SAN FRANCISCO
COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger, Music Director
Legacy of the Invisible
8pm, Saturday, May 9, 2015
Old First Presbyterian Church, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, CA
Mark Alburger and John Kendall Bailey, conducting
Program
Sheli Nan
La Tierra - Cancion de Amor (2015)
Jan Pusina
Fantasy for Harp and Orchestra (2015)
Samantha Garvey, Harp
Michael Cooke
for n in reversed (range (1,4)): play (n) pause (n) (2015)
Intermission
Mark Alburger
Portraits of ___ (Some Multiple of Three) Women, Op. 231 (2015,
after paintings of Roland March, and found texts)
I. Teacher in Red Glasses
II. Arizona Diva
III. Eve
IV. Marlena
V. Jackie in the Southwest
VI. Tess
VII. "She" Who Must Be Obeyed
Davide Verotta
Quasi Concertante (2015)
John Beeman
Ishi (2014)
Scene 2
Kirk Eichelberger, Professor Kroeber
Nikolas Nackley, T. Waterman
Wayne D. Wong, Reporter/Rancher
Michael Desnoyers, Reporter/Sheriff
SAN FRANCISCO COMPOSERS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mark Alburger Music Director and Conductor
Erling Wold Associate Music Director
John Kendall Bailey Associate Conductor
Martha Stoddard Associate Conductor
Piccolo / Flute
Harry Bernstein
Oboe
Stardust
Mark Alburger
Clarinet
Michael Kimbell
Eliza Masters
Bassoon
Michael Cooke
Michael Garvey
Contrabassoon
Lori Garvey
Tenor Sax
Michael Cooke
Trumpet
Michael Cox
Horn
Anna Newman
Jan Pusina
Trombone
Scott Sterling
Vocalists
Michael Desnoyers
Kirk Eichelberger
Nikolas Nackley
Wayne D. Wong
Harp
Samantha Garvey
Piano
Davide Verotta
Percussion
Victor Flaviano
Anne Szabla
Davide Verotta
Violin I
Monika Gruber
Violin II
Kristen Kline
Viola
Nansamba Ssensalo
Kat Walsh
Cello
Ariella Hyman
Double Bass
John Beeman
MARK ALBURGER (b. April 2, 1957, Upper Darby, PA) studied with Gerald Levinson and Joan Panetti (Swarthmore College, B.A.), Karl Kohn (Pomona College), Jules Langert (Dominican University, M.A.), Tom Flaherty and Christopher Yavelow (Claremont Graduate University, Ph.D.), and Terry Riley. He is Founder and Music Director of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and The Opus Project, Conductor of San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions, and Adjunct Professor in Music Literature and Theory at Diablo Valley College. As Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music Monthly Journal (21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com), Alburger has interviewed many composers, including Charles Amirkhanian, Earle Brown, George Crumb, Alan Hovhaness, Steve Mackey, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, and Steve Reich. He recently updated and expanded the articles on John Adams and Philip Glass for Grove Online and The Grove Dictionary of American Music, Second Edition. Alburger has been the recipient of many honors, awards, and commissions -- including yearly ASCAPlus Awards; grants from Meet the Composer, the American Composers Forum, MetLife, and Theatre Bay Area; funding from the Marra, Zellerbach, Hewlett, and Getty Foundations; and performances by ensembles and orchestras throughout the world. Alburger's concert and dramatic compositions combine atonal, collage, neoclassic, pop, and postminimal sensibilities -- often in overall frameworks troped on pre-existent material. His complete works (238 opus numbers to date, including 16 concerti, 27 operas, nine symphonies) are being issued on recordings from New Music. 500+ videos of his compositions may be found on the DrMarkAlburger YouTube channel, as well as many other websites. Alburger's Mary Variations was recently featured on programs in California and Pennsylvania, and Fallen Angels, Op. 230, will be premiered this summer in San Francisco.
PORTRAITS OF ____ (SOME MULTIPLE OF 3) WOMEN, Op. 231 (2015, after paintings of Roland March, and found texts) is colored by Johannes Ockeghem's Missa "Ma Maistresse" (The "My Mistress" Mass), Dixieland Jazz, the Arizona Navajo Ribbon Dance, W.A. Mozart's Magic Flute, Igor Stravinsky's Flood and Prelude for Jazz Ensemble, Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, James Sanderson's Hail to the Chief, Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff, and Sub-Saharan African drumming, and Paul Hindemith's Murderer, Hope of Women -- all subject to cubist / expressionist / minimalist / post-modernist distortions.
I. Teacher in Red Glasses (after Wikipedia articles on Teacher and Glasses)
Let me give you an education - /
At the end of the visible spectrum... /
Informal and ongoing, professional qualifications. /
Frames with lenses worn before the eyes to correct the vision. /
I have a lesson plan, a course of study.
II. Arizona Diva
Arizona Arizona Diva . . . /
(vocalise)
III. Eve (Robert Craft, after Genesis)
Eve? /
Who is there? /
Aye, a friend.
IV. Marlena (after Wikipedia article on Marlena Dietrich)
Magdalena, a German and American, an actress singer,
and she remained quite popular throughout her long career with constant re-inventioning
her image. She acted on the stage and in silent films in the twenties
in Berlin to great acclaim. Her glamour and ex-
otic looks made her among the highest paid of actresses of
her time. She was naturalized American citizen in nine-
teen thirty-nine. Throughout the war, she was a highest-profile frontline entertainer.
She was a show woman -- ninth greatest female star of all time.
V. Jackie in the Southwest (after Wikipedia articles on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and
Southwestern United States)
Southwest a region defined in different ways, included in all /
She is remembered for her contributions to /
are New Mexico and Arizona. /
arts and preserving of historic structures, her style and her /
Fashion icon, for her ensembles, symbolic of her husband's /
gracious ways /
assassination.
VI. Tess (after John Springer's interview with Joan Crawford)
To hell with it all! /
Uh-uh! I just love people! /
Well! /
I thank you all! /
How do you find the time? /
You don't. You make time. /
You were nervous! /
What the hell... DO YOU THINK I AM?
VII. "She" Who Must Be Obeyed (after Roland March)
Seated on her throne from which she rules is Henry Rider Haggard's "She" who must be obeyed /
A mystery white queen. The mother Goddess although she's fair and just, she is ruthless,
follows the letter of the law. I attired her as a scanty hippie. /
I am as Mother Earth. I notice everything. I'll read you like an /
Her breast is slightly exposed and her glance is side ways. /
open book. /
No fooling this babe. Scares the living jammies off me!!!!
JOHN BEEMAN studied with Peter Fricker and William Bergsma at the University of Washington where he received his Master’s degree. His first opera, The Great American Dinner Table was produced on National Public Radio. Orchestral works have been performed by the Fremont-Newark Philharmonic, Santa Rosa Symphony, and the Peninsula Symphony. Mr. Beeman has attended the Ernest Bloch Composers’ Symposium, the Bard Composer-Conductor program, the Oxford Summer Institutes, and the Oregon Bach Festival and has received awards through Meet the Composer, the American Music Center and ASCAP. Compositions have been performed by Ensemble Sorelle, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, the Ives Quartet, Fireworks Ensemble, Paul Dresher, the Oregon Repertory Singers and Schola Cantorum of San Francisco.
ISHI, SCENE 2 - In 1911 Ishi, the last survivor of the Yahi tribe was found barely alive near a slaughterhouse in Orville, Ca. Voices announcing Ishi's pending arrival dramatically interweave between a full range of characters that include: Professor Kroeber, the first professor of Anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley, and his colleague, T. Waterman. News of Ishi's appearance quickly spreads. Reporters eagerly announce the discovery of the "aboriginal Indian." A local rancher in Orville discovers him "crouched in a corner," near starvation. Soon after, a dialogue ensues between the rancher and sheriff as they attempt to make sense of all this. The fateful timing of Ishi's discovery coincides with the opening of the first Museum of Anthropology in San Francisco. Kroeber and Waterman arrange Native American artifacts for public viewing marveling at the survival skills of the Indians from Ishi's tribe. At the end of the scene, Kroeber asks Waterman to go "get the Indian man." Waterman agrees "to escort the last one safely here." Ishi lived the remainder of his life at the museum, educating the public while developing close friendships. His gentle and insightful manner changed the lives of those who knew him.
Multi-instrumentalist MICHAEL COOKE is a composer of jazz and classical music. This two-time Emmy, ASCAPlus Award and Louis Armstrong Jazz Award winner plays a variety of instruments: you can hear him on soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, flute, soprano and bass clarinets, bassoon and percussion. A cum laude graduate with a music degree from the University of North Texas, he had many different areas of study; jazz, ethnomusicology, music history, theory, and, of course, composition. In 1991, Michael began his professional orchestral career performing in many North Texas area symphonies. Michael has played in Europe, Mexico, and all over the United States. Cimarron Music Press began published many of Michael's compositions in 1994. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, he has been exploring new paths in improvised and composed music, mixing a variety of styles and techniques that draw upon the creative energy of a multicultural experience, both in and out of America. In 1999, Michael started a jazz label called Black Hat Records (blackhatrecords.com) and is currently on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra. The San Francisco Beacon describes Michael's music as "flowing out color and tone with a feeling I haven't heard in quite a while. Michael plays with such dimension and flavor that it sets (his) sound apart from the rest." "Uncompromising, fiery, complex, passionate, and cathartic" is how The All Music Guide labeled Cooke's playing on Searching by the Cooke Quartet, Statements by Michael Cooke, and The Is by CKW Trio. His latest release, An Indefinite Suspension of The Possible, is an unusual mixture of woodwinds, trombone, cello, koto, and percussion, creating a distinct synergy in improvised music that has previously been untapped.
About FOR N IN REVERSE(RANGE(1,4)): PLAY(N) PAUSE(N) For Loop or 80's Nostalgia, Michael Cooke writes, "In the 1980’s pattern music or minimalism and post-minimalism were popular styles while I was in school. John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine was a big hit among my peers. For Loop was originally intended to be a 'tip of the cap' to that time in my life. While writing this composition it started to sound a like a machine or a computer working. Probably a subconscious nod to my college composition professor Dr. Cindy McTee who wrote a composition called Circuits. After I completed the first draft I noticed a pattern that keep appearing, play 3 – reset 3, play 2 – reset 2, play 1 – reset 1. This pattern made me think of a simple for loop in computer programming. This is how I came up with the title for n in reversed(range(1,4)): play(n) pause(n) which is a for loop that would generate this pattern and really emphasize how the piece sounds like a computer working."
SHELI NAN is a composer, author, musician, arts educator, and performer whose life's work focuses on the creation, performance, distribution, and teaching of music. She has been professionally involved in the musical landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the national and international stage for more than three decades. The Music Studio is her umbrella for her various musical enterprises, including composition, performance, recording, and teaching both privately and in school programs, as well as for written publications. Nan has had over 25 editions of her music published and performed, including pieces from Signatures in Time and Place for orchestra, various string quartets and the orchestral overture to Saga of the 21st-Century Girl. Saga was premiered last April at Berkeley Rep theatre in a controversial and successful run. Nan is a member of ASCAP and a consistent recipient of ASCAP awards. She is also a member of the New York Composers Circle, The Western Early Keyboard Association, Early Music America, The Society of Composers International, The American Composers Forum, and the San Francisco Early Music Society. For more information and to read excerpts from Nan's book and articles, and to listen to her music, please visit www.shelinan.com.
"I began composing a series of compositions illustrating the intersection of architecture and music some years ago. This collection, Signatures in Time and Place, now includes four orchestral compositions. LA TIERRA - CANCION DE AMOR is a paean to our interaction with the earth and the beauty we create. All one has to do is cross the magnificent new span of our Bay Bridge in order to feel the grandeur of our creativity in sync with our earthly home. La Tierra recognizes our process from the visionaries who create the masterworks, to the artisans and workers who complete the vision. Next year, I will premiere an oratorio, The Last Stop Cafe. This work will reflect our feelings about aging and our responses to it. The piece is a satirical look at aging and our social difficulty with juvenescence versus obsolescence. Stay tuned and please send me your email so that you can be on our mailing list!!!! shelinan.muse@gmail.com"
JAN PUSINA spent his early years out of college (U.C. Berkeley, M.A. 1969, Composition) designing exhibits at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, hanging out at Mills College working on synthesizers and music concrete, teaching music (U.C. Davis 1974-1978, Electronic Music) and science, and later working in electronics, accelerator technology and physics and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since retiring in 2006 he has devoted himself to music: French horn performance and teaching, and composing.
FANTASY FOR HARP AND ORCHESTRA is written in a casual style utilizing unrelated triads and seventh, ninth and eleventh chords, more or less episodically. The word “fantasy” connotes freedom of thought and pleasure, but is not without surprises.
DAVIDE VEROTTA studied piano at Milan and San Francisco Conservatories, and privately with Bob Helps and maestro Julian White, composition at San Francisco State University (MA), and the University of California at Davis (Post Doctoral), as well as having a parallel-track academic life in mathematics as a professor at UCSF. He is actively involved in the new music scene (as player, board member and pianist with SFCCO and NACUSA SF, FCM, Irregular Resolutions). He teaches piano and composition privately and at the CMC in San Francisco. Recent compositions include works for opera, orchestra, a variety of solo instruments, percussion, and various chamber ensembles. Music is currently him main occupation, although the lifelong intertwining of mathematics and music is finally producing some results with a set of algorithmic compositions based on a branch of mathematics used in ecological modeling (help us gods!). His writing (the non-algorithmic one!) has been defined as alternating lyrical and dreaming landscapes with overwhelming musical motions; the idiom used in his compositions is a 21st-century mix of neo-tonality, modern techniques, classical structures and experimentation. He is recipient of multiple ASCAP Plus and Zellerbach Foundation awards. For more information, please visit his web site at www.davideverotta.com.
QUASI CONCERTANTE is a work for orchestra that uses the individual instruments both as soloists and as component parts of the ensemble. As soloists the individual players acquire a prominent role, in the tradition of the Sinfonia Concertante of the baroque period, while as part of the ensemble they loose their individuality and are used as part of the orchestral canvas. The work is in two movements, each divided in two sub-sections, resulting in a sequence of Moderato, Più Lento, Allegro, followed, after a short interruption, by Scherzo, and Presto). It revolves around the intertwining and elaboration of three musical themes: the first is a somewhat sweet melody that is heard right at the beginning piece; the second a rather ominous motive that is heard prominently in the Più Lento, and the third an assertive statement that is first heard in the Moderato and also closes the piece. Emotionally Quasi Concertante is not a programmatic work, it describes instead an emotional mixture landscape composed of some beauty, some dismay, some playfulness and an element of inevitability that pervades the overall musical structure.
DONATIONS:
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Benefactor
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Donor
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Patron
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***
Page 20 Raising Messiah,
before the
first group meeting for Goat Hall Productions Fresh Voices XV Incarnate, featuring Mark Alburger's Fallen Angels,
and new works by John Bilotta,
Steven Clark,
John McGrew, and others.
From here, head off towards the excellent show,
via GH
mail check
and lunch at Connecticut Yankee, on another brisk SF day -- high 60, again warmer in Pleasant Hill (75), and now much more so at point of origin (81), where 'twas the 68th day of summer, and 17th 80+...
