CHAMBER MUSIC RECITAL
Gabriela Lena Frank
guest composer
Ann Miller, violin Vicky Wang, cello Igor Veligan, viola Brittany Trotter, flute
Jun Lee, piano Emma Northcutt, violin Trio 180
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 7:30 pm Recital Hall
67TH PERFORMANCE OF 2023–24 ACADEMIC YEAR
FEBRUARY 21, 2024, 7:30 PM Zapatos de Chincha (Shoes of Chincha) (2010) Ann Miller, violin Vicky Wang, cello
Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Soliloquio serrano (Mountain soliloquy) No. 2 (2020) Igor Veligan, viola
Five Andean Improvisations (2019) Quena (Wooden flute) Ritmo del altiplano (Rhythm of the high plain) Pinkillo (Small flute) Chuta (Andean motive) Sombras (Shadows) Brittany Trotter, flute Jun Lee ’22, piano
Khazn’s Recitative: Elu D’vorim (Cantor's recitative: There are words) (2003) Emma Northcutt ’24, violin
Four Folk Songs (2012) Canto para La María Angola Serenata Trio 180 Ann Miller, violin Vicky Wang, cello Sonia Leong, piano View a digital version of this program at issuu.com/MusicatPacific.
PROGRAM NOTES Currently serving as composer-in-residence with the storied Philadelphia Orchestra and included in the Washington Post’s list of the most significant women composers in history (August 2017), composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank has always placed identity at the center of her music. Born in Berkeley, California (September 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Gabriela explores her multicultural heritage through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank has traveled extensively throughout South America in creative exploration. Her music often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multiracial Latina but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a Western classical framework that is uniquely her own. In 2020 Frank was a recipient of the prestigious 25th-anniversary Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanity category, a meaningful portion of which she donated by to the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. The award recognized Frank for breaking gender, disability, and cultural barriers in the classical music industry, and for her work as an activist on behalf of emerging composers of all demographics and aesthetics. Notes by the composer Zapatos de Chincha This light-footed movement is inspired by Chincha, a southern coastal town known for its Afro-Peruano music and dance (including a unique brand of tap). The cello part is especially reminiscent of the cajón, a wooden box that percussionists sit on and strike with hands and feet, extracting a remarkable array of sounds and rhythms. Soliloquio serrano Soliloquio serrano was commissioned for violist Margaret Audrey Snyder with the generous support of the University of Georgia Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts and the Nora L. Redman Endowment Fund. She gave the first performance on March 15, 2022, at the University of Georgia.
PROGRAM NOTES Five Andean Improvisations Five Andean Improvisations, for flute and piano, are musings inspired by highland Peruvian/Bolivian musical motives. The first movement, Quena, is written as if for the traditional quena flute that bears a similarity to the Japanese shakuhachi. The second movement, Ritmos del altiplano, when the piano enters for the first time, uses a simple one-two rhythm in the piano part decorated by ornamentation and florid lines. This is followed by the third movement, Pinkillo, inspired by the light silvery small flute of the same name. Chuta follows, a bright rendition of one of the most recognized motives of the Andes, the chuta motive with its proliferation of repeated notes. The finale, Sombras, is a short tone poem of the islands of Lake Titicaca, where the stars are so bright they cast eerie and brilliant shadows, even at night. Khazn’s Recitative: Elu D’vorim As a little girl, I was enamored with the stories of an exotic Perú told by my mother and father—exotic, dangerous, appalling, funny. The music that my mother brought with her to the States upon leaving Perú and marrying Dad only enhanced my attraction to her culture. It spoke volumes to me with its quena flutes, zampoña panpipes, drums, and mandolin-like charango guitars, and as a classically-trained composer and pianist today, I incorporate its influences into my own music. But, I’m not Peruvian. Or, I should say—I’m not a pure-blooded Peruvian, born in the mother country. As a child growing up in Berkeley, California, I was but one of many mixed-blood children, a gringo-born mestiza. And while I represented the exotic gringo wing of the family to my maternal relatives, I was equally exotic to—and loved by—my paternal relatives. They still claimed, with great pride, their Jewish-Lithuanian heritage and I would see the musical evidence of such at weddings when Eastern European–derived klezmer songs would be performed. The idea to write music that drew on both of my heritages came to me a few years ago one Christmas morning in the family home. After witnessing my efforts in studying Latin American music here and abroad for some time, my father gave me a stack of Jewish music CDs with the note: “Because I have to compete!” I remember laughing long and hard at that, but an inspiration was born then: The idea to write a piece of music painting scenes from the experiences of the Jewish-American closest to me, my father, in Perú. The result is Khazn’s Recitative: Elu D’vorim.
PROGRAM NOTES In the preparation for this piece, Dad and I held conversations that I recorded about the Peace Corps junket in the early sixties that took him to South America and to my mother. We also discussed in detail his upbringing and training in Judaism in a post-World War II Bronx neighborhood. Contrary to my expectations, perhaps formed over the years from my exposure to the aforementioned family weddings I had attended, klezmer music did not loom large in my father’s heart. Rather, he spoke of being moved by the many renowned Jewish cantors (khazn) who would sing in New York synagogues at the time. To him they sounded like grown men crying and crying without embarrassment or inhibition in front of the congregation. In our recorded conversations, I played historic recordings of different cantors for Dad, and those that my father identified as sounding “right” to him belonged to Moshe Koussevitzky (1899–1966), a cantor who came from the same country as my father’s ancestors, Lithuania, and who sang in temples in the Bronx and Brooklyn during my father’s boyhood. Perceiving this to be no accident, this piece is in the style of Koussevitzky’s singing and utilizes "Elu D’vorim" (which he was famous for), sung on Shabbat. It is for solo violin only, as traditional cantor singing is done without accompaniment. On a personal note, what struck me about Koussevitzky’s singing was that his voice reminded me of Dad’s, a startling realization! The deep feeling, the rise and fall of the lines, the lingering for emphasis are hallmarks of Dad to me. Four Folk Songs Four Folk Songs for violin, cello, and piano loosely draws inspiration from the melodic motives and rhythms of my mother's homeland, Perú. As an American-born Latina, so much of my understanding of this small yet culturally rich Andean nation has been necessarily fashioned from within my private imagination from the time I was a young child. Frequent trips to Perú in my adulthood, always done with my mother, leave me with a sense of belonging to something larger than myself as I connect private musings with the actual existing reality. Seeing the María Angola church in its highland setting after reading myths about it, for instance, makes Perú's connection to colonial Spain that much more real; and this provided the inspiration for the first movement of Four Folk Songs: Canto para La María Angola (Song for the María Angola). The third movement, Serenata, is inspired by the ubiquitous guitar/charangovocalist duo one sees in most pubs and eating houses.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Pianist Jun Lee `22 has an active career performing and teaching in Stockton and the Bay Area. In 2022 she performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with University of the Pacific's Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the Conservatory's Concerto Competition. Lee works with students of different levels and ages through the Pacific Community Music School and in her private studio. She also holds positions as music director at First Presbyterian Church and concert music assistant at Cesar Chavez High School. She works often in musical theater, both at Stockton Civic Theatre and Lincoln High School. Lee believes that music is an essential part of life as it brings imagination and comfort to people of all ages. She values music because of its power to form interactions between the performer and the audience and because of its ability to include everyone in the experience regardless of one’s background. Sonia Leong, a founding member of Pacific’s Trio 180, has performed as both a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, and in Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, Switzerland, England, and Romania. She has appeared with the Filarmonica de Stat Dinu Lipatti in Satu Mare (Romania), the St. John and Zion Chamber Orchestras in Stockton, the Banff Festival Orchestra, and the Stockton Symphony. She has also performed live on Radio Suisse Romande in Geneva, Switzerland. As a member of Trio 180 since 2002, Leong has given concerts and worked with young musicians throughout the Americas. The Trio has commissioned works by many composers, including Chen Yi, Robert Greenberg, Cindy Cox, Reinaldo Moya, Richard Einhorn, Dorothy Chang, and Andrew Conklin. The Trio’s first album, featuring works by Dvořák, Suk, and Schumann, was released in 2015. The St. Galler Tagblatt (Switzerland) wrote of Leong’s “richly colorful and tender playing,” saying “she balances intelligence and sensitivity, revealing the depths of each score." The San Francisco Classical Voice described her “sensitive and accomplished touch” and wrote, “Leong . . . played the brilliant piano part effortlessly and with a great deal of flair.”
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Leong studied at the University of British Columbia, the Peabody Institute, and the Université de Montréal, as well as at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) on a Commonwealth Scholarship, where she received a Concert Recital Diploma. Her principal teachers include Robert Silverman, Julian Martin, Alexander Volkov, and Marc Durand. She has participated in festivals at the Banff Centre; Orford, Quebec; Scotia Festival; Ladevie, France; and Ernen, Switzerland (with György Sebök). Celebrated violinist Ann Miller is an associate professor of violin at Pacific's Conservatory of Music. She has appeared in concert halls throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. At home performing music spanning the Baroque era to the present day, Miller enjoys a varied career as a chamber musician, soloist, and educator. A proponent of new music, Miller made her New York debut as a soloist with the New Juilliard Ensemble in Alice Tully Hall in the North American premiere of David Matthews’s Concerto No. 2. An avid chamber musician, Ann Miller is a member of Trio 180, the piano trio-in-residence at University of the Pacific. In addition to performing in Canada, Mexico, and many venues throughout the US, the Trio has also presented online concerts during the pandemic. Miller’s recent solo appearances include performances of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Zion Chamber Orchestra, the Barber Violin Concerto with the Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic Orchestra in Satu Mare (Romania) and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Mariposa Symphony in Yosemite National Park. As a recitalist Miller frequently collaborates with pianist Sonia Leong. Their debut album, Perspectives on Light and Shadow: Sonatas by Beaser, Ysaÿe, and Bartók was released in December of 2015. Miller holds her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Juilliard School. She received her Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, from Rice University. Her teachers have included Ronald Copes and Kathleen Winkler.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Praised for her artistry and originality, violinist Emma Northcutt `24 is a leader in Northern California and Bay Area musical communities. Currently located in Stockton studying at University of the Pacific, she is concertmaster of University Symphony Orchestra and president of Pacific Repertoire Orchestra, a student-run chamber orchestra. Northcutt is also a member of the Stockton Symphony and an alumna of the internationally renowned San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. Her studies have led her around the world to locations ranging from Vienna, Austria, to the heart of rural Texas. Prizewinning flutist Brittany Trotter leads a diverse career as an educator, soloist, and collaborator. She joined the faculty of Pacific’s Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2021. Trotter previously served on the faculties of Dickinson College, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and Duquesne University. She is program chair of the Mid-Atlantic Flute convention, competition coordinator for the National Flute Association (NFA)’s Junior Soloist Competition (also serving on the development committee of the Umoja Flute Institute, NFA’s career and artistic development committee), and publicity chair for the Flute New Music Consortium. Trotter has been awarded first prize in numerous national and regional competitions including the Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition in woodwinds in the states of West Virginia (2017, 2016), Wyoming (2015, 2014), and Mississippi (2009). She has also competed as a semifinalist in the 2017 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Trotter has performed in the flute sections of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra, and Colour of Music Festival Orchestra, among others. Equally versed in post-classical contemporary and experimental music as well as electroacoustic music and interdisciplinary works, she has performed and premiered new works with the Pittsburgh-based new music ensemble Alia Musica.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Igor Veligan joined the faculty of Pacific's Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2006. He holds the Master of Arts degree in violin performance and chamber music from Odessa State Conservatory. His primary violin teachers include Zoja Istomina and Galina Gritzenko. Veligan has studied chamber music with Oleg Shkarpitnuy and Natalya Buzanova and has had master classes with Zakhar Bron, Liana Isakadze, and Igor Frolov. As a chamber musician, Veligan performs with the L’Estro Armonico String Quartet, the Arlekin String Quartet, and has been a guest violist with the Argenta Trio. He is also a violist with the Chamber Music Society of Sacramento. As an orchestra performer, he is concertmaster of the San Francisco Choral Society Orchestra, principal viola of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra, principal violist of the Lake Tahoe Summer Festival, and a member of the Monterey Symphony. Veligan also recently performed as concertmaster of the Sacramento Philharmonic. Veligan has taught at the School for the Performing Arts in Ternopil , Ukraine, and also currently teaches at American River College in Sacramento. At Pacific’s Conservatory he teaches violin, viola, and chamber music. An assistant professor of cello at Pacific’s Conservatory of Music, Vicky Wang is the cellist in Trio 180, an ensemble-in-residence at Pacific. She is also the artistic director and co-founder of C’est Bon Chamber Music Academy dedicated to inspiring the love of music in young musicians through chamber music. Prior to relocating to California, Wang served on the faculty of Mannes College of Music and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College in New York City. Wang’s recent engagements as performer, lecturer and educator include appearances in Chamber Music America Conference (NY), Pacific Music Institute of Hawaii Youth Symphony, MTNA-CAPMT masterclasses, Shkolnikova Academy (France) and Chamber Music Unbound Music Festival (Mammoth Lakes, CA).
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES Wang has participated in music festivals such as the New York String Seminar; Pacific Music Festival, Japan; Verbier Music Festival, Switzerland; Spoleto Music Festival, Italy; and Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara. Wang received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School and her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from City University of New York. Her principal teachers include Eleonore Schoenfeld, Zara Nelsova, Darrett Adkins, Joel Krosnick and Marcy Rosen.
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Coming soon . . . Feb. 24, 7:30 pm, Faye Spanos Concert Hall Pacific Wind Bands Vu Nguyen, conductor Mar. 1, 7:30 pm, Faye Spanos Concert Hall Pacific Jazz Ensemble Keith Brown, piano Mar. 5, 7:30 pm, Recital Hall Faculty Recital Sadie Glass, horn with Natalie Douglass Grana, horn
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