Birdsongs and Other Nice Tunes
March 22, 2012 – 7:30 p.m.
Barness Recital Hall
Conducted by
Dr. John C. Carmichael
Lauren Martin
Featuring
Dharshini Tambiah, Piano
USF School of Music
Tampa, FL
Program
Oiseaux Exotiques (1956) .................................... Oliver Messiaen
(1908-1992)
Canzona Duodecimi Toni a 8 ......................... Giovanni Gabrieli
(1554-1612)
Lauren Martin, conductor
More Old Wine in New Bottles (1976) ................. Gordon Jacob
Down Among the Dead Men
(1895-1984)
The Oak and the Ash
The Lincolnshire Poacher
Joan to the Maypole
Personnel
Oiseaux Exotiques
Dharshini Tambiah, Piano Soloist
Miguel Hijzr, Flute
Julia Matthews, Piccolo
Noah Redstone, Oboe
Susanna Hancock, Bassoon
Amanda Daniels, Eb Clarinet
Adrean Munive, Clarinet
Dominique Snider, Clarinet
Logan Rutledge, Bass Clarinet
Michael Mower, C Trumpet
Kevin Cross, Xylophone
Jacob Dike, Glockenspiel
Beran Harp, Percussion
Meghan McManus, Percussion
Jessyca Rose, Percussion
Armando Ayala, Percussion
Canzona Duodecimi Toni a 8
Euphoniums:
Aaron Campbell
Dustin Huston
Michael Lebrias
Roy Mitchell
Logan Sorey
Natalie St. Maria
Tubas:
Tim Beringer
Danny Bresson
John Hadden
Mark McGinnis
Adam Norton
Adam Preston
More Old Wine in New Bottles
Julia Matthews, Flute
Stacia Henderson, Piccolo
Bradley Shoemaker, Oboe
Noah Redstone, Oboe
Amanda Daniels, Clarinet
Aaron Cabrera, Clarinet
Susanna Hancock, Bassoon
Valerie Bove, Bassoon
Christy Hobby, Contra-bassoon
Wesley Snedeker, Trumpet
Heather Adolph, Trumpet
Alex Stenning, Horn
Samantha Snow, Horn
Program Notes
Oiseaux Exotiques
Messiaen, a figure of enormous importance in the music of
the 20th century, profoundly influential as composer,
pedagogue and musical thinker, was open to a huge range
of influences from various cultures; he found much of his
inspiration in his religious faith and much of his actual musical
material in the songs of birds. More than a few composers
since music first began to be notated have modeled works
in part or in whole after birdsong or alluded to that source in
some way, but none has been as productively birdconscious as Messiaen, nearly all of whose compositions
over a period of some 50 years or more either cite bird calls
outright or contain some form of avian symbolism. This
element, in fact, only grew more emphatic as his creative
life continued, until most of his works came to be
constructed entirely of motifs derived from bird calls.
According to Messiaen, it was his teacher Paul Dukas who
told him, “Listen to the birds; they are great masters.” He did
listen, so seriously and intently that his ornithological pursuits
occasionally interrupted his other work. One of his most
ambitious collections of piano pieces is a Catelogue
d'oiseaux (composed 1956-58), each of whose 13 fairly
elaborate numbers is based on the song of a different bird.
His subsequent scores for Chronochromie (for large
orchestra) and Couleurs de la cité céleste contain some
exotic birdsongs from areas not represented in the
Catelogue.
Oiseaux exotiques (“Exotic Birds”), for piano and small
orchestra, is one of the compositions in which the title itself
as well as the content has an ornithological base. It was
completed in 1956, the year the Catelogue was begun, and
it was preceded, in 1953, by a more extended work for
piano and orchestra called Reveil des oiseaux (“Awakening
of the Birds”) . Both, and in fact most of Messiaen's
compositions for piano from the middle of his century
onward, were written for Yvonne Loriod, who was one of his
pupils in the immediate postwar years and whom he married
in 1961, a few years after the death of his first wife.
While Oiseaux exotiques is a most evocative title, and the
score is said to contain citations of no fewer than 40 different
birdsongs or calls, the listener would be misled in being
advised to expect anything in the way of musical picturepainting or story-telling in the work. The work, in a single
continuous movement, may be regarded as a sort of avian
fantasy, but it is, more to the point, a sound fantasy—an
exploration of timbres and rhythms which happened to be
suggested to the composer by his fascination with
ornithology but which is not a direct expression of that
fascination. The earlier Reveil des oiseaux is somewhat more
graphically descriptive in this sense, but Oiseaux exotiques
would enchant the ear just as surely if it were titled simply
Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra.(note by Richard Freed,
National Symphony Orchestra, 2004)
Soloist Biography
British pianist Dharshini Tambiah's recent solo engagements
include two recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, a
recital at the Esterhazy Palace in Austria as part of the
International Haydn Festival, recitals at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
in London and also at the Philomuse Association of France in
Paris. Her chamber music appearances have included
concerts at Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center in New York,
the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut, the
Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival in Vermont, St.
John's in London and the Morges Chamber Music Festival in
Switzerland. Dharshini's studies included many years of
private study with renowned pianist and pedagogue, Phyllis
Sellick, and advanced postgraduate study at the Royal
College of Music in London from whence she graduated
with a high Distinction. One of only a handful of pianists
selected by John O'Conor to participate in the famed
Beethoven Masterclasses in Positano, Italy, Dharshini was
featured prominently in a subsequent documentary by RTE
(Irish National Television). Other recent media coverage
includes features by WUSF radio and Fox 13 Television. Later
this year Dharshini will make her third appearance at
Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in a chamber concert to
commemorate the life and music of American composer,
Robert Helps. Dharshini has given a number of World
Premieres, including the premiere of 'Ballade', a new work
for solo piano by Augusta Read Thomas which she will be
recording later this year. In addition to being a frequent
performer, Dharshini is also a keen musicologist and is
currently writing a PhD dissertation at York University in
England on the music of American composer, Robert Helps.
Canzona Duodecimi Toni a 8
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He
was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and
represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian
School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque
idioms. While not much is known about Gabrieli's early life,
he probably studied with his uncle, the composer Andrea
Gabrieli; he may indeed have been brought up by him, as is
implied in some of his later writing. He also went to Munich to
study with the renowned Orlando de Lassus at the court of
Duke Albrecht V; most likely he stayed there until about
1579. By 1584, he moved to Venice, where he became
principal organist at Saint Mark's Basilica in 1585, after
Claudio Merulo left the post; following his uncle's death the
following year he took the post of principal composer as
well. Gabrieli's career rose to further acclaim when he took
the additional post of organist at the Scuola Grande di San
Rocco, another post he retained for his entire life. San Rocco
was the most prestigious and wealthy of all the Venetian
confraternities, and second only to San Marco itself in
splendor of its musical establishment. Gabrieli pioneered the
use of antiphonal instruments and singers (note from Wind
Repertory Project).
Well known for his choral works, Gabrieli was one of the first
orchestrators of instrumental music, and his polychoral
compositions are popular among brass instrumentalists to this
day. The canzona form, which first appeared in the 1570's,
evolved from Franco-Flemish chansons. Canzoni were very
popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and eventually
became the sonata form. Like other Gabrieli works,
the Canzon duodecimi toniis characterized by contrasts – of
space, of high and low voices, and of dynamics (note
from The Claremont Winds).
More Old Wine in New Bottles
The second of two works for instrumental chamber
ensemble, More Old Wine in New Bottles was composed in
1981 by well-known British composer, Gordon Jacob. It is a
four movement work featuring the old English Folk Tunes
Down Among the Dead Men, The Oak and the Ash, The
Lincolnshire Poacher, and Joan to the Maypole. The title
describes aptly describes how Jacob has taken the "old
wine" folk songs and ingeniously re-scored them in "new
bottles"(note from An Annotated Guide to Wind Chamber
Music, Donald Hunsberger).
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984) was an English composer and
pedagogue. The youngest of ten siblings, he enlisted in the
Field Artillery to serve in World War I when he was 19, and
was taken POW in 1917, one of only 60 men in his battalion
of 800 to survive. After being released he spent a year
studying journalism, but left to study composition, theory,
and conducting at the Royal College of Music, where he
then taught from 1924 until his 1966 retirement, counting
Malcolm Arnold, Ruth Gipps, Cyril Smith and Imogen Holst
among his students. Sadly, because of his cleft palate and a
childhood hand injury, his instrumental abilities were limited;
he studied piano but never had a performing career.
Jacob's first major successful piece was composed during his
student years: the William Byrd Suite for orchestra, after a
collection of pieces for the virginal. It is better-known in a
later arrangement for the symphonic band. While a student
Jacob was asked by Vaughan Williams to arrange the
latter's English Folk Song Suite in full orchestral form. Jacob
became a Fellow of the Royal College in 1946, and
throughout his career would often write pieces for particular
students and faculties.
After his retirement from the Royal College in 1966, he
continued to support himself by composing, often on
commission. He describes many of the works as
"unpretentious little pieces", though some of his most works
were published during this time (note by Wind Repertory
Project).
Upcoming School of Music Events:
USF's Opera Workshop Presents: A Concert of Opera
Scenes
Friday, Mar. 23, 2012 7:30 pm,
Advance Tickets: $8 Students/Seniors, $12 Adults
Day of Performance: $10 Students/Seniors, $15 Adults
USF's Opera Workshop Program presents a concert of
Opera Scenes featuring over 20 of USF's finest
vocalists in scenes from six of the opera literature's
most significant works.
Monday Night Jazz: Keith Oshiro, trombone with Tom
Brantley, trombone
Monday, Mar. 26, 2012 7:30 pm, USF Concert Hall
Advance Tickets: $8 Students/Seniors, $12 Adults
Day of Performance: $10 Students/Seniors, $15 Adults
Revisiting the famous J&K recordings of dueling
trombonists JJ Johnson and Kai Winding.
Performing the original arrangements from these
landmark recordings will be USF professor of
trombone Tom Brantley and special guest trombonist
Keith Oshiro accompanied by the Usf Jazz Faculty.