Program
Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
Rhapsody No. 1 (2014, trans. 2021)
Aaron Travers (b. 1975)
Songs of Loss (2006)
I: I heard thee laugh... (Crane)
II: Coagula (Celan)
IV: Love met me at noonday (Crane)
Nicanor Abelardo (1893-1934)
Romanza, Op. 8
Susie Ibarra (b. 1970)
Fragility Etude (2021)
Laktawan at Tumalon (2022)
Intermission
Elena Ruehr (b. 1963)
Viola Sonata (2017)
Ketty Nez (b. 1965)
5 moments (2019)
Marica sings
old dance
"da domas"
"daj mene"
duduk kulos
Nicanor Abelardo (1893-1934)
Cavatina, Op. 7
Livestream
Program Notes
Jessie Montgomery Rhapsody No. 1 (2014, trans. 2021)
Rhapsody No. 1 is the first solo piece I wrote for myself. It draws on inspiration from the Eugène Ysaÿe solo works and is intended to serve as both an étude and a stand-alone work. This piece is intended to be part of a set of 6 solo works, each of which will be inspired by an historical composer. — Jessie Montgomery
Aaron Travers Songs of Loss (2006)
Songs of Loss began as three individual songs for tenor and piano, which I later ‘arranged’ for solo piano under the aforementioned title. Although the texts were removed from the piano version, the vestiges of them still remain in the form of rhythm, text painting, etc., so that one could conceivably re-insert the texts at the appropriate points in the score. All of the texts are poems about loss of some sort, whether it is lost love, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of innocence.
In 2006, Daniel Doña asked me to make an arrangement of Songs of Loss for viola and piano. For the most part, I took the ‘vocal’ part from the piano solo arrangement and placed it in the viola, though taking care to accommodate it for the instrument, rather than merely transferring it wholesale. –Aaron Travers
Texts: I: I heard the laugh…(Stephen Crane) I heard thee laugh, and in this merriment, I defined the measure of my pain. I knew that I was alone, alone with Love, poor, shivering Love, and he, little sprite, came to watch with me, and at midnight, we were like two creatures by a dead campfire. II: Coagula (Paul Celan, trans. Michael Hamburger) Auch dein wunde, Rosa. Und das Hörnerlight deiner Rumänischen Büffel An Sternes Statt überm Sandbett, im redenden, rot- aschengewaltigen Kolben. And your wound also, Rosa. And the horn light of your Romanian buffaloes instead of stars above the sanded, in the vociferous, red- ashes-powerful retort. III: Love met me at noonday…(Stephen Crane) Love met me at noonday, Reckless imp! To leave his shaded nights and brave the glare. And I say him then plainly for a bungler, a stupid, simpering eyeless bungler, breaking the hearts of brave people, as the sniveling idiot-boy cracks his bowl, and I cursed him, cursed him to and fro, back and forth, into all the silly mazes of his mind. But, in the end, he laughed, and pointed to my breast, where a heart still beat for thee, beloved.
Susie Ibarra Fragility Etude (2021) and Laktawan at Tumalon (2022)
Fragility Etudes are composer, drummer/percussionist, sound artist Susie Ibarra’s immersive music and percussive pieces. Using polyrhythms as a model for human interdependence, Ibarra captures the concept of fragility through music, exploring the subtle intersections that affect relationships. Fragility is inspired by the research Ibarra has been involved in with physicist Bernard Grossman. The equation of Fragility is from glass physics and measures the viscosity, the rate, at which a liquid glass turns into a solid or vice versa. The action of this viscosity is much like stars that change in our universe. Ibarra is interested in this action and in between space in which Fragility can move and create beauty through randomness, chaos and improvisation. They composed as a series of rhythmic etudes that are inspired by the equation of fragility in glass physics. Laktawan at Tumalon (Skip and Jump) for viola and kulintang gongs World Premiere This piece is composed as a musical bi-lingual piece which translates to both western string pedagogy and southern Philippine basalen with kulintang gongs and cipher notation. Although the nature of phrasing in kulintang gong and music for viola can be linear in nature, Skip and Jump is playful and breaks with these lines, forming unique gestural movment between the instruments. –Susie Ibarra
Elena Ruehr Viola Sonata (2017)
Written for Ethan Filner, Ruehr’s one-movement Viola Sonata received its world premiere in 2017 at the University of Toronto with Ethan and pianist Jamie Parker. The work features long, lyrical melodic lines, sometimes dark or nostalgic in mood, interspersed with brightness and joy. –Elena Ruehr
Ketty Nez 5 moments (2019)
Written the summer of 2019 for cellist Lawrence Stomberg, “5 moments” was inspired by a handful of children’s songs and instrumental tunes, here for duduk, tambura, and bagpipe, recorded in Macedonia in September 1934. (The composer was born in Skopje, North Macedonia.) These works are a minor part of the large collection of women’s and epic songs, recorded by Harvard scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord during their two expeditions to Bosnia and Herzegovina. (One Herzegovinan song found its way into “Marica sings.”) The cello version was premiered by Stomberg and Nez on September 29, 2019, at the University of Delaware. A viola version was made soon afterwards, for Daniel Dona. Parry and Lord’s monumental collection of recordings were transcribed during a residence at Columbia University (1941-1942) by Béla Bartók, who published these as the multi-volume series “Yugoslav Folk Music.” The original recordings are now part of Harvard University’s Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature. The five movements, “Marica sings,” “old dance,”“da domas,” “daj mene,” and “duduk kolos” can follow each other in any order. –Ketty Nez