CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS Artistic Director
NOVEMBER 19 2009
MUSIC OF Adrian Knight Jordan Kuspa Feinan Wang Christopher Cerrone
Robert Blocker, Dean
ANDRIAN KNIGHT
till minne av Farkhad Khudyev, conductor Jane Kim, Piotr Filochowski, David Southorn, Hanna Na, violin Mathilde Geismar Roussel, Amina Myriam Tebini, Christopher Williams, Hyun-Jung Lee, viola Alvin Yan Ming Wong, Wonsun Keem, Sifei Wen, Philo Lee, cello Michael Levin, Eric Fischer, Aleksey Klyushnik, Mark Wallace, double bass
JORDAN KUSPA
Piano Trio Domenic Salerni, violin Alvin Yan Ming Wong, cello Hyun-Ju Jang, piano
FEINAN WANG
Pisces Monodrama – Chapter VII Soulmate Wave Hello to the Sun Bunny Mustard Goodbye My Boy Smiling Depression The Singer in Paradise Fay's Fish Tianxia Wu, conductor Feinan Wang, vocals Dariya Nikolenko, Itay Lantner, flute Alexandra Detyniecki, oboe Sara Wollmacher, clarinet Jacques Wood, Shannon Hayden, cello Yun-Chu Chiu, timpani + snare drum Andy Akiho, steel pan David C. Fung, piano
SPRAGUE MEMORIAL HALL
We regret that, due to illness, Jack Vees’ Party Talk will not be performed this evening. We hope to present the work on a future program.
Intermission
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE
Invisible Cities Scene 1: Prologue Scene 2: Isidora Scene 3: Language Scene 4: Armilla Scene 5: Venice Adrian Slywotzky, conductor Mellissa Hughes, soprano Rachel Calloway, mezzo-soprano James Benjamin Rodgers, tenor Joshua Copeland, baritone Igor Kalnin, violin Edwin Kaplan, viola Yoon Hee Ko, cello Mindy Heinsohn, flute + alto flute Emil Khudyev, clarinet Christopher Jackson, horn Achilles Liarmakopoulos, trombone Denis Petrunin, Ian Rosenbaum, percussion Keturah Bixby, harp Jacob Cooper, tape Aura Go, Fernando Altamura, piano Robert Honstein, keyboard Eliza Bagg, soprano Debbie Wong, alto Colin Britt, tenor Dashon Burton, bass
As a courtesy to the performers and to other audience members, turn off cell phones and pagers. Please do not leave the theater during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is not permitted.
ADRIAN KNIGHT till minne av
: Notes
: Biography
The title, “till minne av,” is Swedish and means “in memory of.” The piece is a continuous reflection on what has come before. Each new event is a possible result of the previous one. It is also, in a sense, an obituary for the death of silence, or a metaphor for the realisation that everything that has a beginning has an end – and each sound that is born must without compromise die eventually.
Adrian Knight is a composer (b. 1987, Uppsala, Sweden), mainly of works for mixed ensembles of acoustic and electronic instruments. Between 2006 and 2009, he studied with, among others, Per Lindgren and Jesper Nordin at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in composition at the Yale School of Music, studying with David Lang. His music is generally characterised by its sense of breath through the use of volume envelopes, monolithic forms, pulse textures, and harmonic saturation. He has collaborated with the Swedish Wind Ensemble and Michael Bartosch, harmonica virtuoso Filip Jers, Jan Risberg’s Futurum Ensemble, and KMH Symphony Orchestra with Daniel Blendulf. Recent works include “livet innanför väggarna” for two violas, cello and double bass; “världens undergång” for four loudspeakers; “ricky bruch” for five micro modular synthesizers; “manchester” for large orchestra with electronics; and “music of spaces” for chromatic harmonica, piano, percussion, and fixed and live electronics. Since 2008, he operates “the world’s smallest record label,” Närproducerat, which has released five albums so far. He is a member of Fylkingen, one of the oldest societies for new music and intermedia art in the world. : adrian-knight.com
JORDAN KUSPA Piano Trio
: Notes
: Biography
My Piano Trio was commissioned by the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival with the aid of a John and Astrid Baumgardner Scholarship, which afforded me the great pleasure of going to Norfolk for a week this past summer and working with the fantastic trio (of which tonight’s pianist, Hyun-Ju Jang, was a member) who premiered the work. Over the course of the week I worked closely with the musicians and Professor Joan Panetti to hone the work into its final shape. The premiere was superb—one of the finest performances I’ve ever had—and the atmosphere of the crowded Music Shed was electric. All in all, it was a fantastic week.
Jordan Kuspa’s compositions have been performed and workshopped by the New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, California E.A.R. Unit, Third Wheel Trio, Gang of Two, Duo Scordatura, organist Chelsea Chen, violist Brett Deubner, the Enso and Kailas String Quartets, the Kensington Sinfonia (Canada), the Young Artists Chamber Players (Utah), and the Woodlands Symphony (Texas), among others. His music has been performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall, and his works have been commissioned by the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and the The work is in four short movements, each American Festival for the Arts Summer based on the same four-note cell: C, B, E-flat, Conservatory. D. The first movement is a strict canon in which all of the pitch choices were carefully At age 16, Jordan founded the Houston Young controlled by a predetermined pattern. The Musicians, a group that sought to broaden rhythm, however, was composed freely. The interest in classical music among new listeners second movement is a wild scherzo that is as well as promote the works of American and punctuated by alternation between metric other contemporary composers. Jordan was also subdivisions of two and three. The third co-founder and a;rtistic director of the Sonus movement is a lyrical miniature featuring the Chamber Music Society, an organization that violin, while the final movement begins with presented an interactive concert series in the rapid octatonic scales (the purest presentation Houston museum district. Educational and of the work’s harmonic material), before taking community outreach, in schools, churches, and an unexpected turn. . . . hospitals, was a central component of each of these programs. Jordan was homeschooled his entire life before entering Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Currently, he is a graduate student in composition at the Yale School of Music, studying with Martin Bresnick, Ingram Marshall, and Christopher Theofanidis.
FEINAN WANG Pisces Monodrama
: Notes Dedicated to my 19-year-old self. Dedicated to the people deep in my heart.
: Biography
Born into a musical family in Beijing, Feinan (Fay) Wang began to learn piano at the age of four. She debuted at age five and won first The Singer in Paradise: My mother died of liver prize in the Hope Cup Piano Competition for cancer in 2006. She was a singer, a great artist, Children. In 2008 Fay graduated from Beijing’s and an amazing woman, but had a bad temper. Central Conservatory of Music, where she studied composition with Professor Xiaogang Ye. Smiling Depression: The year I was 19 was the She is currently studying at the Yale School of most memorable period of my life. I was working Music with Martin Bresnick, Ezra Laderman, in a big hotel as a pop singer. A man named DJ and Christopher Theofanidis. MaMa took me home every night on his motorbike. He left me when my mother passed away. Fay’s numerous prizes include the Bronze Prize in the China National Music Competition Bunny Mustard: During that time, I lived with a (Golden Bell Award), Best Composition Award girl named Kay for a while. We had four bun- in the China National Competition for Art Song nies: two black, one grey, and one with no ears. (New Century Cup), Governmental Award Pets were not allowed, so sometimes we hid for Music Composition, and third prize in the them in the closet. When I think of them now, Palatino Cup. Fay was commissioned by the I can feel the dark life in the closet, the silence, Austrian new music ensemble Die Reihe to loneliness, and darkness. compose Drunk Cat in the Ancient City Wall, which was performed at the Arnold Schoenberg Goodbye My Boy: Someone sent me a text: Center and broadcast in Australia. Other com“Goodbye, my girl.” I did not reply to him, and missions include Fei Bu for the Cantonese Song the number was disconnected. I will never see him and Dance Troupe, and Hou Yi Shoots down the again. “Goodbye my boy” is just a title, a symbol. Suns and Taichi Dance in Space from the Art Center of the National Defense Commission of Soulmate: After my mom passed away, I met my Science, Technology, and Industry. Her works best friend. His name is Pugan. I was 20 and he were selected by the Beijing Modern Music was 27. There are no secrets or distance between Festival for three consecutive years. us. People call it soulmates. I am enjoying this gift. Fay’s interests incorporate jazz, electronic music, Wave hello to the sun: I missed them. I miss and world music. She was awarded Best Female everyone. When I stopped, I was standing in Singer in a contest at CCOM and won the the sunshine. I forgot everything all of a sudden. Silver Prize in the Chinese National Campus Everything’s gone. I never regret anything in Singer Contest. She sang jazz in the Sino-Russia my life. University Students Art Festival at Beijing University and was the lead singer in an indiepop band whose EP recording was distributed in Beijing and Sydney.
TEXTS Pisces Monodrama – Chapter VII
1. Soulmate (spoken in Chinese)
3. Bunny Mustard (sung in English)
English translation: In your heart, there’s a fishbowl, and an ocean; In my heart, there’s a goldfish, and a shark. One of them is raised in your home, the other one you let go around the world. I don’t need to say anything; you know what I’m thinking. Wherever I go, I’m always in your heart.
You stole my coat, I can’t feel cold. You cut my ears, I won't fear. The world is black, my heart is glad. I hear your voice from my back But I cannot reply. I’m just smiling and I turn on the light, light the night.
2. Wave Hello to the Sun (sung in Chinese) English translation: How many times, I’m watching the sky on tiptoe, the rays of the sun slant through the body, erasing the footsteps behind me. Without a word, without expression. But I cannot constrain my crazy mind. Wave hello to the sun, spread arms, expose body like a child. I never left, cannot prove I’ve been here before. Wave hello to the sun...
I drew flame red on lips and eyes. Painting my chaos by white sweet sauce.
4. Goodbye My Boy (sung in English) Goodbye my boy, I’ve been running half of the earth trying to find you. The one-way ticket I locked in my memory and threw the key into the sea. Please keep our secret, send it to the place I’ve never been.
5. Smiling Depression (spoken in English and Chinese)
6. The Singer in Paradise (sung in Chinese)
The first time I met him was on the rooftop. He was smoking Camels and talking about Pink Floyd and his crazy grandma. He has worn only black since he was 15, collected strange puppets and bizarre instruments in his dark basement, and a black cat was always hiding behind his drum set. He got a cello f-hole tattoo on his back. He said his hair is the strings, ha! His motorbike running at midnight in a harsh winter. I can still feel the pain in my knees. One time, he told me he had “smiling depression.”
English translation: There is a loft in paradise. There is someone in that loft, singing a song.
English translation: In the past, he always kept that same face despite what was going on in the movie. But now he acts as if he is always inside a movie. He starts to laugh even ahead of the punch line of jokes, as if he was warming up for the big laugh afterwards. “Smiling depression.”
There are tears in the song that turn into rain. The rain falls onto my palm, like playing a note. You can hear it, but your eyes are closed forever. 7. Fay’s Fish (spoken in English) If the elephant did not have a trunk If the giraffe did not have a neck If the kangaroo did not have legs If the bunny did not have ears (repeat) (if ) fish did not have water (if ) he did not have fish ... you did not have me ... i did not have water ... she did not have ears ... he did not have me ... the bunny did not have ears ... you did not have water ... i did not have ears ... i did not have you ... you did not have fish ... i did not have fish ... i did not have him ... you did not have me ... the bunny did not have ears ... i did not have you ... i did not have you ... i did not have you...
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Invisible Cities
: Notes
: Biography
The primary focus of my compositional work for the last year has been Invisible Cities. Based on the eponymous novel by Italo Calvino, the work is a theatrical adaptation for eight voices, chorus, electronics, and chamber orchestra. Through the characters of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the work explores ideas of time, memory, desire, and loss. Structurally, Invisible Cities is in ten parts: an overture, and nine scenes which alternate between “confrontations” between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan and “story” scenes, where Marco Polo tells a tale of one of the cities that he has explored. Like most musicalizations of a literary work, this is radically condensed from the nine confrontations and the fifty-five stories in the original work. But I hope that in this condensation we get perhaps the clearest intention of the novelist: To write a work that through explores the issues that both make us passionately happy and keep us up at night.
Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, Huntington, NY) is a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic music currently pursuing his doctorate with Martin Bresnick at the Yale School of Music. He received his undergraduate degree from the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Nils Vigeland and Reiko Fueting. Christopher Cerrone has received commissions and performances in the U.S., Europe, and Asia from the New York City Opera, the Yale Institute for Music Theatre, the Virginia Arts Festival, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Flexible Music, the Manhattan Composers’ Orchestra, the New Music Collective, the New Music Institute at the Hochshule für Musik (Berlin), and the Grenzelos Ensemble, as well as Red Light New Music, the New York City-based ensemble and concert series that he co-directs, who have performed his work throughout New York City as well as in Louisville, Berlin, Charleston, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. He currently teaches electronic music and composition at Yale College. : christophercerrone.com
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Invisible Cities
Scene 1: Prologue Kublai Khan
There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us at evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain, and the sandalwood ashes growing cold in the braziers, a dizziness that makes rivers and mountains tremble on the planispheres… Kublai Khan reflects upon his dying empire. His words, echoed by his own recorded voice and the voices of the Women, surround him. Male coro echoes “Planispheres.” In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride,
Women Choro
Kublai Khan,
Kublai Khan
In the boundless extension of the territories we have conquered,
Women Choro
Kublai Khan does not believe,
Kublai Khan
And the melancholy. And the relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing them.
Men Choro
Kublai Khan does not believe what Marco Polo says,
Kublai Khan
But he does listen. With great…
Kublai Khan & Women
… attention. And greater curiosity than he has shown any other messenger. He does listen with great attention when Marco Polo describes the cities visited.
Marco Polo
But this city does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand.
Khan, Polo, & Women
It is that desperate moment when we discover that our empire, which seemed the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin; that the triumph over enemy sovereigns has made us the heirs of their long undoing.
Women
Only in Marco Polo’s accounts was Kublai Khan able to discern the tracery of a pattern so subtle it could escape the termites’ gnawing.
Scene 2: Isidora Woman 2 sings a wordless song. Marco Polo
Isidora is a city where buildings have spiral staircases with spiral seashells encrusted. Where perfect telescopes and violins are made. Where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third. Woman 1 sings another wordless song.
Marco Polo
Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams— with one difference, the dreamed of city, contains him as a young man.
Women & Khan
…young man…
Marco Polo
He arrives in Isidora as an old man. The Women sing their wordless songs together, which decays as their songs differ more and more. Scene 3: Language Sent off to inspect the remote provinces, the Great Khan’s envoys and taxcollectors duly returned to Ka-ping-fu in whose shade Kublai strolled. The ambassadors were Persians, Armenians, Syrians, Copts. In languages incomprehensible to the Khan, the envoys related information heard in languages incomprehensible to them. But when the young Venetial made his report, a different communication was established between him and the emperor. New arrived, Marco Polo could express himself only with grunts, leaps, cries of wonder and of horror.
Ambassadors (Women)
Relating the history of the Turkomans, Croatians, Persians, and Pakistanis in their respective languages.
Marco Polo
Io parlo palro, ma chi m’ ascolta ritiene solo le parole che aspetta. Altre è la descrizione del mondo cui tu presti benigno orecchio, altra quell ache farà il giro dei capannelli I scaricatori e gondolieri sulle fondamenta di casa mi ail giono del mio ritorno, altra ancora quell ache potrei dettare in tarda età, se venissi fatto prigioniero da pirati genovesi e messo in ceppi nella stessa cella con uno scrivano di romazi d’avventura. Chi comanda al racconto non e la voce:è l’orecchio.
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Invisible Cities
Kublai Khan
I remain a foreigner to each of my subjects. My envoys have returned to Kai-ping-fu and through foreign eyes and ears does the empire manifest itself to me. Ambassadors continue. You are newly arrived and quite ignorant of our tongue. But express as you can your report. Marco Polo mimes with an arrow. The approach of war? An abundance of game? An armorer’s shop? Marco Polo mimes with an hourglass. Time passing? Time past? Or simply a place a store with an hourglass?
Women
As time went by, words began to replace objects and signs in Marco’s tales: first exclamations, isolated nouns, then phrases, discourses, metaphors and tropes. The foreigner had learned to speak the emperor’s tongue. The emperor had learned to speak the foreigner’s tongue.
Marco Polo
(having learned the language of the Levant) I enter a city. I see a man, living a life that could be mine, if, long ago, I had taken another road—
Kublai Khan
The other ambassadors warm me of famines, conspiracies, extortions —
Marco Polo
But then I could not stop. I had to go to another city—
Kublai Khan
You can tell me only the thoughts of a man who sits on his doorstep at evening.
Marco Polo
— I must go where I find another past awaits me—
Kublai Khan
What, then, is the use of all your travels? You would do as well never moving from here. Marco Polo, still pensive, finally returns to his rucksuck and pulls out a skull.
Kublai Khan
On the day when I know all these emblems, shall I possess my empire at last?
Marco Polo
Sire, on that day you shall be an emblem among emblems.
Scene 4: Armilla Marco Polo
Abandoned before or after it was inhabited, Armilla cannot be called deserted. It has no walls, no ceilings, no floors: nothing except the water pipes that rise where the houses and floors should be. You are likely to glimpse a young women—nymphs and naiads—slender, not tall, in the baths or under the showers. Streams of water channeled in the pipes have remained the possession of nymphs and naiads. They found it easy to enter the new acquatic realm, to burst from myriad foundations. Their invasion may have driven out the humans, or Armilla may have been built as an offering to the nymphs. In any case, they seem content: in the morning you hear them singing. Woman 1 and 2 as Nymph 1 and 2 sing a wordless song.
Scene 5: Venice Kublai Khan
Did you ever happen to see a city resembling this one? Bridges arching over the canals, palaces with doorsteps immersed in the water, platforms, domes, campaniles, island gardens glowing green in the lagoon’s grayness.
Marco Polo
No, sire, I could never imagine a city like this could exist.
Chorus
Kublai remained silent the whole day.
Woman 1 and 2
Silent. Silent.
Kublai Khan
Tell me another city,
Marco Polo
… You ride for three days between the northeast and east-bynortheast winds…
Chorus
Marco continued the whole night. His repertory could be called inexhaustible, but now he was the one who had to give in.
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Invisible Cities
Dawn had broken when he said: Marco Polo Sire, now I have told you about all the cities I know. Kublai Khan There is still one of which you never speak. Venice. Marco Polo What else do you believe I have been talking to you about? Kublai Khan And yet I have never heard you mention that name. Marco Polo Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice. Kublai Khan When I ask you about other cities, I want to hear about them. And about Venice, when I ask you about Venice. Marco Polo To distinguish the other cities’ qualities, I must speak of a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice. Kublai Khan You should then begin each tale of your travels from the departure, describing Venice as it is, all of it. Marco Polo Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.
NEW MUSIC NEW HAVEN 2009-10 Season
DEC 11
New Music for Orchestra
Fri / 8 pm
with the Yale Philharmonia David Lang: International Business Machine and Grind to a Halt, plus music by Samuel Adams, Robert Honstein, Richard Harrold, Jordan Kuspa, Polina Nazaykinskaya, and Feinan Wang. Shinik Hahm, conductor. Woolsey Hall.
FEB 4
Featuring faculty composer Martin Bresnick
Thu / 8 pm
Morse Recital Hall
MAR 4
Featuring faculty composer Aaron Jay Kernis
Thu / 8 pm
Morse Recital Hall
APR 1
Featuring guest composer Tom Johnson
Thu / 8 pm
(‘61BA, ‘67MM). Morse Recital Hall
APR 22
Featuring faculty composer Ezra Laderman
Thu / 8 pm
Morse Recital Hall
UPCOMING
http://music.yale.edu
RACHEL LAURIN ORGAN
Great Organ Music at Yale Free Admission / Woolsey Hall Music of Ager, Bach, Cabena, Daveluy, and Laurin, as well as an improvisation.
Nov 22 / Sun / 8pm
LE TRE STAGIONI Dec 5 & 6 / Sat & Sun / 4 pm
BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS Dec 8 / Tue / 8pm
yale school of music Robert Blocker, Dean
203 432-4158 Box Office concerts@yale.edu E-mail Us
Yale Baroque Opera Project Free admission / Sprague Hall A pastiche of selections from Handel’s operas and oratorios, directed by Andrew Eggert. Performed by students of MUS 222, Performance of Early Opera.
Chamber Music Society at Yale Tickets $20-30 / Students $10 / Sprague Hall The complete Brandenburg Concertos, with violinists Syoko Aki, Ani Kavafian, Robert Mealy, and Wendy Sharp; violist Ettore Causa, flutist Ransom Wilson, oboist Stephen Taylor, bassoonist Frank Morelli, hornist William Purvis, and other faculty, student, and guest performers.
concerts & media Vincent Oneppo Dana Astmann Monica Ong Reed Danielle Heller Elizabeth Martignetti
new music new haven Christopher Theofanidis Artistic Director
operations Tara Deming Christopher Melillo
Roberta Senatore Production Assistant
piano curators Brian Daley William Harold recording studio Eugene Kimball Jason Robins
Krista Johnson Managing Director
Renata Steve Music Librarian Farkhad Khudyev Adrian Slywotzky Assistant Conductors