Crossroads of Traditions Concert
| Apparition at Timber Creek | Teresa LeVelle (born 1966, USA) |
| Elixir | Brent Michael Davids (born 1959, USA) |
| Bluescape | Christopher Cook (born 1962, USA) |
| Tríptico | Roberto Sierra (born 1953, Puerto Rico) |
| Arias from "The Ghosts of Versailles" | John Corigliano (born 1938, USA) |
| Passage | Neil Leonard (born 1959, USA) |
Keyed Up
|
Jeff Hass (born 1953, USA) |
Presented by The Latin American Music Center with the support of the School of Music and the Office of Creative Arts Exchange Program of the United States Information Agency. | |
| ******************************************** | |
| Auer Hall Friday Evening July 12 Eight O'clock | |
Program Notes
Apparition at Timber Creek (1994)
Teresa LeVelle
Apparition at Timber Creek, for bass and harp, was commissioned by bassist, Robb Aistrup. Timber Creek, a stream near Winfield, Kansas (the home town of both Robb Aistrup and Teresa LeVelle), was used to evoke images common both to the performer and composer. This piece is based on the following story:
Absorbing the solitude of an early fall morning, an individual sits near a small clearing in the woods by a stream. Dew gently blankets the earth while a thick fog envelops the landscape. The hypnotic murmuring of the stream lulls the individual in and out of consciousness. The person begins to hear a popping, crackling sound in the clearing as the image of a bonfire slowly begins to appear. Feeling the warmth of the fire, she is drawn to it by some primordial sense of security. Rhythmically moving around the fire, an apparition of a Native American man begins to materialize. At the fire, the individual mirrors the rhythmic movements of the dancer. The dance gradually becomes more violent, rapid, and exaggerated. Abruptly, the person awakens from the 'dream' and surveys the surroundings to be greeted only by the cool morning breeze and gentle droplets of rain. (Note by the composer)
Elixir (Pure since 1987)
Brent Michael Davids
My concert music is primarily acoustic and experimental in direction. With an emphasis on musical "sounds" rather than harmonic approaches, I create interesting dimensions of timbre and melody in my works. For concert situations, I prefer that my compositions be performed "live" in the moment rather than from a recording or sampling device. Along with composing, I create music instruments that are derivative of native American ones. My most important musical efforts are to voice tribal peoples's perspectives in the concert music world where there is currently sparse indigenous influence. My continuing hope is to challenge the largely Western-European world of professional composers from the inside as one of the few Native American people who has scholastic training as a composer.
Elixir is a carefully crafted work evocative of the vapors floating from the bottles of early medicinal tonics; the work itself is a love song that entices the ears as a reminder of the relations we all depend on with nature, with human others and with non-human others. Elixir is a love song, a breeze rustling the trees, a steamy vapor of fog, and the syrupy sweet smell of a green forest. (Note by the composer)
Bluescape (1996)
Cristopher Cook
Bluescape for piano soloist and tape was written for Mary Hellmann and realized at the Indiana University Center for Electronic and Computer Music. Much of the computer-generated accompaniment is composed of processed sounds from the soloist instrument. Jazz and blues styles are drawn upon with varying degrees of subtlety. Gestures build by accretion and mutate forming a fluid background of sustaining timbres with shuffling and swinging rhythms. Integration and oppositions exists between the soloist and the tape landscape. (Note by the composer)
Tríptico (1989)
Roberto Sierra
Writing for the guitar is a great challenge for two main reasons. First, the repertoire is abundant in pieces that display a highly sophisticated idiomatic writing, and precisely because of this fact we arrive at the second reason: it is difficult not to fall into the beaten track of salon music that seems to be the general trade mark of great part of the repertoire.
In Tríptico, a quintet for guitar and strings, I wanted to achieve a type of idiomatic writing that at the same time would not be cliché-ridden. For this purpose I went in an exploration of the whole spectrum of the registers in unusual timbre combination with the string quartet, that in certain sections of the work acquire a nocturnal character evocative of the Puerto Rican tropical nights (the ubiquitous tree frog popularly known as "coquí" is also present in the musical fabric.) Of great interest to me is the folk and popular music of the Caribbean which was the inspirational source of the last movement. The allusions to popular rhythms are abstracted in such a manner that their transparent textures seem to float in the air like apparitions.
Tríptico was commissioned by the Second American Guitar Congress where it was performed by David Tanenbaum and the Mallerme Chamber players. (Note by the composer)
Keyed Up (1995)
Jeff Hass
1. Gadget
2. Early Reflections
3. Loose Canons
Keyed Up was written with an Indiana University Fellowship Grant for duo pianists Paul and Ann Barnes. The tape portion was created at the Indiana University Center for Electronic and Computer Music, utilizing sampled piano sounds modified with current digital processing techniques, as well as a host of other sounds adapted from the Center's extensive library. My approach to the challenge of combining acoustic and electronic media was to shape the interaction between pianos and tape to that of a double concerto, with the electronics providing a broad canvas upon which the expression and virtuosity of the pianos could shine. The center movement of the work is without tape, designed to stand alone as a composition for performances where electronic playback is not available.
The first movement, "Gadget," was inspired by the arrival at my home of a package containing a mysterious toy, consisting of hundreds of parts but minus directions. As my four-year-old waited impatiently for me to construct the toy, it soon began to take on a life of its own, no doubt due to incorrect assemblage, finally self-destructing into the original heap of parts. The tape portion utilizes a wide range of modified piano sounds, as well as other timbres suggestive of the subject.
"Early Reflections," a term borrowed from acoustics referring to the first sound waves bouncing back from a wall, is appropriately in arch form (ABCBA). An additional evocation of the reflections concept is the pervasive use of inversion and double invertable counterpoint. The sections are related in their use of a progression of sixths; however, each of these sections has its own contrasting approach, from pastoral to ragtime with an attitude (my thanks to David Heuser, whose own piano and tape work inspired the ostinato of the ragtime section).
The final movement, "Loose Canons," is, as the play on words suggests, loosely canonic, as well as potentially explosive. Its figuration is in many ways a tribute to many of the great two-piano composers of the past, including Rachmaninoff and Bartók. It is here that the pianists, as well as the tape, get to demonstrate their virtuosity in a scherzo-like flurry of musical interaction. (Note by the composer)
Notes prepared by Luiz Fernando Lopes
Please email questions or consultations
to |
Please email sugestions or comments
to |