussing on a diminuendo to pppp, the last time ending with a threequarter-tone slide at a steady ff.
5. Tenuous, Trembling. “Various tranquil states of being….”
6. With Radiant Continuity. This relatively short element is a consummation of
what was interrupted in the third section.
7. A Traversal of Sighs.
8. Ghostly, Evanescent, Elastic. Muted and very soft throughout, this section nevertheless keeps changing in character.
9. Luminous Murmurs. These are made of triple-stop tremolos and sustained
swells.
10. Alternative Paths. Repeating notes are displaced by notes in extreme heights.
11. Augmented Throbbing. “The demonic unwillingness to subside here demands a
feverish and invariant tremolo.”
12. Precisely, Implacably. This last segment proceeds at the work’s principal, fast
tempo almost to the end.
Aspiration (2004-05)
A little longer than either of the other works on this program, Aspiration has aspects
of both. It is again a showpiece designed for Irvine Arditti, and even more challenging. It also has a sectional form in which two participants are involved: the violin and
About the Program
an ensemble of fourteen players. The winds and strings of this ensemble are divided
into two groups, of five upper instruments (flute, clarinet, trumpet, two violins) and
seven lower (bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, viola, cello, double bass), which
pursue separate but connected courses. Each group has its own harmonic repertory, of
five-note and seven-note chords respectively, but in both the general movement is very
slowly downward, whereas the solo violin moves in the opposite direction. Piano and
percussion may be independent of these groups, or may join with one or both.
There are six ensemble movements, linked by five solo cadenzas. The first movement,
little more than a minute long, is introductory, and the soloist enters only as it ends,
with the first cadenza. A sequence of long phrases is proposed, but tempo, rhythmic
articulation, and dynamics are all left largely to the soloist. Greeted by swelling chords,
the violin is then drawn into the second movement, a much fuller andante that pulls
back to a climax and unleashes the rapid-fire second cadenza. Then comes a fast movement, from which springs the virtuoso third cadenza. Deservedly resting through most
of the energetic fourth movement, the violin has a relatively short cadenza leading into
the fifth movement, where again it is silent, until called on by piano and percussion to
reply with its fifth cadenza. The finale, for everyone, is short and slow. Aspirations – to
rise, to settle, to join, to include – have been achieved.
Positings (2012)
Commissioned for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Southwest Chamber Music, this
piece is for five standard instruments – flute (doubling piccolo), horn, violin, cello, and
piano (doubling percussion) – plus a sixth musician at a computer, manipulating and
replaying recorded samples.
Five “posits,” short and distinct miniatures for the quintet, are interleaved with somewhat longer computer “responses,” in which recordings of the instrumental music are
transformed and remixed to elaborate the original potential. There is thus a verse-response form, but with the difference that, after the first pair, the responses follow a different order, as follows: P1 – R1 – P2 –R3 – P3 – R5 – P4 – R2 – P5 – R4. Thus the third
response comes immediately before the relevant posit, others at a greater remove, so
that memory is called into play. In addition, the responses all contain “enhancements”
from the live musicians, complicating a little the dialogue of quintet and computer. The
last enhancement, much the longest, extends beyond the last response and brings the
worlds of instruments and computer together.
Program notes by Paul Griffiths
About the Artists
Irvine Arditti was born in London in
1953 and studied at the Royal Academy
of Music, where the Arditti Quartet was
formed in 1974. Both in the quartet and
as soloist, he has performed throughout
the world in most leading concert halls
and festivals promoting the most challenging new music. He has given world
premieres of hundreds of works, including Roger Reynolds’ solo peice Kokoro,
which was also written for him; Xenakis’
Dox Orkh and Hosokawa’s Landscape III,
both for violin and orchestra; as well as
Ferneyhough’s Terrain, Francesconi’s Riti
Neurali and Body Electric, Dillon’s Vernal
Showers, Harvey’s Scena, Pauset’s Vita
Nova, Sciarrino’s Le Stagioni Artificiali,
and Roger Reynolds’ Aspiration, all for
violin and ensemble.
Arditti’s name is synonymous with the
highest level of quality and dedication in
the performance of new music. The list
of composers with whom he has worked
reads like a who’s who of 20th and 21st
century music, and also includes hundreds of younger composers whom he has
helped. He has released more than 200
CDs, both with the quartet and as soloist.
In 1999, as leader of the quartet, he accepted the prestigious Ernst von Siemens
Music Prize. This prize for “lifetime
achievement” in music began in 1974 and
is typically given to individuals; the Arditti
Quartet remains to this day the only ensemble ever to receive it.
Brad Lubman, conductor/composer, is
founding co-Artistic Director and Music
Director of Ensemble Signal, hailed by
The New York Times as “one of the most
vital groups of its kind.” Since his conducting debut in 1984, he has gained
widespread recognition for his versatility,
commanding technique, and insightful
interpretations.
His guest conducting engagements
include major orchestras such as the
DSO Berlin, Netherlands Radio Kamer
Filharmonie, Residentie Orchestra Den
Haag, WDR Symphony Cologne, NDR
Symphony Hamburg, Bavarian Radio
Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony,
Dresden Philharmonic, Deutschland
Radio Philharmonie, American Composers Orchestra, and the St Paul Chamber
Orchestra, performing repertoire ranging
from classical to contemporary orchestral
works. He has worked with some of the
most important ensembles for contemporary music, including London Sinfonietta,
Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien,
musikFabrik, Los Angeles Philharmonic
New Music Group, and Steve Reich and
Musicians. He has recorded for AEON,
Albany, BMG/RCA, Bridge, Cantaloupe,
CRI, Kairos, Koch, Mode, New World,
NEOS, Nonesuch, Orange Mountain, and
Tzadik. Lubman’s own compositions have
been performed in the USA and Europe
and can be heard on his CD, insomniac, on
Tzadik.
Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman
School of Music since 1997, where he directs the Musica Nova ensemble, and is on
the faculty of the Bang-on-a-Can Summer
Institute. He is represented by Karsten
Witt Musik Management.
Paul Hembree’s (b. 1982) acoustic and
computer music compositions synthesize the expressive power of polyphonic
music in the Western classical tradition
with modern experimental and electroacoustic techniques to create a visceral
and communicative sound. At the University of California, San Diego, Hembree
currently pursues a Ph.D with advisor
Roger Reynolds; he has also studied with
Philippe Manoury, Chinary Ung, and
Lei Liang. Hembree works as a teaching assistant for music theory courses,
and as a videography, web-design, and
computer music research assistant for
Edwin Harkins and Reynolds. Hembree
earned a Master of Music degree with an
emphasis in technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His master’s
thesis composition, The Antikythera
Mechanism (2009), is a 35-minute polywork for chamber orchestra, computer
controlled piano, live digital video, and 8.1
channel audio. He also has a Bachelor of
Music in Composition, magna cum laude,
from the University of Oregon, where in
2005 he co-founded the contemporary
music-focused New Frontiers Chamber
Symphony.
Ensemble Signal, described by the
New York Times as “one of the most
vital groups of its kind”, is a NY-based
ensemble offering the broadest possible
audience access to a diverse range of contemporary works through performance,
commissioning, recording, and education.
Since its debut in 2008, the Ensemble has
performed over 90 concerts, has given the
NY, world, or U.S. premieres of over 20
works, and co-produced five recordings.
Signal was founded by Co-Artistic/
Executive Director Lauren Radnofsky
and Co-Artistic Director/Conductor Brad
Lubman. A “new music dream team,”
(TimeOutNY), Signal regularly performs
with Lubman and features a supergroup
of independent artists from the modern
music scene. Signal is flexible in size and
instrumentation—everything from solo
to large contemporary ensemble in any
possible combination—enabling it to meet
the ever-changing demands on the 21st
century performing ensemble.
At home in concert halls, clubs, and
international festivals alike, Signal has
performed at Lincoln Center Festival,
Ojai Music Festival, Carnegie Hall’s
Zankel Hall, Miller Theatre, (le)Poisson
Rouge, The Tanglewood Music Festival of
Contemporary Music, Cleveland Museum
of Art, The Wordless Music Series, and
the Bang on a Can Marathon.
Signal’s fearless programming ranges
from minimalism or pop-influenced
to the iconoclastic European avantgarde. Signal has worked with artists
and composers including Steve Reich,
Helmut Lachenmann, Irvine Arditti,
Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe,
Oliver Knussen, Hilda Paredes, and
Charles Wuorinen. Their educational
activities have included workshops
with emerging composers at the June in
Buffalo Festival, where they are a resident
ensemble. Signal’s recording are available
on Philip Glass’s Orange Mountain,
New Amsterdam Records, Mode, and
Cantaloupe. Recent highlights include
performing in the 2013 Lincoln Center
Festival’s production of Monkey: Journey
to The West. Upcoming highlights include
the co-commission of a new work for
large ensemble by Steve Reich.
including Composer Portraits of Georg Friedich
Haas (2013), Hilda Paredes (2012), and Helmut
Lachenmann (2010) as well as numerous
programs of smaller-scale works on Miller’s
Pop-Up Concert series. This spring, Signal will
perform in the upcoming Composer Portrait of
Unsuk Chin on March 13 and Reich + Bach in
the Bach, Revisited series on May 15.
Ensemble Signal’s season is made possible in
part by support from New Music USA’s Cary
New Music Performance Fund and The Amphion Foundation.
Tonight’s performers:
Paul Coleman, sound director
Kelli Kathman, flute
Nick Gallas, clarinet
Adrian Sandi, bass clarinet
Brad Balliett, bassoon/contrabassoon
David Byrd-Marrow, horn
Mike Gurfield, trumpet
Jerry Hou, trombone
Bill Solomon, percussion
Oliver Hagen, piano
Ari Streisfeld, violin
Chris Otto, violin
Victor Lowrie, viola
Lauren Radnofsky, cello
Greg Chudzik, bass
Ensemble Signal are regular guests on the
Miller Stage, with previous apperances
About the Artists
About Miller Theatre
Miller Theatre at Columbia University is the leading presenter of new music in New York
City and one of the most vital forces nationwide for innovative programming. In partnership
with Columbia University School of the Arts, Miller is dedicated to producing and presenting
unique events, with a focus on contemporary and early music, jazz, opera, and multimedia
performances. Founded in 1988, Miller has helped launch the careers of myriad composers and
ensembles over the past 25 years, serving as an incubator for emerging artists and a champion
of those not yet well known in the United States. A three-time recipient of the ASCAP/
Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming, Miller Theatre continues to
meet the high expectations set forth by its founders—to present innovative programs, support
the development of new work, and connect creative artists with adventurous audiences.
25th Anniversary Committee
Regula Aregger
Mercedes I. Armillas
Rima Ayas
Paul D. Carter
Mary Sharp Cronson*
Stephanie French*
Marcella Tarozzi Goldsmith
Maureen Gupta
Karen Hagberg
Mark Jackson
Columbia University School of the Arts
Eric Johnson
Fred Lerdahl
George Lewis
Philip V. Mindlin
Linda Nochlin
Margo Viscusi*
Marian M. Warden
Cecille Wasserman*
Carol Becker Dean of Faculty
Jana Hart Wright Dean of Academic Administration
Elke Weber
Esta Stecher Vice Chair
Rolando T. Acosta
Armen A. Avanessians
Lee C. Bollinger President of the University
Lisa Carnoy
Kenneth Forde
Noam Gottesman
Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr.
James Harden
Benjamin Horowitz
Ann F. Kaplan
Jonathan Lavine
Charles Li
Paul J. Maddon
Vikram Pandit
Michael B. Rothfeld
* Miller Theatre Advisory Board member
Miller Theatre Staff
Melissa Smey Executive Director
Charlotte Levitt Director of Marketing and Outreach
Beth Silvestrini Associate Director of Artistic and Production Administration
Brenna St. George Jones Director of Production
James Hirschfeld Business Manager
Megan Harrold Audience Services Manager
Bryan Logan Production Coordinator
Nora Sørena Casey Marketing and Communications Associate
Rhiannon McClintock Executive Assistant
Aleba & Co. Public Relations
The Heads of State Graphic Design
Columbia University Trustees
William V. Campbell Co-Chair
Jonathan D. Schiller Co-Chair
A’Lelia Bundles Vice Chair
Mark E. Kingdon Vice Chair
Claire Shipman
Kyriakos Tsakopoulos
Faye Wattleton
Thanks to Our Donors
Miller Theatre acknowledges with deep appreciation and gratitude the following organizations,
individuals, and government agencies whose extraordinary support makes our programming possible.
$25,000 and above
Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts
$10,000 - $24,999
William V. Campbell
The Aaron Copland Fund for Music
Mary Sharp Cronson
The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
$5,000 - $9,999
The Amphion Foundation
French American Cultural Exchange
Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
$1,000 - $4,999
Paul D. Carter
Hester Diamond
R. H. Rackstraw Downes
Claude Ghez
Marcella Tarozzi Goldsmith
Christine and Thomas Griesa
Carol Avery Haber/ Haber Family
Charitable Fund
$500 - $999
Oliver Allen
Regula Aregger
Mercedes Armillas
ASCAP
Rima Ayas
Barbara Batcheler
Elaine S. Bernstein
$100 - $499
Gail and James Addiss
Qais Al-Awqati, M.D.
Edward Albee
Florence Tatischeff Amzallag
Roger Bagnall
Stephen Blum
Jim Boorstein
Adam and Eileen Boxer
Elizabeth and Ralph Brown
Jim Buckley
Kerrie Buitrage
Richard Carrick and Nomi Levy-Carrick
Ginger Chinn
Jennifer Choi
Gregory Cokorinos
Noah Creshevsky
Kristine DelFausse
David Demnitz
Randy Ezratty
Peter and Joan Faber
Stephanie French
Marc Gilman
Dow Jones Foundation
Ernst Von Siemens Foundation
Gerry H. F. Lenfest
National Endowment for the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts
The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation
The Evelyn Sharp Foundation
Margo and Anthony Viscusi
CLC Kramer Foundation
Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music
at Columbia University
Craig Silverstein
Karen Hagberg and Mark Jackson
Donella and David Held
Elizabeth and Dean Kehler
Roger Lehecka
Philip Mindlin
Linda Nochlin
Jeanine and Roland Plottel
Jessie and Charles Price
Peter Pohly
Christopher Rothko
Cecille Wasserman
Elke Weber and Eric Johnson
Anonymous
Mary and Gordon Gould
Marian M. Warden Fund of the Foundation for Enhancing Communities
Maureen Gupta
John Kander
Mark Kempson and Janet Greenberg
Frederick Peters
Mark Ptashne
James Sharp
Timothy Shepard and Andra Georges
J. P. Sullivan
Cia Toscanini
Kathryn Yatrakis
Janet Waterhouse
June O. Goldberg
Lauren and Jack Gorman
Richard Gray
James P. Hanbury
Bernard Hoffer
Alan Houston and Lisa DeLange
Frank Immler and Andrew Tunnick
Burton Kassell
Rebecca Kennison
L. Wilson Kidd, Jr.
Nikki Kowalski
Daniel Lee
Barbara and Kenneth Leish
Arthur S. Leonard
Stephen Leventis
Richard H. Levy and Lorraine Gallard
Peter C. Lincoln
Helen Little
Sarah Lowengard
Anthony and Caroline Lukaszewski
Lawrence Madison
Marc Maltz
Gerald McGee
Bannon and Barnabas McHenry
Rolf Meyershon
Susan Narucki
Susan and Sheldon Nash
Mary Pinkowitz
Carol Robbins
Lisa Rubin
Mariam Said
Eliisa Salmi-Saslaw
Mary Salpukas
James Schamus and Nancy Kricorian
Elliot Schwartz
Anita Shapolsky
Leila Shakour and Michael Thorne
Karlan and Gary Sick
Paul Sperry
Gilbert Spitzer and Janet Glaser Spitzer
Rand Steiger and Rebecca Jo Plant
Peter Strauss
Jim Strawhorn
as of Jan. 17, 2014
Upcoming Events
Saturday, March 1, 8:00 p.m.
JAZZ
Miguel Zenón Quartet
Tuesday, March 4, 6:00 p.m.
POP-UP CONCERT
Ekmeles
Saturday, March 8, 8:00 p.m.
E A R LY M U S I C
Stile Antico:
The Phoenix Rising
Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Thursday, March 13, 8:00 p.m.
COMPOSER PORTRAITS
Unsuk Chin
Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano
Oliver Hagen, piano
Bill Solomon, percussion
Ning Yu, piano
Ensemble Signal
Brad Lubman, conductor
www.millertheatre.com • 212-854-7799
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2960 Broadway at 116th Street, MC 1801, New York, NY 10027