Download October 1, 2010 - ALIAS Chamber Ensemble

ALIAS
Friday, October 1, 2010
8:00 PM
Turner Hall, Blair School of Music
Vim-Hocket, Calm
D. J. Sparr
(b. 1975)
for electric guitar and amplified violin
D.J. Sparr, electric guitar
Alison Gooding, amplified violin
String Circle
for viola quintet
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Kenji Bunch
(b. 1973)
Moderate
Easy
Slow Ballad
Scherzo
High-speed
Zeneba Bowers, violin
Chris Farrell, viola
Matt Walker, cello
Jeremy Williams, violin
Dan Reinker, viola
~ Intermission ~
Pandangguhan
for two violins, cello, bass and piano
Alison Gooding, violin
Sari DeLeon Reist, cello
Michelle Lin Doane, piano
Bayani Mendoza de Leon
(b. 1942)
Jeremy Williams, violin
Joel Reist, bass
Hilos
*World Premiere*
for clarinet, violin, cello and piano
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Gabriela Lena Frank
(b. 1972)
Canto del Altiplano
Zapatos de Chincha
Charanguista Viejo
Danza de los Diablos
Zumballyu
Juegos
Yaravillosa
Bombines
Gabriela Lena Frank, piano
Zeneba Bowers, violin
Lee Levine, clarinet
Matt Walker, cello
PROGRAM NOTES
D.J. Sparr: Vim Hocket, Calm for electric guitar and violin
The composer, on his work:
In 1996-97, Robert Freemen (the then director of the Eastman School of Music) made a
decree that all recitals and concerts at the school should include a work by an Eastman
affiliated composer in honor of the school’s seventy-fifth anniversary. I was inspired to write Vim-Hocket, Calm to
perform the work in many recitals that year along with a close violin friend. The composition is influenced by the work
of Louis Andriessen as well as a favorite recording of mine which had folk songs arranged by Charles Ives which were
orchestrated and conducted by John Adams and sung by Dawn Upshaw. I consider Vim-Hocket, Calm to be the first (and
oldest) piece in my performable catalog and recently made an expanded chamber music version of this work for the
Amsterdam-based Hexnut Ensemble.
The first section of the first movement, “Vim” uses a series of harmonies that are
articulated in chordal fashion, and are subsequently arpeggiated in quick bursts. The arpeggios are offset between the
two instruments so that it creates an echo effect. Later these echoes get a little further apart as the series of harmonies
gets elongated with more chords.
A hocket begins using motives from the antecedent music. The quick back and forth antagonists are interrupted with
slow, soothing music which hints at what is to come in “CALM”. The instruments then burst with the arpeggio figure in
extreme ranges leading to aggressive strumming and double stops in the last measures of the movement.
In Calm, a folk-like melody is orchestrated between the two instruments using open strings and natural harmonics of
both the violin and guitar highlighting the melancholy nature of the musical gestures. A violin interlude highlights the
reverberated sound from the amplification system. Later, the guitar supports the melody of the violin with low chords
and the work ends with a slow, unresolved cadence.
Kenji Bunch: String Circle for viola quintet
String Circle refers to the continuum of history and tradition that we enter through string instruments. My recent
experience participating in Mark O'Connor's Fiddle Camp in Nashville helped me to realize our country is particularly
rich in a variety of approaches to string playing, and I wanted this work to honor this "American string tradition". Each
of the work's five movements offers a tribute to a particular style or idiom of vernacular American music.
The first movement is a tribute to the uniquely raw, rhythmically driving music of the Old-Time Appalachian fiddling
tradition. Played without vibrato and with a heavy use of droning pedal tones, this music is typically harmonically static,
but very active with rhythmic variety and inflection. From a mysterious opening, a theme emerges that develops and
travels between the instruments and ends up as the subject of a five-part canon that ends the movement.
This is followed by a scherzo, offering tribute to the genre of Texas swing, specifically the fiddle choirs of Bob Wills and
the Texas Playboys. I use the instruments in close four-part harmony for much of this movement, with the cello filling
the role of string bass, with the exception of an extended cello solo in the middle of the movement.
The third movement bears the most dramatic weight of the entire work. Conceived as a lament in honor of the late
Johnny Cash, this movement is a setting of the familiar folk song "Wayfaring Stranger". The song is interrupted in the
middle by an ascending line in the first viola that the others join one by one at different rates, creating a wash of tenuous,
ever-changing harmonies that suggest the ascension to heaven to which the song refers.
Bunch continued:
This lament is followed by a second scherzo that is played entirely pizzicato, with twangy slides between pitches meant
to suggest the unique sounds of another string instrument- the banjo. Amid the plucking, the second viola introduces new
material, and a new instrument to emulate - the 'ukelele.
The work ends with a fast, furious dance that updates the musical influences from folk to funk. Displaying the versatility
of the string instruments, this movement suggests the continuing relevance of these instruments in music of a more
contemporary vernacular. In a work full of tributes, there is one more very significant one to point out. Translating folk
music into a concert work is certainly not a new idea, and one cannot discuss this field without mentioning the giant of
both 20th century composition and musicology, Bela Bartok. The chiastic movement structure of String Circle (fugal
first movement, scherzo, slow, dramatic movement, pizzicato scherzo, and fast dance) is modeled directly after Bartok's
seminal 4th String Quartet. Additionally, the last movement uses the Fibonacci series, a numerical procedure of which
Bartok was fond, as a thematic device.
Bayani Mendoza de Leon: Pandangguhan for two violins, cello, bass and piano
Bayani Mendoza de Leon is one of the most versatile Filipino-American artists now based in New York. He is a
composer, musician, writer, folklorist, ethnomusicologist, cultural scholar and leader. As composer, he has written works
that reflect his Philippine-Asian heritage. He was the first Filipino-American composer to write a full-scale symphonic
poem, Batong-Buhay (Livingstone), for rondalla, a native Philippine string ensemble, woodwinds and string orchestra.
He won an international prize in 1976 for his work, Bahay-Bata (Mother’s Womb) that combined Philippine indigenous
instruments with the Western harp and clarinet. Bayani was the recipient of the 2008 Pamana ng Pilipino Presidential
Award conferred on him by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal. In conferring the Pamana ng Pilipino Award, the
President "recognizes his genius and artistry for being a distinguished composer, musician, and educator who has
tremendous influence in raising awareness and appreciation of traditional and contemporary Philippine music in the US".
Among Bayani’s other major works are Beyond Forgetting, a tone poem for vocal soloists, chorus and dancers; Krokis
(Roughly Scribbled Map) for trumpet, clarinet and trombone; Okir, for flute, harp and contrabass; Vertigo, concerstuck
for clarinet and orchestra, Pagkamulat (Awakening), symphonic poem for orchestra; and Atlantis and Anting-Anting
(Talisman), both contemporary ballets.